Didn't the "trying to stop a drug epidemic" thing end with Superman chasing the drug dealers to another town, and then deciding "well THIS town doesn't have drug dealers anymore so I guess I've solved this problem forever"?

…why did I think this was from O Brother, Where Art Thou??

A part of me suspects that a nostalgic view of that period of Superman comics is what prompted the decision to make Lex Luthor a corrupt businessman. The problem is that Superman trumps the social ills of the 1940s with ease, often in the space of one issue. Often he's willing to resort to elaborate, underhanded…

Hey, we got Blade! That's something, right?!

If you've gotta bow out, that's as high a note to do it on as any.

wait sorry

I generally don't enjoy nonfiction podcasts, least of all ones that just pick a topic and then talk vaguely in its direction (aka the only kind this website ever seems to recommend for some reason) but for Lear? Hell yeah I'll make an exception.

Frank Arthur?

Gee it's almost like I'm being deliberately reductionist to point out the ways people are more willing to ignore the interesting things Bee and Noah do

Samantha Bee is more partisan centrist Democrat than a guy who literally held a rally encouraging folks to compromise with Republicans and more formulaic than the guy who made so many Arby's jokes Arby's actually noticed. And Trevor Noah focuses more on one guy than the guy who built his entire career around an…

I don't take to a lot of critiques of Stewart and Colbert but I will absolutely grant that they, like many Democrats, clung to the "if we show the Republicans how to properly play politics maybe they'll stop trying to kill us all" line far too long after it'd been proven untenable.

I don't think it's so much that we didn't think sexual assault was as bad in 2004 so much as it was easier to cover up and victims were far less likely to speak out. I think it's all down to the presence of social media—victims can release a statement on their own, rather than through a news network which might skew…

Don't worry, we still have Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee, who are just as cutting and hysterical.

2004 was a different time. No one, seriously no one, was paying attention to this shit. Bill Cosby was getting allegations around this time as well and no one noticed until years later! It's kind of nuts, in hindsight.

Television. I meant to specify television.

That didn't get me, but something else in that episode did. Five words.

It was weird for me at first, but by the third episode I realized it was less because she was doing a bad job and more because I'd seen her as a damsel in distress or depression/anxiety victim in fifty million other things.

I like Baron and Hampton's explination from the Q&A they did earlier in the week—Crow and Servo went back to the Satellite to get their stuff, then realized they never really wanted to move out so they just stayed there.

Yeah. Who could possibly find Mike cute? Too many hard edges. He looks like if you kissed him he'd impale you with his chin.

Yeah, the fact that all involved want to be doing this is definitely a factor. Other things that make it work better: it's leaning into the show's unique, absurd mythology rather than just cramming all other sci-fi ever into a kitchen sink, and comedy in general has gotten a lot better at plotting since the 90s ended…