I just happened to see this 1985 New-TZ ep from a Bradbury story "The Burning Man". There are some familiar elements. The scary bearded old man stops the car and gets in - listen to his disturbing monologue, including references to larval locusts rising from the mud, genetically evil men, thirst, and drinking "it…

First half seemed to straighten a few things out in terms of characterization.
Ray seemed more like a character, but I'm still having trouble not seeing him as just
"Ewan McGregor in makeup".
Demolition derby at the end seemed out of place - unless Sy i cracking up himself.

I found the visuals and the music to be worth the price of admission - especially when I didn't focus on the story or the characters.

I found it a bit mealy. I found Emmit to be well-defined, and reasonably well-inhabited by McGregor, but Ray was like this uninterested balding extra waiting for his scene. Who was he? And Nikki? Also quite unformed. In prior seasons, we understood when somebody killed someone who they were and why they did it. The…

And thus highlighted the hat tip to the Buffy episode "Superstar" which included reality bending at Jonathan's bidding to make him the alpha character, like Yellow Lenny does here.

So… if mr yellow can make you forget him… What did Syd & Co see while David was in the pool in ep 1? What do they reMEMber seeing ? So David thought they crisped the guards, and Syn & co thought … what - that David had? Or were their memories edited?

surely I did

All this time, I had always wondered what incinerated the guards. David was waiting under the water until he saw Syd's face, as instructed. Flashes of light, Guards fell into the water, burnt husks. How had that happened? I guessed we were supposed to attribute this to Syd or her friends. Now, after seeing so many new…

typo alert: Jemaine / Jermaine