I've been putting together a bibliography for a huge project and it's seriously an uphill battle to find more than one book from a major publisher on a given show. I know what you mean about pop culture lines, but TV in particular seems to be the exception. In my experience you can get something general on TV…

Frank and Cyril are so essential to what makes the show work. That bit in season three where they tell Geoffrey he can't leave them is heartbreaking.

The first season is the most directly allegorical to real life, but its plot is loosely based on when Keanu Reeves played Hamlet at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in '95, and there's some discussion of Henry in season two being vaguely based on Kenneth Branagh, but that's the closest it comes to being directly based.

Have you read the abstract? The book's about way more than pointing at things and calling them racist. The "Thunderously Racist" comment is the editor talking about the sort of quiet internal discomfort fans feel when, say, someone in yellow face shows up in an old serial. It's an acknowledgement of that weird sinking…

No, I'm mad that you clearly don't understand what this book is for. I mean you seem to think that only academics reading it is a bad thing, rather than the point.

@avclub-cd01e5786d65f27654ca570edef28c69:disqus
What kind of people do you think write books like this? What kind of book do you think it is? It isn't an anti-Who polemic. It's a collection of academic texts in which various critics who have an interest in the show explore how the show deals with race at various…

You should really read the abstracts rather than jumping to conclusions. For starters, you seem to be assuming that the book is taking an adversarial tone.

The fact that you use the singular when writing about the authors this kind of academic text suggests that you have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't know if it's just news writers. Nerds tend to have this knee-jerk anti-intellectual response to any kind of theory based reading of anything. Especially since they can't seem to separate acknowledging that something is problematic from saying that it's terrible and must be purged.

It's more the fact that Cricket, along with Davison's somewhat old fashioned cricket whites, is part of a milleu of imperial nostalgia that suffuses both the stories he was in and much of British Culture at the time. This is especially significant because Davison's run coincided with the early end of the Thatcher…

No one said that Cricket is equatable to imperialism. Amit Gupta suggests that it's part of a milleu of nostalgia for imperialism. Learn how to read.

The thunderously racist thing is taken out of context. If you actually read the full quote she's not making an accusation. She's talking about how conflicted one can feel when you like something that's problematic. Which, let's face it, even modern Who is when it comes to race.

edit: Huh. This got posted in the wrong place.

My point is just that it's wrong to refer to cynical comedy as 'mainstream' just because it's popular on the internet and with comedy geeks/snobs. Especially since our culture frowns so much on cynicism.

I think it helped that he didn't have to be a straight man anymore. They basically set him up to become a typical Bluth. He got stuck in a business he didn't even understand a little, acted on authority and spent money that he didn't have, totally misread every situation, and all for the combination of money and his…

You're aware that Arrested Development helped kickstart that trend in a big way? I mean it's part of the DNA of the show.

He doesn't look like that in real life. They slapped age makeup on him and shaved back his hairline.

He's always been a desperate creepy degraded unstrung broken man-whore. His ethics have more to do with his ego than with actually being a good person, just look at his romantic history.

Funny that you mention that. Hurwitz said at one point that really, the best way to do this season would be as some kind of app where fans can edit and mix on the fly.

Michael's always been dense and selfish, especially when it comes to George Michael. The only thing keeping him centered in the fact that he has to keep his family together, and when he gives up on that he no longer seems obligated to even pretend to behave like a decent person.