The readers are back! The readers are back! GROUP HUG

I appreciate your calling me out, and I apologize for the error, which was a big one! You'll see that it's been corrected (and noted in the stray observations).

Thank you for addressing this. You'll see that the correction is both made and noted for transparency's sake, and I do apologize heartily for the error.

You're dead right, thank you. You'll see the review has been corrected (and the correction noted, for full transparency). I regret the error. Thanks!

Ohhhhhh, that's a possibility.

You're right, of course, and you'll see that error is noted and corrected in the review. I appreciate you calling me out for the mistake.

Thanks for your correction about the ankle; of course, you're absolutely right. As you can see, that was corrected (and the error noted) this morning. These 4 a.m. reviews are brutal, but I deeply regret the error.

Thanks for the correction! As you can see, it's already been corrected and noted in the review.

You're absolutely right about the ankle, and my thanks to editor Erik Adams, who caught that and made the original correction while I slept. (These no-preview overnight-review shifts are brutal.) I've since updated the review.

As I mention, the slow, meditative pace of the show is one of its greatest assets, and its initial patience is a virtue. But that virtue only lasts so long as the building dread actually builds toward something, and that's where I think Channel Zero fails.

It's very different from AHS, much more somber in its approach. As I say in the review, there is much to like about Channel Zero: Candle Cove… but it isn't as satisfying or coherent as its surface seems to suggest.

I want to buy him a whole box of Nilla Wafers. The real ones.

That said, it's unlikely for any review to be comprehensive in IDing all the film references in Stranger Things. Even Vulture's excellent excellent round-up (beware this link: here be spoilers) only touts itself as listing the major influences and homages.

Unless you're seeing a different version than I am (which seems
somewhere on the spectrum from staggeringly unlikely to impossible) it's
New Order's "Elegia" over the funeral-prep montage and Joy Division's
"Atmosphere" Jonathan plays when he retreats into headphones in the
previous episode.

You'll have noticed I mention Altered States in the stray observations, and I expect I'll get more chance to dip into that influence in the next review.

me, yesterday: Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens) starts diagramming on a paper plate, and a million STEM teachers' kids laugh out loud.

My spouse and I remarked upon that simultaneously:

To be clearer: No, I can't keep the gender politics out of the review because I didn't insert them in the first place. The critic doesn't introduce gender politics (or racial politics, or sexual politics) into a text; the critic points out the tacit politics already baked into it.

I thought the reviewer was revealing her youth

It sure is! Thanks for catching that; corrected.