Yeah, I read a tweet—Emily VanDerWerff, I think—talking about how people are flipping their shit over the show making the necessary adjustments to become a long running series rather than a one-season wonder. I do think season 1 was tighter and more focused, with an immediately more identifiable arc, but its been…

On the interface for the Netflix algorithm, there’s a check box that’s labelled “Make the composite film really good”. But no one ever checks the box.

I think a major issue some people are having with the show is that this season has tried taking characters in a different direction, and while I have faith the show will land it, it’s totally reasonable to be sort of annoyed by those directions in the moment.

I think a major issue some people are having with the show is that this season has tried taking characters in a different direction, and while I have faith the show will land it, it’s totally reasonable to be sort of annoyed by those directions in the moment.

Unfortunately, neoliberal long ago turned into a catchphrase that people just started using to mean, “insufficiently liberal". 

How do you mean neoliberal exactly?  How is the term applicable to Stewart?  

There were a number of critics who never liked Ted Lasso, so they get to have their very vocal “toldja so” moment. Then you have other people who resent being told to feel happy or good, which is understandable (as it’s the online equivalent of the person who comes up to you and tells you to smile) but blame the show…

“automatically disqualifying”

I was thinking about that sort of presentism affecting theories of sexuality when I read this claim (from an academic, rather than an entertainer not expected to know anything) that gender inequality is the reason bisexuality is more common among women.

I’m confused why the setting is the 1840s, given that the tribunal aspect and the costumes look like they’re from 200 years earlier.

We have court records from Plymouth Colony concerning what they regarded as improper sexual behavior:

they might be able to do Ted/Rebecca well, but I like them as friends and boss/employee better.

What’s ridiculous is that Richmond aren’t already sponsored by a dodgy online betting site. After all every other team in the Championship and half of those in the Premier league are!

This goes back to some of the ancient philosophical arguments against hedonism (or at least the crude sex, music, and drugs form of it). If you base a large part of your happiness on sexual pleasure and don’t grow out of that, you’re setting yourself up to be pretty unhappy as you get older. 

The fact that there’s not anything substantial in this teaser (a 30-second trailer? A few days before it drops?) to try and bait you suggests that the only “shocking revelations” involved will be the reality that Ross was a human being. His first marriage ended over accusations of infidelity, and it’s not really…

Like the choice to not release the first three episodes at once, dropping the Christmas episode in the middle of August is one of those things that’s just not going to matter for the millions of rewatches that will happen at some point in the future. I know lots of people regularly pick out the holiday episodes of…

I admit that literal Santa flying by was a bit too twee for me, but I was on board up to that point, and I don’t really understand why this episode would suddenly turn you against the show if you were already a fan. As was mentioned in the review comments, it’s much more of a Christmas special rather than a…

One thing that’s come out AFTER the episode in an interview was that this episode actually wasn’t part of the initial break of the season, but rather came after they added two episodes to the 10-episode order. So in this case, the “we’re not going to move plot threads forward” was also “We already wrote the season and…

I was struck by how much I barely recognized both Colin and Isaac when I was rewatching Season 1 with my parents: they were Jamie’s stooges, but by the end of the season they had drunk the Kool-Aid, and you can tell this season they’ve distilled them down into more amiable versions of those characters.

(his “Doctor told me not to drink” line followed by an immediate swig in “For the Children” always cracks me up.)