When do real people in daily life get fleshed out? It takes a lot more time than TV shows do, including this one.

The police have deliberately trashed the investigation by spreading information about Taylor. This very likely happened because Terry asked her detective friend to do intervene. (No, he said he couldn't but really, is a crooked cop going to be blunt about fixing cases?) The only crime we know has been committed has…

I believe the father was just upset over the possibility his son is gay. I don't think he cares any more than the mother about Kevin screwing a girl to "make the team." Or that he was throwing a party and giving out alcohol.

If I recall correctly, Taylor was suspended for three weeks, a time long enough to cause failure. By comparison, a vicious physical attack three on one got a student in the public school three days. I think Dr. Graham meant to pressure Taylor into withdrawing. After all, the snap chat mob mocking an incapacitated…

Powerful episode, as all before have been. The self congratulation over saving their students from the outsider is a marvelous example of how people can re-write history to suit their convenience: Taylor was a student too.

Maybe serialized shows should be binged, not watched with long breaks. It just occurred to me to wonder why Chairman Mao wants a war. Why would he want an asteroid to plow into his home planet?

Jules-Pierre Mao (henceforth, the Chairman) did not know anything about what his daughter did I believe. For one thing, I thought I heard "Dresden" (sounds like they're saying "Tristan" to me!) straight up tell the Chairman the bad news about Julie. Further the Chairman would have no sensible reason to hire Miller to…

It's not at all clear that Miller is interested in saving people's lives. He's pretty much satisfied with random killing. He even attacks Holden at one point for no obvious reason other than to validate his love by acting on emotions too intense to control.

True. I'm just a little lost as to why the decision not to review the episodes doesn't say something in itself. Usually a show has to be on CBS before it can be dismissed by AVClub.

Sounds about right…Pine was excellent in a cheap thriller called Carriers. He and Lou Pucci made it pretty decent I thought. Pine was good in Horrible Bosses 2 and Into the Woods as well, I thought. As Kirk…you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Actors have to have a decent movie to act in.

Maybe it's my imagination but I got the impression that Taylor's grandparents weren't very satisfied with Taylor's mom. And I interpret their attitude towards Taylor as somewhat proprietorial, as in "We can do better with him than she can."

It still seems to me that the cops tipping off everyone they can about Taylor's emails is meant to help people get a story together that blames Taylor for misrepresenting consensual rough sex. And that's a huge development, I think.

It occurs to me that the Hawks were basically a superhero couple with an open marriage. No wonder they wanted to kill the dude off!

The police of course need to confirm that the semen is Eric's, to rule out a false confession. (Yes, there are such things as false confessions, usually produced by police interrogation I think.) It's hard to imagine that Eric withdrew before climax, which raises the question of how semen got onto the clothing. He…

I think the emails indicate it was Eric that invited Taylor, though.

Cisco having powers only when the script demands it is really kind of awkward.

My definition of SF is fiction with something fantastic that is somehow supposed to be natural, while the fantastic in fantasy in manifestly supernatural. (And fiction which resolutely avoids explanations might be called absurdist.) As to how people commonly use the terms, misled by the likes of Anders they are…

One of the Voyager episodes said the holodeck was a development of replicator technology. This is contradicted by other statements in other episodes. But I don't think simple slovenliness really counts as magic.

Maybe you're taking Anders/Morgan style apologetics for confusion too seriously? For instance consider your first example, writing a computer as a trapped spirit. There is SF that tries to write about downloaded personalities, which is exactly the same thing, not a Siri style interface. What's going there of course is…

Well, yes, that's why it's the Universal Translator that counts as the most magical thing in Trek, and why it's so obtuse of Anders to single out something else that isn't nearly as impossible as somehow being unacceptable.