Cherry-picking horrible stories about immigrants committing murder appears to be a Republican tradition: Adrienne Shelley's widower had an op-ed in the NYT yesterday talking about overtures made towards him by conservative news outlets after his wife's murder, and disputing the argument that her death can be used to…

I'm totally of the opposite opinion - I think Rafael is completely in the right in his relationship with Luisa, and am getting frustrated with the show's repeated insistence that he needs to forgive her. Forget the fact that Luisa can't stay sober, or even her responsibility for inseminating Jane - those are still…

One choice the show did have was whether to depict Richard's death as recent, or something that the family has already adjusted to. Going by the shot of chairs at a gravesite, I'm guessing it's the former.

Even the airplane set, though, was painfully bland. It was very clearly modeled on Serenity (in fact a lot of the early version of the show was a clear ripoff of Firefly), but didn't have the slightest hint of that ship's personality. If the CW shows can manage to have sets that look lived-in and specific on their…

I think as usual with with this show, it's the execution. By my count, SHIELD has had something like half a dozen really solid core ideas that it could have built a kickass show around. It's rebooted itself something like twice a season, and always the problem is that what it does with its premise is the most…

That's about nickle-and-dime donors, though, right? I haven't seen the documentary, but there are a lot of discussions about how people like that are the bedrock of the right-wing graft machine, and how a lot of supposedly political operations are really about making up direct-mail lists that can be sold and resold…

Today in shameless self-promotion: I'm reposting my recent article about Person of Interest for the nighttime WOT crowd. The title is "The Stealth Futurism of Person of Interest", and the focus is on how the show uses the format of a procedural to develop some really interesting ideas about machine intelligence, how…

Also No Tomorrow, which seems to have been roundly ignored. It's not cancelled yet, guys!

I was discussing the Trump TV concept with my family the other night, and they rightly wondered: who is paying for all this? Are there really people willing to invest money in the concept? Because one of the things this campaign has revealed is that investing in a Trump business is akin to setting your money on…

I'm reserving judgment on Westworld, but I agree that the human appearance of the robot characters is one of the least interesting aspects of the show. Couple that with the rather boring nature of the fantasies the show assumes on the part of its guests - everyone is supposed to want to have sex with Dolores or the…

Hi there! I am back from a week in NY, where I got to spend some time with family (in particular, a relative who recently received a serious diagnosis, so there's a very real possibility that this was my last chance to see her, an opportunity that I'm very grateful for) as well as touring and shopping. Not being…

Oh, man. After a strong start, I am just tanking it. Who would have thought that both This is Us and MacGyver would survive and even thrive?

A better example might George Zimmerman post-acquittal. Like Trump, Zimmerman hitched his wagon to the deplorable faction, because they were supplying him with funding for his defense and (perhaps more importantly) psychic feedback telling him that he'd done nothing wrong. Then his trial ended and he had to face up…

Supergirl is coming off a strong season, while The Flash is coming off a depressingly weak one (and starting its latest season by doubling down on some of the show's more annoying traits). Like Arrow, I think we're seeing the show paying for that, which makes sense because if you're tired of either of those shows,…

Also, Arrow is significantly (in TV terms) older than the other DC shows, and coming off two beleaguered seasons. If it maintains its current ratings, I wouldn't be surprised if CW and Berlanti start thinking about wrapping it up.

The point I'm making is, Clark has no moral standing to object to any law enforcement agency having kryptonite. Certainly not on the grounds he offers in this episode, which are "this substance could be used to kill me." You want the DEO not to kill you, Clark? Do what every human is advised to do - don't do…

Once again, why is that a valid excuse in Clark's situation, but laughable if I use it to object to my local police department having bullets?

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the breakdown of those ideas came several decades after Lincoln's death. For a while there, black people were prospering under the post-war regime. Things like the code noir or Jim Crow didn't come about until closer to the end of the 19th century.

True, but when one of your characters is a historian, that excuse goes out the window. At the very least, you'd expect her to point out that the show's premise is a great opportunity to test out some theories about how history works, in general and in particular instances. After all, historians strongly disagree on…

I honestly thought Clark's anger over the DEO having kryptonite came off as a little whiny. I mean, I don't get to complain that law enforcement agencies all over the world stock bullets. Why does a man who is invulnerable in 99.99999999% of situations that would kill me get to complain about the remaining fraction…