Oh it was a knife?  Good.  That makes a lot more sense than a pencil.  I had a problem with it when I thought it was a pencil.

Right?!  Remember when Anna Paquin crossed that line all at once in her Oscar acceptance speech?  It's still all I can think about when I see her.

Who doesn't!

Don is not a number.  He's also not Don.

Anytime she's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Joanie?"

"I have a heart problem"
"Don't worry about it"

"Howdy Doodats"

@avclub-91546109eaf110327d50b0955865712a:disqus  If your definition of career is "Jobs you got paid to do," that's a solid viewpoint but it differs from my own.  To me (and most dictionaries) a career is what you do with your life, paid or unpaid.

Wife and mother is a perfectly valid career. 

But but Joan Cusak and Ed Begley Jr aren't just "actors I remember from somewhere"

50+ hours seems a little long

Eh, I think they were all just giving each other "let's get away from these PBS squares" looks.  They all the warehouse left to go upstairs directly after that.

Yeah, you gotta watch a pilot a different way than you'd watch an episode of anythng established.  You're not looking for a perfect whole, just for some solid foundation.  Even if the whole show changes later, knowing that the project has people on it who can do good work together means something, and it's like…

Yay-urns!

This lady, I guess: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm…

That's what I meant to say, @avclub-ea93d61158b479315c8e0d4cd003ec35:disqus

I was expecting to actually see some of Pam's "great" artwork this season, what with all the mural painting, but in the end it doesn't matter.  Clearly she was written as a pretty decent artist so we should just take it as read that that is true, regardless of what they showed or didn't show on the… show.

Nothing is "close enough" to Hannibal Lecter.

oooh didn't think of that, good catch and cool idea.

I've seen a card in the title sequence that says "Based on the book 'Red Dragon' by Thomas Harris," so I'm thinking anything after that in continuity is not canonical to this story.  Also, certain minor details that would have been impractical to bring to this project have been changed.