@avclub-cb0e59b8f769a8698b9f7154dd8809b5:disqus Oh, I didn't realize there were people who say it didn't hit its stride until S3. Nuts to that. Anybody who doesn't think "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" is a stone-cold classic and that the show really gelled after that for most episodes must have a serious brain injury.

Minor quibble: If the first episode that you saw was "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" then that wasn't really the "get-go" and you're misunderstanding what we mean when we say it greatly improved. "Sheesh! Cab, Bob?" was the first great episode. You tuned in at exactly the right time. The episodes before that were pretty decent…

This 2011 article about Art Pope in North Carolina is very enlightening about how and why this is happening to all of these state legislatures in all of these formerly semi-sane states:
http://www.newyorker.com/re…

We got "Second Skin" on Friday on Syfy USA. After seemingly several episodes where Kiera essentially lost and Liber8 won (oh jeez, that "8" was such a bad choice, it still looks ridiculous, but I guess future terrorists probably reject all brand strategy as a tool of the corporate aristocracy), I was glad to see an…

American (Syfy) air pattern or Canadian pattern? I'm watching via Syfy which is a few weeks behind the Canadians. Hoping to avoid spoilers.

I agree that more non-humanoids would be great, even though that would be difficult for most TV budgets. It took Jim Henson's people and their amazing creatures to pull it off for Farscape. Pilot was a non-human alien regular character with an impressive range of expression and was well-voiced. I don't think Rygel was…

Defiance has gotten somewhat better and IMO probably doesn't deserve to be on this list, especially not right placed next to Revolution which is pretty inhumane, like locking up a cat burglar in a cell next to Jeffrey Dahmer. Not that it's brilliant or anything — it's no Farscape.

Ah yes, Persons Unknown. It sounded promising but turned out completely atrocious. It made this show (so far) look like Shakespeare. And actually, NBC has another somewhat similar show on the air now, Siberia, pitted against Under The Dome.

A contestant swearing he's seen another contestant before is actually becoming another reality show trope at this point, at least on Survivor, where they will occasionally cast a famous or formerly famous person and not tell the other contestants. Recently some contestants recognized former child star Lisa Whelchel…

I made a similar observation, and then did some googling, and now we know why: "Shot by a camera crew that had more than 100 actual episodes of 'Survivor' under its belt, the camera work and production values work to evoke the reality show aesthetic within a horror concept."

This did a surprisingly good job of resembling the average first episode of a Survivor season or another such crisply-edited junk reality competition. I already knew it was a fake reality show but it still felt like a real reality show (is that an oxymoron?) to me until a cameraman got attacked. That said, the average…

Yeah, Manitoba is beautiful and all, but I'd love to see it done in Siberia. That's probably just too difficult logistically though. Reading Ian Frazier's crazy two-part article on traveling through Siberia in the New Yorker gives the impression it would be awfully difficult to drag a cast and crew there for any kind…

Wait, four episodes were pushed from what where who to when what? And why are they a ways off? And do we think there will be another cliffhanger finale?

Very good reviews. I look forward to more, but please watch the apostrophe abuse, because it makes OCD editors like me want to rip out our own eyeballs. The verb "debuts" should not have an apostrophe.

I haven't seen Despicable Me, but I am amused that there's a cross-dressing minion shown in the NYC subway ads as part of the campaign for Despicable Me 2. Its name is given as "Tim" or some such and it's dressed in a French maid's outfit. In and of itself, this is just vaguely amusing, but I am delighted that they're…

Lrrr has Verizon FiOS now. It'll take Verizon until 3013 to make it to Omicron Persei 8. (Before that Lrrr had to get signals over the air and they only traveled at the speed of light.)

Seriously? Have you not tried eating real chocolate yet? I am not trying to be an asshole here. Check it out. You have NOT lived. If you have a Trader Joe's in your area, they have amazing Belgian chocolate by Callebaut re-branded as Trader Joe's Pound Plus for really really cheap. It's also in a smaller size of three…

@avclub-6ddd48b33d81cd53944fd87e12d60b50:disqus Well, they're rerunning these episodes on the CW on Saturday mornings as part of their "Vortexx" cartoon block and getting great ratings with them, at least in adults 18-49. So that suggests there could be a future for this kind of thing….

If that's true, then this is another thing to add to my list of why I dislike Kubrick. Why would you necessarily tie ghosts to religion? Why would an atheist refuse to believe in ghosts? That shows a shocking lack of imagination. Why can't ghosts just be purely secular psychic echoes, left behind after death? Or…

I wasn't too keen on this episode since I watch AT for the dark stuff like Lemongrabs eating each other and PB doing scary amoral stuff and the Lich wreaking havoc and the "emo crap." I guess it's supposed to be heartwarming that Finn and Jake are still play-acting, in this case with those bizarrely sedate kittens,…