Noel Murray is a dude.

Even the IT Crowd bugged me, but that was probably due more to its traditional three-camera sitcom format than the actual "stereotyping" or whatever.

Not a main character until the college years (ah, I guess "year" *sob*), but Mac (Tina Majorino) on Veronica Mars was a lady nerd who fit the trope nicely. But then, Veronica Mars was good like that.

Somewhat ironically for Tom's idol-worship, Vin Diesel was a pretty big nerd in his day. He's talked up his D&D playin' ways on a few late night shows, even getting a tattoo of the name of a dwarf character he played. That's pretty damn nerdy, right there.

I'll own up to quasi-heckling once: it was at one of John Hodgman's live readings on his tour for That Is All, and he had just finished explaining a Lovecraft reference for the benefit of some non-nerds (I think?). He wraps it up with the "that is not dead which can eternal etc." quote, or something along those lines,…

The "clutter of PADDs as busy-ness indicator" trope
makes sense to me, and doesn't even seem that far-fetched. If you've ever owned a bunch of devices at a time,
you've probably had that moment where you realize every screen you own is in front
of you & on. TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone… I think discrete
objects to…

The "clutter of PADDs as busy-ness indicator" trope
makes sense to me, and doesn't even seem that far-fetched. If you've ever owned a bunch of devices at a time,
you've probably had that moment where you realize every screen you own is in front
of you & on. TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone… I think discrete
objects to…

Having read the book, I'd say the specific detail to that storyline that is clear in the novel but not the movie is that the privileged elite undergo loads of cosmetic surgery whenever the mood suits. Some commenters have said that Hugo Weaving "looks like an alien" — I think that's intentional. The actors being…

Having read the book, I'd say the specific detail to that storyline that is clear in the novel but not the movie is that the privileged elite undergo loads of cosmetic surgery whenever the mood suits. Some commenters have said that Hugo Weaving "looks like an alien" — I think that's intentional. The actors being…

The novel mentioned above (the aptly-titled "Dyson Sphere") isn't an adaptation of this episode; it's just what some commenters have suggested: a later Enterprise mission that returns to the sphere for research. Features an odd lot of guest stars, too, including that low-gravity wheelchair-bound female officer who's…

The X-Files nostalgia is strong with this one
Personally, I felt like the X-Files references in this ep were too many/obvious to just be coincidence. I mean, mind control oil from a ruptured earth-core sample? Wasn't that a big plot element in 768/Nisei? Or was it in Piper Maru? I can never remember the mythology…

I think they mean exaggerating his quirks to the point of outlandishness, or letting his screentime swell to push out other ostensible main characters.

Come on, Massive Dynamic can produce kill-you-for-real dream drugs and retrieve information from the minds of the dead, but a little future internet tech dressed up with vocab the typical viewer might actually know, and NOW your belief ceases suspension? I call shenanigans.

My thought on what she was going to say was that he seemed different back then, thus further driving home that something changed about the Peter in this world between now and then.

Well, Olivia was already getting those red flashbacks last week — I think the worms really had little or nothing to do with Olivia's memory restoration. I have a feeling that the bell was frequently used as a trained mental "trigger" by both Walter and William — how very Pavlovian of them.

I picked up the Fringe season 1 DVDs a week or two ago, and not only does Olivia swerve to avoid an accident, but the interior reaction shot as she does so has kind of a jerky low-framerate slow motion effect going on — out-of-place with the usual camera work on Fringe.

You are correct on that count, Tibber. I just hope it won't end up being one of those things where you can no longer pretend the face on the screen is anything other than some whacked-out celebrity.

Excellent casting choice, precogs!
Given what a pathetic sad-sack Barry Lyndon was by the end of the eponymous movie, I'm going to go ahead and file this under "Life Imitates Art". All that's left now is a post-duel amputation after getting shot in the leg. Somebody make it happen!

Ha! Only when I try to wear my copy-editing hat do I manage to misspell "pedantic".

It looks promising
I especially enjoy the lyricism and clever punning of the line "When I was young, my father was my sun".