Thanks for taking the time to disagree, dick! I'll return an unkindness by stating that your time must be supervaluable to you!

Thanks for taking the time to agree, Steve! I'll return a kindness by telling you my buddies in Code Duello enjoyed your name checking them in the CIF article last week.

Natural?
I see what you're getting at when you say that this episode was the best because it's the most "natural," and I agree but see it through a different lens. I think it's more that the episode finally managed to find its tone, particularly the stylization that it wants. This show is far from natural, and so…

Not to break up the trek discussion, but we definitely need to take a moment to honor Commander Riker. This was an amazingly directer hour of TV. It was definitely a Dollhouse episode, but there were some amazing visual flourishes the likes of which Dollhouse hasn't seen since "Man on the Street." The shot when…

I suck at timing!

My Demonic Friend - Acker's in what looks to be a craptacular Twin Peaks ripoff on ABC called Happytown. God willing, the Alphabet will kick it to the curb early and they can bring Whiskey back sooner than expected. As it is, they were lucky to get the three episodes with her that they did.

They're actually shooting on HD, according to Joss' note to critics when the screeners went out. I know they had a mandate to shrink the budget, and I'm betting that film was among the first things to go…

Christopher Walken putting googly-eyes on a variety of plant life - I regularly think of that as, "my sense of humor."

Season 4 being off-kilter
Noel, I don't know if this has come up in the comments before, but Season 4 of Buffy is a bit of a mess in that section mostly because the actress who played Dr. Walsh ended up falling through. She was supposed to be the big bad for the season, and Adam was a last minute substitution. I…

No one's said what year it is… :)

Yeah, put me in the still loving House camp. I can't think of another TV character with such constant, slow, organic, subtle character growth.

Maybe she did it during the two years she was on the run.

Heh, yes. Think "dual penis" not "southeastern Asian waterfoul."

I think Topher got a pretty heaping helping of humble pie this week, no?

@hank1: I was convinced of that too, but in some interview somewhere, Whedon said that we should take Echo's message at face value. So while the "deliberate misdirection" is still my personal favorite option, I think it's unlikely. I guess we'll learn more about it next week.

Yes! The rhythms were very much the same, even if the characters had all changed. I also think Noel did a great thing by pointing out that ER was an innovative piece of TV - moving around that set handheld, showing the blood and guts, at breakneck speeds - it deserves accolades just for those risks.

I also only caught "Old Ways" and "And In The End." I watched for the first four years, with my parents. I never really thought about ER as something I watched, but I definitely did. Sherri Stringfield was an early celebrity crush, and Anthony Edwards can do no wrong in my book - an underrated dramatic AND comedic…

@Kirk - I used to live in Somerville, and hope to again. Give it a gentle pat for me.

When I saw him again, the first thing I thought was, "Eat now." But he's clearly been doing plenty of that.

Heh. By the by, it was fun to imagine that Matt Saracecn is Cassidy's kid, no?