I agree, I don't think of this as a mystery show either. There ARE mysteries, but they're of the same kind that you get on any genre show, for the most part. Most of the mythos was in place by the end of the first season or the first episode of the second. There were still revelations to come, but we had a pretty…

I think the creepiest scene on this show is the bit with the baby mask in season two, but yeah. Babylon/Pick a Number was the only real time in S1 when the show turned into the EC-style horror series it ought to have been.

The Dreifusses get a little annoying as the show continues onwards, though. So much melodrama, and so little of it connects to the main plot. Their screentime obviously got bumped up for the sake of titillation (which I think ended up costing some of the other characters, like Gecko)

The problem is that superhero comics are kind of based on stealing and wresting away characters from their creators. The fact that we've all gotten used to it, and a lot of good comics have been produced based on corporate-owned superhero characters, doesn't change that it's kind of fucked up. So when stuff like this…

I love The Dark Knight, and wouldn't have minded it getting the Oscar. But the fanboy gnashing-of-teeth over its failure to win remains silly (hey, you want to talk about context and hype warping our perception of movies…) TDK, regardless of merit, simply isn't the kind of movie that wins Oscars. The mere fact that it…

Say what you will about Slumdog, it proves you can make a hugely successful movie about another culture without having to make your lead a white American dude.

I'm actually missing the part where The Hurt Locker was anti-Iraq war in any way, shape or form. I thought the whole thing about that movie was that it completely took commentary on the rightness or wrongness of the conflict off the table. Except inasmuch as showing the conflict at all is going to create certain…

If you're North Korean, the book is a must read. In the sense that if you don't read it, they shoot you.

Full Throttle was a terrific attempt to blend action games and adventure games, but it really needed a bigger world. The part where you cruise around engaging in vehicle-to-vehicle fights is amazing, but it's way too short, and it's the only part like it in the game.

They sort of don't, because it's curable. Or maybe just treatable?

I can understand not being able to build huge sets or creating the sense of a huge, bustling station on a minimal budget, but the basic colour choices and layout of the sets were just awful, and I can't see how the budget affected those. I wouldn't even say it looked like a 90s mall, it looked like a rundown office…

Didn't I remember reading somewhere that DS9 was sort of the Black Sheep of the Trekverse, and represented a split between Ron Moore and Rick Berman? I had it that the main reason DS9 was good was that Moore was basically left alone while Berman was busy with TNG and then Voyager. But then by the same token, those…

I'd agree, except I just watched Babylon 5 for the first time, and I think if I go back and watch DS9 it'll look like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in comparison. B5 has some of the ugliest fucking production design I've ever seen.

SPOILERS WHY ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS intangible fancy , yes, the fact that Ben's dad was the dark one and Justins's was the light one was another thing I took to indicate that there might have been some misdirection there. If they were truly planning to flip-flop the "good" and "evil" characters then they REALLY…

Another thing: I really wish this show had adopted a more episodic format than it did. It had the perfect setup for a series of X-Files-ish horror tales: Carnivale rolls into town, weird shit is going down, Ben investigates, horror ensues. And there are a few "standalone" stories, like "Babylon/Pick a Number" and the…

But I can't go on Wikipedia! Not today!

Like a lot of people, I kind of assumed that they were planning a big reversal, and that we'd suddenly learn that Ben was the "child born of darkness" and Brother Justin was the good guy. Which makes perfect sense—Justin has the power to make people see their sins, which is harsh but ultimately could be used for good,…

I always appreciated that she was cute (I wouldn't have said "dayumn", but hey, to each their own) and yet actually looked like someone who was believably living through the great depression. DItto the Coochie girls—they were obviously supposed to be unusually attractive for their day, and they were, but they also…

This show also, I would argue, does a better job of capturing the feel of Stephen King than any actual Stephen King adaptation.

For all the story problems this show had, the ending IS quite satisfying. Actually, the whole last half of the second season is quite strong; if they'd been able to start out with that pace they might not have been cancelled.