[A Small Light - General Discussion]

On 5/18/2023 at 6:41 PM, One Imaginary Girl said:

It's rather disappointing to find out that so many liberties were taken when it's a good enough story on its own.

Especially when they left out a lot. Meip had to marry Jan when she did because she would have been deported back to Austria for refusing to join the Nazi women's association. That's an interesting story in and of itself and it was just swept past. And there is so much with Bep and her family to add in. 

That article refers to one of the writers saying they made Cas gay as Meip had 5 foster brothers so statistically 1 of them would probably have been gay. Which is honestly ridiculous. It then goes on to say that making him gay gave them a means to enter the world of Café 't Manje and the resistance activity done through there. But that was introduced completely independently of Cas as Jan went there through his boss' resistance contacts and continues to go there as a resistance member.

[A Small Light - General Discussion]

How much of the story we're seeing of the Gies is true? Did Jan really move a baby and help hide other families? Did they really help hide their landlady's grandchildren? Did Miep really have a gay brother who had friends arrested? Or is this all made up for the series? Maybe to soften the outcome of what happens in the annex? To make it appear that they had more positive outcomes than they did?

I know that at some point they do hide someone in their apartment. But that's all a basic Google tells me. 

[A Small Light - General Discussion]

19 hours ago, Straycat80 said:

Sometimes I felt bad for her because the people she’s saving from the Nazi’s are complaining and not Cooperating.

To be fair, now that most of us have had to go through the mind numbing tedium of staying home for months on end, even with being able to take walks and exercise and stay in constant contact with the rest of the world, I have increased sympathy for people like the Franks and their companions. The utter claustrophobia or not being able to go out, to be completely quiet during the day, of having another family and man in the home that you can't ever leave would have been sanity destroying. The constant terror of the fact that you aren't actually safe and the people caring for you aren't safe, would have faded into the back of your thoughts when day after day had to be lived so unnaturally. I remember the mornings 3 years ago where I'd wake up just thinking, "great, another pointless day." After years of an even worse and more intense seclusion it's easy to understand how people would stop thinking straight.

And the thought that after all of that, it's going to end so badly for them.............

[The Other Two - General Discussion]

Got to say these two didn't do it for me. It's gotten a bit too ott in the absurdity and it takes away from the realness of the characters.

[S03.E08: We’ll Never Have Paris]

10 hours ago, Girl in a Cardigan said:

Like the accountant guy seemed nice, but we have no indication that Nate has been nice or even cordial with ANYONE at West Ham. So it's wild that he's like, okay, now I'm the Ted character in this office and everyone has to listen to me. Ted usually speaks the least in any conversation that the Diamond Dogs have (that we've seen) and it's rarely his issue that collects them together (until recently).

And, the accountant guy seemed to like the idea of a supportive friendship group as he is stressed by the realities of taking care of his ageing parents. But Nate just bulldozed past that to talk about Jade. Showing that Nate really doesn't have any interest in being a friend, he just wants to have people to talk to about his issues.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

On 4/28/2023 at 11:10 PM, Chicago Redshirt said:

Even assuming the Changelings managed to 100 percent replace every high-ranking civilian and military leader to push this plan,

I think it's fair to assume that Federation President Anton Chekov, a man who interjects random reminiscences about the father he sounds exactly like into his desperate message of terrible danger and imminent defeat, was not a Changeling. So the most powerful person in the Federation had not been replaced. And the people most immediately  around him obviously weren't Changelings, as otherwise they would have killed him rather than be hustling him into an escape pod. So Changelings had replaced key personnel but certainly not everyone in power or in the vicinity of power.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

I've unfortunately been giving this more thought than it deserves and the Borg on the cube were pretty close to physically wiped out. Just the queen and the few protecting the beacon. Her plan would have failed in minutes if Jack, who had evaded Changeling capture, hadn't come alone. If he hadn't had a tantrum as soon as he learned he was being used by the Borg, everyone could have come up with a plan to follow him to the queen. Then he'd have walked on to the cube, not been used a transmittor. Titan officers or Riker and Worf or whoever, could have killed the few walking Borg and either captured or killed the helpless queen. Or even better, they could have just blown up the cube from the Titan. No assimilation and subsequent slaughter would have occurred.

And while it wouldn't have been 'job done' as they still had a Changeling infestation problem to deal with. They could have just hung back and let Beverly invent her transporter adjustment to root them out while the befuddled Changelings wondered what to do with Queen Borg and Vadic dead.

[S03.E10: Part Ten - The Last Generation]

1 hour ago, Prevailing Wind said:

I'm not sure I'd be up for a Jack Crusher series.  This one was awful enough, thank you.  I'm glad it's over.

Having had a beloved cat die this past year, I can understand Data tearing up over seeing an Ensign feed their cat.  Pictures of black cats send me to the Kleenex box.

Yeah, the poker game was a nice, final touch, but why are the Rikers considering Orlando for a vacation? Didn't the Borg fire on it?  You don't mean they've actually thought about what KESTRA might want!?!??!

It seems earth would have a LOT to do to rebuild those destroyed cities.

I don't think they ever fired on those cities. They were just gearing up to. For several very, very, very long minutes. But even with earth itself not being attacked, many Starfleet officers aged 26+ were killed on the ships and everyone at space dock was presumably killed. Which would have included any dignitaries on the dock for Frontier Day. Everyone at Starfleet, and probably everyone on earth who would have been terrified during the attack (and presumably there were killings on earth by under 25 year olds who'd been through the transportation system) would hate Jack. He wasn't even captured by the Changelings or the Borg like Picard was. He set off willingly to go to the queen, instead of taking even a few minutes to think about what might happen if he did exactly what earth's enemies clearly wanted him to do. He'll be even more despised than the last Ensign Crusher!

The line of the episode that summed up just how bad a fan fiction this whole thing felt like, was the Borg Queen taunting Jack in her defeat, moments from the cube exploding with: "Even if you do somehow survive........" It was all bad but the idea that in that moment of them being about to blow up, she's thinking vengefully about Jack feeling awkward and out of place after the escape the writers wanted you to be on the edge of your seat about. And then him and Picard taking the time to show her how much it will all be fine for Jack because his dad loves him. So she can be angry even though as far as everyone on the cube knows, they're about to explode. 

I'm genuinely very annoyed that so much great potential was wasted here for the sake of decent writing. But y'know, they got Walter Koenig to guest voice, and called Chekov's son Anton after Anton Yelchin. So memberberries. Hurray.

[S03.E09: Part Nine - Vox]

My feelings are similar to most people's. The episode was deeply flawed to the point that the plot was pretty stupid. I did enjoy the OG crew on Enterprise D however it was clearly tonally very, very off given what was happening. If they had all been present when they first arrived at the fleet museum and transferred from the Titan to the E-D, at that point when things were tense but not utterly devastating, it would have been genuinely great. Instead it was hard to be fully immersed in it when there was just no way those characters would have acted like that in that moment. When Deanna spoke to Geordi about his daughters it was sooo irritating that she had no concern for her own.

A point I haven't seen mentioned is that a few minutes of research could have easily sorted out one of the episodes bigger bugbears. There really is no way on earth that the majority of crew on most ships are under 25. I know most ST shows focus on high level crew, the cream of the crop, but it's always been pretty implicit that Starfleet personnel are highly educated, doctors, scientists, engineers with practical mechanical expertise or experts in law, political theory and diplomacy in addition to their Starfleet training. They aren't getting on ships at 21 and taking over most positions over the next 4 years, then moving on to stationary roles. They just aren't. So why didn't the writers just take 10 minutes to google mid-life decline. Then have Beverly say something like, the new transporter DNA changes only work in people with full Glutathione levels which decline rapidly after age 45. And then you very believably have enough Borg crew to swiftly take over most ships while leaving all the main cast be comfortably too old to be assimilated.

[S03.E08: Part Eight - Surrender]

The thing with Picard's Irumodic Syndrome, is that in TNG he didn't really have it. He was diagnosed with in in the future that Q sent him to. It was largely a plot device to leave Picard uncertain as to whether or not he really was jumping between the past, present and future. In the present timelineof All Good Things, Beverly investigated and discovered that he had the potential to possibly develop the illness due to a small defect in his brain. A plot development designed to give Picard no certain answers while he worked out whether or not he was really time hopping. But the thing was, he was actually jumping through time and not hallucinating. The symptoms in the alt-future that he was experiencing were not Irumodic Syndrome but the very real time displacement Q was putting him through. The defect in his brain was real but no guarantee that an illness that he possibly wasn't actually experiencing in the future would ever develop. 

[S03.E07: Part Seven - Dominion]

9 hours ago, Sandman said:

Ucch, again with Lore? I get that Data is the most special positronic snowflake ever ever (and every time he comes back he’s more miraculous than we knew before), but Lore is that one outlier in your group of friends that you’ve known seemingly forever and no one can remember ever really liking, but nobody wants to go through the drama of breaking things off with. He just keeps turning up randomly, making every conversation about him, and annoying the living hell out of everyone.

”Say, Lore? Have you met my new friend Mr. Airlock? He’s dying to meet you! Right this way…”

You say that, but back in the 90s I had a friend who had a massive crush on Data so she always loved Lore episodes as she got to see two Datas! That said, a couple of my friends were crazy for Riker, so it was a BIG day when Thomas showed up and they too got to see their crush doubled on the screen.

[S03.E07: Part Seven - Dominion]

When Seven deduced that Tuvok was a changeling and the Titan crew was downhearted that they have no contacts they can trust. All I could think about was what happened when they contacted Deanna. Because surely they contacted her first. Her husband is missing. But also, she's former military of commander rank with an actual superpower of being able to interpret people's intentions over a communication screen. She'd be incredibly useful.

Either Beverly or Worf would be able to tell if they are talking to Deanna or a changeling in under a minute. Then they have someone on board who could quickly root out any changeling posing as Titan crew. And who could either read the deception from any changeling they encounter on screen. Or if they are blocking her, point out that someone who shouldn't be able to block her is now blocking her. 

So either no-one on the crew thought to contact Will's wife and most useful person they know in the current circumstances. Or they did but just aren't mentioning it for no reason other than keeping the audience in the dark, which is stupid and frustrating. 

 

[S03.E05: Part Five - Imposters]

12 hours ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

So the notion that there were at least six Changelings on board the Intrepid is kind of a big deal.

There weren't six confirmed, just 4 played by 6 actors. The two changelings who killed Ro, beamed back to the Titan after trapping her. They immediately shape shifted to look like Titan officers, so they could continue on to find Jack. The pair who found Jack were the same characters who killed Ro but played by different actors. The pair who beamed on to help them take Jack were changelings 3 and 4.

[S01.E06: February 31st]

4 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Yeah. If this wasn't based on a true story I'd say it's too unbelievable to be true. He's his own worst enemy.

Thanks for the screenshot of the napkin SnazzyDaisy. Since the lawyer says it constitutes a legal contract, and it does specify that Steve is to receive 50% of the profits, I'd think that would give them a right to look at the books and make sure they are indeed getting their fair share. I mean that's all they really care about anyway, that they aren't getting cheated by Nick.

I assume they wanted to run the tours themselves as soon as possible so they could be making 100% of the profits. That said, if I was making today's equivalent of well over 100k a month for literally nothing, I'd just get over my naivety and enjoy the money. Nick was right too, the tours open an enormous new audience to Chippendales merchandise, so they could easily have massively increased their calendar sales. Every state, Canada, western Europe, Australia, New Zealand all become huge new markets for calendars.

And cheesey as it was, the Chippendales foray into pop music with Give Me Your Body opened the the market wider as they hit younger audiences and women who were never going to go to a Chippendales show suddenly became aware of them and may have purchased a calendar, even as a gag gift for a friend. And that was only possible because of the tours. Steve may have screwed himself with the napkin contract, but he was basically getting paid a fortune for what was essentially a massive marketing campaign for his merchandising. 

[S02.E04: Jesus, Allison]

On 9/8/2022 at 1:58 AM, Semiglued said:

Except it’s not “clear.” What you described is inferred. Nothing has been made clear. Most of us have speculated and wondered if that’s the case, but it certainly has not been made clear. Which, if that’s what the show is going to end up showing us, I’m sure will be the point. But odd that she’d have so many discussions with Patty about wanting to kill him and there’s not even a glimmer of a mention btwn them of what really goes on.

I don’t think viewers will be shocked if that’s what happens but I also don’t think people should be judged for not being certain at this point. 

No sorry, it's 100% clear to anyone who has any idea about how domestic abuse works. I guess anyone who doesn't see it is either very lucky or in a survival mechanism denial but in this day and age, I really don't think it's acceptable that anyone wouldn't know how to see clear signs of abuse. We can't protect abuse victims, most likely to be women, if we can't recognise all of the obvious signs of abuse. It's how abuse is still so rife.

[S02.E04: Jesus, Allison]

17 hours ago, racked said:

Such an interesting observation. I hope that means we get to see more of “real” Kevin too. I read another poster’s recap of all the horrible things he’s done, and they are horrible. He’s not someone anyone would want to be around. But still not seeing what’s keeping Allison from leaving him. She keeps saying it would take years to divorce him but that’s just for things to be finalized. She’d be away from him long before then. Anyway I still hope the show can make this feel…justified. 

Other than the first meeting in his office, the PI has been in hiding because Diane left and he blames the PI. It was also mentioned, even in this episode that he's still in hiding from Chuck. It's been pretty obvious that Chuck is an extremely dangerous, violent man if a PI is in hiding because he was known to have met his wife before she left him. I'm honestly not sure how anyone took from how we learned Diane left that it was anything encouraging for Allison. It was immediate reenforcement for her about how dangerous it can be for a lot women when they leave their husbands. In fact, leaving your husband (or boyfriend) is usually the most dangerous time for an abused woman. It's as she is trying to leave or immediately afterwards that she is statistically most likely to be murdered.

It's actually pretty scary to me that other people aren't seeing the clear abuse from Kevin. We've even seen signs that the abuse is physical before from when he threw sauce on her when she tried to dress up before going out. The door thing was also, almost certainly not an accident, 'women who walk into doors' is a pretty common euphemism for abused women.

[Physical - General Discussion]

I can't actually believe that was the final episode. I really enjoyed season 1 but this season was really poor overall. There were way too many plot strands and as a result, we didn't end up with any real plot. It just meandered around with lots of boring things happening. While I am fond of both Bunny and Tyler, they served absolutely no purpose in this season that couldn't have easily been written differently. Tyler having video of Breem and Sheila and then rescuing Danny, so they could tell him about Breem and Sheila, just felt like contrivances designed to keep them included, rather than them being important to events. Sheila's ovary felt unnecessary, and again largely designed to keep Bunny around in a really bizarre, went nowhere, plot of Bunny taking over for her for a little while.

A tighter storyline of Sheila feeling stifled with her contract, having a more realistic affair with Breem, where we are shown that her attraction is to become him, rather than just being told that in the last episode. Her fascination with Vinnie Green being more developed. And maybe some actual drama with Danny as she has come to hate him and planning to leave him but then appreciates, to a degree, how he supports her as he realises she has anorexia. No Bunny and Tyler, tighter writing on the Greta/Ernie stuff both with and without Sheila, maybe more of Breem being clueless in a bar and enjoying his tap-dancing, but less overall with his family. I don't care that about Breem's relationship with his dad's male lover. I don't care that his son is dating a Catholic. I don't care that his wife wants to bury her Hispanic heritage. Because those characters are all so tangental to the main storyline that their personal wants and needs take time that the actual story of Sheila and her pursuit of an aerobics empire was left lacking.

[Physical - General Discussion]

How well known was bulimia/anorexia in the early 80s? Greta's reaction to Sheila's confession was just so awful and selfish that I was taken aback by it. But I'm guessing that as this is before Karen Carpenter's death, which I remember as the thing that brought about public awareness of anorexia, maybe Greta isn't really aware that what Sheila has told her she has, is a potentially very serious illness. Otherwise, just shouting at her for being a fraud was just so unbelievably horrible. It really goes to show that Greta isn't all that great a friend herself, she has an idea of Sheila in her head and gets angry with her for not being that person. Especially when Sheila has never even claimed that aerobics makes her so slim - she always talks about how it makes her feel.

[Physical - General Discussion]

I have to say this show is losing me. I think that Sheila's surgery and time out of aerobics was a big mistake storywise. Especially when coupled with her affair because both of those storylines are preventing the main plot from going forwards. I'm here for a show about a woman who loves aerobics and builds a career out of it, but she's not doing any aerobics. And even when she did in the first few episodes it was nothing but pain for her. I don't need to show to be all bright coloured 80s leotards and exercising. I liked the first season and all of her personal drama. Her years of trauma and her unhealthy coping methods. Her poor marriage, her dissatisfaction, her self-loathing and even her nasty thoughts about the often nice people around her.

But it's now just become overly grim with nothing to lighten the mood. No release and satisfaction from her workouts. No seeing her drive to succeed with a media career just her career stalling in the background while she buries her dad, deals with her mother, recovers from surgery and maintains a joyless seeming affair of rough sex with an emotionally stunted man. Watching it feels like a chore and the moments that could lighten it, with Bunny and Greta etc, just feel forced into the episodes to be funny rather than real parts of the story.

[Physical - General Discussion]

On 6/12/2022 at 3:04 AM, QQQQ said:

Exactly. The idea of doing aerobics at home was not a foreign concept in the early 80s. We always think of Fonda's videos as the advent of the industry but before VCRs were found in most homes, millions of people worked out to LPs. Joanie Greggains, Kathy Smith, Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons, and dozens of others all released exercise LPs before the exercise videotape boom of 1982 and beyond.

Oh wow, that has just unearthed a memory for me. One Christmas in the early 80s my great uncle gave me a gift of a kids workout set, that consisted of a set of coloured heavy rubber bracelets/anklets to be worn as weights. With a workout audio cassette tape and a foldout poster with diagrams of the exercises so you could visualise what you were supposed to follow along with. I really enjoyed it but was a bit disappointed because it was part of a set, with the others advertised in the package and I would have liked the one with the big rhythmic gymnastics ribbon far more than the weighted bracelets.

ETA: I can't believe it but I found an image of it online! The nostalgia!

[Bon Appetit: Julia's Cuisine]

3 hours ago, Cinnabon said:

Lots and lots of butter.

Butter is actually really good for you. Naturally occurring fats in dairy aren't bad for you and proper butter is nutritionally quite dense. It's far, far better to cook with than any kind of seed oil. Julia Child promoted fairly healthy eating overall with a great emphasis on a variety of vegetables and fresh foods. There were a lot of desserts, which obviously included refined sugar, but even at that, they weren't overly processed foods and she was all about moderation. 

[Bon Appetit: Julia's Cuisine]

On 4/1/2022 at 12:37 PM, chediavolo said:

But of course, Julia’s way of cooking was very unhealthy for the most part.

What was unhealthy about it??? Obviously cakes and desserts aren't the healthiest of foods but her main meals, the fish and the omelette, etc?

[S02.E07: Download]

On 3/16/2022 at 9:49 AM, Perfect Xero said:

but if that's the case then I have to wonder how good of a job he's doing of hiding things when he's housing their offices in a building he owns

Well he also apparently had Nathan murdered and his memories of his work and shady involvements wiped. But then couldn't resist telling the utterly oblivious to this Nathan, that he must have been murdered and thus setting Nathan's investigation in motion.

[How I Met Your Father - General Discussion]

12 hours ago, Jenniferbug said:

I'm fine hand waving how they can afford apartments on bartender pay, but does Sophie have a paying job at all? I don't think they've mentioned her selling pictures or shooting weddings or anything, right?

In the episode where she was hired to photograph the Bat Mitzvah the gallery owner said they found her from her events photography website. So we never see or hear of her doing it as a job but it's definitely implied that's her income source. It's funny, in the original series all the characters had actual jobs. Architect, kindergarten teacher, news anchor, lawyer, murky finance job. Lily was the least career orientated because her real interest was her art but day to day, she taught little kids in a salaried job that gave her time to do her art. When she abandoned everything to go to San Fransisco at the end of season 1 for an art fellowship, she went back to teaching as soon as she could get rehired when it didn't work out and she lived in a tiny dump of an apartment until she and Marshall were ready to get married.

[S04.E01: Rumble on the Wonder Wheel]

21 hours ago, Zonk said:

If Midge wasn't a much better person than I am, all his dirty little secrets would be all over the newspapers the next day.

Shy didn't have any dirty little secrets. He was a gay man living in an era where people knowing this intrinsic fact about who he was would have derailed his career and endangered his life and maybe even legal freedoms. The only thing dirty about that is a society that criminalised and belittled something that's a normal and natural part of a minority of people's lives.