ProudMary

While the Maze/Trixie relationship is in a very bad place right now, the Lesley-Ann/Scarlett relationship is just fine! This is delightful.

I thought about Cyprus or Crete also, but the FJ clue mentioned "mainland" so I figured the answer wouldn't be one of the island nations.

You're correct. What's more, S2 of Sports Night ran concurrently with S1 of The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin was writing (or with Sports Night, at least co-writing) two series at the same time. Cocaine's a helluva drug. @mojoween, unfortunately neither Netflix nor Hulu is currently streaming Sports Night. It had been on Netflix a while back, but no longer. :-(

Somehow, I think Jane Fonda was just fine with the casting of Sam Waterston.

Lip service. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/crown-production-company-apologizes-claire-foy-matt-smith-pay-controversy-1095834

I actually let out a cheer when I realized that Lisa had made it a runaway. Buh-bye Rahul! His board jumping didn't even make any sense. I can understand when a contestant starts with the $600/$1200 clue and then continues down the category looking for the DDs or just those worth more money. (I understand it. Doesn't mean I like it.) Rahul would grab an $800 clue in one category, then jump to a cheaper $400 clue in another. WTH? I'm so glad he's gone. I'm thinking Lisa may be less apt to board jump with him out of the picture. I liked Lisa's story about writing to J! as an 11 year old.

Latest news: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/crown-petition-urges-star-matt-smith-donate-pay-disparity-times-up-1095396?facebook_2018319

I'm just now getting around to watching Season 4 and this is my favorite episode of the season, to date. Main reason: Very little of Robert and Sol together. I've said this in threads from previous seasons, but Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston are just awful together. I've always liked both of them so it is beyond my understanding that all of their scenes together should be this terrible. I seriously wonder if the actors just don't like each other! But this episode gave us plenty of crazy Sol and crazy Frankie scenes together, which are the best. I loved the scene with the mobile over the crib that Frankie was "improving." The scene in Chili's was also great. I enjoyed the waitress who played right along with them. "Hop this way." :-) And then, the Martin Sheen I love shows up to play great scenes with Jane Fonda at the funeral. Even his scenes with Peter Gallagher were very enjoyable, with the two of them commiserating over how difficult it is to get the lyrics to "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man correct. I need more of MS with the other actors because SW/MS just doesn't work. As for the "younger generation" scenes, I preferred this episode's with Mallory and Brianna to the last ep's Allison/Bud/Coyote scenes. I truly dislike the Allison character. I was almost as upset as Grace was to hear that Phil had died. Nooooo! I've been secretly hoping that we would see that character again at some point. I love Sam Elliott.

Regarding GotG, 70s music, actually. Better, as it's further back from when they were born. Alex is ridiculous with the "before your time" stuff. He has no idea what frame of reference someone's coming from. I'm a later Baby Boomer and my parents were much older when I was born. Music was always a large part of our household and my musical frame of reference stretches all the way back to the late 1920s/early 1930s as that was what my parents listened to; big bands, crooners. Also, my mom loved opera and although it wasn't to my taste, (I've only been to the opera once,) I have a pretty good knowledge of it as I heard many of her recordings played frequently. Comes in handy when there's a J! opera category! Additionally, Baby Boomers were/are the first generation to have grown up with rock and roll. There was a marked difference between the types of popular music enjoyed by parents of BBs and what the BBs themselves listened to; a huge musical generation gap. That gap is much smaller with successive generations as they are also listening to rock and roll, different variations of it, of course, (metal, hip-hop, EDM) but still drawing from the same sources. Accordingly, they're more apt to have been exposed to at least some popular music from many prior decades. In other words, knock it off, Alex!

Absolutely. Alpine is one of the richest zip codes in the United States. All I meant was that it's geographically within reasonable driving distance to Newark, probably about 45 minutes. In every other way? Worlds apart.

Beth received a postcard pothusmously from William showing their Alpine address. You can see it 32 seconds into this video clip. Also, Deja and Shauna lived in Newark. Not around the corner from Alpine but close enough.

Randall and Beth live in Alpine, NJ, which is the Northeasternmost community in the state. It's right on the New York border.

Uh-oh. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/harper-lee-estate-sues-aaron-sorkin-adaptation-kill-a-mockingbird-1094627

With this damn show? Twenty years from now? It's probably someone we haven't even met yet but it made for a great misdirect for all of us to think it's Deja or one of the Pearsons. :rolling my eyes: Repeatedly, constantly. Jack, Jack, Jack, JACK! We're not even allowed to hang out in the present for that long, we have to visit the past via Jack flashbacks. And in this episode we even got an alternative present. There is no doubt who the actual star of this show is; it's the dead guy! Enough already.

Kevin Covais, nicknamed Chicken Little all over the internet. In an episode of Friends, Phoebe refers to Ross as Rachel's lobster. Earlier in the episode, she had mentioned that they mate for life. Unpopular opinion: I didn't care for this episode at all. I especially hated Kevin's toast and thought it was completely inappropriate.

I have no inside information but I would bet that their contracts were locked in for two seasons (20 episodes.) I would have thought however that a good agent would have at least built in performance bonuses for Emmys, SAGs, etc. all of which were deservedly won by Claire Foy. I remember years ago--I'm sure others will recall this also--that Paul Reiser was making a million dollars an episode for Mad About You. Helen Hunt was making substantially less than Reiser but had a performance clause in her contract that should she win an Oscar, she would have to be paid the same amount as he was receiving. When that contract was signed, HH was nowhere near getting the kind of film roles that would merit an Oscar; but then along came As Good As It Gets and Bam! Oscar winner Helen Hunt had to be paid a million an episode too.

This was my first thought today when I heard it was Trump's Personal Assistant, "They fired Charlie?" :-D

This is very disappointing to discover and although the producers say they are rectifying it going foward, that doesn't fix things for Claire Foy. The Crown Paid Its Queen Elizabeth Less Than Its Prince Philip

This video clip from the Writers' Guild Foundation popped up on my YouTube feed this evening. Although it is 11 months old, I had not seen it prior to tonight and wasn't aware of some of the information shared here by John Wells. I thought it would be of interest to others here and thought I'd share. John Wells discusses Aaron Sorkin leaving "The West Wing."

@Sun-Bun, you're right. Shep looks like an old man in that photo!

New season starts Thursday, April 5th. Just saw the SC trailer during the Top Chef finale.

For me the Sorkin, non-nominated head scratcher is Steve Jobs. I sat in the theater watching the film and thought to myself, "they should just hand Aaron Sorkin the Oscar right now." I was positively astounded that he didn't receive a nomination for it, especially when both Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet received acting nominations. Whose words did the Academy think they were speaking?

Even before picking up this knowledge, I bet neither of you would have said, "Bush League" in response to the clue. That did it for me. Get off my screen Jack! (I'm a huge baseball fan.)

You're right. The librarian's name is Zelda. At 2:01 in the Inside The Magicians clip shared above by @ElectricBoogaloo Executive Producer Sera Gamble refers to her as "the librarian, Zelda the librarian." Great catch on the lunch bag!

Should This is Us choose to further explore the foster system--and I agree it's a good topic to explore--they can do so through the eyes of future Tess, the social worker. Unlike many, I enjoyed last night's episode. I like Deja as a character and Randall's story arc is my favorite of the Big Three so I have no issues with its expansion. I do wish there would have been a bit more of a Pearson story line, however, because the episode had more the feel of a spinoff pilot debuting within an existing series than it did a character origin story. Then again, if they want to give me a spinoff featuring Pam Grier, I'm all in!