Rinaldo

Wendy's apt comment made me consider: I have all the previous DVD sets -- I'm a completist and once I start something.... But I may actually leave the set incomplete, without final season. 1, I'll never want to rewatch most of it, and 2, I don't want to give the fuckers the satisfaction.

I didn't think I was invested in any particular ending for this; I'm against (more fundamentally, I really don't understand) the whole idea of 'shipping and demanding certain pairings and outcomes.... But this was somehow different. This was just atrocious. Having, against all likelihood, found the perfect mother in Cristin Milioti -- pretty, offbeat, funny, lively, meshing perfectly with all the regulars -- they've just wasted her this season, measuring out her appearances with an eyedropper. (The one terrific episode "How Your Mother Met Me" aside.) And then they really wasted her in this finale. Nothing substantial on the central relationship, and then in the end she's dead (as we've been fearing for the last month), and Ted's going back to freakin' Robin?? That's supposed to be the outcome we've been waiting for? I have a two-word sentence to the makers of this show. It's the same one they just sent my way.

On one of their cases, Laura wanted to be Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story), but instead Steele introduced her to everybody as "Myrtle Groggins."

This was a great season. As said above, the dynamic with Murphy and Bernice knowing the real story gave it a flavor of its own. The cases were fun. (Of course, I realize that the first season of a series has an advantage, with the premise still fresh.) The idea that Laura and Remington were postponing romance despite firelit makeout sessions was not yet straining credulity. And this was the season when Stephanie Zimbalist was really rocking the fedoras.

She evolved a lot over seven years, just like the world around her. Shy, funny, trailblazing, superb television producer, lousy partygiver... despite the exceptional ensemble around her, Mary is the one I remember from this show. Great writing and directing, plus a classic performance by Mary Tyler Moore.

Yes, although Murray was established as having three daughters, over the years we saw four (one at a time, widely spaced). Helen Hunt was the last of them to appear. And I remember an Emmy telecast when she and Paul Reiser were presenting, there was a montage, and Paul couldn't stop saying "You were Murray's daughter? that's so cute!" I fondly recall Henry WInkler as the extra guest at Mary's Veal Prince Orloff dinner, sitting at his own table over by the window, and when asked how he was doing, saying politely, "I got fired today."

Christine Baranski is one of the most effortlessly funny actresses I know -- like Maggie Smith or Michael J. Fox, she can give even a nothing line an amusing spin, and send a well-written one to the bull's-eye. She also has a singing voice of near-operatic quality when she wants to use it. And then in this show she's a dramatic actress of exceptional power and authority. (The timing and the flashes of humor are still there, too.) She's a national treasure.

That seems pretty true to life to me, though. In fact all of Alicia's imagined calls from Will did. The sudden loss of someone you were close to can trigger all kinds of fantasies of saying the things to each other you didn't manage to in life (because you assumed you'd have time). I LOVED Diane firing the needy client. I could watch that on a loop about a dozen times. In fact I think I may.

This is a classic from 1981 (a time when new commercial campaigns would sometimes run to a full minute). I still recall it fondly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waRsphBoTts I remember watching it with my father, himself a director of commercials (and therefore inclined to be cynical and analytical about them), and at the end he said "Isn't it the damnedest thing? They break your heart over their stupid hamburgers."

I actually haven't seen that particular film, but I have seen a number of Jennifer Jones's movies and find her pretty negligible acting-wise (and unlike some others of whom that could be said, not otherwise fascinating either). But she does have a few fine performances to her credit: Beat the Devil, certainly, and I like her a lot in Cluny Brown.

Just to clarify: I don't generally (there are exceptions) care much while civilian wins. But I enjoy playing party games myself -- I belong to a big multigenerational family of game players -- and I enjoy seeing games well played, and feel uncomfortable seeing them poorly played or treated with indifference.

It took a rewatching to verify that during the bathtub shot, Cody's "other" leg was properly hidden from our view.

Would "How Do You Doo?" work as a subtitle for this topic?

Actually Martin Short revealed that he can be a good gameplayer, when in his first show Alyson Hannigan and Lisa Kudrow got a system going with Take the Hint, and he fell in line with it. They did very well. But that's about the only time he left himself alone and just participated.

I love that we're using Laura Holt's original opening monologue for our title! (Did you know there's a Sporcle quiz about it?) But I still wonder why she says "Follow:" all by itself in the middle. That's never been the way people talk, has it?

The Gay Divorcée: Night and Day Swing Time: Pick Yourself Up, Never Gonna Dance Broadway Melody of 1940: Begin the Beguine Kiss Me, Kate: From This Moment On My Sister Eileen: challenge dance West Side Story: Mambo The Music Man: Shipoopi Bye Bye Birdie: A Lot of Livin' To Do Sweet Charity: Rich Man's Frug 1941: jitterbug contest

For truly expositional themes (BTW, for me, Arrested Development, one of my alltime favorite series, doesn't count in this context because it isn't sung), I have two special favorites: The Nanny (who says it's not good? it's Ann Hampton Callaway!!). And at the top of my list, Open All Night from 1981. Now, that's exposition. Indeed. After all, a hot dog makes her lose control.

Here's a first try. So as to end on a positive note, my least favorite choices first. S1E17 "The Billionaire." Because Jerry Lewis guest stars. And acts like Jerry Lewis. Enough said. S5E17 "On the Road." Paul calls Marvin (Jeff Garlin) a big sissy. Because they ran out of script ideas. S5E19 "The Touching Game." Paul and Ira help a pregnant woman, who is not pregnant. Or a woman. Same reason. Most favorite: S3E8 "Giblets for Murray." One of the classic sitcom Thanksgiving episodes. S3E11 "Our Fifteen Minutes." Chiefly because of Lisa's hilariously uncensored walkthrough during what is supposed to be 15 unedited minutes of real life. Honorable mention: Jamie's effort at having a "dark side," smoking and sitting existentially in a window. S3E16: "The Alan Brady Show." Not just because of Carl Reiner as Alan Brady, but because Helen Hunt does the Laura Petrie "Oh Pauuuuuuulll" sob so unexpectedly well. With honorable mention for S4E12 "Dream Weaver." The story framework is negligible for me, but I confess to loving the "Laugh-In" dream sequence, with JoAnne Worley, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, and Maggie from across the hall to say "sock it to me." (Especially funny to me because Judy Geeson was in fact just that kind of wacky go-go girl in British movies in the '60s.)

This is on my list of top favorite episodes, and probably the one where I suddenly realized that this was a series I was going to not just like, but love. I'll concede that the bits about Amy's bad cooking stretched the bounds of even this comedy reality too far. So set that aside. But everything else was gold. Terry's hunger, Amy's sadly grandmotherly apartment, her eagerness to please Holt, Boyle's foodie resourcefulness saving the meal, Jake's toast to his "weird family," and Jake & Holt on a case together -- "Barley and Jimes are on the case..." -- "My wife was killed by a man in a yellow sweater!" But those aren't even the best part, which was the cold open. Boyle Bingo was just rapturous, and kept on giving. It was made all the sweeter by the way it wasn't really mean (thereby raising it way above the foul treatment Garry/Jerry/Larry gets on Parks & Rec), and he himself saw the humor and joined in -- "Here, I'll just fill that in for ya."

With the current showing of this series, multiple times a day, on FXX, I've been enjoying making this show's reacquaintance. There's an appeal about its cast and writing that I had forgotten, though I was a fan when it was on. I'm now trying to come up with a list of favorite and un-favorite episodes, though that may have to wait till they've cycled through the whole series while I'm watching.

As Tara said, actors have to keep looking for that next job (it's a very uncertain profession), but Enlisted still has first call on their services if it's renewed. And I don't think it's out of the question that it will be, not at all.

Undoubtedly Yvette Nicole Brown is tops. Martin Short worst. I can take most of the others. Jane Lynch has this weird pronunciation thing where Yvette is "Ya-vet" and Yvonne is "Ya-vonn." Is this one of those embarrassing things that can happen to any of us where nobody ever corrected us on a certain pronunciation? (Or we just never focused enough to hear the difference, like Britta's "baggles" on Community, supposedly based on Dan Harmon's own mishearing.)