Practically every "space" show from the mid-90s on is a response to Star Trek in some way, shape or form, Firefly most definitely included. There's no way Joss Whedon and co. weren't watching DS9 when it aired. So while the Browncoats might not have been *specifically* inspired by the Maquis, the idea of a sympathetic…

The point isn't that they can't stop and do standalones, it's that the other plot threads they could have used for standalones kind of got whittled down. There aren't many good episodes in the second half of the series that involve them encountering actual new lifeforms and civilizations and having Star Trek-y stuff…

The "Klingons working with Maquis" angle is definitely an example of how DS9 could have benefited from more continuity. Usually I feel like their episode-by-episode world-building leads to tighter storytelling, but it does mean some stuff that's supposed to be an ongoing concern, like this, tends to pop up out of…

I actually kind of wish they hadn't zeroed in so much on the Dominion War, since even in the last two seasons not EVERY episode was about it. The non-Dominion, non-Bajoran episodes always seemed like limp afterthoughts around this time period; having a few other loose plot threads to tie up could have helped.

That's a bit weird, since I feel like early DS9 would be LESS likely to kill off Garak. At this point we've had Eddington switch sides and Bashir turn out to be a Changeling. There's more of an "anything can happen" vibe on the show now that wasn't there before, not to mention it's broken further away from Trek's…

It's not so much that the Maquis are a bad concept, it's that Trek (even DS9) didn't really have the guts to push them as far as it would take to make them dramatically rich.

Exactly. All-Star Superman shows you can include the wild imagination of the Silver Age in a more psychologically grounded story.

I think there's quite a bit on his first album that seemed like he was on the verge of finding his own sound. I still think of "Mellow" and "Happy Birthday" as the "real" Weird Al. Plus "Everything You Know is Wrong", even though it's supposedly a TMBG parody, because the two seem so similar.

My daddy was a waitress
My mama sold bathroom tile
My brothers and sisters all hated me
'Cuz I was an only child

Nope. He did a direct parody of "Trapped in the Closet" in Straight Outta Lynwood.

Yeah, that really destroyed the credibility of this hard SF show about a drinking robot.

"They're only interested in money" is always used to explain terrible content, but what Vertigo did over the years made shitloads of cash for DC—as mentioned, Y: The Last Man, Sandman, Fables, etc. are still making money for them. The model DC has been pursuing—grim 'n gritty reboot continuity wankfests—appeals to an…

It's kind of sad, actually, because Jolie really has that movie star quality and is a good actress. But she can't pick good films for shit. Tomb Raider *really* should have been better than it was, it had everything going for it.

Good grief. Season 10 of Friends cost the same per episode as Game of Thrones's first season? In *unadjusted* dollars? That's nucking futs.

I just realized something: LeBlanc took a shot at becoming an action hero with "Lost in Space", which actually could have worked (and he was arguably the best thing about it) but the movie sucked.

I've come around to Friends, but at the time it was airing I loathed it not for its sentimentality (it was actually a lot LESS sentimental than many sitcoms of the time, having embraced the post-Seinfeld nihilism that was beginning to take over—and thank God for that) but because it felt like a focus grouped, slickly…

Um, I'm NOT suggesting, of course, that JMS is or was a neocon. It's just that the shit that went down post-9/11 was enabled by this kind of "America! Fuck Yeah! We beat the Nazis, forget about everything that happened in the 50 years since!" thinking. Plenty of basically liberal-minded people fell into that trap, it…

Yeah, people who have followed JMS's career more closely than I have indicated that that seemed to be the trajectory of his thinking. Still, y'know. That's partly why I say drawing too much on the WWII era and ignoring the lessons of Vietnam was a mistake, even without the obvious example of the War on Terra. It gives…

If anyone can, Harlan Ellison will find a way.

Right, but my point is, this is more subtle, creeping totalitarianism (not fascism) from which we're at risk. We're not suddenly strapping on swastikas and evil black uniforms and goose-stepping down the street. Even the biggest dimbulb would recoil a little if, I don't know, Rand Paul started asking them to do that…