Honestly, Hamilton pretty much is Bartlett. Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing's influences are all over that show, for better and worse.

White people like… Lin-Manuel Miranda?

They say "the children", which I took to mean their children.

But those characters are also talking about their children…

I don't mind the flashback, mainly because it introduces Jacqueline and I'll take any excuse to spend more time with Mr. Poe. But I really minded how awkwardly it was handled. Until Lemony Snicket tells us so, it wasn't at all clear to me that we were watching a flashback scene, and I'm annoyed that a show so…

There's a theory that the Baudelaire parents are Jacques and Kit Snicket? Wouldn't that make the children products of incest?

I think it's deliberate that the first book works so hard to establish Justice Strauss as someone who would be a perfect parent for the children - she's not only kind and concerned for their well-being, but has interests that mesh well with theirs (even more than Uncle Monty, who sort of absorbs them into his own…

The reasoning I've read is that it has very little to do with ratings. It's a way of bumping up the show's numbers on streaming platforms, as people catch up with the old episodes in preparation for the news ones. And since Fox owns Prison Break, it gets money for those views. Same deal with The X-Files and 24.

Where is Summer Glau these days? She had a brief and uninteresting arc on Arrow a couple of years ago, and that's the last thing I remember seeing her in, after several years in which she was practically ubiquitous.

The law and, one would hope, the basic human decency that recognizes that other people - even women! - deserve autonomy over their own bodies. The right's misuses of "political correctness" crossed the line from aggravating to tedious many years ago, but I'd like to believe that even people on the right mostly…

I have to say, of all of Victoria's pernicious cultural influences, that one seems like it would rank fairly low. Especially since the white wedding dress trend is at least as much of a class thing as a purity fetish - it indicates that you're rich enough to have a dress made especially for your wedding that you're…

This weekend I caught up on the first three episodes of Emerald City, which to my surprise I ended up enjoying a lot more than I was expecting. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a pretty bad show. But it's very pretty (by which I mean both the scenery and the actors) and the world and its history are quite…

She's pretty good in Victoria, but the ice-blue contacts they put her in are unbelievably distracting.

I assumed the choice of Pius was deliberate. The last Pius, who was pope during WWII, has been widely criticized for not taking a stand against Nazism and its atrocities, and many believe that he even tacitly supported them. It's almost impossible to imagine a modern pope choosing that name, so the fact that Law's…

I don't think Trump's "put someone in charge of an agency/department who wants to dismantle it" approach has been an actual policy (inasmuch as he's even capable of formulating those). I think it's more about the fact that he's surrounded by lackeys and hangers-on from the plutocrat class who see all government…

The thing I like about Luke Hemsworth on Westworld is that, not being as handsome or as famous as either of this brothers, he seems to work a bit harder at acting, that is creating a character and inhabiting it, rather than coasting on looks or charm. Possibly if he ever hits it big as an actor he'll take on his…

Both Daredevil and Agent Carter had serious drops in quality from their first season to their second, in both cases because the shows failed to address (and indeed exacerbated) problems that were already present and widely commented-upon in their first seasons. Luke Cage had the opportunity to learn from Jessica Jones…

I suspected this from the trailer, but the review confirms that the film completely changes the tone of the book, which is despairing and nihilistic. At no point are we meant to think that Otto and Anna are heroic, or that their resistance is making any sort of difference. The whole point of the story is that…

I'd say they've had one genuinely good show (Jessica Jones), two with good ideas and iffy execution (Agent Carter and Luke Cage), one that is all over the place (Daredevil), and Agents of SHIELD. That's not the greatest batting average, especially since there are core flaws - everything from stretched-out seasons to…

The title is "most anticipated", and I'm at best politely interested in Iron Fist. Though, to be fair, I could say that about all the superhero shows that do get a mention, except perhaps Legion.