I agree; I was really surprised by how generic and inelegant it was. It really seemed like Whedon was overwhelmed by not just what he was being asked to do but by the scope he was afforded in making it.

I think I read somewhere that the last placed contestant wins $2,500.

"You know what Howard? She's not bent, either in the sense of being corrupt or being gay. And by the way, that's an incredibly homophobic headline, you massive poof."

The third series is magisterial; you'd think that a show that's so adamant about being relentless in it's joke telling, wouldn't be so adamant about the jokes being so high quality but then you'd think that a show that's so adamant about telling high quality jokes wouldn't need to have it's plot turns hinge on bits of…

Chelsea was absolutely, unambiguously right to tell him "take it like a man" because he was being a petulant brat who had no sense of symmetry about the game. It's an elimination game: you don't get to get angry that people are trying to eliminate you especially when you've been actively eliminating others from the…

Not that the immunity challenge was handled brilliantly, but both 1) and 2) hold from Jay's perspective too.

It was Twila.

I think by the point Kim had raised her hand, the horse had bolted on her position in the game and it actually supplemented the "aw, shucks, me?" aura she's been using to undercuts that knowledge. Which isn't to say there aren't downsides to it but it seems to me like much of muchness.

There's no such thing as a more deserving loser in Survivor. There just isn't; I know "the best player is the best because they were the one who accomplished the aim of winning by accomplishing it" is a tautology and unsatisfying but it's true. Just as with the endless deconstruction of someone like Russell, as soon…

I agree andy. Kim's exactly my kind of player; low-key, good-natured and really, really competent but I still want to see a revolt. Then I want her to come out on top.

If I went to my manager with complaints of this kind, she'd listen to me while stressing that she's under no obligation to implement what I suggest. If I took to a public forum and made those same complaints, I'd be fired for gross misconduct. I think that would be the case in most companies.

I don't know how you'd begin to quantify what drives an octopus' reaction to being eaten, much less collate the data so we could know what was probable about it or not.

Phil's analysis of the talk show seems more the product of his own biases than something fairly reflective of what happened; as over-top-top as Muggeridge was, he set the narrative of the argument and while Palin counters with "We just want to make people happy!" platitudes, Cleese buys it and is clearly growing more…

I'm ambivalent abut posting this but, hey:

I thought last week was when Troy and Jay dropped the ball by not doing what the women were: leaving their options open by keeping as many members from the two tribe configurations they were in before the merge in the game as possible.

Because Mike's blindside was sold to Troy as a defensive move by the Kim/Chelsea/Jay/Troy alliance. I think Carrie's right; Kim, or possibly Sabrina, had Christina and Alicia vote Tarzan to throw Troy and Jay off the scent of the women's alliance, then Kim went to Jay with the invented story that on the reward…

I was fine with the obfuscatory editing up until the votes were read and then again after the playback of who voted for whom because obviously a large part of the story was omitted to create some ambiguity around Christina's safety. And considering Kim is both clearly smart and being portrayed as the mastermind and…

She's my favourite type: restrained, capable, together. And when someone says they should keep someone around because they make good soup, she laughs.

It would also be fair to say that objectively there's not much reason to draw a line between a horse and lichen since they're both organisms or between a horse and a chunk of germanium because they're both composed of matter and that it's really a matter of where you orientate your premises and the prohibitive force…

I absolutely agree. Johnny Depp's revenge on him was one of the weirdest, baldest bits of self-justification you're likely to see.