But aren't the "anti-heroic" things he does just part and parcel of portraying the Vikings somewhat accurately? To me, that's an issue of historical fidelity rather than characterization. I've always understood this to be as much or more about the way the character functions within the story and in relief to other…

I'm always puzzled when I see Ragnar referred to as an anti-hero. I don't think he is. He's a heroic protagonist, driving the story in a progressive direction that the audience is largely sympathetic to most of the time. He has a worldview that's wildly different from our own, and he lives in a culture that treats…

I don't think this article does, particularly, though I do see it as another sign that this thing that's been around for years is experiencing a moment of pop culture relevance for reasons I can't quite figure out. I don't think it's BAD that it's getting more attention, I just don't quite get what prompted it.

There's a terrible - and ultimately harmful to discourse - tendency to try and use quantitative analysis tools to make qualitative arguments, without ever bothering to deepen the argument beyond the numbers. The Bechdel Test is one quantitative tool that seems to be popularly abused lately, but at least most of the…

I guess it's merciful they left the close of the Ferengi "arc" for the second-to-last episode and kept it more or less contained (as I recall it was touched on in the finale but they didn't dwell), but oh wow is it jarring with the other stuff going on.

The Bechdel Test is both an occasionally fun way to look at a movie through a feminist lens without getting too up your own ass (it DID start as satire, it was never meant to be academic or all-encompassing), and a useful overall tool for statistical analysis if you aggregate enough film data using it. I don't think…

Should've had "Deadwood" there, yeah. Not that I was attempting an exhaustive list. But there are certain classic HBO productions of that period, and I've rarely seen "BoB" not considered one of them.

I somewhat disagree that "Band of Brothers" doesn't enter into the conversation about "Golden Age TV," for two reasons.

I've always felt something closer to the Kinsey scale is a more honest way to talk about sexuality than straight/gay/bi labels, and I hope we move more toward that as a society. I think all of us are capable of being attracted to people of the same (or the opposite) genders under certain circumstances. I don't think…

Yeah, I take a dim view of projects that attach themselves to conspiracy theories that've been largely debunked (see "JKF").

It's not really uncommon for someone to write a brilliant first novel and then completely vanish. You could probably fill an entire library with them, even if Harper Lee is one of the most famous examples because "To Kill a Mockingbird" became such a major part of American literature.

I actually was really, really worried that aging up Tommen would mean we wouldn't get his kitten. I was quite relieved to see Ser Pounce.

I hope the gradual shut-down of these stores adds to my game library in the same way the slow death of many Blockbuster video stores added to my DVD collection.

The show develops quite wonderfully in the way it attaches you emotionally to the characters, and that takes some time. I would say watch the full first season. If you aren't all in on it by then, maybe you never will be, but for me at least it established more affection than I hold for any other TV series.

Yeah, Santiago is one of many Regrettable Season 2 Plotlines (TM), though he was probably in the balance less regrettable than many of them.

I think a lot of Ezr's dynamics with the rest of the crew were botched, but I liked the evolution of her relationship with Worf.

Voodoo is such a wasted opportunity. The mass movement of people who'd lost their homes in Katrina to Texas was a huge thing for the area, and the show could've used a character to explore that. Instead, they just used him as the closest thing the show ever had to a villain outside the McCoys, and as an obstacle for…

Comparing DS9 and Voyager's performance always seems like a useless exercise to me. They were just in such different positions.

True blue, and tight like glue.

Gotta say, while I had some of the concerns about Momma Leslie as a direction that this article voiced, the finale largely put them to rest. Well played, PoehlerSchur. Well played.