I think another subtle thing this show does well is (spoiler, probably) allow Spartacus to be kind of a dick, especially after he becomes the Champion. We see him beaten down so much and we expect him to be our pure of heart hero, but the fact is that he actually buys into the brainwashing as much as anyone else…

So True Detective gets thrown under the Mad Men/last season of Breaking Bad bus then?

I read somewhere that he was going to try to focus more on directing, which I think translates to "I'm an unemployable former lead of a long-running TV show because it turns out that being hot in your mid twenties doesn't actually mean you can act."

I'm not watching the Syfy slice-n-dice, but to add to what you said, you need that excessiveness in the language, nudity, violence, etc. because that's the only way the show can really work. Without being so - it's probably not the best word, but excuse the inappropriate pun - orgiastic in every area, the heightened…

Damon Lindelof went to my high school. I have a deep seated shame about that as well as a weird sense of forgiveness for everything he's ever been involved with.

I do think it would work a lot better as a TV series than as a movie, but there's also something very anthology-like about it which could make it challenging to sustain interest week to week.

I was a little concerned about a TV adaptation of American Gods because there is so little plot to it, but coming with this sort of talent behind it, this could be really great.

I'm really beginning to wish I didn't care so much about following the behind-the-scenes goings on of this show.

I agree with this, but when the first line of an article purporting to be a more general discussion is a pretty massive, specific spoiler, I think it's reasonable to get pissed off.

*Howard Zinn angrily tweets Amerigo Vespucci's address*

It would be interesting to pull someone from the Whedon stable; especially considering the direction Moffat's taken Who in, the two aesthetics are very similar.

Moffat is a genius at plotting (to the point where he occasionally out-clevers himself), and I don't think RTD ever did anything that quite matched the breathtaking heights of giddy twistiness as Moffat did with something like The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.

On a tangential note, I think my personal pop culture hell would be showing movies/TV shows to people that I know they're going to love, having them be lukewarm on the movie/show every time. Oh, they would watch it, and they wouldn't hate it, but no matter how much I showed them, they would never get excited about it.

Even before Arrow became kickass in its own right, you had to give it props for singlehandedly keeping most of the cast of Spartacus employed.

The weird thing about the Tudors is that, even with the costume porn and set porn and occasionally porn porn, it was such a flat show. I watched about to the end of the first season, and all I remember from it is just a lot of people talking. None of the characters really made much of an impression and none of the…

I agree with you on the first season, but (not to spoil, so I'll keep this vague) it starts to move away from that after the miniseries between S1 and 2. After that, I wouldn't necessarily say there's less nudity, but it certainly starts to go in a different, and I would say more interesting, direction.

Based on the casting, I'm cautiously optimistic that Guardians of the Galaxy won't take itself too seriously; I mean, it wouldn't make much sense to cast Chris Pratt for Man of Steel, and Marvel movies have a better track record than DC recently of having some fun with their premises.

I think it definitely benefits from having to only do one show a week - I still go to the Daily Show for immediate reactions to whatever's going on, but I'm definitely digging the more in-depth pieces Oliver is able to do.

That was seriously bothering me as well - I can see how the Arrow characters would seem simplistic if you just jump in, but Stephen Amell, for example, has done a lot of really great work with Oliver over the last two years that informs his performance in any given episode. I would obviously have a hard time saying…

It follows the same trend I've noticed with most HBO shows, where you need to struggle through the first few episodes but it pays off once it gets going. I would say TD really gets good by episode 4, but you appreciate the first three episodes retroactively after watching the later ones. And anyway, once it gets good,…