Darian

Just finished a rewatch of season one and I think I enjoyed it more the second time, knowing where it ended up. So excited for the return.

I was lucky enough to see B. B. King perform when he'd just turned 75 (and lucky to see Buddy Guy on the same bill). He was amazing. Such a loss.

I was always sad that I never got into town to try those doughnuts. Hope she does well in her new gig!

Stephanie Cmar Takes Over at Fairsted Kitchen

Gosh, I almost never take it hard when shows get cancelled. I grew up when you got three stations and a show ended when the regular season did and came back a few months later. If something got cancelled, there'd be a void. Then, I'd miss shows more when they were gone. I wasn't following dozens of shows that began and ended at different times, sometimes after very long breaks. These breaks give me an "out of sight, out of mind" feeling about even shows I like. When something I like or even love is cancelled, I feel bad for about a second and then mostly forget it. Being Human US is one notable exception. Forever is another. It's a beautiful show with characters I care about and that held my attention. I was invested, and that doesn't happen much anymore. My husband and I watched live every week (at least once we got hooked and then knew it was in danger). Thank you to PTV for giving me a place to supplement my enjoyment and to the posters here who added so much to it and can share the pain.

I love Hung. I could watch him all day, exhausting as it would be. But Anne's charity is so close to my heart, so I was happy with her win.

Huh, I don't know about leaving town. I wonder. Young (teenage) Peter was there when Victor was killed and the friend (relative?) who did the killing is buried there, so he has at least some local connection. But I have some vague memory that Peter and the dead killer weren't from this town, so I am remembering something wrong. I just don't know what. And he could have traveled for years after that killing and come back as an adult (returned or not). The thing about aging is that Victor came back earlier, so we know he doesn't age (but is also different from others, it appears) but I thought the rest returned the same day so we wouldn't know if they were going to age. It could be interesting to see what's going on with Peter. Good point about someone recognizing Victor if everything happened in this town. Even Helen might be remembered. Local history and all. This town has murals (she's on one) and memorial parks. They teach the kids about the flood. I bet some of these kids have done reports for school and the local paper probably does a feature on the anniversary of the flood (maybe they did one on the 25th). I don't know. I'm starting to think we're giving this more thought than the writers.

Otto, I love your comparisons and look forward to them, even though they make me even more frustrated with the US version (and I don't automatically always like the original foreign version better). I rewatched the French version when it was on weeks or months ago, but still, this will be a good refresher for when season 2 begins.

Good questions. I'm going to riff off them, but I admit, I am not watching closely. Victor (Henry) hasn't aged since he died 29 years ago, and we know Peter was, what, a teenager then? So he either would have had to die much later, or some returnees age and some don't. I guess Victor could just be special, which he certainly is in other ways. I guess we'll learn when Peter died and came back, or if he is lying. He isn't exactly above that.

I feel kind of dirty for watching "Cornell Confidential," because I hate to encourage that kind of thing. Extra content is one thing, but a different ending is another. I was too weak to boycott, though, so I guess I was invested. It did get better as it went on. I'd watch a second season for more Cornell, if she's back. There was some development of the character, so I'd like to see what they do with her. And I like Juliette Lewis.

Mass General? From All Saints? Good for you, Coop! And besides enjoying Zoe as usual, Coop's job was the only time I cared about anything going on. I bailed on this show midway through last season and am not sure I'm going to be back for the rest. No, wait, I do enjoy seeing Jackie be an actual good nurse, and we almost always see a little of that.

I haven't been watching much CNN, but have had it on for the the last couple of weeks to follow the Freddie Gray case. Good grief, Ashleigh Banfield made me want to throw something at the TV. Baltimore Councilman Carl Stokes got into a contentious exchange with Erin Burnett about the term "thug," which he argued has become racialized, coded language, applied unequally to blacks. At one point, he said, "Just call them [n-word]." The next morning, Ashleigh Banfield interviewed Councilman Stokes, but first had to tell him how livid she was the he used that word and how "It’s just so painful to hear it no matter what color we are." He showed remarkable restraint and simply did the interview. But she made me livid. I found it "so painful to hear" a white woman lecture a black man about a word he was using to make a point that I think she missed.

I tried. I really did. But when I noticed the reception desk at the main character's workplace looked like my salad spinner, I zoned out thinking about salad, and I make really boring salads. I bailed.

I was as spoiled as it was possible to be for Kalinda leaving. I knew she left, I knew why. I knew how. I knew she (Kalinda/Archie) looked into the camera and said good-bye. And I am sitting here with tears in my eyes. Damn it.

I never remember to watch this show, and I like most people on it. Today, I put Food Network on while cooking this afternoon. I was distracted, so I wasn't paying close attention, but all I heard was Sunny (who I've always liked). No matter who was talking, she was talking over them or interrupting them. At one point, I half heard some exchange and though, "Oh, does Jeff hate Sunny?" Then later, Zakarian was doing a segment and Sunny was interrupting constantly and I forget what he said, but I thought, "Oh, does Zakarian hate Sunny?" I kind of was starting to myself, I reluctantly admit.

Yes and no. The changes you see now are happening because of past generations coming out, fighting to pass GLBTQ rights legislation, etc. I'm 53, straight and have been a GLBTQ rights advocate most of my life and activist for well over a decade, Generations before mine made progress that we built on, which the younger generation is building on. And, yes, transgender rights have been part of that. The younger generation deserves a huge amount of credit, but so do those who came before.

Other than appreciating some performances, that was the first thing in this whole show I enjoyed. I have had that conversation with dozens maybe hundreds of people over the years (I'm a straight ally and LGBTQ rights activist). I've listened to deny they are bigoted, even a little (and believe it), but "they" do this and "they" do that, and "they" shouldn't have this right or that right, and when that light comes on and they get it, it's powerful. That scene rang so true to me. I felt it. And that made me more frustrated about every episode to date, because it they can do that well, they could have done everything else much better. I can see how this show could have worked, but it's so heavy-handed and overwrought.

Hence my use--twice--of "meant to be."

I think you slightly misread me. I already said those jokes weren't funny, but they were meant to be jokes. The atheist tweets, I do not think were meant to be jokes. I excused neither. But let me be clear: Yes, all of the tweets in question feed the culture that is often harmful. I was simply making a distinction that I feel is telling.

True. And while I didn't find any of his racist, misogynistic, fat-shaming funny, I saw that those were at least meant to be jokes (not excusing them). I don't think his anti-atheist tweets were. I think he meant what he said seriously. And since those were the reflective of the kind of bullshit I deal with every day of my life as an atheist, and he's reinforcing negative stereotypes that make atheists the least trusted minority, etc, and make our lives harder, I can't think of much else to say about Noah that isn't profane.

Well, I was already not going to watch because of ugly tweets directed at groups I don't belong to, but I'm an atheist, so at least I don't have to feel left out.

Done with a little subtlety that could have been really effective. This show didn't do subtle. They would have hammered it so hard with long-lingering reaction shots and.. I don't even want to think of how they'd have ruined it (last week's Velveteen Rabbit reading could have worked if done right, but it was so heavy-handed I turned into an MFA-class cliche, yelling at the screen, "Kill your darlings, Kill your darlings." Gah.)

I am a skinny person and once I saw the fat-shaming tweets, which were the first I saw, I was done with him. The rest just confirm my negative opinion. I guess he could have a zillion admirable tweets, but they don't excuse the others, for me.

My alumni magazine counts as "the media," right? Though I'd share a profile of Matt McGorry (I actually may have overlapped with him; I went to Emerson for grad school). Here's the PDF version.

I just saw an ad on the Food Network for something called Spring Baking Championship hosted by Bobby Deen. Looks like another version of Holiday Baking Championship. It's scheduled to begin April 26th!. I'll be watching.