ABay

Just checking this topic has a spoiler warning. After episode 4 (? The one with the Duke of Savoy), I really want a Treville & Richilieu backstory.

Does anyone remember Lie to Me? Tim Roth was the lead. One of his assistants was quite tall. Or so it seemed until I saw him guest starring on Castle and he looked about average. So everyone in LtM must've been wee little folk. The opposite happened with J. August Richards from Angel. He and the other actors seemed average because they were roughly the same height (or that's how I recall it) and then I saw JAR on another show and he looked enormous. Back tot he episode....still hate Gordon.

Gordon on Halt and Catch Fire. All of the leads are assholes, but Gordon manages to also be the character equivalent of ugly leftover 70s wallpaper.

I hate Gordon. I was going to say more, but that's what it comes down to: I hate this character.

I'm not a fan of the Athos angst. Just kill her already.

Thanks, @Athena. They were filming near Prague while I was there last year, but unfortunately I didn't know that until I got home. Whenever it's pouring in the early episodes, I imagine it's the major rain that hit shortly after and flooded so much of Europe. The library they use quite often is, I believe, in a monastery near the castle in Prague and I think they also used Cesky Krumlov a lot. But I don't recognize the spot used as Holy Cross and it looks like a cool place to visit.

Maybe it's just the egg cups that aren't international. I've never used one.

Does anyone know the real life location of the convent of the Holy Cross?

My favorite in the series is the one where Stephen is in bed and says that opening the pistachio is like French kissing freedom. And the eagle slowly sidles away from him.

I like all of the Musketeers, including Treville, and remain surprised at how more I like Aramis than usual in this adaptation. Athos has been my default favorite since the book, so I tend to be a bit more judgmental about on-screen depictions. Which leads me to this nitpick. I'm rewatching episode 3--this is where Lady DeWinter addresses him as Athos as if it's his real first name and nearly made me sprain my eyeballs with the rolling--and I think I've figured out why I am not as in thrall to this Athos. He's too damn small. Tom Burke is a fine actor--he was very good in a thankless role in The Hour--but the outfit really emphasizes how thin he is and that his shoulders are a bit narrow (in my utterly subjective taste). ETA: Actually, I think he's kind of pigeon-chested. I am insanely shallow to be picking on him and it's not like I find him hideous or lacking in any other way. I just kind of expect Athos to have a bit more physical heft to him.

Thank you kindly. It's tragic that my genius was lost to posterity when TWoP closed. On the other hand, if there's a 10th anniversary rewatch here in the fall, only I will know how much I repeat myself and steal from others.

I was just settling in for the History marathon of America: The Story of Us. Because it's the 4th and I thought it would be innocuous wallpaper until the outer edges of Arthur arrive and knock out TV reception. And then the short-fingered vulgarian (TM Spy) himself, Donald Trump, showed up as one of the talking heads during the Jamestown segment. Click. That's probably not an unpopular opinion but I needed to share.

The intro, reading of the categories, and first 4 questions were pre-empted in my area so the weather jackasses could inform us that it was raining.

Summer shows get more of a chance to pull me in than shows debuting in the fall or midseason because there's less competition. I'm usually desperate for new content by June 1. In the fall, I'll give every show that sounds even remotely interesting a try. Some don't make it past the first few minutes, others get a few episodes. By the time May rolls around, it's a good year if I'm still watching 2.

Concurring with the drop in Tim's quality. It used to be that when I went back to Buffalo to visit family, I would always stop at the nearest Tim's for English toffee coffee and vanilla creme donuts. I can't get either of those here in Dunkin' Donuts country (I've heard heard rumors some place in CT has vanilla creme donuts but I've yet to find them since Krispy Kreme crashed and burned). I still indulge in the toffee coffee but go to Paula's--a local place, not a national chain--for fantastic vanilla creme donuts. Why don't you have these, CT? Why?

My unpopular opinion about Firefly is that I couldn't get past the Civil War analogy; the brown coats for whom we're supposed to feel sympathy represent the south. That doesn't work for me.

The show gave me so much pleasure, I will always love it even while fuming at its multitude of failings. I nitpick because I love! Among the major things I'd change if I could time travel: play by the rules of the mystery genre or don't play at all; Lindelof is not allowed near the internet. On rewatches it always amazes me how little I like most of the characters. Each of them has moments when I do like them, even Charlie and Claire who I can barely tolerate alone or together, but for the most part I just want to smack them upside the head and/or tell them to STFU. So many assholes on one plane. Oceanic should screen their passengers better. Why did I keep watching, why do I still rewatch? In fact, I didn't keep watching. I gave up watching for a while because I was fast forwarding through entire episodes. When they announced that they had an ending date and a plan, I went back . The betrayal that was the finale stung but it didn't destroy the rest of the series for me because lots of it was fun and interesting independent of the outcome. What stands out for me in the long run is that the show was so innovative in storytelling: the flashbacks (tedious though they became), flashforwards, flash sideways (tedious as they always were) as an integral part of every episode and used not just to move the plot but to develop character; Roshoman everything--each season has at least one crucial scene with multiple characters that is revisited throughout the season and shown from the point of view of a different character, usually as the starting point of their -centric episode; related to that, the really clever use of previous stories in the episode where Nikki and Paolo die; how often characters were doubled within episodes.

This is completely off the top of my head. I could see it growing out of a time when food and money were tight and making it through to the next paycheck without you or your kids going hungry meant making food last and keeping an iron rein on the household budget. My grandmother and mother lived through the Depression and it left lifelong marks.

So...since episode 1 season 1 I've been telling friends that this show is crazy but I'm enjoying it. And everyone is so striking, very memorable: Zo, Nico, DaVinci senior, Lorenzo, Riario, both Popes, etc. Everybody except the guy who plays the lead. End of season 2, I would still not be able to pick Tom Riley out of a line-up. I suggested DaVinci's Demons to a friend who enjoyed Elliot Cowan in the brilliant Lost in Austen. He was Darcy, and the actor who plays Crane in Sleepy Hollow was Bingham, but what I remember most is that LiA had the best Wickham ever. Just a fun reinterpretation of the character and the actor had lots of chemistry with Jemima Rooper. I was just checking IMDB to see who that actor was...it was Tom Riley. So even when I love a character he's played, his face is completely forgettable to me. Ha! Sorry, Mr. Riley.

in my opinion, "evil Mary Poppins" is redundant.

In my opinion, short and painful would be better for the country. Rehnquist didn't retire even after he was diagnosed with cancer.

The best stretch of episodes was from "The Man from Tallahassee" to "There's No Place Like Home." Season 4 was the best. It was short, no padding.Thank you, striking writers! Season 5 was also good. The only decent episodes in season 6 were "LAX" and "What They Died For". None of the couples or triangles did a damn thing for me and I would've enjoyed the show even more without them at center stage. This includes Jin and Sun (My recap of Sun in season 6: "Have you seen my husband? I'm looking for my husband. Did you know I have a husband? I do! And I'm looking for him. Have you seen him? He's my husband.") I could only have cared less about Desmond and Penelope if...wait...nope, could not have cared less at all.

@Kromm, those are fair points. I also wonder if there's any difference in perception of datedness, or acceptance of it, if you first saw the show in reruns or if you were alive when the show originally aired? And maybe how old you were at that time? Not directly on point but a near tangent, I loved Life on Mars so much I bought the DVDs after seeing one butchered episode on BBCA. I liked Ashes to Ashes well enough but it lacked the emotional punch of LoM and I think it's largely because I was young enough in the 70s to remember the decade with affectionate exasperation (and deep gratitude that decade is over), but old enough in the 80s to be fully cognizant of what was happening and not romanticize it in retrospect.

Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford are both wonderful characters and, even when the world around them looks painfully dated, will always stand the test of time. In my opinion, anyway. The RF openings really make me miss old fashioned answering machines, too.

Only on TV does a wood table stop bullets from an automatic weapon.