I see where you're coming from here — television usually requires that the characters make a fist of consistent successes, at least in the long term, and as a consequence it's hard to imagine that the show could end anything but happily for most of the cast. Which is completely bizarre fantasy wish-fulfilment…

I don't agree with the tone of this reply, but I do with the message — Shameless is a sentimental, valourised, even romanticized portrayal of inner city poverty, made all the worse for being locked away from the people the show is actually about thanks to the Pay TV paywall.

They're not — they're writing a new film.

Someone gets it.

Unless I am ignorant / uninformed on the issue, it seems wrong that a sixteen year old is into be "rough f-ed"?

No, he was the Doctor in the flashback. The guy who shot the alien didn't appear in the present.

bonus points for the grammatical irony

Yeah, fidelity criticism is kind of boring — doubly so if you haven't been exposed to the original material.

But Musings is deliberately misleading — basically nothing in the episode can be trusted.

The mythology hangs together a lot better if you can marathon the relevant episodes, and it's actually more coherent than it's given credit for (especially considering how much leeway shows like LOST and Fringe were given)

You'd run into exactly the same problems with a Netflix model — and there are shows being developed like that. Sense8 springs to mind, as does Residue. Just because you're releasing shorter series all at once doesn't mean that things won't change, get forgotten or become disappointing.

I didn't buy it — particularly since Mulder sounded half crazy for the second half of the episode. That long monologue about how everything's coming to an end, accompanied by the montage, was incredibly strange and extreme, IMO.

Think this firefighter story is going to go in the same direction?

There needed to be a voice of reason to make that story work

It's probably because Moffat went over budget again, like back in Season 5.

They do it the old fashioned way, with sexual tension.

Carter's got worse ratings that Galavant, a show that was so unlikely to get renewed they titled an episode 'Suck It Cancellation Bear!'

I cringed so hard when Regina Regan was begging that her cop friend give her a break — not two days after ripping on someone for doing the same thing to her. How's that crow taste?

Especially when you don't have an audience.

What, you're telling me that you don't adhere to Hitler's standards of excellence?