I don’t know where any of the other episodes are, but Episode 1's A.V. Club comments are here: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/avclub/ltigtstranger_things_ltigtmixes_its_nostalgic_glow_with_darkness/

Agreed,

Probably doesn't merit a spoiler tag, but what the hell: It's a cameo, basically - I think she has just the one, not-especially-important scene, and then that's it.

That's him in a nutshell. The shame of it is, he's actually pretty good at two specific things: 1) acting, and 2) singing. If he'd just restrict himself to those two activities, he'd be way less annoying in total.

No, you're thinking of the other Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Well, I'd heard it was because Cheech wanted ditch Tommy (and move on to other things), but I could be wrong.

"Have you ever even had a falling-out?" !? Was that a serious question? Didn't they pretty famously fall out?

By the standards of late 1970s children’s television, it wasn’t that bad, I suppose - it just wasn’t what 10-year-old me wanted to see (which was people hitting each other, explosions, etc).

I used to think the way you do. Then I ended up moving house something like 5 times in 4 years, at which point I decided that material possessions were stupid, and that the cloud was the greatest invention known to mankind. (In the end, I didn't get rid of everything, but my collection of books and DVDs has definitely…

Yes, I agree - I've always liked Gladiator; it has its flaws, but it does what it sets out to do very well (unlike almost all of the historical epics it inspired).

The Canadian version seems less evil, somehow.

Yes. The studio was presumably hoping for a period blockbuster along the lines of Gladiator, but Weir didn't oblige them (luckily).

That's almost exactly my experience too (Year 7, shitty VHS tape) except that, because my media class was full of bogans (who'd wanted to watch "something American, like Grease" rather than Gallipoli), it made rather less of an impression on most of my classmates, sadly.

Exactly, it's the kind of personal story Weir has favoured throughout his career, only at a blockbuster scale. (The idea that Weir was never the same again after his first Hollywood crowd-pleaser is a little shaky anyway: for the most part, The Year of Living Dangerously is different from Gallipoli only in that it was…

Andrew Fisher would beg to differ: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biogr…

Would have been nice if they'd sprung for a third camera, so that we could've had a closeup or two of Jenny Lewis.

This is a total guess, but I'll bet Alison's non-integration into the other plots is probably deliberate, and not for story reasons but because of the production schedule: her isolated storyline doesn't require any body doubles or computer-controlled cameras, or unusual hair/makeup/wardrobe requirements, or actors…

It doesn't really mean anything in Australian English, I don't think - it's onomatopoeic, meant to resemble the beat of dance/techno/house music, or whatever the kids call it nowadays. (And it's pronounced differently to the American word - it's a short "u" sound, like "put" or "foot".)

Agreed. They should just change it to "if you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?" and have done with it, because that seems to be the way everyone chooses to answer it anyway.

I basically agree with all of that, but (as I'm sure you're well aware) I don't think your perspective on Star Wars is really going to gain a heck of a lot of traction around here.