I mentioned this several times while the show was airing in the UK, but I thought this was pretty poor stuff. Overlong, to start with, or maybe the problem is more that not enough happens that is actually interesting. For all the spy story trappings, it takes forever for Jonathan to become embedded in Roper's…

I thought Whedon's Much Ado was pretty weak, precisely because he didn't seem to have a grasp on the humor and how to play it. Humor in Whedon's shows tends to be dry and snarky, but Shakespeare's humor plays to the back-benches. It's meant to be raucous and over the top. Whedon doesn't get that - or is embarrassed…

Life of Pi used 3D beautifully, and absolutely belongs on this list. In the years after Avatar there was a period where everything was in 3D, and more importantly, the backlash hadn't solidified yet, so theater-owners where I live wouldn't bring the non-3D versions. If you wanted to see the latest superhero movie,…

Leaving aside the fact that I don't care for Hugo as a story, I thought its use of 3D was pathetically on the nose. Oh, look, it's a train arriving at a station! The only thing that scene does is definitively put the lie to the urban legend that the original early film's first viewers were so fooled by the effect…

why can't we have less "controversial" or morally suspect heroes from history?

I think there have been more, but not a lot more, and most of the ones I could name are from the last half-decade or so.

I think that's clearly a case of a creative team figuring out their stuff and testing the whole concept of Disney movies that were more sophisticated, on the level of plot, character, and music, than we'd previously seen. But looking back, it feels more like a proof of concept than a complete work. Beauty and the…

I've just come back from a vacation in the UK, and while I was there I finally got around to seeing Wicked. I'd always known that "Let It Go" was a less-good version of "Defying Gravity," but I hadn't realized just how much Frozen owes to the musical in general. On some levels, the film does some of the things the…

I pretty much agree on that. I like it a lot, but it's been three seasons and the show is still coasting on its central gimmick. I like the characters, and there are always good moments, but I don't get the sense that anyone involved with the show knows what they're trying to say with it.

I can sort of see where the show was coming from when it decided to pit its heroines against a faceless conglomerate, because that's a time-worn and respected plot. But as you say, for that to work the heroes need tools with which they can believably stage that fight, and Orphan Black never got around to doing that. …

Most of the reactions I saw were pretty negative, saying that the show's plotting had gone completely off the rails. But I never thought it was on the rails, and S3 did several things that I thought were interesting.

Am I the only one who thought Orphan Black's third season was the best of the bunch? It finally found a villain who made sense, and a course of action for our heroines that wasn't completely ridiculous. It worked out new and more interesting personalities for Paul and Delphine, which actually made it a little sad…

My main reaction to seeing Hugo in a theater in 3D was to wish that I was watching a remastered version of A Trip to the Moon. Not only would it have been shorter, but it has a much better and more compelling story. Plus, one that doesn't behave as if a starving orphan has to "earn" the right to a bed and three…

It really presaged the anthology show format, didn't it? I don't think we quite had the critical language for what it was trying to do at the time, which probably contributed to the lack of acclaim for it.

Oh, agreed absolutely. I liked the first season of True Detective a great deal, but even at its best it was clear that it had a very narrow view of human nature , and at its worst (S2, basically) it devolved into a parody of itself, with very little sense of how actual people behave. Terriers, as you say, had a much…

When you think of it, Person of Interest is a pretty awful title - not quite, but definitely verging on, the territory so perfectly skewered by Scrubs's parody show Legal Custodians.

I'm really not convinced by the argument that this show floundered because of its title (which to be honest is no better or worse than many others - Mr. Robot, anyone?) or even its marketing. I think its failure comes down, as in so many cases, to a combination of timing and not striking just the right tone. Terriers…

I think the odds of Firefly maintaining its quality into later seasons are pretty slim - the problems with the show's world, and even some of the characters, are too fundamental, and eventually would have scuttled the show. It's probably better to have gotten a perfect short season and movie, than to watch the show…

The thing that bothers me about Ben not having a family is that it throws into sharper relief how risky it was for Doug to take Adam. Sexual predators seek out victims who are vulnerable and have no defenses - foster kids or kids growing up with abusive or absent parents. Moving from that to the wealthy, middle…

I think Willa is a pretty good depiction of a compulsive fixer who is incapable of admitting that she's gotten in over her head. She's clearly been like this since she was a child - leaving the ship in a bottle in Hank's house is arguably just as bad as what she tried to do in this episode - and that's not surprising…