Within their rights
I think it was an overreaction, myself, but hey, people get offended at all sorts of things. Mississippi's flag sure as hell offends me, but it would be arrogant to insist that I get to define what's offensive.

Two other suggestions
Phil Collins' "Take Me Home" is about a patient in a mental institution, according to him (via a link on Wikipedia). "They can turn off my feelings like they're turning out the light."

Yes, Ron has repeatedly demonstrated (familial) affection for Lesley, a little surprising given their wildly different visions of government. It's actually one of the nicer and more interesting aspects of the show, because it goes against stereotype.

I read it as a purposeful decision on the part of the Olivia Newton-John character: "obviously this random schmoe can't sing as well as I can, so we'd better autotune the hell out of her". In other words, this was a use of autotune *in the context of the show*, and so had to be made more blatant than usual to…

Yeah, don't know why I said Scotland; "northern UK".

Life in a Northern Town
I love the refrain of "Life in a Northern Town" by The Dream Academy, which, along with the title, makes me think of native American chanting and gorgeous vistas in the Canadian Rockies. The verses, however, are so blah— not offensive, but they don't rhyme, they aren't interesting, and they…

I always thought it amusing (and potentially a pro-capitalist message) that while Starfleet's holodecks malfunctioned dangerously all the time, Quark's holosuites NEVER did. Not only that, but in one episode the holosuites actually saved the lives of the crew by storing their neural transporter patterns.

Songs don't have to be true or moral to be good.

A Wrinkle in Time is not an allegory
An allegory is a sermon hidden in a story; every character and event is a code for something else. A Wrinkle in Time is just a story; it certainly contains meaning, one might make analogies between the story and other things, but there isn't one TRUE analogy, and it isn't only…

Books with movie covers
Along the lines of Jason Albert's avoidance of the Oprah Book Club sticker, I avoid editions of a book which have a picture from the associated movie: give me the Lord of the Rings without Ian McKellen on the cover, The Postman without Kevin Costner, Harry Potter without Daniel Radcliffe…

Anathem is definitely cool, but do you deny the original poster's point, that he writes a lot of (good) exposition? Stephenson's books are part novel, part essay— and that's not meant as a criticism.

Lakshmi wasn't funny
but surely that was the whole point: that she was just as much a disaster as a Liz-replacement, as Liz's new agent was as a Jack-replacement. Why rag on her for playing the part she was supposed to play?

One might argue that the rapid pace is actually a unique feature of the show; it certainly gives the show a different tone, for good or ill.

Journalism is a vital part of democracy. If it is no longer financially feasible in the commercial realm, then it needs to come from somewhere else: either nonprofit news organizations or government-financed organizations (q.v. BBC, CBC, or NPR).

What they should try
It would be interesting if they could institute some sort of print-on-demand service: go to a kiosk, punch in the sections you want, and it prints it out on newsprint. (Seems a waste to use normal white paper.)

Aww, The Quirk hasn't learned that tastes vary. Isn't it cute?

I liked My Hero with Ardal O'Hanlon— it was over the top but fun, and Ardal played the alien superhero character just right: naive but not necessarily stupid, and believable in both superhero and Clark-Kent personas. The last season, though, they replaced Ardal with the mincing James Dreyfus (same character, but lost…

My favorite (though not contemporary) is Waiting for God ('90-'94), about a retirement home; Stephanie Cole (who is a genius) plays a former journalist who does not suffer fools gladly (and beats them with her stick when appropriate), and Graham Crowden is a retired accountant who comes across as half-senile, although…

How specific are these product-placement contracts? It seems like they could have just had Liz eating a McFlurry, with the word prominently printed on the side, and that wouldn't have been particularly obnoxious. Having real products in a scene isn't any more distracting than having obviously fake products in a…

Doesn't sound much different from Internet forums, except you can put it on in the background while you're doing other things.