A book I enjoy a lot is Timescape (1980) by Gregory Benford, which takes place in 1962-63 and in 1997-98, in alternating sections, and involves Cambridge (UK) physicists trying to communicate with the past via tachyons as a desperate means of trying to hold off eco-disaster; they aim at the point in space where Earth…

Sadly, King has become a shill - on broadcast TV I recently saw a minute of him "interviewing" someone selling some damn product or other.

Happy Days is exceptional among the shows discussed above: Henry Winkler eventually achieved top billing on the show (after Ron Howard et al. departed).

But this "remains clever" quality is exactly why I wish part II (and by extension III) didn't exist, as much as I do enjoy parts of them. I'd rather have had the first one by itself, not have it "thinned" (as you put it) by the sequels.

The problem with BTTF II (I saw all three in theaters) is that it's not one-twentieth the comedy that the first one is. (Neither is III, but with the Western aspect and Doc's romance, I don't mind as much.)

Also: Ricardo Montalban agreed to reprise the role of Khan (after 15 years) primarily because he enjoyed Time After Time so much.

It's one of his best - written during the 1950s, which was largely given over to his "boys' books" series (called "juveniles" also, because they tend to have late-teenage main characters). Both The Door into Summer and Double Star (written around the same time) are about adults and are very concise, a quality sorely…

Please don't screw up the website redesign!

In 1969 my cousin, who was a year older (13) and lived 50 miles away in Philadelphia, tried to sell me a copy of John & Yoko's Apple LP Two Virgins, the one with the nude cover photos - front and back - and exterior brown-paper sleeve with oval cutouts. And I bought it, too.

When I first saw David Hyde Pierce he was just plain David Pierce - in the Broadway production of Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, then starring (1990) Christine Lahti. When he started to get TV work and joined the Screen Actors Guild, there was already a David Pierce - and a good thing too; the "Hyde" seemed…

He didn't start sharing his anti-hippie, etc., views until after he'd been drinking heavily for many years. Eventually he would say anything belligerent in any forum given to him. See for example Kurt Vonnegut's account in Palm Sunday (1980) of Kerouac's visit to his home when both were living on Cape Cod, sometime in…

Which one, Kubrick or Adrian Lyne?

Have not read the other comments but wanted to note the Baltimore aspect of Homicide: The entire series was actually shot there (and in the suburbs or elsewhere in Maryland when called for) and many Baltimore- and DC-based actors got work on the show. This gave Homicide a reality basis (which Law & Order also…

One of the chief things that's wrong with the current show (which I see rarely although I watched frequently in the '90s) is identical to one of the big problems with the Conan Tonight Show: Andy Richter should not be the announcer. He simply has the wrong voice for it. The Late Night announcer (too lazy to look up…

Just listened to the first 0:45 of "Disco Mystic" and it made me queasy. Literally.

Nimoy was so much better in this than he was as The-Return-of-Mr.-Spock under Robert Wise's direction only a few months later (principal photography of the first Star Trek feature was in late 1978). I don't know what significance this has, except that they should have hired Kaufman to direct the live-action portions…

But Falk wasn't the first to play Columbo. Thomas Mitchell was, in the stage version of "Prescription: Murder," which became the same-titled 1967 TV movie with Falk (whose hair was shorter and overcoat somewhat neater than when the Columbo series began in 1970-71).

Forgot to include him in my brief Night Gallery list above. A good choice to play Dr. Fall in the adaptation of Cyril Kornbluth's "The Little Black Bag."

Although you picked two good ones, several other Oscar-nominated Night Gallery actors come to mind:

What's the deal with Metal Machine Music's subtitle, "The Amine (greek beta) Ring"?