I'm surprised there was no mention of Tarkan. Turkish pop sensation, had his trademark "Simarik" covered as "Kiss Kiss" by multiple English pop stars, oddly huge in Latin America, hunky hirsute good looks…and then his English-language debut just flat-out flopped.

And then there's that one they cut that was something like "our true size is the size of our God!"

My my my MY GOD!

And honestly, nothing could possibly be as good as the backstories we imagined. It was destined to be a letdown when we actually saw them - it took a lot of the enigma and tension out of the story.

The real thing the prequels had to struggle against was their mere existence; we already knew how they were going to turn out for the most part, so the plot had to work extra-hard to come up with anything that was legitimately surprising. And that's tough.

Case in point: Nicola Bryant as "Peri", Dr. Who, early 80's. She's a lovely person but oof that accent. Somewhere between Minnesota, Cali surfer, and serious head injury.

I know Dru is her most popular role but to me she will forever be that young ingenue in "Ed Wood" who exclaimed "No liquids! I'm terribly allergic to them!"

Tony Head. Apparently Real Giles doesn't sound all that posh.

I liked the ep. I don't think it was quite as great as this review asserts, but it was alright, mostly due to some strong performances distracting us from the odder bits of the script.

Depends. Can my new boss authorize the launch of a cruise missile at my house?

I find it pretty hamfisted. Look! They're all trapped in a maze! That's symbolism, you guys!

We live in a golden age of TV opening sequences - witness GoT, Mad Men, Sopranos, etc. All encapsulate their shows' settings and moods pretty perfectly.

That's because I *know* you planned it.

I mean it's…fine. Some of it is catchy enough. But for a while it was like anything James Murphy had anything to do with was somehow, among my friends and the music press, some sort of gift from heaven, and I really twigged on it to that level.

The big one for me is Zola Jesus. Everyone tells me she's great, her opera-via-goth-via-indie-synthpop thing SHOULD be right up my alley, but it generally just leaves me shrugging. And her persona-within-a-persona-wrapped-in-a-narrative personal mythology just rubs me the wrong way (not as badly as Justin Vernon's,…

You gotta fight! For your right! To have a mild disagreement about muuuuuuusic!

Another Araki film, The Doom Generation, was pretty meh overall but had a great soundtrack.

I am conflicted about this episode.

My main complaint is that it seems to be happening a lot recently. And they're getting meta about it, too, which feels like Moffat is just smugly flipping off anyone who occasionally wants things to make sense.

I've noticed this as a problem with some earlier Who eps too. I watched "Revelation of the Daleks" a few weeks back and it was all "Ace [DRAMATIC MUSICAL STING] the Daleks are [MUSIC SWELLS] Their evil pla[DRAMATIC STING AGAIN]"