Have you read any Heinlein? You know the parts of his books where the
author surrogate (Jubal Harshaw, D.D. Harriman, Lazarus Long—you know
the type) goes off on a long didactic speech? If those are your
favorite parts of his books, you'll love The Circle.

My theory is that Chuck is using the B&E and possible assault as a way to get the tape into evidence in a court. If Chuck tried to enter the tape directly he'd have all the problems Howard mentioned last week: authentication, hearsay (maybe), etc. But if the tape is merely evidence of Chuck's motive for B&E and…

The short(ish) answer is that the film is still in the public domain but the story on which it is based and the music are not. A 1990 Supreme Court case over the film Rear Window said that showing the movie required permission from the holder of the copyright of the story on which its based. That clarification of…

Pardon me while I geek out about intellectual property law.

Agreed. In 2017, this episode is creepy as hell.

Interesting take. I just watched the episode and didn't pick up on anything that suggested that the retroactive negligent parenting thing was a trick ethics question. Was there something I missed?

Much later to the party: I was thinking about that too, but the re-do visions had more furniture than the "present-day" visions. For example, he looks at the living room with just one chair in it, then a re-do has two chairs and a sofa. I took that to mean she moved out and took most of the furnishings with her.

Or:

That looks an awful lot like Spaceship Earth at Epcot. Right smack in the middle, underneath, looking up from where the ride loads.

In any other show, this might be excessive nitpicking. But the show has taken such pains in its technical authenticity (if not perfect accuracy) that lack of authenticity really stands out.

There comes a time with things like this when you have to realize you're putting way more thought into it than the writers did. At times like that, it's best to say "screw it" and go get a beer.