"the stubborn British habit of perfectly enunciating every syllable makes things sound rather, well, formal."

I've always said the one thing the Batman universe needed was an ironclad explanation of exactly who the Joker was and where he came from. Artful ambiguity is for sissies.

Also, however much it might anger Muppet purists (I assume that's a thing), I will yield to no one in my belief that 'Muppets Tonight' was awesome.

This is a weird list when you consider how many properties on it have been rebooted in one form or another.

That makes sense. Still, wouldn't that make you a pre-crime scene investigator? That's right; I'm not afraid to get pedantic to defend myself.

If they solve all the murders in advance, why do they need a crime scene investigator?

I really can't get a handle on Michael Vaughn. He seems like a very stylish director who has absolutely no style of his own.

More likely: they introduce a creepy kid who Bruce befriends who's clearly meant to be the Joker, then get bored and introduce a full-on Joker like 3 episodes later.

I think it's safe to assume at this point that the folks who run Gotham don't know how a lot of things work.

Boy, the Gotham Medical Board is gonna feel pretty stupid that they didn't see it coming when they have to revoke Jonathan's medical licence.

I get that 'Man of Steel' left a sour taste in everyone's mouth, but the critical about-face that's been done on 'Superman Returns' is unbelievable (Roger Ebert had it right when he titled his review "Atlas Yawned").

This may be my fault. I saw the trailer for 'The Golden Compass' and thought, "Well, Christ Weitz may ruin this book for me, but at least he'll never be able to ruin 'Star Wars.'"

I've never heard that before. It might be because we had to show our work long before the age of 14, or because there's currently so much fretting about how girls are outperforming boys, and not the other way round.

"It’s not impossible to turn a classic film into quality television. (M*A*S*H and Fargo have proved that.)"

Stop saying that, man!

I haven't read that one, but might have to pick it up.

I don't want to over-egg it, but it's a lot more than that. It's a lot more ambitious, and a lot more personal. It's not a stodgy piece of historical fiction.

What can I tell you to sell you on it?

Societal decline is all the rage now. We've gotten over our post-apocalyptic phase and accepted that the world is just slowly going to peter out. It's the teenage-to-adulthood transition of visions of the end of the world.

'The Bone Clocks' slayed me at the end, as all Mitchell books seem to.