Peace 47

No, that happened on the live show. He was just joking that it wasn't so humiliating that the joke bombed because it was "only" dress rehearsal--when in fact he was embarrassed in front of a national audience. I meant to ask about the other joke you mentioned: Trump normally refusing to pay until after the work was done. I'm drawing a total blank on what the source of that reference is.

Martin Freeman was on Colbert on Friday night. (Not sure if there are working links to it beyond the CBS paid subscription app, but try Vimeo if you're interested.) I actually didn't watch the interview because I first saw someone's online post that said Colbert pulled out a piece of Johnlock fan art (non-explicit) during the interview and asked Freeman to comment on it, and I am so beyond tired of media figures doing this at the mere suggestion of a gay relationship. (Graham Norton and Caitlin Moran have done this, too.) Is it always inevitably hilarious when fans ship any non-canon pairings at all or solely when it's gay? And having read that the fan who was the subject of Caitlin Moran's foray into this area was mortified at the introduction of her fandom-space work to the actors in a public forum where it was played as a huge joke, I'm always sensitive to this issue. Anyway, they showed a very short, humorous clip from the first episode of S4, "The Six Thatchers," which I did watch on someone's Tumblr. John and Lestrade are teasing Sherlock as all three are headed out the door of 221B. John and Lestrade talk about how much work a new baby is and imply that John already has experience dealing with a demanding, self-centered infant by virtue of being BFFs with Sherlock. Sherlock at first doesn't understand the sarcasm, then slowly picks up that they are making a joke at his expense. Not much to it: just a light moment. I also posted a link to the new BBC S4 trailer in the S4 trailer thread. That one looks pretty good.

That was a sharp line. I also actually lol'd when she said something like the answer to the question of "Why McDonald's?" was because she had "burned a lot of bridges at Wendy's." The return of Walter White should have been a great Cold Open, but the writing wasn't that sharp, and Cranston definitely seemed not that into it (to me). It was like he was just there to shill for that truly dreadful-looking movie he has coming out this Christmas, and he just ended up playing the whole thing very broadly. I remember when Aaron Paul as "Jesse" was on during an Obamacare sketch a few years ago: that one was funnier than this.

I don't know exactly in what thread to put this, but watch a new S4 trailer here. [Stefan from SNL voice] This trailer's got everything: Wet John at the bottom of a well-like space, Mycroft standing in front of a burning house, Sherlock saying, "I love you" to or about someone at the very end (with John and Mycroft standing behind him). Sherlock in a shark tunnel.

Yeah, I had edited my post at the same time that you were posting that I completely forgot that Ike and his family are Jewish, and it's actually kind of an uncomfortable reference in that respect. Although maybe Ike is just friends with Santa through Kyle, since Kyle knows Santa from their trip to Iraq. With Jesus. (I love "Red Sleigh Down": I've got to go watch that again.)

Ike sent an email to Santa? How cute! (Edit: Wait, they're Jewish, I forgot. That's actually weird.). I enjoyed Kyle's continuing disquiet in response to Ike's filthy mouth. Cartman manufactures a bomb threat by NASA to Space X because NASA is super-jelly? Lol. I really didn't like that Gerald didn't get his at the end, but I'll still hold out hope for next season. Kyle's optimistic voiceover was completely at odds with what was actually happening at the end: Gerald doesn't have a "second chance" with his children (who hate him now), and no one in the public at large learned anything and will continue being terrible on the Internet (evidenced by the old man's dick pic). Cartman is also a ticking time bomb, so maybe the episode title is also a lie, and there is some justice served next season.

I know it's probably in bad taste to ship real people, but they're so cute together! I kind of wish they were "real." Emma is such a pro. She's wonderful. She really made that nativity sketch. "Super cute during every day of my 14 years." Haha.

I loved plucky, super-intelligent little Heidi. It was so cute when she was staring at that board and said, "I'm just not getting this," but she didn't give up and found the answer while teaching herself advanced math. Adorable. I also liked Kyle taking a pause to ask Ike where he learned such filthy language, and Ike said, "Daddy!" Gerald is the worst. Lastly, I got a laugh when Garrison took calls from his South Park acquaintances over every world leader that was on hold. Good episode.

I just watched straight through the clips from last night's show that were up on the SNL app, since I did not see the show live. I really enjoyed it. The Target and Bubble pre-taped sketches were both enjoyable. The Secret Word was pretty entertaining because even though it is the same joke every time, I did get a kick out of her misreading "Floral" and Cecily's temperamental Italian film star. I liked the "Dwayne 'The Scissors' Johnson" joke on Update, and how proud Michael was of it. And I was so happy not to see Gilly or Garth and Kat, which are two of my "Do not pass go; do not continue watching" sketches. Y'all need to watch the cut for time Thanksgiving sketch that is up on the app if you haven't already. It's pretty good and could have replaced the "Sue" sketch. "Birth control pills painted green because she doesn't like peas and wants to hide them from Trump" -- nicely cutting.

Garrison would blame PC culture for his own failings at both being a decent human being and learning Canadian. Obviously in some ways, PC Principal was extreme, but like the kids acknowledged in, I think, maybe, last season's finale(?) moving away from outdated rhetoric and acknowledging that things needed to change was not such a bad thing.

I have to watch this again because I kept getting interrupted and couldn't focus completely, but one thing I loved was "Hail to the Chief" played in a minor key whenever Garrison would appear. Garrison is the perfect avatar for our real-life national disgrace. I guess that the whole Danes/ Internet history/ Gerald trolling storyline is all coming together. I have to admit that I have found it a little hard to follow the thread/ message on this, and it hasn't been my favorite storyline that they've done.

I thought the cold open was very touching. I have to admit that I was in no mood to see a Trump impersonation this week, and so I personally was relieved that they played it entirely straight. I thought the Inside SNL sketch was fab. I see on my SNL app that it's the least popular clip that they have up from Saturday's show, but it was short and snappy, used a lot of cast, and skewered both sports press conferences and what can go wrong with their own sketches. I thought that was a nice bit of non-political humor in a show that otherwise demanded to be dominated by the political.

I'm having an extremely hard time, too. I give you credit for being able to go into work today because after working from home this morning but then deciding that I really should go into the office, I physically couldn't make myself do it. I kept welling up with tears every time I tried to get ready to go and then said working from home for the rest of the day was better than sitting there with red, puffy eyes at work. I am at a loss as to how any of the horrible things Trump has uttered during the campaign pass as acceptable public discourse from the leader of the free world. This is so far beyond a conservative/ liberal divide to me. I suppose that I can't underestimate the disrespect and low opinion that many in this country have for women specifically, including within my own family. Tonight when I despaired to my father (who voted for Johnson but called Trump the "lesser of two evils" as compared to Hillary) that it is devastating to know that the future president calls women fat pigs, brags about being able to sexually assault them and who has suggested that if a woman is sexually harassed at her job, she should find another, my father said Trump was just being colorful, I was being "hysterical" and, "You just tell me if you're ever sexually harassed at your job and I'll go down there and take care of things myself." I don't know how we as a nation instill empathy in people like that who cannot relate at all to the fear and concern of anyone not in their privileged position. It fills me with a profound despair that there can be such an acceptance of lowering the bar on basic human decency. This goes beyond ill-conceived policy decisions and strikes at the value and regard in which we hold all fellow citizens. I am ashamed as an American that we collectively have accepted this discourse from our leader. And while I'm tempted to say, "He's not my president," the sad fact is that he is. He represents us to our fellow citizens and the world, and it is an ugly image we have selected to project.

I found the show to be a little hit-or-miss for me, but Cumberbatch was certainly game for anything and everything, to his credit. I really enjoyed the "pool boy" Pete Davidson/ Julia Louis-Dreyfus sketch last season, and so the continuation of it with "Office Hours" was welcome. The "Khool Toilet" ad was a witty parody of the famous Mac ad, though I was watching with 2 people who had never seen the ad and didn't get the sketch, and so I wonder how well that landed. Weekend Update was back on track this week after being a little off the past two eps (at least in my opinion). Don't have much positive to say about the rest. I will say dead grandma was not really the fresh take on "Weekend at Bernies" that they may have been striving for. That bronze eagle sketch at the end was dreadful, but it was a 12:55 sketch, and so I'm not demanding blood, either. It's weird that there was no dedicated "Doctor Strange" or "Sherlock" sketch (though I know both came up in the monologue). As a big "Sherlock" fan, I also can't believe they've had both Cumberbatch and Freeman host and never done a "Sherlock" sketch. Throw me a bone, gents!

I love Honest Trailers (the Star Trek 2009 one is still one of those YouTube videos that I periodically go back to and rewatch over and over and over). But the jokes didn't really land for me on this one. The things they poked fun at aren't that inherently hilarious to me, I guess, other than maybe the reverse smile gag. Like, is John's running style what stands out when you think about the show? Maybe I'm just getting bored with this show overall and new actual content will renew my interest. They're right about it being a superhero show in disguise, though.

Man, I had resisted DS9 when I gave it a try in syndication in ... probably the late 90s. But I just came off kind of falling in love with TOS on Netflix (first-timer), and I am a longstanding TNG fan, and so I thought I would give this another whirl because everyone always says this is the superior show. I thought the pilot did an excellent job of world-building: the station in ruins, how the main characters come to be there, the messy political and social situation in which they find themselves. I really got a sense of purpose, potential obstacles and conflicts, etc. When it started getting into the mysticism on Bajor, and how Sisko was going to be "The Emissary," it lost me a little bit because I'm not really all-in for religious prophecies and the main character being the key to something foretold (been burned on that with other shows and their convoluted resolutions), but if those wormhole beings don't exist in linear time, I can foresee how this comes together in a quasi-scientific explanation that I could eventually swallow. Kira does come off as very Ro-ish, as people noted upthread. As a big Ro fan, I'm a little sad we didn't get to see her in this role, as I also loved the O'Brien-Ro interaction in TNG's "Disaster" and would have liked to see their varying approaches continue to contrast. KIra was awesome, though, in protecting the station from the attack. Loved her photon torpedo strategy. I thought that Sisko's communication with the Prophets (is that who they are?) was a truly excellent meditation on grief. First, it was almost hilarious how Dax is so at peace with herself and her life that she saw the sunny day while Sisko saw the barren, stormy wasteland. Perhaps a bit literal, but good exposition for a pilot. And then, "Why do you exist here?" Such an innocuous question from the questioner; such a loaded thing to process on Sisko's part. He didn't even realize that he could let his survivor's guilt and grief go, which is something that rings true to me. I'm not sure I'm ready to tear through DS9 in the same way I've just done TOS, but this was one of the strongest pilots I can recall seeing. And I have to say the Odo and space effects were awesome, even if the sets and "heavy" objects were classic Star Trek in a way that made me smile.

I agree that the episode's message was that the combo of qualities ultimately made Kirk who he was, but Spock's remark at the end is implying that Rand was specifically attracted to the "evil" Kirk (or, not evil, but a pile of uncontrolled impulses). That's why the ending seems particularly painful when viewed through the lens of modern-day sensitivity to issues of sexual assault.

Thanks. The story of the "The Enemy Within" is interesting, and there's some good story beats in it--Kirk fighting losing his willpower, having to listen to Sulu's team slowly dying on the surface, etc. It is deeply unsettling, though, in terms of having to watch evil Kirk's attempted rape of Yeoman Rand. It's good for its time that the show took Rand's charge seriously and forced Kirk to answer to the allegation. However, the very ending of the show is nothing short of horrendous when Spock comments to Rand that evil Kirk had some "interesting qualities" or whatever he said. The implication that Rand was attracted to her attempted rapist on the basis of his sexually aggressive qualities (and not because she was already attracted to good Kirk) is just a world full of nope. (And why would Spock of all people say that to her?) Terrible ending to an otherwise decent episode.

I'd previously heard S3 ragged on in comparison to S1 and S2, and I would agree that it's not as good, but it's got some gems and some enjoyable scenes. "The Tholian Web" was excellent insofar as seeing Spock have to balance trying to save Kirk and the ship, and then subsequently having to deal with Kirk's death on both a personal level and as the new captain of the ship. I found it very affecting that after Spock and Bones listened to Kirk's final message, Bones acknowledged how painful it must be for Spock, and Spock, who can't even look at Bones in that moment, says, "What would you have me say?" Well-acted by Nimoy and a well-written line, because you feel Spock's pain at losing the person to whom he is closest, but he can't compromise his Vulcan veneer to give voice to his loss, either. Overall, Bones should have been written up for insubordination in that episode, though (although I was a little unclear as to whether any of his inexcusable behavior towards Spock, his commanding officer, could have been attributed to the beginnings of the space madness affecting some of the crew). "Turnabout Intruder" is dripping with problematic misogyny, but setting that aside to the extent that one can, I like the way the actress played Kirk-in-Janice's body, and I loved how Kirk-in-Janice's body asserted that Spock knew him better than anyone in the universe and offered up his mind for the meld, which convinced Spock straight away. The measured, calm resistance that Kirk and Spock offered Lester was interesting (Spock saying that they would offer no physical resistance), and allowed Scotty and Bones to come around to the truth for themselves (although I don't know why they didn't trust Spock right off the bat, given that they know melds and how they work). When I read the Netflix description of how Abraham Lincoln was going to assist Kirk and Spock in "The Savage Curtain," I thought that episode would be the stupidest of the series, but it was rather enjoyable. Kirk's massive nerd crush on Lincoln and Spock's deference to Vulcan Jesus were both cute, and a rock, non-humanoid entity (with no concept of human-like morality) as the antagonist was a creative path for the episode. After being immersed in TNG for years, it was a little weird to see Kahless on the side of history's great villains, although that could be chalked up to the rock entity getting info from the Enterprise's computer, which info was going to be swayed by the then-existing antagonism between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. "The Empath" was interesting and showed just how devoted Kirk, Spock and Bones are to each other, although Bones knocking his colleagues out left and right is pretty unethical, as Spock said. For anyone who ships Kirk and Spock, that scene where Spock is looking tenderly at an unconscious Kirk until he sees that Gem is watching him would certainly give one ammo for the cause. Poor Spock thought that he was going to head off to die and takes a moment to take one last look at Kirk. "Requiem for Methuselah" also feeds into that a bit at the end, in that Bones is railing on how Spock will never feel love, ever, and will never do stupid, risky things for love, and Spock's immediate response is to do a stupid, risky thing in using telepathy to make Jim forget his grief and ease his pain.

I have a question about "The Enemy Within" episode (the one where a transporter snafu splits Kirk into good and evil halves). At the end of the episode, when Kirk has to get on the transporter pad with his evil self to re-merge, and no one is completely sure that he can survive the process, he says to Spock, "If this doesn't work ....", trails off and Spock looks at him, nods and says, "Understood, Captain." I'm not sure I followed Kirk's train of thought. Was Kirk just acknowledging the likelihood of his own death and saying that if he dies, Spock is going to have to take over as captain? I did like how Bones was looking on with great concern right before the re-merge, and when Kirk notices this, he gives him a reassuring smile and nod. In pop culture, people will sometimes refer to how Shatner will play certain moments in a "big" way, but I continue to be impressed with his subtlety in many scenes.

I'm in Manhattan this weekend, staying at a hotel a couple of blocks from 30 Rock, and a little part of me was sorry that I didn't do something crazy like camp out for tickets or whatever you have to do to get in because I'm a pretty huge Tom Hanks fan (I even really enjoy all these Da Vinci Code movies that people were noting upthread tend to get terrible reviews.) That said, I didn't love the episode, although it was okay. David Pumpkins reminded me of Kevin Roberts (the shooting range sketch with Larry David), but not as funny. I didn't really get the Halloween/ Journey sketch. Weekend Update seemed weak again this week after a hot streak that stretched from last season. Black Jeopardy was excellent: great social commentary on how simultaneously, there can be both negligible and insurmountable differences between different points on the political spectrum. And Alec Baldwin was great in the debate sketch and had some great lines. Maybe I was too hard on the show, reading everyone else's comments.

This Vanity Fair article that discusses last night's show is interesting. It says towards the end of the piece, after first taking on the unrelated topics of the new head writers and the fact that the show's biggest stars are women, that the Honda Robots and Burger King sketches are part of the show's move to have more brand-sponsored content within the show so that there are fewer commercial breaks at the edges. It is what it is; they're doing what they have to do for the business, but it makes me a little sad that that particular comedy doesn't come from a place of pure artistic expression, but rather is just ticking the appropriate sponsorship boxes. Did Bank of America sponsor that Wells Fargo sketch? (j/k)

Melaniade was amazing! They had the Beyoncé video look down stone cold, and the lyrics were perfect. I've rewatched that 2x this morning already. I thought the debate sketch was better than the first and really, really solid. They did a particularly good job of sending up the inane undecided voter questions, like Kyle's question modeled on the real question of "Say something nice about the other candidate." When they played the Jaws theme, I have to say that I half-expected also to hear Tic-Tacs shaking in light of their Weekend Update joke last week about how when women hear Tic Tacs shaking now, it's going to sound like the Jaws theme to them.

Family Feud political edition was my favorite. I loved whatever Larry's line was about drinking your prune juice now, otherwise you're going to be backed up with crap for the next 4 years. Haha. Mr. Robot was completely awesome, too, though. I'm happy that Leslie can completely own and reclaim her violation, but it genuinely makes me sad that she has to do so. Alec nailed the Trump impression. Whoever was saying in the other thread that Hammond had still been impersonating the pompous celebrity from 10+ years ago and that he had not updated his impression for the sourness of Trump's current rages was spot-on, because Alec got that memo for sure. That said, I didn't think the debate lines were that hilarious. Maybe it's all just too uncomfortably real at this point. i really love Keenan, too. From the monologue (sleeping like a baby) to the news reporter reactions to The Feud, he just consistently makes me laugh.

I haven't seen all the S2 episodes yet, but I still want to chat about the ones I've seen on Netflix and liked because I'm quite fond of this show. My Trekker soul no longer belongs only to TNG. "Amok Time" is an interesting one. So cliched in talking about arranged marriage and women as property (*cringe*). But I loved Kirk in this episode. He disobeys a direct order because Spock has saved his life many times over, and "isn't [Spock's life] worth a career?" And then when Kirk is fighting Spock, and Bones breaks in to tell Kirk that he's going to have to kill Spock to get out of this alive himself, it's such great retort that, even in such dire straits, Kirk plays off as a joke Bones' statement by sarcastically replying that killing Spock is "not exactly what they came to Vulcan for" (effectively pointing out that all this had been done to save Spock, so not an option, not even for his own life). Kirk's reactions are such an interesting combination of devotion spackled with a veneer of bravado. Also loved Chekov and Sulu being smartasses about all the back-and-forth on destination. And the coup de grace is Spock smiling broadly and shouting "Jim!" when he realizes Kirk is alive. Very sweet. So cool to see the mirror verse episode that I've seen referenced a million times over in pop culture. Said this in the other thread, but Uhura is great in this, and although I hate to play into a sexist culture, Nichelle looked amazeballs in this episode. Really looking forward to getting a chance to watch the Tribbles.