truther

I'm just watching this series now, sorry to be 4 years out of date 🙂. Generally I like it, with a few quibbles (and I wish they'd stop shooting people in the head all the time). But I just need to get off my chest that the decision to destroy Deimos strikes me as one of the most strategically idiotic ideas in human history. I have no idea how anyone with even an ounce of common sense would possibly think it was a constructive thing to do, no matter their background or perspective, especially coming so soon after the Donnager. It takes me out of the show to think that the people governing Earth are halfwits. I'm kind of hoping Mars pulls a Starship Troopers and fires Deimos' remains back to Earth and destroys Buenos Aires or something. Also that Martian gunney needs to get it together. Her attitude to her superior officer is appalling. And with all those scenes of Alex going through the simulation and but never succeeding even using the real data, I was expecting him to discover some kind of hidden flaw in the actual battle, like that the real stealth ship was on autopilot or that his display had been compromised -- something to suggest the assault was some kind of charade they'd been tricked into doing. It's weird how sometimes on this show things are super convoluted and not as they appear, while other times just as simplistic as they seem at first glance. Finally, loved Amos' pedophile insight specifically and his overall development generally. This show's characters are a little hit or miss for me; Holden, for example, is very one-note and it's telling that they use scenes with his mom talking to Chrisjen to give him any depth. He and Miller together remind me of some sweeps week network show awkwardly pairing people from different programs, like The Murder She Wrote Lady Visits Hawaii and Hires Magnum, p.i. Amos, on the other hand, seems a really fleshed-out guy with a fascinating backstory.

Just finished this. My post contains spoilers. I really enjoyed it a lot but also agree with many of the criticisms people have offered here. The show is at its best when Assane is doing one of his public schemes -- the Louvre heist, the (completely OTT) Belgian Congo lady, the delivery bike chase, etc. When you sit back and think over some of the broader arcs, that's when things fall apart a bit. Better not to think so hard and just enjoy the ride. The whole idea of Assane as a master of disguise makes no sense. Especially since the show makes racism and its dehumanization of people of color a recurring theme. Guy's a big, handsome black man -- not one of those witnesses would ever have noticed subtle differences in his nose, cheekbones, eyebrows, or whatever other stuff he was manipulating through makeup. He might as well change his shoelaces or sock color - nobody, literally nobody, in Assane's world would have cared. Once Assane won the auction at the Louvre his cover was blown and his photo would have been everywhere. Even on the TV show everyone would immediately have pegged him as Assane in makeup, just as we did. It also seemed quite convenient that teenager Raoul suddenly turned into a Lupin fanatic just because his moderately estranged dad gave him the book to read at the start of the show. Really surprised the prison nurse didn't have a photo on file of the prisoner Assane was supposed to be, let alone a medical file with things like height and weight; ditto the guards who would have escorted a shanked prisoner to and from the infirmary. Nobody wondered who this guy was they'd never seen before? I sympathized with Claire quite a bit. Lots of people spend their lives in dysfunctional relationships trying to redeem somebody they suspect they'd be better without. It's good to see her keep at it, though she's gonna be pissed when she finds out what Assane's hijinks have done to her son. Maybe Chapter 2 will be titled "Can Pellegrini Kill Assane, Before Claire Gets to Him First?"

Maybe I'm taking this too seriously but isn't this the second week in a row the guest judge has been one of Chris' former students? That's a real conflict that I don't think is fair to the other contestants. Or, really, to Chris, even though I don't like his attitude very much. (Witness his joke about how he should have given a better grade.)

Glad to see this show again and I agree with everyone's comments above, even the ones that aren't entirely consistent (if that makes sense). It seems like a good group of people and yeah, unfortunately it was pretty clear who was being sent home. It's a real shame to come halfway across the globe for one 28-minute episode. Hopefully Chris replays the episode in his mind and figures out that he's not as strong a contestant as he thinks he is. I have to admit, though, to being a little intrigued they brought up gender issues again. They covered that theme a lot last season. The chief judge is obviously a woman and the first season winner was female and many (most?) of the assistants are women, so there seems to be quite a bit of representation in the field. Plus the contestants largely seem to be on the more aware-end of the spectrum. These aren't bros doing bro stuff with their bros, you know? I honestly don't know anything about the glass blowing industry but it's never struck me as a [toxic] masculine profession and nothing about this show seems to suggest it would be. Just wondering if anyone more familiar with the field can shed some light on why the show would have as a recurring theme the idea of women glass blowers fighting to be seen and heard? Who's holding them back? (And apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere.)

Uh oh, I think you all have started a rush for the exits! I watched a couple more episodes last night and it doesn't get better. In fact it makes less sense now that it did before.

I've made it through this ep so far. Agree with the general tone of the comments -- I can't tell if this show is bad, or so bad it's good. The only things keeping me interested are the ballet, my need to know who did it, and the location shots of Chicago. A few specific issues in no particular order: 1. As the show moves on the editing seems to be favoring the actors who can actually act. The actor playing Bette is lightyears ahead of some of the other kids, and I wonder if they didn't adjust the storylines accordingly. 2. The Gossip Girl-esque voiceover narrations are really weird, because half the time they don't actually add anything. There'll be this broody, moody show for half an hour and then suddenly somebody else starts talking about random ballet stuff, but it doesn't contribute to the plot in any way. They should replace it with some middle-aged guy talking about socks one time just to see if anyone's paying attention. 3. The "conversations" in this show drive me crazy. Every single interaction ends when somebody drops a snide comment and then walks away, while the other person stands there silently (or walks back into their bathroom stall). Every single time. 4. Neveah's kind of a selfish brat, Her dad's dead, her brother's in a wheelchair, her mom's in jail, and she's pissed about how it affects her dancing. You know who else in her family has trouble dancing? 5. Everybody is so uniformly awful to everybody else (with maybe one or two exceptions) it's hard to believe they can even function in society. I was actually laughing when June confessed to the random guy at the bar because for a moment I thought this show was going to go in a very interesting direction -- where their insular ballet world was utterly dysfunctional and sociopathic but outside that bubble was a real world of normal people.

We caught this last night. It was hilarious! So many great lines and scenes and the actors clearly all seem to have a great time being with each other. Especially loved the "revolting" slime. Why would anybody put that in a trifle to begin with? Does anybody know why Prue was in crutches?

Nice little interview with Laura in the Guardian today. Pretty standard stuff -- she chooses to accentuate the positives and not bother with the social media trolls -- but good to know she's doing well. And she really likes Matt Lucas. My personal favorite bit was about Dave wanting all the other bakers to do his wedding cake.

I just finished this season and had the same reaction. What started out as a light drama/romantic comedy turned into a dark and depressing slog about evil drug dealers. It's got to be one or the other and if they're going to try to high-wire both types of storylines, they need better writers. I simply don't give two craps about Charmaine's birth plan or whether Lizzie baked the pies or if Muriel is moving in on Doc if this is really a show about Jack crying, alone, over a fallen soldier or drug dealers driving their new recruit out into the forest to murder a snitch and bury his body. It would be like Schindler's List having a side story about one of the concentration camp guards trying to get a clown for his daughter's birthday party. Plus it didn't seem like anyone changed. As others have mentioned these characters kept doing the same stupid stuff over and over again. By amazing coincidence a lot of people here have mentioned how they fast forwarded through the dumb parts. So I wish Ricky and Lizzie all the best with whatever it is they've decided to do because I, also, didn't bother watching that part and finding out.

This is what many of the people criticizing Laura and questioning her presence in the final seem to overlook. The judges consistently raved about her food. It was always delicious. Not, "yeah it looks like crap but it's tasty enough," but rather "this is some of the best ___ I've ever had." Laura clearly had a problem with organization, and she was a bit more dramatic than some of the other bakers, but the judges clearly seemed to love her finished products as much as anyone's. I personally liked seeing things like Peter's understated "I'm allowing myself to feel slightly stressed," or whatever he said at one point, but let's be honest that's not riveting TV. This show has had annoying contestants for years. I'm happy that this season I liked everyone and enjoyed watching all of them. Honestly I couldn't always say that.

But they still refer to the British name in various places. You can see the "real" name in the trophy they award, and you also hear it in at least one of the family videos they showed. (I don't remember who, I think it was Laura's dad? He was proud of her being on "Bake Off") It's also odd that they would re-write the text for the US version and literally change the facts. Either Peter's flatmates knew he was on the show or they didn't. It's not that hard to get it right. Anyway, good to see Peter win but I realized I was rooting for Dave. Glad he did really well, and being locked down in a tent for 6 or 7 weeks while your wife is expecting is a very big sacrifice.

I knew Hermine was going home and was not surprised at all when they announced it. She had a bad week, didn't do anything particularly well, and made a showstopper that was ugly and inedible. When everyone else does better . . . it's simple math. Sorry to see her go. The points @dbell1 and other people are making up thread about Laura and social media are absolutely right and need to be emphasized. These are ordinary people we're talking about, who like to bake and seem generally lovely and agreed to do a show that millions of people love to watch. You and I are watching an entire weekend distilled down to 55 minutes of carefully edited footage. I will gleefully mock somebody like Rudy Giuliani, who willingly debases himself, but I cannot comprehend why anyone would actually attack, even just on social media, these GBBO bakers who have literally done nothing wrong to anyone. If you hate somebody because her mirror glaze didn't go on her cube cake properly you have serious issues. Which segues into another interesting edit from this episode, which was Laura talking about how much she loves Matt after Matt had given her a Mel/Sue-esque pep talk. I got the real sense this week they edited the episode to, uh, humanize Matt a bit, almost as though they were responding to viewer feedback that he simply annoyed people. Which leads me to second what @AZChristian just said, that these people are really nice to each other. That's always been the best thing about this show. My prediction for the final - Dave pips it. Laura will be in the running until something goes horribly wrong, and Peter will screw something up in the signature and get rattled.

I don't know . . . in the last three years they've aired 20 episodes and one special. Meanwhile the Great British Baking Show managed to do an entire full season during the lockdown. I know it's apples to oranges, but at some point Who's scarcity really becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody misses a show they never see.

I'm surprised by the near-consensus in these comments. People are making some great points, but it's disappointing to see so many people not liking this season overall. I agree Paul is overrepresented, that some of the most charismatic bakers have been kicked off the past few weeks, and that Noel and (especially) Matt aren't quite clicking, but it's still great TV for me. I like all of the bakers. There's no drama, nobody whose presence on the screen irritates me, no manufactured crises like somebody taking somebody else's bake out of the freezer and "forgetting" to put it back. Noel and Matt have to work on their act a bit. To me this seems to beg the question of how the quarantine is affecting the show. Matt doesn't seem to be connecting with the bakers -- other than announcing how much time is left, he just shows up in a scene and annoys the bakers, then disappears again. Being stuck with a guy like that for weeks on end would irritate the heck out of me. Noel had great chemistry with Lottie and is struggling without her and Mark, who seemed like one of those awesome guys who laughs at everything. Lottie's departure really left a mark. Count me among the handful who thought that Sussex Pond pastry with cream looked delicious. I'll bet it's awesome when cooked properly. (*Shakes fist at Prue*)

This is much closer to how I see it, too. I tried to be crystal clear that in suggesting that Beth wanted to defect, I was talking about her POV, rather than some objective notion that the USSR in 1968 was a nice place to live or that Beth moving there would be a good idea. Hell, you couldn't pay me to live in Russia now, forget 50 years ago. But having said that -- and now I feel like I'm back in college -- I honestly think you can solidly deconstruct this show to argue that it is, at best, ambiguous about which side in the Cold War was the "right" side. There's so much symbolism, and so many little things, that combine to undercut the idea that Beth is lucky to be an American. From her perspective, as a prodigy who lives for chess, she's arguably better off somewhere else. Her mom got no help from society and killed herself. At the orphanage she had to sneak down to the basement to play chess with the weird outsider guy. Beth's only foray into "normal" high school life was with the Apple Pie club or whatever they were called, and they turned out to be vacuous idiots, backed up by her later running into Margaret whose best days were behind her. Beth's adopted mom couldn't do anything with her classical piano training and only found (fleeting) happiness when she left the US for Mexico. Her adopted dad only wanted money. Beth was lost in Kentucky, and went to Las Vegas (symbol of American material excess) only to lose to the Russian. She met a child prodigy who was just like her (literally -- neither had been to a drive-in) but was supported instead of ostracized. The glamorous French model whom Beth lusts after literally talks about how she is an empty vessel for materialism, and she ends up sabotaging Beth's Paris contest with the Russians. Beth finally wins by giving all that up in a place that would have encouraged her interest rather than lampooned it. Etc. etc. You can say the show glossed over all the real problems with life behind the Iron Curtain, like the fact that Soviet tanks were rolling through Prague pretty much as the Moscow tournament was going on. But the show doesn't talk about Vietnam, or the Civil Rights movement, either, even though it starts in Kentucky and goes to college campuses and flies Beth around the world. And every time the outside world tries to impose its Cold War ideology on Beth, she resists, whether it's at the orphanage, or the school, or with the Jesus people, or the media, or from the State Department/CIA. She doesn't just hop out of the car to play chess on the Moscow streets - she does it right after the CIA handler gives her her talking points for the trip back to DC. Total repudiation. And she's happy for it.

Agreed. I loved this show and I really loved this final episode. Nobody got shot. There was no terrible secret that revealed a hidden world of abuse that was worse than anything we could have imagined. There weren't shadowy figures more powerful than you knew whose reveal will shock us. Those endings would have been cop-outs because that's what every formulaic show does nowadays. Instead we got a beautiful story about imperfect people trying their best to make sense of their lives. Even the awesome Jolene, when she returned, they made a very specific meta point of saying she wasn't the Black Guardian Angel cliche but instead somebody Beth had helped just as much as the other way around. Again, agreed entirely. I think that scene of Beth finding Mr. Scheibel's scrapboard, and then crying over the photo, was the single most powerful part of the whole series. And the Russians were great. @tennisgurl mentioned the Einstein-y guy, and his reaction of genuine warmth and pleasure at having lost to the person he considered the best chess player in the world. Just a great scene. So maybe this is a crazy thought, but did anyone else think Beth is going to defect? There was a distinct theme through this show about the value of community over American individualism. The State Department wouldn't even help pay for her trip then sent a CIA guy to tell her what to do and say, and she blew him off. She blew off the anti-communist Jesus people. She doesn't care about geopolitics. She gets to Russia and sees ordinary people on the street playing chess, ordinary people following the chess tournament, ordinary people working together and cheering her on. I imagined Beth getting out of that car at the end not for a short game on the way to the airport, but because she's finally found her happy place. Fancy clothes and glamour got her Cleo and waking up drunk in a bathtub. Hard work and sobriety got her the world championship and the sincere admiration of her chess rivals. If she goes back to the US she meets the president and spews Cold War talking points at Georgetown parties. If she stays in Moscow she plays chess with the best chess players in the world (and looks phenomenal doing it). When Borgov said "I expect to die playing chess," or words to that effect, wasn't Beth jealous?

I tried to watch this with my kids but I just can't. I can't. I appreciate that it's really just a soap opera in space, but honestly if you told me I'd somehow missed the opening 5 minutes where it was explained that these people were all pulled at random off the street at the last minute to replace the real mission crew who'd been kidnapped, I would believe you.

Yep. For a couple years now I've wished they'd throw in an all-weekend challenge, where on Saturday morning they tell the bakers "take all the time you need, just have it ready by tomorrow evening." As things stand it can get quite gimmicky when they bake something then throw it in the freezer so they can get the frosting or whatever on in time without it melting.

This got me wondering about the Covid bubble they're all in. These bakers are spending vastly more time together than the bakers normally do on this show. Everybody used to go home during the week and they'd come back to the tent each weekends. I wonder whether all that time together is going to start having an effect on how they decide what and how to bake each week. Other than that it's been good. Except this was the first week I found myself agreeing with the people criticizing Matt. I didn't think he really brought much to the episode, other than the same "make fun of Paul and Prue" joke he told half a dozen times.

WTF was that ending?!?

Yeah Netflix US definitely added the Boris cold open -- it wasn't there last night. It's very funny, and if it followed a real Boris address then No. 10 probably wasn't happy. And I'm with Paul Hollywood in the "scone"/"scon" debate. They're "scons." The showstopper really was straight out of Nailed It! but you know what, I think it worked really well. Part of this show's great charm is the fact that the contestants generally seem so relatable, so having them largely mess up in the first round the way normal people baking at home would do, was refreshing, in a good way. They all seem like nice people. Also, and maybe I'm just reading way to much into it, but I noticed that in the shot of them all walking to the tent the morning after Sura knocked over Dave's cakes, Dave was walking alone, in front of Sura who was with at least 2 other people. Yeah, that shot could have been taken anytime, but I sort of got the sense he was alot more po'd than the show let on. Which isn't surprising, frankly, and I hope everyone was cool about it.

Thanks to some recent flights on Delta, where for some reason they had the final four episodes from season 11, I had a chance to re-watch those episodes plus most of this season. They've done some really good work with Jodie's Doctor. My ratings would generally be a step lower than yours across the board -- 7s and 8s instead of 9s and 10s -- but I agree that Orphan 55 and Praxeus were the weakest in a season that otherwise soared pretty high. My main complaints are about the show's structure. I don't think the companions have really added much at all. They're like the characters in the new Star Wars or Marvel movies, just sort of moving from one scene to the next without really growing or changing in any way. Yaz, after two seasons, is just getting up the courage to do what Amy or Donna did after 10 minutes. Ryan, in particular, is just kind of this guy who occasionally says or does something to advance the plot. The companions have this recurring bit where they try to challenge the Doctor and she tells them to know their place because she's all old and broody and whatnot, and it seems like they've had that scene 3 or 4 times. Even Graham, my favorite of the three, is kind of just running in place. I also wish they could produce more episodes. Twenty in three years is pretty weak. But I've decided, on reflection, that I liked the ending to this season. I'm instinctively somebody who wants things to stay as they are, so I'm not happy about the Timeless Child storyline or Gallifrey being destroyed, but the show actually pulled it off really well, with nuggets in the earlier episodes and some great possibilities going forward. Sacha was incredible. I'm happy about what they did this year.

My thoughts exactly. When you have other people do your dirty work for you, you are still just as culpable. "But I hired a hit man so I wouldn't have to kill anyone!" isn't a defense that will get you very far. I thought the episode was technically sound -- (mostly) well paced, tight, coherent -- but left me scratching my head. Backstories are generally pointless, because they take away the mystery and, as a result, make things more pedestrian. And after two seasons I think it's time to call time on Yaz and Ryan. Graham I like, and I'd like to see him hook up with what's-her-name the future fugitive. But the other 2/3s of The Fam have had more than enough time to do something, anything, beyond make a few faces and serve as an occasional plot device and they really haven't. You could have edited them out of this episode entirely and easily compensated for it.

Glad you mentioned this! I thought the lighting was fantastic -- no obvious electric lights on set, just the candles to make things really look the way they would have back in 1816. Well done show. Also loved the skeleton hand, Glad it went straight for Ryan's throat, possibly to shut him up (and save his life?). Too bad about the dead servants but thank goodness the main characters decided, for once, to acknowledge the background characters who didn't make it. If every episode were of this quality I'd be a satisfied Doctor Who watcher. It's been years, I think, since they've come anywhere near something like Midnight but I'll take what I can get. Though really, who tries to crash a small private party emptyhanded? I had a very hard time believing our friends would have been accepted the way they were. If they had at least shown up with a case of fine Italian wine or something I could have bought it.

I thought the officer said she'd pay Yaz 50 pounds, but that if Yaz came around then she'd only have to pay back 50 pence. That's the coin Yaz handed over at the end. It's why the officer said Yaz was getting good odds.