Terrific review.  I was going to space out watching the new episodes but I wound up burning through all of them in two days because this show just makes me happy.  I think this might actually be their strongest season, with the best balance between humor/heart/issues.  Among other things, I really like that this…

Homer being gleeful that he wasn't expected to go with Marge to see her relative was very relatable and trying to cover up his laughter as sobs was funny. I just don't think there's much to do with this marriage that fifty other episodes haven't already done but this was at least agreeable.

A trio of ‘70s disaster movies: The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and When Time Ran Out. Poseidon is clearly the best of them. Inferno is way too long and many of the subplots are dull but like Poseidon the effects have aged relatively well and a few of the big name stars give likable performances (though…

In my office at the university I actually have things sorted by category - shelves for theory, historical texts, fiction, poetry, graphic texts, etc., with a separate bookcase for textbooks and handbooks. At home I have one bookcase filled with favorite authors and pretty much everything else just gets crammed…

Wasn’t there a joke about this in the Teen Titans Go movie? 

“But, Frasier, we can’t host the party for the opera board the same night brother Jonathan is dumping fear toxins into Puget Sound!” (To be clear: I would watch this show.)  

Plus Lois Lane is Here For Some Reason and Also an Alien Why Not. The Silver Age was truly a strange era.

I watched a couple of episodes this season and was really struck by how few scenes Scott and Wayans had together and how many of those were your basic office-based exposition scenes. It seems like the action stuff has gravitated to Scott, who makes a perfectly solid cop hero for a procedural like this. Maybe just…

But does it follow the original movie’s absolutely bizarre decision to include a “suicidal thoughts” subplot?  

This show has so massively overstayed its welcome. I continue to really like the first few seasons but the writing has gotten super-stale, the characters have all turned into broad caricatures (I mean, Phil was always a little goofy and Gloria was always a little loud but now they’re too stupid to live and constantly s…

For better or worse, commercial American TV just isn’t built for that model of “one and done” or a few extremely short runs. The only place it has really seemed to flower on American TV are the season-long anthology shows and even there they arguably get run into the ground (looking at you, American Horror Story).  

Y&R was the soap I watched while I was in college. Haven't caught up with it in years but I always admired people who could be dependably good on a soap day after day after day. 

The scene in Creature where the Creature swims underneath her, almost mimicking her movements in the water and watching her intensely, is one of the great moments in monster movies.  Creepy and yet somehow deeply sad at the same time.  

The Adventures of Robin Hood or Galaxy Quest, which are both go-to movies when I'm feeling sad or tired or sick. One is a glorious storybook with the most perfectly cast band of Merry Men and villains ever and the other just makes me happy with its slyness, goofiness, and surprising warmth. 

It wasn't a particularly touching episode for me because, while Peretti is very funny, I don't think Gina has ever been a particularly likable character (for example, compare this to the Parks and Rec episode when Ann leaves). The scene with Holt was very good, though. 

Love him as the fake protester in Matinee, one of my favorite movies.  

Please never again suggest more screentime for Manny.

For the song “The Day I Fall in Love,” a duet with Dolly Parton which is very, very early 90s but actually kind of sweet, too. I miss the days that just completely random run-of-the-mill comedies would get Best Song nominations (Buster, Mannequin, One Fine Day, etc.).  

Or PTA meetings. Oh, the pushy weirdos at PTA meetings.

“Halftime show press conference” is a real thing? Why? What is anyone going to say that’s the least bit newsworthy? “Hey, Musician X, do you plan to suck or be great on Sunday?”