This miniseries/series will be worth it if for no other reason than they might actually chronicle the Gemini missions, without which Apollo would never have happened.

The Right Stuff is the book that made me want to become a writer. When I found out that Wolfe originally was planning to do a history of the space program up to the Shuttle but then decided against it, it crushed me… until I realized that the additional material would have made the finished product less special.

I'll never forget, as a child of the '70s and '80s, the effect the refocus on Vietnam had on my dad, who was a Green Beret in the 'Nam. He had bad PTSD and, during the Reagan Bullshit Years when war turned into a propaganda machine (thanks Rambo and Iron Eagle!) he was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

You know, speaking as someone who has done a lot of research into Mormon history (it's a big reason why I left the Church, actually), I find that the parallels between Joseph Smith and Walter White are really eerie.

Actual Mormon history would make a hell of an AMC miniseries, but the show would get sued to oblivion by the Church itself.

Dirkin' 2: Holistic Boogaloo

It was reported in one of the big SLC papers (probably the SL Tribune, although there may have been a throwaway line in the Deseret News' coverage) when the JSP were nearing release.

I have a close relative working as a history professor at BYU. Those aren't the people you have to worry about. They basically keep their heads down, keep doing their research, and stay as safely siloed as they can, and hope that their studies don't somehow cross over into "faith promoting areas." But the JSP stuff…

Yeah, that's a great idea, like the way the team that was studying the Joseph Smith Papers went through and destroyed outright a shit-ton of primary source material because it could have proved embarrassing.

I wouldn't. I was a part of too many disciplinary councils to ever believe that there was anything truly compelling about them - except for totally unqualified people passing judgment on other people forced to give vent to their darkest secrets.

You must be pretty young. The "progressive Mormon" movement is an extremely recent development, and the Church is trying very passive-aggressively to nip it in the bud.

Yeah, the "Court of Love" thing was very Orwellian for me.

Before I left the Church I was in a bishopric (local ecclesiastical leadership) and I can guarantee you that there are disciplinary councils. You want to go further down the rabbit hole, try Googling "The Committee for Strengthening Members."

I tinkle catch it on a rerun.

The juxtaposition of the pre-Stiles and post-Stiles eras of Whose Line is stupendously jarring. Even Tony Slattery was relatively reined in and more droll than wacky before Ryan did his first stint in the UK.

"Looking forward to more solo advantures from Penis…"

I have wanted a live action version of Macross Frontier for so long it's not even funny. The songs in that show are simply fantastic.

Agreed. Will add these other parts that make me incapable of ignoring it:

There's a time period when you reach a certain age as a child where everything in pop culture, no matter how awful, will become a beloved nostalgiac touchstone when you're older. We are just hitting the point where all these kids who grew up in the 1990s are starting to realize they're going to die sooner than later,…

Better have a contingency plan for when he goes back to his home planet.