shapeshifter

For me, it's the opposite; I often clap during the monologue, but, IMO, Colbert is not a great interviewer, and at this point that's not likely to change. If the guest has enough personality to carry the chat or is a gifted storyteller, it's okay; not great, but okay. OTOH, if the guest isn't a natural in that environment, SC doesn't seem to be able to draw a person out.

Tea Leoni is featured on the current episode of Finding Your Roots.

OMG, that could explain how I watched it too!

My skeptic's radar went off when they said they used nothing but the DNA in a database to find Tea Leoni's birth parents. IDK. Could she share 11.3% DNA with a bunch of other people of the right age and geography too if the DNA database had been more completely populated? And what were the odds that both her parents' DNA were in that database?

Heh. Nah, I think they like each other and so do their wife and fiancee. I , OTOH, was thinking of Kim Jong-un having his half brother assassinated earlier this year.

You are correct. See my correction above. Anyway, thanks for the heads up! ETA: I've got my DVDR set to record it. Hopefully…

So I now have a "vitreous detachment" in my left eye that might involve a retinal tear that they are going to "watch closely." So far this means that between Saturday morning and Monday afternoon I had 2 ophthalmologists and 1 retinologist and an assortment of technicians shine lights in my eyes and ask me to follow the light. Finally I recalled 4.6, "Window of Opportunity," and amused myself by imagining asking them, "What can shining that light in my eye possibly tell you?"

Here (over-the-air Chicagoland) it's on Nov. 21 at that time. Old iPad 1 date went wonky at midnight, but Wednesday, yes.

Gah! Are you going to pay me to do that?

This episode was a real mixed bag for me: Robert Patrick delivered an Emmy worthy performance—I guess as a sort of audition for some future Emmy worthy show? Meanwhile, the squabbling nerds successfully shoot a harpoon to the jellyfish surrounded, rapidly dissolving island of plastic trash on which 3 of the nerds are marooned. I assume most of the audience is yelling at the screen (like I was), "Use the rope to pull the trash and the boat next to each other!" But no. The nerds suspend themselves from the rope until it dislodges from the island of plastic. Okay, I think, a little drama, now surely they'll pull it back to the boat and refire it at the plastic island; maybe it will even take a time or two. But before these thoughts can fully form in my mind, the harpoon rope sproings back like a rubber band and, in true Scorpion form, creates a huge hole in the boat. By now, doesn't Scorpion owe the Coast Guard enough in expenses to fund a small country?

The first season I LOVED this show. So far, second season, not so much.

I finally caught the "Immigrant Nation" episode. It would have been interesting to learn how Scarlett Johanssen's Swedish ancestors went from having a royal coat of arms to being farm laborers in Denmark without property. It could have been something as simple as illegitimacy or something more Shakespearean, like one brother banishing another. I also would have liked to learn the fate of Turturro's uncle who was left in an orphanage because the staff didn't think his grandfather's mixed race marriage was good enough.

The NSA is their new arch enemy? Seriously?!? Whenever either Jeremy Piven or Richard T. Jones is not on screen, it feels like the energy is drained out of the scene. I appreciated the discussion and plot about women in tech, but it would help if the main female character was more dynamic.

I thought it was ridiculous that a kid would be a spy.

Sounds like something growing in a Petri dish. They just better write Dimitri out before Stevie gets pregnant with his Star Child (it turns out Henry really is a super hero).

Bus pants? Now y'all have me speculating that this week's lead writer got dumped by his girlfriend.

Yes, but the other, earlier articles referenced by this article don't mention the case either. For example: Cheit, R., Shavit, Y., & Reiss-Davis, Z. (2010). Magazine coverage of child sexual abuse, 1992–2004. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 19(1), 99–117. doi:10.1080/10538710903485575 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ross_Cheit/publication/269548278_Television_Newsmagazine_Coverage_of_Child_Sexual_Abuse_1990-2005/links/570ba2b108ae8883a1ffd075.pdf and: Beckett, K. (1996). Culture and the politics of signification: The case of child sexual abuse. Social Problems, 43(1), 57–76. doi:10.2307/3096894 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katherine_Beckett/publication/249985363_Culture_and_the_Politics_of_Signification_The_Case_of_Child_Sexual_Abuse/links/596fc1a4a6fdccc6c96c1407/Culture-and-the-Politics-of-Signification-The-Case-of-Child-Sexual-Abuse.pdf

But were they really mature? Reading this comment reminded me of a friend of mine from the 80s whom I've long since lost track of. She was sexually abused by her father and wound up marrying an excon with whom she had corresponded while he was incarcerated. It didn't work out, and towards the end of her marriage she had latched onto some pop psychology of the time that claimed adults could be emotionally as young as 4 or 5 years old. I started doing a little research in the PyscINFO and PubMed databases to see if there was any credibility to this theory, especially as it would relate to the possible "emotional ages" of the Menendez brothers (assuming the reported abuse was accurate). If they were emotionally children, then Leslie Abramson's references to "the boys" would have been warranted. I'm sorry to say I have not yet determined either the validity or bogus-ness of "emotional age" of adults, but there's quite a bit on attachment disorders among victims of abuse. I did find an interesting article on the media and coverage of child sexual abuse cases: Framing Child Sexual Abuse: A Longitudinal Content Analysis of Newspaper and Television Coverage, 2002–2012, tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10538712.2016.1257528, which does not mention the Menendez case or cite earlier articles that mention the case, presumably because it has not been publicized as being about abuse.

Reading these articles and the comments section for the Variety article lead me to conclude that the focus of this series on the abuse of the brothers was probably intended to fill a vacancy in the coverage to date. Unfortunately, for those of us having only the slightest previous knowledge of the case, the series felt lacking in the perspective of the "abuse excuse" faction. This scholarly article, Framing Child Sexual Abuse: A Longitudinal Content Analysis of Newspaper and Television Coverage, 2002–2012, tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10538712.2016.1257528, does not mention or cite earlier articles that mention the Menendez case, presumably because the case has not been publicized as being about abuse.

Although the separation was likely intended to deprive the brothers of any possible comfort they might derive from each other, I wonder if it might have ultimately been more healing for them to be removed from the reminder of a painful past. I'm not a therapist, so I could be way off base with this speculation.

Yeah, but I guess only the main characters get to be cool conduits.

And it would have worked out better for him (Sheldon) in the end. I wonder if that is supposed to be the Moral of the Story, or if it's just a comedy plot device.

But it would help if FMIL didn't always look like a deer in the headlights.

Actually, they could have built a comedy series using video of me teaching my daughters to drive. It was so traumatic for me that I have no memory of it.

Whoever wrote that line should get a promotion, and kudos to Kaley Cuoco (try saying that three times fast) for delivery.