I read the books as fantasy novels, before I'd played D&D (I did years later), and I recall that being really jarring. There are places in the narrative that are clearly modeled after botched rolls and random encounters.

I didn't connect with him but, even as a kid, I understood that he was the best developed character in the novels and that made me interested in him. He was capable of taking turns that weren't totally expected, which really was something that seemed to set these books apart from the YA stuff and other fantasy novels…

I sometimes wonder if everyone would've been happier with "Lost" if it had ended with the 5th season finale. Not quite as it played, of course, but the detonation of the bomb and the coming-full-circle-to-the-past nature of that season was satisfying to me in a way none of the mystical stuff that came after was.

I can't hate "Strange in a Strange" land because supposedly this was either the episode that made the producers decide they needed to set an end-date, or the one that convinced the network they should have one after the writers had been arguing for it. Because it epitomized all the terrible wheel-spinning that was…

Yeah, off-screen stuff intervened in the form of drunk driving and unexpected hatred of working in Hawaii respectively with those characters, so I'm not as hard on those detours as I am with some of what the show did. Still, it's frustrating to think of how much stronger the first half of Season 3 in particular might…

Love me some "Expose." Most of the dislike toward it seems to be tied up into the dislike of Nikki and Paolo as characters, but the whole episode was - to my mind - actually playing off that in a fairly clever way. The easiest criticism of it to make is that it's just an hour of fan service, but it's well-done and…

As good as Season 1 is, Season 4's my favorite pretty easily. The shortened season (courtesy of the writers' strike, which otherwise was definitely not a good thing) ended up making it feel a lot tighter and more focused, for my money, and the mix of flash-forwards with the flashbacks seemed to make the writers more…

It's definitely the season that suffers the most if you know where the show is going (all that time building up the Tail Section is particularly frustrating for me), but I agree it was a lot of fun to watch in real time. Still love the weirdness of the Dharma videos.

Jacob's Mom is worst than Jacob, but he is definitely near the bottom for me.

If I were making a "Lost" top 10 episodes list (and I'm probably nerdy enough to do this someday), "Ab Aeterno" would be the only 6th season episode I'd consider for it. Great stuff, lovely showcase for Carbonell.

I submit "Across the Sea" for the worst episode bracket.

I recall being surprised by how much I liked the island portion of "Tabula Rasa" the last time I watched it. The flashback is frustrating in the way most Kate stuff is frustrating, but I really enjoyed the way the death of the marshal played. In general, I think the first season had uniformly strong island plots,…

This movie is just plain fun, and probably the one reason I can still stand (a little bit) Gwyneth Paltrow. This is what, to me, sets it apart from "awards bait" pictures. A lot of those aren't the least bit entertaining. "Shakespeare in Love" is the best picture nominee from that year I was most purely entertained…

Definitely Sayid. I wanted to see more of him more than any of the others, and I wasn't disappointed. He remained my favorite through the show's run, even though I think he was incredibly mishandled in the sixth season (if the fifth season had been the end of his character arc, it would've been cutting but…

Co-signed. There are some that come close, but I cannot think of a single pilot that I'd even try to argue surpasses it.

It's amazing and remains amazing.

I'd like to see inquiries go in this direction, because there is employer pressure on these drivers to make these hauls, without much attention to how much down time they have to sleep before or during them. I'm curious how often this happens and how much investigation there is when there isn't a fatality or even…

I spent a lot of time listening to Jimmy Eat World in college, though like a lot of people I was first exposed to them with "Bleed American," so it took me awhile to get around to their earlier albums. Still love that stuff.

Right now I'd bet that one is gone and one will be back simply because it'd be embarrassing for AMC to scrap both its new shows. They seem higher on "Halt and Catch Fire" and, like you said, the reception to "Turn" has been really quiet. So if I had to pick one to return it'd be HaCF, unless the rest of the season…

Which touches on something I've been wondering about. I am really curious how AMC is going to handle "Turn" and "Halt and Catch Fire" in terms of ratings expectations. "Breaking Bad" never regularly pulled above 2 million viewers until its 5th season (when it admittedly did astounding numbers). "Mad Men" did a bit…