I feel like people who are paid to be pop culture writers should have at least some deeper knowledge of TV’s past than your average person that age. Like I wouldn’t trust a film critic who’d never seen a silent movie.

It’s a generational cliff now; not much tracks in popular culture here pre-1990 unless it’s a visible-from-all-corners mountain. Hell, in the pre-Kinja AV Club, there was a generational divide between the site writers and the commentariat about WKRP and the Thanksgiving episode, and that was back in 2013:

2012's Avatar > 2009's Avatar

The last shot in next week’s episode will be the prisoners crating them up Raiders-style, and as they slam on the lid a stencil is dramatically revealed: “POWER CONVERTERS FOR TOSCHE STATION, TATOOINE.”

Tanner ‘88?

A playwright second only to Sackespeare.

And also known for some damn thing or other called SCTV.

I’ll tell ya what it is, he’s got that BDE. Big De Niro Energy.

Re Eugene Cernan: without seeing this episode, I’m guessing that in this timeline Cernan tossed a football on the Moon instead of Alan Shepard driving golf balls on Apollo 14 (although Cernan did play varsity football).

Been there, done that.

Tune in to meet Andor of Andoria in Star Trek: Andor!

The tracking number of the “sprayer” crate is 1968-AE35, which is a fun “2001" in-jokey reference.

Gonna take a wild guess that as Bill Murray has a career span comparable to Douglas’ and Pfeiffer’s - plus the onscreen reference materials to match - he’s playing some sort of contemporary to their characters and also appears in de-aged flashback.

I’m guessing the lingering views of the Mars-94 nuclear engine assembly that Sylvie was recording will also be part of Margo’s undoing.

[AV Club writer], who is usually so agreeable, thinks [blank] is a [“]terrible idea[”]

Plus three more!

A good list! As always, there are inclusions and exclusions subject to personal taste, but I think it a missed opportunity to not include the track that, like Stranger Things, is strongly influenced by Stephen King:

I said to the missus during S1 of Russian Doll that someone should build some kind of Columbo revival around Lyonne, and the photograph of Peter Falk in her character’s apartment in S2 told me I wasn’t the only one thinking this.