Yeah, laugh tracks are hard to stomach, even if you have no other problem with the multi-cam sitcom style. If the jokes are REALLY REALLY good and the audience reaction seems natural (this is a big part of why Seinfeld works for me) then it's not so bad, but the howls and hoots whenever a character runs into a pole or…

Arbitrary comment: I recently caught up with the acclaimed but short-lived Fox show "Profit", and DAMN is that thing ahead of its time. An unconflictedly amoral protagonist years before The Sopranos so much as stuck a toe in those waters—and on network TV no less. It's pretty much a guarantee all the great antihero…

House of Cards is a deeply mediocre show that knows how to make itself LOOK like a piece of brilliant prestige television. </controversy>

I always was a tad disappointed that the Dominion ended up being pared down to just the Founders, Vorta and Jem'Hadar to such an extent, since keeping a multitude of races would have made it seem more natural (and, simultaneously, horrifying) that the Cardassians had joined. "Oh shit, the Alpha Quadrant's starting to…

<fanwank>

Trek always seemed to want to make the Klingons' big sin out to be their violent natures, which never really worked in the TNG era because it just made them seem cool and badass compared to the wimps on the Enterprise-D. So it was actually kind of genius that they eventually made it clear that the Klingons' REAL…

Well, you never know until you try.

The fact that Mike Myers' Wayne Campbell was originally conceived as being from Scarborough makes him much, much funnier.

Maybe I'm weird, but I've actually never understood how "Let's Dance" is supposed to be this great dance song? And indeed, from what I've read, Bowie wanted to make it more detached and ironic, like so much of his stuff, and Vaughn had to convince him that a song called "Let's Dance" needed to be danceable. Even as it…

Haha, yeah. Bowie's 60s stuff is so odd—I don't mean odd the way he's known for being odd, I mean odd in that it's David Bowie trying to find his voice and being all over the place. His very very first records are bluesy rockers, then he dabbles in novelty songs ("Space Oddity" being one, though it's fascinating how…

In retrospect, it's a fine album. But in the context of Bowie's career, it was something of a betrayal to his longtime fans, and led to a period where he acted like a bit of an asshole (as the article mentions, he renounced his bisexuality right as the AIDS crisis hit), plus he produced a string of pretty craptacular…

There's a character in one of the scripts named "Mrs-what-a-long-name-this-is-terribly-inconvenient-to-type-out-but-never-mind-it-doesn't-come-up-again" whose name is never actually referenced in the dialogue.

Gilliam is the scariest Python whenever he appears onscreen. There's just something unsettling about the dude, particularly when he's flashing that manic grin. His version of the nude organist is downright creepy (Jones is just goofy in the role).

Man, I have to disagree with Zack, I love that whole bit. It's hilarious even without the visual of Chapman hanging from the ceiling throughout, but that just pushes it over into hysterical for me.

I honestly think that sketch might be Cleese's finest hour. He even manages to elevate the shot of him dead (via an arrow, gunshot wound, poison, etc. etc.) somehow with his performance. As a dead person. God, I always laugh so hard at that shot.

I honestly think that sketch might be Cleese's finest hour. He even manages to elevate the shot of him dead (via an arrow, gunshot wound, poison, etc. etc.) somehow with his performance. As a dead person. God, I always laugh so hard at that shot.

The exchanges between Chapman and the girl (Katya Wyeth again, I think) in the Blancmange sketch redeem the whole bit.

The exchanges between Chapman and the girl (Katya Wyeth again, I think) in the Blancmange sketch redeem the whole bit.

Serious question: how many actual recurring races do we see that are officially part of the Federation? We've got humans, Vulcans, Betazoids, Trill, and Bolians (your go-to "background race" for when you need an alien in your Federation crew) and…that seems to be it. Every other Federation member race I can think of…

Yeah, if anything it kind of seems like the Maquis would have *gained* power and significance during the Dominion invasion. There would have been a vocal contingent throughout the Alpha Quadrant saying, "Hey, they're fighting the Cardassians, and thus the Dominion, in a way that the Federation is apparently too…