What do you mean by guest reviews … inviting someone not on the staff to come review something?  Or having an AV Club staffer go elsewhere to be a guest reviewer?

It is equally notable that Jay never leers at Gloria the way we might expect him to, given her va-va-voominess.

They've been up in those hills before.  I assume it's really close to their house.  And why would my being a woman make me more sensitive to child abandonment exactly?

You're so sweet.  I don't need anything, really.

I don't get it at all, to be honest. I certainly have no anti-intellectual stereotype about cute teenager girls; I teach dozens of smart beauty queens every day at my university.

Cable Guy.

I look forward to HAPPY ENDINGS as much as I do the NBC juggernaut at this point.  Often head-crushingly brilliant.  The Halloween episode was amuhzing.

Props hereby given.  I flew home from Phoenix today (and boy are my arms tired) and probably am not at the top of my game re: research.

Fixed.

Notice that I was referring not to the plot, but to the emotions — to the exaggerated ways people respond to the plot.  You can have crazy plots and have the characters react with understatement.  I'm not saying that's what I want HIMYM to do, but it was a noticeable difference from the Cheers episode I had just…

There are no typographical symbols for it, except maybe that scribble that appears in word balloons when a cartoon character is feeling all mad and depressed.

I know.  But it's really embarrassing for Janet, who sat through the whole explanation without once remarking, "Isn't Helvetica a sans serif typeface?"

Maybe.  I did eat fugu!  But does it take two weeks to kick in?

I don't know if it affected my evaluation of the episode.  I was aware when I watched it that Meredith had been let down by it, although I hadn't read her review — just the first paragraph.  My enjoyment made me wonder whether I would have been more critical if I had watched it with the expectation of writing about it…

Baseball playoffs are doing stellar numbers this year.  One game last week was in the top ten for all shows.  And not a Yankees game, either.  Live sports is one of the few things that TV can offer that will draw eyeballs because there's nowhere else you can get it.

Yes, or they should put Modern Family on at 8 pm rather than 9 so that whatever comes after it is still early enough to draw a family audience.

See, this seems obvious to me.  Modern Family draws a family audience; Cougar Town and Happy Endings do not.  Makes sense that the families that watch together switch channels or turn off the tube before the show about adults and their sex lives and drinking behavior comes on.

I'm a fan and defender of the show, as I am of HIMYM.  And I thought this episode exposed some of the creeping weaknesses that I fear are eroding what the show does well.  The C+ is a C+ of love.

Fans may have been divided about Phil, but take a look at the media coverage.  It was all about Phil.  Cam wasn't on the radar when the show premiered.

You're both so kind (and musical legends, to boot).  I've been reviewing Modern Family since it began, and no one has managed to pry me off of it yet.  And John Teti is a goddamn national treasure.