I think it’s both, and what Zhao will get, at best, is Disney’s agreement not to do it themselves. Any other solution short of just not releasing them abroad is basically impossible. There’s no way to write a distribution clause in such a way that it will be binding and enforceable for the actions of, say, the Russian…

Yeah, if pressed by the director and bad press, Disney MIGHT not release an “un-gayified” cut of their own, but that just means that local film censors will do it.

Yeah, in a supporting role that he took after he stepped down from the Driver role for scheduling reasons.  

It also highlights the issue with a supergroup whose individual members’ best albums are all a minimum of 25 years old.

I don’t really buy that he’s going to retire after a 30-year career in a field he obviously loves, has tons of ideas for, and that is still throwing money, accolades, and an almost unprecedented level of creative freedom at him. People generally walk away prior to or shortly after an early success or well after things…

It’s kinda weird that Damon and Driver are treated as peers and old friends — both are referred to as “old men” at one point — when there’s a very noticeable fourteen year age gap between them.  Apparently Affleck wrote his part of the script for himself, and it’s not always well-concealed.

It’s also telling that the CW’s response doesn’t actually refute any of what she said happened, just disputes that it was the reason for her departure. Some stuff, like whether or not Scott was abusive, could be a matter of perspective, but they have no reason not to deny things like injuries or excessively short…

Yeah, those are what I would call the “feints” I mentioned. They’re definitely there as factors, but Gus wants to do the right thing anyway, and the sense conveyed is that he probably would if his specific editors weren’t stopping him.

Contrast this with Prez in Season 4 — my pick for the best of the series — who does…

For me, the newspaper plot doesn’t feel quite as nuanced or of a piece with the series main themes, which speak to how a lot of the problems with American society are fundamental issues with institutional decay that can’t realistically be solved without massive organizational reforms that probably won’t happen. The…

Donovan feels like an actor with a fairly limited range, which is unfortunate for a show about how his awesome acting fools everyone in nearly every episode.

If we’re doing this, then where’s goddam Terriers?

Ru Paul’s Drag Race is something between reality TV and a gameshow, but usually counted as the former.

Yeah, if you flip Deadwood and Game of Thrones, both shows feel more comfortably placed.

I think you can argue that Mr. Robot peaks in the first season and then begins a slow decline as it starts repeating itself a bit, but clearly “it falls off a little by the end” is in no way disqualifying if 24 and Dexter are on here, and it never gets anywhere near those lows.

It does seem like the outlier in the top 10, which are 9 shows with overwhelmingly positive receptions from start to present/finish and GoT. It feels more at home with the “mostly good with some acknowledged rough patches creeping in” choices that start cropping up in the 11-30 range.

I mean, it didn’t do that well in the regular era. Good word of mouth kept it barely alive, but it skated along as a bubble show right up until a third season cancellation.  

Yeah, I guess because it starts kinda bad? It really builds from there, though, and it seems unfair that it lost out to so many shows that packed on all their sucking at the end instead of getting it out of the way early.

I disagree with that assessment, and while I would probably give the Wire the edge, in some ways I feel like the Leftovers pulls off something equally difficult in making a bunch of nearly self-contained character pieces without much of a dip in quality. It’s not truly episodic, obviously, but it’s fearless about…

That, Grey’s Anatomy, and House suggest to me that they at least called a few nursing homes. And honestly, I don’t begrudge a few shows for casuals making the list, even if they do sit awkwardly next to The Wire and Mad Men.

Succession at 10 seems to run the risk of looking pretty silly in hindsight if it goes off the rails and then runs for another 2-5 years. Or it would, if that didn’t describe at least a dozen of the shows already on the list.