StarBrand

I'm surprised to hear there is a Tony/Ziva spinoff series being made. I was under the impression neither MW or CDP was into revisiting either character anytime soon. It would be interesting to see because there has been no onscreen reunion of Tony/Ziva since "Past, Present, and Future". I imagine a coupled Ziva/Tony to be...well, not that much unlike how things were before that. I guess things depend on how they're written, or what types of things they find themselves involved with. If it's writen like most Tiva fanfiction, then it will be awful. But I don't think either Micheal or Cote would get involved if that were the case..

I remember well when CSI was *the* thing to watch week after week. It was for me, for quite a while. I liked the early episodes that featured Lady Heather and Grissom. She could read him like a book, and that both intriqued and frightened him. I was actually shocked he made an advance on her (although how far that went was never made clear). Too bad he falsely accused her of murder, which made her way of him for quite a while.

As far as I know, that's the first time the opening sequence has been changed like that. Normally, I dislike shows that feature past clips, I thought the various trips down memory lane were appropriate. And, wow, DiNozzo in the flesh! I thought for a second that Jimmy was imagining talking to him, but no. Not sure how this was kept a secret, but good for the NCIS for that one...

I had to groan a little when the Rat Squad Lady and Oliva were bonding over potentially working together and "breaking a few rules", as if it were something Olivia's not already used to doing....now it's going to get worse. Although I can see how Olivia, after all this time, has become to see herself as somewhat of a saviour to all victims. It's either that or burnout I suppose. I remember way back when a character said the average time in the SVU is five years. She's been doing this shit WAY too long...

I don't mind having LL Cool J around, but please give him something to do other than be Tennant's Jimminy Crickett. As I said in the NCIS Mothership forum, I liked this ep mainly because there *was* one. It looked for a while like there'd be nothing new anywhere for some time. So that alone is something to smile about.

I couldn't care less about Nick and his personal demons. That's been done to death. Of course he's far from the only character on this show that's been done with. I liked this episode mainly because of the fact there *was* one. It was looking for a while like there's be a much longer wait for new stuff. As I said, I liked everything about it except the Nick drama. Next week's gonna be a difficult one to sit through...

What are the small moments from SVU that stick with you long after watching them? I just re-watched "Annihilated", where, after Stabler gets the father to admit his murdered his family, he silently walks out of the interrogation room, past Cragen, and fails to acknowledge Munch, Fin, or even Olivia at all, then walks into the elevator Near the end of "Burned" where the dying ex-wife is heard screaming. I don't even want to imagine what pain like that feels like. I forget which episode it was, but the one with the mentally challenged perpetrator who is sent to a mental instituion , and we are given a glimpse of what his life will now be like, in a place filled with crazy people-he just shakes his head and mumbles "no, no, no". It's a fate worse than prison, I'd think. The scene in "Nocturne" where Munch shows Stabler the videotape of the abused student abusing a younger one. Munch is in the background and can barely watch it. The camera closes in on Stabler's face, and starts to contort at what he's watching. Tells you everything you need to know.

The real life story is even worse. Wow. I recall the two brothers (with the "sister" now living again as a boy), killed the psychiatrist in a way that made it impossible for anyone to know which one of them actually killed him.

Just watched that one. The sad thing was the Lowe character, upon being reminded of a lifetime of abuse by his Mom, was immediately reduced to aacting like a kid. "I told her I wasn't a child anymore..."

I think the ruthless personna was something Susie leaned into to get her respect, and get her clients what they needed. She was not going anywhere by being nice and fluffy. Her public personna was the one everyone at the roast was recalling when telling stories. Consider how two people try and tell the story of how her menter signed away his clients to her-both of them involved tales of Susie being sneaky and somehow tricking him until doing so, going as far as forgery, when what actually happened was that he gave them to her freely, sound of mind, because she was the only one he trusted.

I think that stuck the landing much, much better than Gilmore Girls. I feel very confident stating that. The whole point about her set, whether it was funny or not (one has to consider she was on national TV), she was never going to get anywhere unless she was willing to go over someone's head, or piss someone off. That point was brought home by the Bruce flashback-he told her all she had to do was seize the opportunity to take the spotlight, which was precisely what she did. If she had the brass balls to give Gordon the finger and take over his show, she'd be capable of doing anything. Bruce also told her last season that 90 per cent of the business was how people see you-if they see you hanging around Tony Bennett, they'll assume you're someone good. Mrs Maisel went on a national TV show, got the seal of approval from its host-getting to sit on the couch. Now people would see her as being a big deal too.

I had been bugging my brother to watch Fringe for quite some time, and he finally took me up on the offer earlier this year. I told him what I'd tell anyone else-you might take a while to get into it, but if he made it through the 1st part of S1, he'd probably be hooked. As I suspected, he quite enjoyed it. We disagreed on a few things. He liked Brown Betty, I hate(ed) it. (To this day, if I'm doing a rewatch, I skip it.). He was annoyed by Olivia in "Bad Dreams" for acting like she was killing people by seeing herself doing so in her dreams. He thought that was the only time the series made Olivia look stupid. I didn't quite think so (it remains one of my favourites, because of what it ends up revealing about Olivia-the closing shot of Walter watching the videotape of Young Olivia was a hell of a way to end it). So I got him to watch this *and* Person Of Interest in the same year. Score two for me in the mission of getting people to watch great TV past and present..:)

According to this, NCIS returns Feb 12/24 https://tvline.com/lists/tv-premiere-dates-new-returning-series/n-p/ Nobody's saying how many episodes we'll get, but I'm assuming between Feb and May we'll get about 12-13.

I read the writers saw Long's departure as an opportunity to take that plot thread, which was really getting old by that point, away, and turn Cheers into more of the ensemble piece it became in its later years, and the show was all the better for it. In terms of Rebecca's characterization, I believe the writers didn't think her initial no nonsense businesswoman personality was working well, so they morphed her into the insecure wreck she became the rest of the series. Rebecca also bears the distinction of being the only Cheers character who would never appear on Frasier. Cheers was unusual in that it didn't go off the air because of a ratings decline, or overall decline in quality, but because Ted Danson wanted to move on, and the rest of the cast would not continue without him. They pulled the plug while still going strong. That usually doesn't happen.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Grammar could play Frasier in his sleep, although to his credit, he's not simply going through the motions here. He seems to be legitimately happy to be doing this again. I thought they were setting up Frasier's son to be gay, with his female roommate around as an attempt to fool people into thinking he was hetero, but that's not the way it turned out to be. Having Frederick help out (I forget her name currently) because he had survivor's guilt was a nice touch. So, Frasier spent the last 20 years in Chicago with Charlotte (the woman from the finale)? If so, that's a remarkable run of stable romantic life for him. Regarding Daphne and Niles' son-I think it would have been funnier for him to be someone like Mad Dog, with Frasier attempting to figure out how the hell *that* happened... In short, I saw enough to want to watch again to see where they go with this...

Just finished S2 up. I can't get over how effective the side-by-side shots of Crowley and Aziraphale with the credits rolling. Crowley is doing his best stoic act, while you can see the thousands of thoughts going on in Az's head. It was a much more melanchoic ending than I would have expected.

Finished this up tonight, because I was curious about it. It was entertaining enough, but nothing that left a lasting impression-it certainly didn't offer up anything I had not seen before. "Rabbit Hole" at least gave me a surprise or three. I highly recommend that, actually. The only thing I liked much was Tucchi's character. I can't really explain why, but I liked whenever he showed up (and what the hell happened to him after he gave out the codes-I'm suspecting that's being left until S2-not sure if I'll be watching..)

I guess, given the twisty nature of the show thus far, one could anticipate that the the team pulled a Houdini stunt and was still alive. I did not anticipate that they would actually be dead, gunned down by Kyle. Ben had the right idea about him, but I doubt he anticipated how ruthless this kid was. Not to mention he was the one who got them killed. Although Kyle doesn't seem to be all that right about doing so. But what of the three other bodes that were in the office when it blew up, since Kyle had already dumped them down the elevator?

Daphne was so giddy about being invited to a fancy ball. But she did everything for Niles-taught him how to dance, went through the whole thing so Niles' friends would no longer see him as pathetic. And he was having the time of his life. When Daphne said the whole thing was an act on her part, she had no idea how much that hurt Niles. Two steps forward, one big one back, if you will. I would have liked to have seen Niles talking to Daphne about his memories of that night, and how much it stuck with him. Niles' attraction to Daphne did have a tendancy to play as creepy, but I think "Moon Dance" was the first time you felt really bad for Niles...he thought he finally had the woman he wanted so badly, and yet she saw the night as a performance.

I love how giddily happy Niles is around Daphne once they're together, how he doesn't have to pretend anymore she doesn't knock him off his feet by being around him. After watching Daphne and Niles in "Moon Dance", I needed a cigarette afterwards. And I don't smoke. When Daphne told Niles to fasten his seat belt, it had nothing to do with safety; more like Daphne telling Niles he was in for the ride of his life now. Judging from his reaction at the end of "Daphne Returns", that's exactly what he got.

In "The First Temptation Of Daphne", Niles was attempting to explain to Daphne how their love was "different", how theirs was unlike any that he'd had before, and said the difference was that it was not based on any expectations-his, or anyone else's, didn't fit into anyone's idea of how he should be. That was a very telling statement from him.

And, yet, the thing that gave her a headache (literal or not), was Garcia kissing a material witness. Her head's gonna expode now.

I really don't get the complaints about the violence or torture. We're watching a show about serial killers. It seems to me there would be more than a few unpleasant scenes to sit though. Mandy had an issue with it, which is why he abandoned the show (and that's exactly what he did, just deciding not to show up again for work), so it would seem it's been a part of the show's DNA since the beginning, not something that started happening a few years ago. If they had shown graphic close ups in the whipping scene, for example, I would say they'd gone a tad too far, and being on a streaming service, they certainly could have leaned into it. But they didn't. Nice to see the boss guy actually make himself useful. Sorry to see that despite proving their worth, the Sicarius case is now closed. Of course, he's about to do something that puts himself back on the radar. The show really wants me to feel sympathy for him, and sometimes I almost do, but this guy has been too far gone for too long, and he's not coming back from that. Not after entertaining thoughts about killing his own family. The mid-credits scene was golden. Poor guy was rendered incapable of completing sentences.

Nice 4th-wall breaking, but if you really want to see a show take itself apart, watch Supernatural's "The French Mistake". I wouldn't dream of spoiling the dozens of ways it does so..:)

I don't watch them anyway. Let's just say while I hope I can see some sort of natural end to the season, The Nevers isn't something that's so fabulous, so great, I'd feel greatly deprived without. It's not Firefly by any means.