If memory serves, they hadn't divorced, she had left him at the altar.  But Sam was taking a risk dealing with her daddy-trust issues (which were, apparently, at the root of her leaving him at the altar), because she had left some other guy at the altar before she had even met Sam.  So it was open-ended at that point…

Yeah, there was a lot of times that Al/Ziggy were near omniscient in their information.  Like in Vietnam, where the handlink could sense landmines.

"Catch a Falling Star" is one of my favorites, but it is pretty slight on plot, padded out by a fair amount of Cullum & Bakula doing Man of the La Mancha.

They established that Sam and the leapee have a degree of connection.  I always presumed that while the girl in the waiting room giving birth, Sam was receiving some sort of physical feedback to mimic the symptoms.

Sam got a lot more offers than he followed through with.  He was actually pretty puritanical.  And one of those few was the psychic who knew who he really was.

There's nothing explicit (or even really implicit) that by keeping Al and Beth together, he's written Al out of his own history.  That is a big fan theory that popped up at the time, though.

@avclub-50ab72edf41b9f05e0ce19bbaaaac9fc:disqus Oh, yes.  I've watched that episode a few hundred times.  At one point while they're out on the mission, Sam figures out that the Vietnamese girl (pre-fame Tia Carrere) leading them is a spy bringing them into a trap, and at the same time Al tells Sam that the POW's…

It sounds like the sort of thing someone says when they want to sound more adventurous than they really are.  But it probably translates to "sometimes with the lights on!"

@disqus_okgItcD0yy:disqus Well, it was the second season premiere, and one of the very few times at all that we see Al's "present" outside of the confines of the Project QL facility.

Well, the other difference was in "MIA", Al was having Sam keep Beth from getting together with her second husband through passive-aggressive cockblocking.  When Sam goes back to her in "Mirror Image", he just flat out tells her Al's alive and he'll come back.  Which, of course, would have been more acceptable from a…

Well, his daughter wasn't his from raising, but the result of his time travel.  Girl was only ten years younger than him.

@avclub-d542a3419c3ad57206a96bcc86155ebc:disqus Heh.  I lived in the Nerd Dorm in college, so TNG was essentially a given. 

Yeah, I was waiting for the "Is it too late to get my groove back on?" sort of question.  Since she doesn't explicitly say that, I wonder if that's not really her interest, but she likes the idea that it's an option.

@avclub-ff14e5ee37528d960a1d1bbb4df6f6af:disqus Well, it's not a "real prison", in that the logistics are impossible (how do they eat if there are no guards watching), but allowing that, why wouldn't they be bad guys.  The prisoners are Bane/Talia's enemies, but that doesn't make them good guys. Remember Talia & Bane…

Also, the deepest, darkest hell of a prison hole contains possibly the most convivial, friendly prisoners possible.  The heal his back, cheer his climbing.  Even the Guy With The Rope is all, "Hello, my friend!  I have the rope for you to climb out!" in his body language.

I would argue that Returns shows a Batman who retires not only when he has physically reached his limit, but when the emotional toll has finally become too much.  It's a hard-earned retirement.  Rises, on the other hand, shows a Batman who quit the first time it really Got Hard.  Especially since the end of Dark…

I have to admit, I never thought very much of "Beware of Dog".  When I did my re-watch last year, I didn't skip it, but I didn't really think about hidden depths.  I remember thinking that the two forms of the Vorc was an obvious twist, so the length of time it took to get there annoyed me.

Oh, yeah, quite rare.  I would argue that TWOP received the notice that it did less because of quality and more from being the only game in town doing that sort of thing.  And that site did foster the hate-watch.  At the time, I recall many times watching an episode of a show, enjoying it, and then going to TWOP and…

@LurkyMcLurkerson:disqus Having been a TWOP denizen at the time, I can tell you that they (the management over there) turned on a dime on Sorkin and TWW with "Isaac and Ishmael", and gave a mostly hostile read from that point on.  Said attitude calcified with "The US Poet Laureate".

I can see Jeremy overthinking it.  Like, it can't POSSIBLY be someone who choreographs dances for cartoons, that's too obvious.