I'll dissent
I wouldn't quite say that S4 is terrible, but I think it's mostly pretty, pretty bad. The sketches all go on interminably, lots of them are weird rehashes or mashups of earlier material, no Kenny and there's just a sort of general lack of the fun anarchy that was capable of elevating some of the worst…

@ thewalrii — Pretty much any theater besides the Empire 25. Seriously, that's far and away the worst theater I've been to in Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens, IMO. (Never seen anything in SI or the Bronx…)

I think a fair amount of American dramas are moving towards this idea, Purga. Most of the critically acclaimed shows from the last decade (Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad et al.) had 13 or fewer eps per season. Granted, these weren't network shows, but even Lost had much shorter seasons in the back half. (I…

I would certainly like something like that.

It's definitely an RDD.

Nakadai is awesome. He later starred in one of my favorite Japanese films, Buraikan or The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan. Unfortunately, this film was never transferred to VHS or DVD with English subtitles so I only got to see it once in a film class. I've always wondered if it is/was as good as I remember it.…

That's why I skipped the David Mitchell interview from a few days ago. It'll be at least another month or two before I'll be able to get around to reading it and I didn't want the damn thing spoiled. (A cursory glance told me that one of the questions specifically quoted one of the last lines in the book. WTF?)

@ Bad News Breaker — I find them to be pretty comparable quality-wise. It seems like they had a larger budget in S2, but that's the only major difference for me.

I think they call those Pac-Rimmies in the biz, Jorge.

I don't think it's that far-fetched of a comparison. I mean, they're both naive, fairly incompetent, don't relate at all to their staff/clients, lovelorn, etc.

I'm guessing this will be an unpopular opinion here, but I would have been fine if FotC had dropped or greatly minimized the emphasis on the songs for a S3. I would occasionally find the songs amusing, but I rarely thought they were the highlight of any given episode. I just liked the characters and the premises and…

I'm casting my vote with the Brilliant, But Not Hilarious folks. It's a very smart, well executed sketch, but it doesn't really make me laugh all that much.

@edked — Let's not forget that Leonard also inexplicably claimed that Jack Black's pre-Tenacious D, pre-High Fidelity appearances on the show were stunt-casting. I'm not sure that his recollections of the 90s zeitgeist are all that accurate…

Arsenio — Can I ask (with all due respect) what you found lacking about Basterds? I think it's his most fully realized film, highly entertaining and with a well-developed and demonstrated theme/thesis to boot.

You didn't like his performance in Eternal Sunshine?

@ Salieri — I honestly think that a lot of the reason TLSS isn't as loved as it should be is that it hasn't had a proper DVD release.

Alliteration
Nice to see AMC is moving away from the alliteration.

Yeah, the premise does sound a bit over-the-top, but I kind of thought the premise of Breaking Bad sounded pretty horrible too — like Weeds but with some cancer thrown in to give the whole thing a little pathos. And now I think it might just be the best show to ever grace American TV.

I'll second the Civ4/Simpsons work.

I would also like to register my dislike of Hunger Strike. Probably my least favorite bit in the first 3 seasons.