This reminds me of my favorite mean practical joke. My wife, when she was about ten, saw Poltergeist and it scared her badly. Her stepfather decided to have a little fun so he snuck into her room after she went to sleep, took a big stuffed clown she was scared of and sat it on top of the TV, then turned the TV on to…

Your parents had a TV that A) wasn't hooked up to anything, and B) turned itself on randomly, and for an entire week (AT LEAST) you refused to just unplug it?

Just saw this in its entirety a few nights ago, after being only familiar with a few scenes (including that one). Good movie. The shears thing scared my wife half to death.

I wasn't very fond of it from first viewing, mainly because of the many minutes of the characters bickering and screaming at each other. There are some good moments during that interminable "we're lost" section, but they're buried in far too much pointless and annoying shit.

Soooo… are you guys going to write about any actual horror, during your 10 days of horror?

Nah man. The show was gold up to the death of Leland, and then at least watchable with good aspects (though also some really bad ones) the rest of the way. And then the most baffling finale of all time, of course. It's a very flawed second season and surely the first is better, but I'm not sorry to have watched it…

A better actor could have done a lot more with that role (though not the widow sub-plot - that was doomed from the outset). James is a nothing character but he has cool points to burn, in the hands of someone who knows how to spend them.

Agreed. Great episode of "Twin Peaks," great episode TV in general, but kind of a bad series finale if you desire anything in the way of closure. Even in a Lynch context, that finale is baffling and upsetting in how much is left up in the air.

I love him so much that I used his name as my go-to alias for e-mail accounts and message board logins for many years.

It would suck no matter who is singing it. The melody and rhythm is just a pile of shit.

Can't they both be terrible? Sure they can.

Same here. I had a buddy who loved it so I caught maybe 2 episodes a season, and had him constantly chewing my ear off about the ongoing story; so in a way I feel like I watched the whole thing, even though I have actually seen very little of it. I need to make the time because I know I'll probably end up really…

We're not so different, you and I (- Belloq).

Hey, I both watched and liked Next Generation. :)

Also, that "paranormal cop show" remark is amusingly dismissive, but it also points to just why the show was as successful and influential as it was. Carter's strongest idea was burying a sci fi pill in a crime procedural (with an initially-unintentional dash of "Moonlighting") dessert. That's why the show took off…

It's kind of intellectually dishonest to reply not to the actual argument I was making, but the two bits of it you can jump on most easily. My mention of Sepinwall was obviously just an example. All I'm saying is that there's a reason he writes better articles (and a book) than most TV reviewers (or maybe "recappers"…

…I'm not really an X-Files fan. I only watched the first five or so seasons (and the first movie) before deciding it was going downhill fast. The mythology was almost chronically mishandled after maybe season 3 (or whatever point it was that they started throwing in crazy twists and reversals just to do it). I've…

"Kolchak" is a curio that basically only influenced "The X-Files" and not much more. It's something a specialist might dig into, but otherwise it's inessential. The influence of "The X-Files" itself is far greater.

It was also a less-specific influence on the modern era of serialized shows in general - it leaned heavily on ongoing mythology (more and more as the series went along); it was a crossover hit with mass audiences despite being made in a previously disreputable genre (without which there is no Lost, to cite just the…

Hell, you can just Google "scary x-files episode" and the first link is about "Home."