Michael + Andy
I did like the way that Michael took Andy aside at the end of the seminar and gave him a nice pep talk. It goes to show that aside from being a surprisingly good salesman, he actually is the boss you want to have sometimes.

I agree with Esophagus. Chang was at his best tonight, and his "go tell him" thing was a nice callback to the Good Chang/Evil Chang meeting near the beginning of the season.

Ooh, that one seems to be key. No matter how much the characters think they know, there's always something else to deal with down the road.

"I agree with brown Jamie Lee Curtis."

I actually liked Jeff's teardown of Rich and comparison to Ted Bundy et al, because we already know that Rich is a ticking timebomb. He's not a character I'd want to see every week, but I'm looking forward to his inevitable crackup.

Good catch…
On the similarity between that scene from The Wire and this Millennium episode. Hardware stores are just creepmagnets, aren't they?

The thugs
I remember reading an article in CFQ where Howard Gordon said he wanted to make the anti-Semitic bad guys in this episode a Black Power group. Part of the whole "Bonfire of the Vanities" zeitgeist, I guess. I don't know if it would have made the episode better or worse; it would depend on the writing. My…

Mr Freeze is his fixation on the past. Freeze lost his wife and is literally frozen, which could be a lot more clumsy than it actually is.

Reading these reviews is like making love to a beautiful woman. You want to take your time and enjoy it. That doesn't necessarily mean that you won't be done in two minutes, but it's not the goal.

Which gives her one up on David Duchovny, if I'm not mistaken.

Jeremy Roberts
I think Jeremy Roberts, the actor who plays Hance, deserves a lot of credit here. He's basically just remained a guest-star guy since then—you may recognize him as one of the evil tycoons who basically owned Neptune on Veronica Mars—but he gets the character just right. On one level, Hance is a…

I just want to second Fitzroy. Barney Miller was one of the best things ever put on TV, and Dietrich was my #1 reason to watch it.

Credit where credit is due
"Force Majeure" is written by Chip Johannessen, who I think just left as showrunner on Dexter. Anyhow, his record as exec producer on this show in the third season is kind of spotty, but he was always one of its best writers. This one plays to one of his strengths—the ability to come of…

That long tracking shot is actually a pretty much wholesale lift from Hitchcock's "Frenzy." As the saying goes, though, you may as well steal from the best. (Hitch's two 70's movies are generally better than the mass of his other post-Psycho films.)

Sheldon
I like that Sheldon is trying—with mixed success, of course—to tone down his haughtiness in this episode. When Zack says "There's no I in Justice League" Shel warns Howard not to make a thing about it, because they need a Superman that bad.

Stephen Jay Gould
Thank you for referring to "The Mismeasure of Man." This is a fascinating book that more people should read. One important point is that eugenicists like Cesare Lombroso and HH Goddard wound up sliding into dishonest science, not necessarily out of an intent to deceive but from a misplaced faith in…

Oh, Lone Audience was so close to that firecrotch joke.

"Troy, you're a soldier."
"Cool! Do I get a gun?"
"You get a drum."
"cool."

This reply got lost somehow, so…

But good Lord I hate Abed's mother now. It's Dec 9, woman. One day to spend time with your son. You can spend Christmas with your new family two fucking weeks later!