My issue was that it was simply inelegant. Genre rule-building is only ever worthwhile if it's aesthetically pleasing; otherwise it's distracting 'cause your mind begins to interrogate its breakdowns in logic rather than enjoying its implications and whateverdrama it generates.

It wasn't helped by their goodbye dancing on the same ground the show has danced on over and over for the last forever: "Don't get angry because when you're angry, you're dangerous so tether yourself to someone who will make you decent or look at a crying child because that also does the trick."

If I had passed a curse to a woman who was about to die as a result and who was begging her time-travelling alien friend not to wreak revenge upon the secret London street harbouring a pan-galactic set of space refugees, I'm not sure I'd be feeling anything 'vaguely'.

I thought the actor was poor. He's just leaning against a stairs railing looking vaguely uncomfortable when Clara and the Doctor are saying their goodbyes.

There's several fallacies underpinning this article and they make the gist of it vaguely anti-intellectual. Effective horror thrives on ambiguity, not clarity; that's the nature of that particular beast. Effective analysis of anything thrives on clarity, not ambiguity; that's the nature of that particular beast.…

I think her selling out was saved partly by her giving plenty of forewarning that she was always strategising for her advantage and partly by her not knowing how to effectively sell out. Her weirdo tendencies were the perfect calculation for the early '90s rock market but they were too entrenched for her to put…

Y'know Vanessa Carlton put out a cracking album a few years back. The first half could have been a sensible, springier Tori Amos and the second a slightly less dreamy Aislers Set.

I wouldn't rush to see Drag Me To Hell. There's some bizarre direction in it and the lead actress is awful to the point where I was wondering if it was a bone dry parody of some super specific genre of film I'd never heard of.

It was fun but it couldn't have undermined its attempts to build dread better if it were trying to.

"Welcome to… Asia"

Can I challenge the first part? I mean, he seems like a pleasant and sharp guy but he's also a comic playing to one of the broadest audiences in the world. It's not like he's well positioned to speak about the organising principles of human behaviour without proceeding from a bunch of base assumptions that audience…

Things an author (of the separate source text!) claims for his characters in interviews is, like, the primary form of extra-textual imposition. It has zero effect on the internal consistency of the narrative. You can argue that Martin's view would have led to better character writing - which I disagree with - but you…

That Sansa is *meant* to act smartly, become a politician and parallel her siblings's growth is all extra-textual imposition (and unless you're writing a time-travel story I don't see how it could be otherwise). And for the reasons I've given I think that story choice is hackier than the one we got.

There's an irresolveable tension between imbuing beauty with value and being inclusive about what's beautiful because beauty's a bunch of arbitrary conventions given power by their exclusivity. The show can't actually be inclusive in any real way because that's the opposite of its organising principle.

tanooki, don't regret it. There's a weird association with hipsterism and traditional, irregular-to-pop instruments here and it draws antipathy because the association feels, to many, on point rather than one ignorant to the importance of those instruments to the musical traditions a lot of people grow up in. Which is…

I Think I see The Light. It's not often a perfect song is also perfectly representative of an artist but there you go.

She was hostile, they were hostile, neither was witty about it. So, yeah.

This list is like a selection from every tranche of Angel episodes rated by quality. It's sad to see, say, Reprise not find a place but A Hole in the World amble on. Alternate top ten type selection:

Wasn't the scuttlebutt at the time that Alyson Hannigan was concerned about fan blowback if she went full-villain and because she was close to Whedon, he acquiesced and crowbarred the drug metaphor in? Citation needed.

Hoffman actually says "If you find out how to live without having some kind of master dictating your behaviour, tell me how" at the end. He might as well address the camera.