Anything after "L.A. Confidential" would be difficult to just pick up and start reading without having acclimated yourself to Ellroy's style of writing.

Before he officially did YA books, I think some of the early Discworld books could easily qualify. Definitely "Mort".

Is Dick Francis really the same level as the other two? I know that he's a publishing machine, but I always had the impression he had at least a modicum of respect, standing out a bit from guys like Brown or Patterson.

If everyone watched TV like that, then the way TV shows were presented would be radically different.

I'm here from the future to tell you, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE. I can't explain why, because I am now being erased from existence, hopefully that means I chang—

Well, I mean, it's not like "The Twilight Zone" invented the trope either.

In theory, you could do a first draft, then see the first draft, be inspired to do a new one, which then becomes the draft that you see, which then inspires the next draft. I mean, that's the writing version, I'm not sure how you phrase that for painting ("sketch" probably comes in).

It isn't quite a self-sustaining loop, because as presented we don't know how it starts. So there is a problem of some kind, but I agree "paradox" isn't quite the right word for it.

I feel like this is still viewing cause and effect in a non-quantum way, but I'm not sure.

I think his point is that the victor of a dog race isn't utterly random, and thus would be less susceptible to change based on this scenario. It shouldn't be entirely unsusceptible, but less so, because quantum randomness isn't going to change the dog that has ten pounds of muscle on the others and is more…

Except that they shouldn't need 24 hours to figure it out, because (as described in the review) the timing of the pictures is self-imposed. So, somehow the future-people are not ready at 8PM to provide a clear insightful glimpse into the future? Fine, but now *you* know that, so the future-people should be ready, so…

Ex Machina [no spoilers] has a similar method of hand-waving "The audience doesn't want to hear science" away.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did; there was a show on Adult Swim called "Saul of the Mole People" that I used to watch sometimes, because I knew pretty much the whole creative team and half the actors. But nobody really watched it, and it was hard to blame them; it wasn't *that* good. It had its moments, and you…

Every writer on SNL leans on him because he can walk out and immediately, with a look, the audience is laughing and enjoying him. Or, anyway, that's how they see it.

Only when playing recurring characters. [Which is to say, "Drunk Uncle" has a different comedy face.]

None of the above. And it's pretty funny to use that as an example of the latter sketch being more padded than the former; the SNL version does an entire bit in 25 seconds complete with a laugh from the woman who does Miley Cyrus, while the original spends 10 seconds of dead space on *exactly* the same "demonstrating…

The main point of the addition is to add the escalation of having the contestant able to pass the clue.

Not to say it isn't plagiarism, but I think "The Prophet Muhammad" makes the joke a lot funnier, because there is less ambiguity.

"suggesting SNL doesn’t need to know how to wrap up a skit"

Haha, that sounds like an insult, but I know exactly what you mean.