Roaster

The Lawrence Welk reference was straight out of my life. When I was a kid, whenever we went to visit my grandparents, we wanted to watch something on the TV which always seemed to conflict with The Lawrence Welk Show, which was grandma's and grandpa's favorite.

Just watched this episode. I've seen a few episodes of this show and I really like it. Quinta Brunson is charismatic and brings a positive (naive?) energy like Amy Poehler did in Parks and Recreation. I think one reason she does well here is that she's a comic actress, not a standup comic. (I don't know why producers put stand-up comics in leading sitcom rolls). The other teachers and staff are exaggerated for comic effect, but that's part of the "cast of quirky characters" they put in a lot of shows. It's working for me. I need to go back and check the episodes I've missed.

I was thinking the same. 1968 was one of the most turbulent years in US history. Tet offensive in Feb, LBJ pulls out of reelection in March, MLK assassination in April, RFK assassination in June, protests worldwide and at DNC convention in Chicago, athlete protest at Olympics, close election in November, exciting Apollo space missions during the year. Not saying they have to go all topical in this show - it's really a show about one family in Alabama, but a little surprising. At least they did address Vietnam in this episode.

Over at RottenTomatoes.com Season 1 gets a 95 percent rating from critics, but only a 47 percent from audience reviews. If you look at the comments on the negative audience reviews, most are hung up on the fact that the show is not the original show. "Some things should not be changed!" "You can not be serious!" "I probably would not hate this show so much if they had chosen a different name. " "This series should have been a continuation of the original series and focused on Kevin's new family..." Audience reviewers who actually watched the show tend to give it good reviews. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_wonder_years_2021/s01

Yes, very heart-warming. I hope they are not setting us up for Bruce to die in Vietnam. I might cry if that happens. BTW, this kid who plays Dean is a really good actor.

Our friend Dr Oz is running for US Senate: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/30/politics/dr-oz-senate-campaign-pennsylvania/index.html An attempt to bring a pro-science mindset into Congress, I guess..

I missed this episode when it first aired but they just reran it (Nov 24). It was quite funny. Sexual fantasies about Harriett Tubman in the history book. The Man Card. The kid who kept fainting. Kiesha's father - plenty of guys like that today, too. "You're stealing my daughter's innocence."

What was with the American Music Awards category? I get that Jeopardy often has clues and categories to promote media properties. But those AMA clips they ran for clues were really long. To me anyway, they seemed longer than most video clues.

I'm sure the treaty was symbolic and for fun. It was a very good Final Jeopardy clue, however. Something I didn't know but I was able to guess.

The trailers make it look like a comedy but IMDB applies the keywords Crime, Drama, and Thriller. The screenplay writers do not seem to have written other comedies, and I don't think of Ridley Scott as a comic director. Maybe it will be like Reversal of Fortune, another true crime story starring Jeremy Irons, which was a drama but also dryly funny.

I think the biggest problem with No Time to Die was that they made it too complicated. They probably should have forgotten about Spectre and Blofeld and just worked on making Safin into an evil genius villain. Safin had the makings of a classic Bond villain - his own island, a plot to kill millions of people worldwide. But we needed more of him and his motivation and examples of his evil. Since the beginning of the franchise, James Bond was just always good at everything. The many skills needed to be an effective spy and pretty much everything else, which is why viewers wanted to be him. They were primarily action movies with no serious psychological character development. Bond was always loyal to his country, but other than that he was a superficial playboy given to gambling, women, fast cars, and exotic locations. In the Craig era they developed a few characters more. They went into Bond's backstory in Skyfall and Spectre and had him fall in love twice. Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale was more complex than most Bond girls, and, to my surprise, they really made Madeleine Swann into a three-dimensional woman with depth. So I think the five Craig movies differed from the older Bond movies in being dramas in addition to action films. Who knows what they will do with the next Bond.

I think the first Daniel Craig one - Casino Royale - was in some way a rebooting of James Bond. It was based on the first Fleming novel, and in the movie Bond has just been promoted to 00 status. They kept the same M from the Pierce Brosnan movies (Judi Dench). The 5 Craig movies have been a long story arc. Now that Craig is gone, they bring in a new actor and reboot again. The question is: do they keep the same M and Q and Moneypenny. I hope they do.

I see Rachel McAdams is in this movie, but I can't imagine she will have a big role. I loves me some Rachel McAdams.

God created Arrakis to train the faithful. So it has an 89 percent score (fresh rating) on Rotten Tomatoes as of today and reports from ordinary people who have seen it are positive. Should be opening here in the US in the coming week. They have done a good job building hype and expectations, more than any film since COVID started, I think. Even more than the Bond movie. I usually do not go to IMAX screenings, but I may make an exception for Dune.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lea Seydoux's nuanced performance and the way they developed her character.

Matt Amodio now has a Wikipedia page about him, which is a status symbol. It shows his current age is 30, which is more proof for my theory that 30 is the best age to be on Jeopardy. If we look at the players with the longest streaks and how old they were when they started their streaks: Ken Jennings - 74 games - age 30 Matt Amodio - 38 games - age 30 James Holzhauer - 32 games - age 34 Julia Collins - 20 games - age 31 David Madden - 19 games - age 34 Jason Zuffranieri - 19 games - age 43 My hypothesis for why this is true: Young contestants (e.g. college students) are very quick to come up with the answer, but they don't know enough because they are young. Old players know more trivia but their brains take an extra second or two to come up with the answer. 30 is the Goldilocks age sweet spot when you know enough trivia but are still fast.

Yeah, Matt has only been beaten by two opponents ever, and both were in yesterday's game. If you look at the Jeopardy archive you can see the Coryat scores for each contestant - what they would have got if we remove the effects of daily double wagers and final jeopardy. Matt had the third-highest Coryat score yesterday. Jessica actually had the highest. Matt answered incorrectly 5 times, while Jonathan had only two wrong responses, and Jessica had zero.

This was the best game since the Tournament of Champions. Jonathan and Jessica trading the lead several times. Jonathan missed the (I thought easy) George Washington DD to fall behind, but immediately rebounded with the English Patient DD to take a small lead into the Finals. All three contestants finished DJ with over 10,000, and that doesn't happen often. If J! had more games like this, their ratings would go up.

At this point when I see the new contestants every day I immediately feel sorry for them. They seem like innocent lambs or cannon fodder. I'm surprised they all missed FJ today. I got it right away, and I'm certainly no expert in French history.

I'm really getting tired of runaway games. Makes the show less fun. Some people on this board said they noticed Matt being tired on Fridays (which are filmed at the end of the day), so maybe tomorrow will be his last day. Now that he's tied James for 32 games, his name is for sure in the history books.

When pop culture does nostalgia (and it often does), it is often nostalgia from ten to thirty years prior. In the 70s we had Grease (set in 50s), American Graffiti (1962) and the TV shows Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley (50s and 60s). The TV show That 70s show aired in 90s and early 2000s and was set in late 1970s. Stanger Things (2010s) was set in the 1980s, so a thirty year difference. The original Wonder Years (debuted 1988) was set in the late 60s. I suspect the writers of these shows lived through the times in question and wrote romanticized versions of their childhoods. And I suspect many viewers could remember those times with some affection. The new Wonder Years comes out in 2021 and is set in 1968, 53 years ago. It's like the original Wonder Years being set in 1935. Strange, and I doubt the creators were 12 years old in 1968 or that many viewers have clear memories of that time. Saladin K. Patterson wasn't born in 1968. Don Cheadle was a little kid. Having said that, I liked the pilot and will watch again.

Nicole Byer would be inappropriate. Fun to have at a party maybe but no evidence she would fade into the background the way the Jeopardy! host should. Marc Maron would be worse. Every episode of his podcast that I have heard consists of him starting with 20 minutes of self-indulgent ego-stroking before the guest even comes on. For J!, the more boring the host is, the better.

Congratulations to Matt for another win, and for executing a true Daily Double late in the game to run away with it. Guhan - almost. When Guhan found the San Jose Sharks Daily Double in round one, he had 3400. He bet 1500 and was right. If he had gone all in, he would have got an additional 1900 and finished the second round with 13,400, which is EXACTLY HALF of what Matt had. And then if Guhan was right in FJ while Matt was wrong (which actually happened) - Guhan could have won the game, or at least tied it. I know it's easy for me to sit at home and criticize players for not betting bigger, and I am not saying I would have the courage to do so in a game either, but these might-have-beens make you wonder about fate, etc.

Yes, I am skeptical when people say they will stop watching if a candidate they don't like gets the job.

How could they all miss Smokin' Joe Frazier? Before their times.