So rather than Game of Thrones or even Lord of the Rings, to me this felt more Wheel of Time. Which I don’t even mind so much (I enjoyed WoT’s first season overall). But they were really pushing the appeal of all the cool things we will see over compelling acting performances and well-told dramatic stories. Indeed,…

All the time our customers ask us, “How do you make money doing this?” The answer is simple: volume.

John Walker killing the Flag Smasher with Captain America’s shield is a notable exception, and not coincidentally was probably the best moment in that entire series, and one of the best overall in the recent Marvel TV series.

I mean, you might as well be referencing Helen and Joe from Wings (my all time favorite example of a quite popular show that disappeared from public consciousness, despite being in the same “extended universe” as Cheers and Frasier).

Unfortunately, so is most popular media . . . to date. I personally believe that these days, lots of cis/het people can nonetheless relate to any sort of romantic relationship, and therefore romantic stories can be told about all sorts of non-cis/het relationships without that necessarily making them “niche” content.…

I’m not sure there is a better example of the show runners not understanding the value of what they have created than The X Files.  And not just leaving Mulder and Scully as-is is Exhibit A.

I sort of agree in that I always wondered if their infatuation (that much made sense to me) would actually work as a sustainable relationship.

It is to David Schwimmer’s credit that ANYONE saw Ross as a relatable and sympathetic everyman/audience-surrogate type, because I agree if you really think about his character and his character’s behavior, he is an a-hole, and Rachel deserves better.

Totally agree about Mulder and Scully. So much potential to have a great platonic working relationship and friendship between a man and a woman, something we really need more of in entertainment content, and they had to make it romantic. Booooooo!

I simply LOVE how Alexis and Ted ended.  You are right that just isn’t something we see in movies or TV, and it is so necessary.

Please spend a lot of time in space/at the off-world colonies!  That was never really developed in the movies but could be so cool.

Dark horse candidate: I wish I had a friend like that myself.

I actually think Orcs are probably the most important example of Tolkien (consciously or not—I personally suspect not) incorporating depictions of “the Other” from European colonial-era white supremacism.

So at a minimum, all non-Men are fair game for whatever, since all of them are gone by the time the “known” history of England starts.

In fact, trying to imagine a childhood version of Hugo Weaving seems entirely beyond my capabilities.

Tolkien used Hobbits as audience surrogates, including as primary point of view characters and quasi-narrators. Theoretically, the Hobbit/LOTR, aka the first couple parts of the Red Book of Westmarch, were both styled as being written by Bilbo and Frodo, although in practice Tolkien did not really maintain that…

I think the potential in a Marvel/StarWarsesque “LOTR Universe” strategy is sky high. Yes, the Hobbit trilogy muffed it, but the instinct to expand out into a lot more content is financially sensible—if you can make it work.

I thought about that too, and was glad he stuck to his story about only taking over a bad person, and only out of desperate need.

From my perspective, you might be a bit of a victim of how great some of the writing and actors have been at making us feel real drama.

I’m not demanding this, but I think it would be cool if the show didn’t make this a costless decision for Peacemaker, even if it was obviously the right thing to do.