Both the best and worst thing about this movie is that it wants to be better than the prequels. It's an incredibly well-done adventure film that leans heavily on tropes from the first trilogy (it reminded me of the first season of Fargo in that regard, lol), but it also dares very little. Say what you will about the…

I read it this way: Peggy is right. She's become trapped in a life that isn't one she wants to be in, and to leave that life would brand her as evil to far too many people in the town she lives in.

I think this is one of the weakest all Whedon episodes, which isn't to say it's bad (it's pretty good), but it's not really the show at its finest, and it's one of the weaker hours in a strong season. Especially when you have the very similarly themed (and much better) "The Wish" right next to it!

I wish I could. :(

HIMYM was never a real audience. For a few seasons, it would show completed edits of certain episodes to an audience ,but it quickly abandoned that in favor of a true laugh track. It was one of the last laugh track shows left, because production-wise it was so ambitious.

Critics, ratings, or network suits. Two out of the three. But the last one's a bit of a weird one, because the network probably likes most of what it puts on the air, you would assume. So they're basically saying they renew stuff if critics like it but the ratings don't support renewal.

I actually cut a bit about that out, because I didn't think it was necessary (to the piece; not to the episode) and I worried people might call it a "spoiler." The fact that the character's name is "Reality" seemed to indicate, more than enough, what was happening for the sort of casual reader who might skim something…

Getting your kid into a super-expensive preschool is totally an LA thing. I hate how it's everywhere on TV (often because of exec notes), because I don't think anybody else in the country invests this much energy into thinking about it.

ESPN has enough power within Disney that it basically does whatever it wants. If it had wanted to keep Grantland running, Grantland would still be alive.

We've been trending in this direction for a while now. I think just airing the episodes you've ordered will be the new order of the day.

That's the loophole. Most shows don't want to offer a diagnosis, to allow themselves room to pivot if need be (also, writing about mental illness season after season is HARD). YTW is diving right in.

It's an inside joke. Wolfe was the lead on Falk's failed NBC series about talk radio (which also starred Dane Cook!), and one of the rumors was that NBC canned the show without airing any episodes because they didn't like Wolfe. Which is bullshit!

At least USA had a plan! It thought Modern Family reruns would be the second coming of Big Bang Theory reruns, and they could use those to lead into their comedies. It didn't work at all for a whole host of reasons (and it's not like BBT has launched a bunch of TBS super-hits), but it made slightly more sense than…

Nah, I just mean why they switched from "Show: Episode title" to headlines in the first place.

It's a social play. AVC owns SEO for TV recaps (completely accidentally, as that was never planned out), but it lags on Facebook/Twitter, where the real action is now. Headlines play better there.

I think that "a culture site" can survive and thrive. AV Club's numbers are really good right now, and Vulture's are terrific. I don't think you can do JUST a film site or JUST a TV site and expect to find an audience larger than a niche one.

I had a grand old time with this one. I think those who hate it are being stymied by expectations more than anything else.

It had a large staff and small readership. I'd love to see the site return, but from the traffic struggles it had, as well as the way Screencrush and Birth Movies Death (both of which seem to have lower overhead) struggle to hang on, a site specifically about movies seems to be too niche to make money in the current…

I can't imagine why they would.

I mean, this is almost certainly true.