Almost as if there was a war going on…

I think he was referring to the Cold War as the "time" in that quote, rather than the '80s.

Interesting that they went with it as a "sequel", rather than a remake/boot. Perhaps the producers' way of honoring Tucker and Larry Storch?

Though the humans had different names. It was Spencer, Tracy, and Kong… The joke being that Tracy was the gorilla, and Forrest Tucker played "Kong".

I'm not sure I agree about Tropico. There are things I might like to build but never seem to get to work playing without cheats (like airports), but the challenge of remaining in power at the helm of the ramshackle barge of state is the main source of enjoyment for me — Subsidizing housing and entertainment projects;…

In areas like cuisine they stake out some headscratchingly new ground, but I see your point.

I was thinking specifically of American TV, so I'd say it doesn't, though a case could certainly be made for it being an important influence on American TV writers by the '90s or so.

Good call. Still kind of episodic season-to-season, but definitely focused on a single story in each of them.

One of its shortcomings was a tendency to periodically (usually at the beginning of a season in the course of resolving the previous season's cliffhanger) unravel all the narrative they'd built up. Doing that once might be justifiable as reflecting a paranoid vision where facts are fragile and truth is elusive, but by…

…an era of flop sweat, ambitious but poorly maintained mustaches, and ratty jackets

There were a lot of nits one (at least a highly geeky one) could pick with Fringe — they dropped underdeveloped ideas and retconned fairly feverishly. But they mastered wonder, if not consistency, and it was brilliantly written and performed, in terms of its characters and emotional resonance.

One might reasonably expect a game marketed under the same title would be more of the same old thing.

I recall a story circulating as to why Heather Matarazzo didn't play Dawn Wiener in this (and if she wasn't interested, why that was, specifically) — Anyone able to enlighten me?

There's also a strong "importance of good breeding" element in the idea that toddler Lord Greystoke can teach himself to read and speak English from his parents' old books. Arguably the "breeding" thing extends beyond what we normally think of as "racism" in that it justifies a pecking order even within a given race…

And outright cooperation between the government and the Mafia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

Well, if he was gonna get all technical like that, he'd never have sold any tickets.

The day the AV Club went full fan service…

The original Red Dawn addressed the nuclear element by presuming that the US had abandoned "Star Wars" missile defense, while the Soviets (who were actually doing basic research in such things, through with limited funding) had mastered it. Sci-fi gimmicks like "nuclear damper fields" or what-have-you would be another…

The absurdity of "North Korea Invades US" was discussed here back when the Red Dawn remake came out, and in which case I believe DJ JD's theory about sucking up to China was openly acknowledged by the producers.

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