Dobian

I find it amazing that after sixteen years, that was the first time Cheryl overheard her parents speaking Russian. And after thousands of visits to her father's den over the years, that was the first time she noticed a draft coming from the panel and opening it. I rewrote the script for when Cheryl brings up Veronica to Jughead in the darkroom: Cheryl: So, are you and Veronica really an item now? Jughead: Yeah. Cheryl: Because the two of you have absolutely no chemistry. Jughead: I know. Cheryl: Like, none. Like, the principal and Dr. Werther have more chemistry. Jughead: Wow, what exposure did you use on this one here? If they're going to do the whole "gang gets their memories back in the 50s" thing, I guess they would have a lot of fun with that. Veronica could travel to England and discover the Beatles. Archie could stop Kennedy's assassination. Jughead could do acid with Ken Kesey. Betty could start the bra burning movement. A happy ending for everyone.

So Mrs. Grundy isn't into young carrot tops in this universe. Uncle Frank, the relative no one wants but who never leaves, makes the case again for why this character never needed to have been written. Can Sprouse and Mendes make it any more obvious that there is zero chemistry between Jughead and Veronica? Underground lesbian magazines outing teens and teens appearing in lingerie on the cover of their own sex advice books in the 1950s. Yep, that's exactly how it was. Josie and the Hep Cats? Ethel had a good run before joining Tabitha in the ether. Short-term memory loss is a tricky thing. You do remember Tabitha, writers? You know, the angel who saved the gang from the meteor and sent them back to the 50s, and was working on a way to restore them to the present? That Tabitha. I guess we'll never learn what the whole grand conspiracy is between Clifford Blossom and the principal and Werthers and the Milk Man and whatever else, because Riverdale is getting nuked next week! Yay!!

On tonight's episode of Astronauts Behaving Badly... I don't understand why this is set in an alternate 1969. Trying to emulate For All Mankind? We obviously don't have the technology even today to create perfect human replicas that you can link your mind into, though we are making big advances on the android front. Why didn't they set this story in the near future like they do for so many Black Mirror episodes? Again with the 60's, we see David and his family watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the movies. That's about it for the 60's cultural references. So what's the point of putting the story in this time period? Why is communication with NASA so completely absent? They live on their own on the space station and return to their mechanical bodies at home. I would fully expect that they would be stationed at NASA and on every return visit go through a debriefing and various tests. Families could visit them there. Since they are allowed to live at home, I would expect security to be provided, which of course would have made the Manson Family invasion less likely to succeed. Speaking of the Marilyn Manson gang, these snowflakes looked like they couldn't subdue a twelve-year-old girl, let alone a grown man. Yet David couldn't even land a single swing with his baseball bat. And considering he is, of course, in a mechanical body, wouldn't he be a lot stronger and less impervious to pain and injury than a human body? After David's family is murdered, Cliff and his family would be either brought to the base or there would be 24-hour security at his farmhouse. Also, if they live at home, they wouldn't be allowed to roam far from their link station in the event of an emergency requiring immediate response, like a fire. That said, I agree with those above that you leave the real astronauts on Earth and have the replicas in space, for obvious reasons. What the episode did well was the whole personal dynamic between the two astronauts and Aaron Paul's wife. She was being neglected by Cliff, and David fills a need she has. But there is clearly something off about him because of the tragedy he went through. When he tells her that he sees the way she looks at him, and she replies that she isn't looking at him and David realizes he is in Cliff's form and that's who she really needs, we can see his devastation. Cliff doubles down on this when he lies to David about what his wife said about him. Great twist at the end...or was it? I thought David might kill himself or kill Cliff (then take over as "Cliff" back on Earth, since NASA doesn't appear to keep tabs on these guys in space). I didn't expect him to do *that*. That's complete psychotic break territory, and I don't know if they successfully showed that in the preceding scenes. I would also expect Cliff to kill David in his sleep.

I thought this episode was awful until they brought Salma Hayek into the action, then Michael Cera, and the great twist with the nested realities. It became a classic Black Mirror episode, comedic yet slyly commenting on the major issues we are facing now with AI, IP, and the right to privacy. It was also timely for me as I have watched some videos on simulated universe theory the past few days. The easter egg where they see the episode for Loch Henry on the same Netflixish streaming service was also fun.

Another not really Black Mirror episode for me. I guess there are only two classic Black Mirror episodes this season. I liked the story, but I thought the sequence with Pia at the end was bad. She could have kept her cool and not given herself away, but the mother gets suspicious anyway and kills her. Instead, she freaks out and runs, then still manages to get away, but stupidly drowns herself. It felt contrived. The mother killing her has a far more horrific effect than Pia accidentally dying, and would have given the mother more motivation to hang herself. The ending dragged on too long, I felt. The documentary clips were good, but the awards show scene and him alone afterward were unnecessary and added nothing to the story.

I started with Demon 79 and then this one. Still waiting to see the first Black Mirror episode this season. I did like this one better than Demon 79, though. Nice twist, and the werewolf was scary.

That's the big problem this season. They invested in Jughead and Tabitha last year and abandoned that too. Then they paired Jugehad with Ethel, albeit platonically, but have ditched that so he can hook him up with Veronica. The writers can't make up their mind on anything. Why would anyone want to invest their interest in a Jughead/Veronica pairing with only four episodes to go? It makes no sense.

Right, but they make it like a hicksville high school principal runs the whole thing.

Yes, McBride's a southern boy. If you ever watched Eastbound and Down, that's also a southern comedy that takes place mostly in the Carolinas and pokes fun at the south and southern culture.

So all the comic books in the country have to get the Riverdale principal and school doctor's seal of approval or no one will distribute their magazines? Huh? The principal and the doctor are, in fact, deliberately trying to destroy all competition before their launch of National Lampoon. Now Jughead is with Veronica, for...reasons. Let's just completely forget about Tabitha. Not only was she Jughead's gf in present-day Riverdale, she's also the angel trying to stop the meteor from hitting the town, which was the whole premise for this season. And her and Jughead would have made for an interesting story with all the racial themes going on this season. But nah, we haven't paired Jugs and Ronnie yet! Speaking of the meteor and all that, they do plan to address the main plot again at some point...right? Archie and Joey watching the wrestling film reminded me of Airplane! when the captain asks Joey, "Do you like movies about gladiators?" It would have been better if the threesome was with Mrs. Grundy.

Disappointed we didn't actually get to see the Black Slap. Maybe next season. The sign with Billy's head on it rolling across the studio was hilarious. Now that he's ripped off Family Feud, I think that next season Billy should come out with a new game show, like Wheel of Salvation. I'll never look at Gene Hackman the same way again.

You make an interesting point, but the story did nothing to show her fixating on the nuclear threat the way they showed her having violent daydreams. If they had done that, it might have furthered the case that she was in fact hallucinating and that the nuclear attack at the end was pure coincidence (since they show the nuking from the pov of the other characters, that eliminates the notion that she fantasized about that too. It really happened). If the whole thing was really in her head, they should have had her and the police hear the sirens, and have the nuclear attack be something happening in her head from her pov. But in fact the sirens could have been for anything (air raid drill, etc.).

An okay episode of Night Gallery I guess. I don't really understand the logic behind her needing to do three human sacrifices in three days to stop the world from coming to an end. This was apparently a test for a new demon. So failing it means Armageddon for the human race? Drastic, much? And wouldn't the other side have a say in this? (God, angels, whatever) It felt like a very half-baked scenario. It also felt like the story was caught in the middle between comedy and horror, with the goofy demon and the Indian woman having to commit murder. In the beginning and before we are introduced to the demon, we see her repressed rage as she fantasizes brutally attacking two different people (one who she would later kill), so all the way until the nukes started flying I thought we would learn that this whole thing had been going on inside her head the whole time, and her rage manifested itself in the form of the demon who gave her justification to carry out her impulses. That would have been a more interesting "Black Mirror" story to me.

I don't care that Alice did the "decent thing" in the end. I still can't stand her. She has always been by far the most unlikable character on this show to me. At least Hiram could be a fun villain to hate. But Alice has been consistently nauseating for seven seasons.

My thought before this episode started - WHY are they doing a season 6? I just can't with this show anymore. I read the novel. Only the first season is the novel, and they should have left it at that. Season 2 and beyond has been Junebo: First Blood. I can't get into every little thing or this post will be 10,000 words. This season had even more things that didn't make sense than previous seasons. I kept asking myself, where do they get their income in Canada? Does any one of them work? Moira I guess. That's a nice big suburban house they live in. Is the exiled American government paying for the whole thing? Because June's such a great asset? No wonder the Canadians are pissed. This show might have worked if they changed it to an ensemble format, but everything is so June-centric. Almost everything Gilead does is driven by what June is up to, including moving anti-aircraft guns around to stop her from rescuing Hannah. June's even in the war room like she's a Secretary of State or something. When you think about it, June is not only the most powerful woman in Gilead, but one of it's most powerful people, period. She's all the Commanders think about lol. In the beginning, it made sense for the show to be from her pov, because that's how the book was written. It was about life inside a dystopian society where women are controlled by a patriarchy in an infertility crisis. But then they strayed from the book and turned it into a macro-level geopolitical show. So they needed to change the structure. Serena becomes the international face of women in Gilead through that funeral broadcast, so they make her a handmaid. I guess Gilead doesn't have a marketing department. And everyone pining for June...Luke, Nick, Lawrence, Serena. She's the friend on FB everyone wants. I could go on and on, like the over-the-top Canadian response to the American refugees, but I'll leave it there. Overall, Handmaid's Tale is a terrible mess. Poor world building (compare to Man in the High Castle where you have a clear understanding of Nazis controlling America from the East to the Rocky Mountains, then a neutral zone, then the Japanese-controlled West Coast. And a good depiction of the relationship between the Germans and Japanese and how the neutral zone works). I've never have a good feel for how Gilead, Canada, exiled America, and neutral zones all fit together in this world. Bad character development, motivations, and actions. Half-baked ideas, like Gilead being reformed into a kinder, gentler, fascist society. And June's face. Lots and lots of June's face. June's face is a character in this show, separate from June herself. That's all I have.

In tonight's episode of Special Forces: Operation Handmaid, General Osborne sends her spec ops team on a daring rescue mission behind enemy lines, only to be foiled by Gilead's mobile anti-aircraft system!

I think the epilogue of the series finale should be the Aimee-Leigh hologram on a stage in Bangkok.

This episode finally solves the classic trolley problem. There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two three (and only two three) options: 1. Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track. 2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. 3. You're June Osborne. You let the trolley hit the five people and then shoot the person tied to the other track.

It was great seeing June finally add to her body count this season. She was in a real dry spell going back to mid-season 4!

The June Revenge Tour continues. June must have secretly planted a GPS tracker on Serena, because it only takes her five minutes to track Serena down no matter where she is. It must feel liberating to June that in free America she can openly make threats to Serena and run around waving a gun without drawing attention. I really don't get why June needs the gun TBH since she can easily kill Serena with her death stare (camera zoomed in of course). Luke truly is a master negotiator. "I'm going to sic the building commission on you. Oh, not impressed, huh? Okay, June's going to kill you! Oh, still not impressed. Okay, can we have Hannah back? I see, you're a tough one. Alright, I'm going to kill you! Oh, come on! Okay, I'll just throw my notes at you and stomp off!" So Commanders are kinky. Thank you for clearing that up for us, Lawrence. Great to see June and Luke becoming a team, fueled by sex and vengeance. Greater still to see Aunt Lydia and Janine become a team, just because it's so weird. I look forward to the two of them opening their Handmaid Psychological Counseling office, the first in Gilead. Blessed progressiveness!

I'm honestly tired of the Glee/High School Musical episodes by this point. Riverdale has already done a bunch of them. Yay, Cole Porter wrote a Taylor Swift song. I think he's spinning in his grave. And next week it looks like we have another self-contained episode. With only five more episodes after that, are the writers at some point going to get back to the main story arcs? I see two of them - the whole Blossom-Principal-Werther conspiracy, and the meteor they have to stop from hitting future Riverdale or whatever. Why isn't Tabitha doing her angel thing? That whole plot has disappeared. Maybe it's all been just one big McGuffin. I do like how they are bringing all the "kids" together and uniting them for the first time ever. Looks like they're aiming for a happy comic book ending.

Every episode has its memorable moments. I was excited to see the "white slap" enter the lexicon of Gemstones weirdness. :D

This episode had some of the best visuals ever. A reprise of the Smutbusters van (how I want to buy this van from the producers and drive it around my town for laughs!), The Redeemer monster truck, Baby Billy with whatever that thing was on his back (wings? halo? seashell?), the "Billy's Bible Bonkers" presentation and game show set, Richard Dawson on an old Family Feud from the 80s (Game Show Channel?), Keefe's fire dance, The System box, the huge wall reliefs behind the three Gemstones while they sat on their thrones, and of course, the nude portrait of BJ and Judy in their living room. A feast for the eyes!

Vetty? Beronica? Rarchie?

These three are like the Roy siblings but stupider. 😆