A lot of indigenous cultures in Australia don't actually have real superpowers. That's the crucial distinction. If something works, an entirely different class of people strive to figure out the wherefores. They're called scientists. They do good, though interminably slow, work.

Because I'm obstinate, I simply base it upon my own willingness to suspend disbelief and not worry about the fakery. I don't make allowances based upon what I know (secondhand from a source, and also just from consuming a lot of CGI-filled media) about the industry and its current limitations.

Some bands just have a knack for making definitive versions of their own songs, and Nirvana was one of those bands.

The Irathians (sp?) are such rebels that they don't follow anyone's rules, not even the editing room's.

Not sure that he was, but there was definitely a vibe there - like, "if you're living under our roof, you're part of our family, and that means we all get naked in the tub together."

Most CGI people are acutely aware of just how unrealistic and limited their creations are from the perspective of an audience member. They also understand that that is not a sales pitch to get jobs.

I had some very uncomfortable Magical Negro vibes with that ritual. Real superpowers do not stay saddled with ritualistic frippery all the way past interstellar travel technology.

I have no idea why the reviewer would immediately jump to "spy jargon" when Cosima's entire character is based around spewing out clinical and laboratory terms without providing sufficient context for the lay-people she's assisting. Double blind is basic jargon for anyone who learns about experimental procedures in…

That's the only thing an invincible being can do, and it's only as interesting as it is believable; even then, it's got no legs.

Elijah and Klaus - or rather, their respective actors - absolutely killed it, and I understand completely why the reviewer was so enamored with Marcel. Virtually all of the supernatural "fun" we've seen in TVD has been nihilistic and rooted in misery (read: old Damon,) with the few bright spots being treated by both…

The restaurant Abed-as-Troy had some disturbing shades of John Travolta as that dude in Grease.

They have an opportunity to explore which representatives of each alien race were/are the most likely to survive and get themselves to the choppah, and they hinted at it with Irina's nostalgic monologue of murder.

I think this was resolved in Classic Trek via Spock, and then again in TNG via Data (and also by like two dozen different episodes where overeager scientists fuck up some weird life form and Picard has to get his diplomacy on.)

Like many Gene Roddenberry projects, it had a lot of cool ideas and a lot of steam out of the gate, but then it fell apart. There was another one like that, about aliens coming to earth and doing an insidious, semi-peaceful takeover. It had a ton of promise but never figured out where to go.

The only real problem with the cover is that they kept the bridge's lyrics. "And I swear that I don't have a gun" is not a line that you can just toss off. Kurt Cobain owned it because it was part of Nevermind's lyrical oeuvre and it supplemented the image he'd constructed for himself, but it doesn't really belong in…

I'm hoping the entire first season of Defiance is just a giant setup for them to drop the F-bomb later on. Oh, you thought they were just being cute to skirt censors, huh? Alien cuss words don't count, huh? Well guess what?

Sorry, but a clone's ability to reproduce isn't a male/female-writer-divide issue. It's a science issue, plain and simple. The show uses science - or, rather, Science! - as a large part of its mythology, and within the context of cloning, a clone's ability to biologically reproduce is huge and hugely interesting. If…

Sheila Shay's breaking and entering, while technically illegal, was at least operating within the boundary conditions of a sitcom. All the violent crimes committed tonight? Not so much. It was extremely jarring, and while I appreciate that the show tried to light a fire under itself, I can't really appreciate the way…

Maggie Lawson might very well be great, but Juliet's always been a problematic non-character. It's sad to hear that Psych may wrap up without the writers ever really figuring out how to make her a consistent and organic part of the show.

It would've worked much better if there had been a more explicit thread within the show that the show-within-the-show was terrible and had terrible writing (which it did, and which, for the first five minutes of the first episode, actually seemed intentional and knowing.)