Which reverses the Guttenberg joke, because initially he's presented as a joke, but he essentially acts as this cool life coach who helps Martin Starr with his writing, puts the central relationship into better focus, etc. It works because people let their guard down around them, because he's Steve Guttenberg,…

I just went through them again a month ago. Whole series. What's most amazing is that, after the intermittent first season, the show never has a weak patch, and it keeps finding new things to do. Last season is best, and not really even for sentimental reasons.

It seems so right that Artie would be up with the trends. I have a theory that he saw what The Replacements had early and that he kept directing Paula to book Paul Westerberg on the show, though then again, that music seems well within her wheelhouse too.

@avclub-f62296b9393b6ab9229ebde91ed8469f:disqus I'm not sure I agree. Sam Jackson and Les Dennis were both pretty low-key. And also Barry from EastEnders. Poor Barry.

If it had been on CBS, it'd be a top ten show, and it would already have had five full seasons.

Man, Mark Sheppard really is in EVERYTHING.

Nobody watches him, though. Which I think is wrong, because more people should laugh at him for getting outargued by Alex Jones, white supremacists, and really whoever he has on his show.

So you'd go to a live musical performance and not look at the act you bought a ticket for?

I don't understand. Yes, they're dead as a performing unit. But to make an announcement? Hardly any of them are.

Fair enough. I've not heard much of the XFM stuff, I started at the beginning and I think it took a while for them to hit their stride, and lost interest. I did like Ricky trying to explain "The Killing of Georgie" to Karl though.

Just reminds me of S2E1 of Extras. "Name one black who's funny." "No, English black!" One of the funnier caricatures of racism I've seen.

So Derek is the equivalent of The Marriage Ref?

There was a brief subplot where Gervais's character essentially invents religion, but it's fairly underplayed.

When I was going to church as a kid, the pastor liked to refer to militant atheists as "pre-Christians" which I still do think is funny. In my experience, though, seems like it's just as likely to go either way. The militancy, however, doesn't ever change, just the status of the superior being.

I don't know if it's one thing in particular.

3/4 of the classic lineup is still around. It's not like the Ramones, where only one of the original four is still around (namely the one who was most indispensable to the band's success, but I digress).

I often wonder that too. That it's always phrased as "yet another reissue! ARGH!" makes me think that some contingent feels duty-bound to purchase every comp and is tired of buying the same music over and over again, yet continues to do so. There are such people. But from my perspective, if reissues get some store…

Armagideon time!

I completely agree. In fact, I keep hoping that somehow it gets rehabilitated among fans and then re-engineered, stripped down a la "Let It Be…Naked" someday. Really, only "Dictator" is ruined by the production, from the rest it just detracts to various degrees. "Cool Under Heat" has a first-rate riff that should be…

Dream sequences and fakeouts put me off of Six Feet Under after two seasons.