Wasn't this also the plot of "Dead Like Me"?

According to one of the special features in the Alien Anthology set, Ridley Scott hated that FX transition with Ash, too. IIRC, the FX shop had made a prototype to show what the actual FX head would look like, but the studio refused to budget for the FX head, so they were forced to use the prototype on camera.

Oh come on, the film did at least make it clear that Ozy could have destroyed Nite Owl, he just let him go on swinging because he understood Nite Owl's rage, and partly agreed with it.

Well, maybe they should stop getting taken!

The film is critic-proof. All the genre tropes were there, but the important thing is that it was *fun* — and it was apparent that the cast & crew felt the same way.

Marc Summers has been around forever, but he completely won me over recently on the Food Network show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" of all things.

The Los Angeles Times once published a letter to the editor from Steve Allen, and it read JUST like one of those over-the-top "letter to the editor" bits that he used to do. Only this time, Steve wasn't being satirical. The irony made me both amused and sad.

God bless you for remembering that show, its awesome theme song, and the fact that it was written by Alan Thicke, which I never knew.

King of the Hill is one of the best depictions of The Great Depression I've ever seen in a fictional drama. The subtlety of the storytelling is its strength, IMO. It's not standing on a soapbox like The Grapes of Wrath (still the greatest Depression film), it simply depicts the slow burn of desperation.

Stop being perfect!

You're an anti-Dentonite!

But The Thin Red Line *also* had Elias Koteas. Lots of wonderful Elias Koteas. And, it had Woody Harrelson blowing his ass off with his own grenade.

Man, that era had the *best* game system pitchmen: Leonard Nimoy for Odyssey, Shatner for Commodore, Plimpton for Intellivision. I guess Atari was too cool for school…

Semi-Tough is also a really great skewering of mid-1970's culture, in the sense that it was farcical but also believable. It's actually a pretty effective time capsule of the period.

Jaques with daughter Claudine! That was a cute show, because Claudine was an audience surrogate that Jaques couldn't get TOO mad at. Despite the little jabs, their affection was obvious. If it were me in that position, I would just keep screwing up and getting in his way until he had me removed from the studio.

She was nominated for an Emmy for that role (Outstanding Performance by a Guest Actor in a Drama Series), but did not win. I was able to meet Ms Taylor on one occasion around 5 years ago, and I took the opportunity to say "You should've won that Emmy for the X-Files!"

I was thinking that Finch is such a great character, it's a shame that he is also the primary expository character. I mean, half of his screen time is spent on exposition. But the show is set up so that we NEED Finch to serve that role, to some degree, so I don't know what they can do about it. I guess I can live…

"It's one of those things that as kids we had no problem learning about, in fact were (unsurprisingly) really fascinated by…"

I'm so glad they posted this piece, it captures just how I felt after seeing the show when it originally aired. Except unlike you, I was not prepared for it. This one stayed with me for a *long* time.

Hmm, I wish I remembered more of those Finch/Nathan conversations, they crammed a lot of plot into those brief scenes.  Anyway, I wouldn't think the government would be satisfied with only SSNs (since they were footing the bill for a Machine that would give them specific, actionable intelligence), and I wouldn't think…