There is just something really off about the pacing of the show. I don’t know if it was executive meddling or COVID or the Mat actor leaving unexpectedly. But the way things are set up and paid off is just so uneven.

Agreed. It was thrilling to watch - but then afterwards made me feel a tad disappointed as that scene shows that it was within the show-makers grasp to make the entire series a masterpiece with more scenes of that calibre (I don’t mean the intensity of the action - but the fact that it was gripping).

Ive heard that a lot about Orbach.  Played the roughest New York characters but was really a singing dancing sweetheart who was closer to Lumiere then Lenny Briscoe.  Shame he's been gone so long.

I have a friend who is from NYC, and one time he was an extra on Law and Order. He said Jerry Orbach was extremely nice, but Chris Noth was a huge asshole.

FWIW, the showrunner is on record saying that book readers know who the Dragon is, so that is not going to change, I wouldn’t think.

If this was on netflix, there would be a big cliffhanger ending then the show would be canceled after one season.

I’d never thought I’d live to see a time when I could say, “This depiction of a worldwide pandemic isn’t at all realistic.”

Sam’s getting to the age where he’s going to have to start considering Old Glory Insurance.

Delanys career never quite recovered. 

Exit to Eden was a good book. The Sleeping Beauty books were weird, though. The one thing I remember from Sleeping Beauty was someone being trussed up in something akin to a sex swing and honey was poured over their genitals so ants could run all over them.

Years ago, I was moving from one crazy, dangerous neighborhood to another slightly less dangerous, yet equally crazy neighborhood, when a mentally ill homeless person randomly tried to cut me with a box cutter. Just one of those things. One second he was trudging by silently, the next he was coming at me, also silently…

TL;DR , Show not tell.

Jokes aside, I just don’t get it with this show. Is this meant for book readers only? The plot just feels so hollow.

Very sad. I admired him so much for all of his creativity and ability to innovate. I had the honor of talking to Michael for Wisconsin Public Radio’s “To The Best of Our Knowledge.”

Okay, if true, that is legitimately hilarious. I mean nightmarish for the production, but it shouldn’t make this much sense either.

I would add to this that if you consider that Way scene, Mat’s reasoning of staying behind is actually the most explained in the story. Like I get far more why he would decide not to go than why any of others would go.

No, what I’m saying is that I have a toddler at home as well (albeit younger than hers, I believe), and if I went clubbing right now, I’d be paying for it for the next two weeks. And I am still on extended maternity leave (I’m in Canada and my kid is starting daycare at 19 months in January), not PM of a country.

It is a good point.  He’s still a full-of-shit hoaxer.

My first job out of college was as an AP for a talk radio network and we were have Dole in studio for an interview one day (if I remember correctly, this was shortly after Reagan’s death in 2004 and we were having him on to tell Reagan stories, but it’s been almost 20 years, so I could be mis-remembering the topic)…

I watched that with my older brother and it was something of a bonding experience for us. My views on war films/TV have shifted a lot since then and I don’t really watch them anymore, but I still have fond memories of that show for the way it really got me invested in the lives of those men.