It's an amazing ode to Smart People Figuring Shit Out. Pretty much every memorable scene- the burn with Earth in the window, Gary Sinese in the simulator, the tiger team building a new filter- is just guys thinking really hard about a problem and coming up with a solution.

I think the difference is, Namor has a pretty defined role in all of his stories- he's a dick. Aquaman doesn't have any set story function to get over the hump of his lame-sounding power.

Such has been the speculation, but Marvel has had it's top writer on X-Men, and the FF are at the center of Secret Wars, so…

It's pretty good until they start playing hot potato with the glove.

It's not really anymore unlikely than the bumbling Veep of a guy who resigns in scandal taking office, creating scandals in her own right, complete with Congressional investigations and pending criminal charges, being at all close in the next election.

Oddly, I agree that Veep is less bleak, but I'm American.

I think OH vs. VA is a bad example; VA is home to a lot of federal employees, and the VA Democratic Party is pretty good at what it does (They're 3/3 on Gov/Sen).

MN was a swing state during the Bush years. If you assume that O'Brien was a decent candidate, you can pair that up with the obvious catastrophe of the Hughes/Meyers years and squint a little and make a plausible case.

They *try* to be ambiguous, kinda like P&R was for a while, but you can only play that game for so long. Once you start giving her specifics, that fills in a lot.

I seem to remember them giving it a SCATHING review after it actually came out, though.

Death of the author!

"but I don't think earnestness is Paul's real strength"

The big problem is all the plot contrivances (Littlefinger's "plan", Sansa agreeing to it because reasons, Littlefinger not knowing anything about Ramsay, Littlefinger immediately going back to King's Landing, just for one hot minute) needed to *get* Sansa to the point of her wedding night with Ramsay. Plus, "Ramsay…

I believe much of the problem of AFFC is the narrative itself, so while you may be right that every piece of text besides two paragraphs was necessary for that narrative (although "without question" hardly proves the point), that doesn't mean every element of that narrative was perfect.

How are Veep's ratings? Doesn't seem like the kind of show that becomes a monster hit, even by HBO standards.

'Cause "Only people who love it can review it" isn't how reviews work?

That is predicated on the propositions that 1) Marvel movies are "crap", and 2) people know they will be crap before they see them. I disagree on 1, and think 2 would be hard to prove.

I didn't even notice that in whatever episode you're talking about, and find that they get many period details close enough for me to accept it. I'd encourage you to give the show another try. Location scouting isn't everything.

I think "that's what the filmmakers intended" is the key here; I've become less and less convinced over the years that Lucas had anything more than the OT in mind, and I'm highly susceptible to the notion that he only really had ANH.

And while the bit with the hand seems anvilicious now, when you're a pre-teen and just starting to learn about symbolism, it's a goddamn revelation.