Peace 47

Maybe Sherlock does, but I'm not sure that I do. Mary did it because she allegedly didn't want her secret getting out and destroying John. But her secret did get out, and John was hurt, but if we don't question the dialogue and believe exactly what the show has presented, John forgave Mary despite knowing that she is a trained assassin--in fact, Mary's past makes her more attractive to John--and John is willing to move forward with Mary and build a happy life together. If we don't question what we saw in HLV, John forgave her, and her past has no bearing on John's willingness to recognize her as Mary Watson going forward, other than John admitting that he's going to be a little pissed off for awhile. So she therefore shot Sherlock in the chest for no reason (or at least a terrible reason) and also has a very low judgment of John's willingness to parse emotionally fraught situations, despite seeing how he forgave Sherlock after a substantial betrayal. To my eye, there's not a moral equivalence between faking your death to save people's lives (Sherlock) and shooting someone to the point of nearly killing them to keep someone from finding out unpleasant news (Mary). There's not a moral equivalence between killing someone who just threatened to kill your best friend's wife and possibly your best friend (Sherlock with CAM) and trying to kill someone to save your husband some emotional anguish (Mary with Sherlock). Until S4 finally concludes this arc (after 3 long years) we won't know who's right and who's wrong about Mary's intentions, but I'll continue to die on my hill of thinking that Mary remains a villain in disguise until the show shuts me down at the end of S4. I still think that she is the "Moran" of the story (she was even tricked by The Empty House).

I thought the cold open was quite good, and I thought that it was sweet that the whole cast was in the hallway for the waltz and did the intro together. I listened to the show more than sat, watched and focused on it, but it seemed that Bobby really wasn't in it much last night. He's seemed kind of sidelined this second half of the season to me. Not being 100% focused did help me appreciate the monologue, though. I thought that the show title rang true ("Love from New York") and if it dragged, my split focus didn't pick it up. Lewis ampersand Clark was so tiresome in making gay sex, and separately, sexual aggression, a punchline (why is that inherently funny in 2016?), but it's not a sketch that you can just write off because it did have its moments. Kyle Mooney was a real star in his overly cheery intro, and I have to give Sasheer credit (finally) for her funny reaction shots. Weekend Update wasn't that great in my opinion but they've had a really strong run this season, and so I can't hold it against them. I liked that the host and all the cameos were former cast members--Fred, Larry, Maya, Andy, Jason--gave it a nice family vibe. I did think that there were too many sketches focused on the contradiction between the simultaneous pretentiousness, enthusiasm and low-rent nature of local theater. Galileo908 mentioned that this theme must be in at least Fred's blood, and I think that's probably true: look at everything in the episode and add Garth and Kat and Nicholas Fein (sp?).

Weekend Update was kind of on fire. Consistently strong jokes by Michael and Colin, and great "guests." "[Sneeze.] God bless you. // He never has and he never will." Leslie is 48?!?! Holy smokes, I thought that she was younger than I was. She looks amazing. I'm sorry to hear that she tore her ACL, though. Ouch. And Jay's impressions were, per usual, a wonder. He and Drake were very cute, too.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus had a great energy throughout. And I want the secret to her fountain of youth, because in her Elaine getup, there's not much difference in 20 years. I found it absolutely delightful to see Elaine interacting with "Bernie," and all the Seinfeld-isms that went with that, even if the writing of that debate sketch was not the absolute sharpest political writing I've seen on the show this season. I'm so glad Larry David and JLD could do an SNL sketch together and go back to their start like that. Nice surprise to see Tony Hale, too. I think my favorite sketch was Mercedes AA+. That was rather clever, absurd and unexpected. Lastly, I know that CVS: that spoke to my soul. Took me right back to my days living in downtown D.C. when that was the only place walkable from my apartment to get cheap sundry/ grocery items. And there were some characters around for sure. I know I saw a ghost or two.

Was it me, or was the audience in general, and throughout the show, a little hostile? They seemed a little cold. I have grown to appreciate where Kyle Mooney is coming from, comedically, even when I don't find it funny. Chandling is one of those instances for me.I'm on mobile and can't easily quote two people, but regarding whomever posted about "doubling down on awkward sex talk": they sure did. One, I couldn't believe how many oral sex references they threw in during the matchmaker game. I had no idea they could get away with some of that on TV. And in addition to the Henry VIII sketch, there was also reference to eating duck vagina in the other sketch. I may be a bit of a prude, but I guess what irks me is that any sex-related joke goes for the easy laugh (like dropping f-bombs), where you almost just laugh at the shock of it. So then I hold that comedy to a higher standard, and I didn't see much tonight that cleared the bar. The last observation that I have is that it is kind of weird that Mike O'Brien did another "white guy plays black icon" film. He's done some interesting films, and the Jay-Z original was not bad, but I didn't see it being worth a repeat. The funniest part was Oprah saying that she would be on all magazine covers as far as you could imagine into the future. I said last week that I didn't really warm up to Space Pants, but that was head and shoulders above most anything I saw tonight. Crowe was fine for what little he did, though.

Dan Quayle's fight with Murphy Brown happened in the 90s. We can look forward to that embarrassing bit of misogyny in the next go-around of this show. Not sure about JFK. I might have been a little harsh on my assessment of the TV episode of The Eighties above. I've been run into the ground at work and may have been in a bad mood when I wrote a few critiques. I'm rewatching, too, and it's pretty entertaining.

Okay, I pulled a near-all-nighter for work last night, and so I'm not at peak mental sharpness, but they switched episodes on us at the last minute, right? Because all the commercials were about the AIDS crisis, and I was 3/4 through the thing before I realized that they were just going to do a Reagan love-in. I agree that the episode was filled almost entirely with members of the cult of Reagan, except Leslie Stahl over there hating Reagan like a champ. "I was sure he was another Carter," "I underestimated how much people actually liked him as a person." While the others are pontificating, "Reagan: great president or greatest president?" Colin Powell tearfully recounting the last night of the term was a bit much. The Nixon/ Watergate episode of The Seventies was quite riveting. This presidential equivalent for The Eighties was biased and superficial. Very disappointing.

Huh. That's really interesting and something that I didn't know. (I'm a fan of TNG, but for some reason have never previously sought any behind the scenes info about the show, other than Levar Burton's "Reading Rainbow" episode on TNG, lol!) I really like Ro a lot but never cared for Kira in the several attempts that I made to watch DS9 (never cared for any other character either, even though I know a lot of people consider that to be the substantially superior show).Speaking of DS9, I'm glad that they could use Miles O'Brien over there and give him a substantial role, but I think TNG suffered a little bit with his loss, even though he was only featured. Miles had a wife and a baby, and it was nice how they could incorporate them into the stories and that Keiko was one of the gang, even if not a regular. I liked that she was close to Data, went on trips with other crewmembers (like where they all became kids), etc.

I missed the first part of this episode but have caught the end twice. I agree that they seemed to have more of a Nixon perspective than a Kennedy one on this show, such as giving Pat Buchanan another platform to go on and on when he holds some rather ugly views. (Is Evan Thomas bad in some way, though? I used to enjoy his investigative reporting in Newsweek and later his talking heads on MSNBC.) I think that you're right that the Nixon tapes would make it difficult to argue seriously that Nixon had racial justice in his heart. This show basically just shows the ugliness of how the sausage is made, though, and I think it's accepted fact that Kennedy surrogates committed voter fraud in TX and IL, so it is what it is. That one person in the Lincoln episode noted the Lincoln team's dirty dealings and said that it was probably for the best, since Lincoln was our greatest president, and so I think that the takeaway is that it is nearly impossible to be both a saint and a winner in American politics.I saw the Lincoln episode, and I saw the beginning of the Truman one, which was interesting because I didn't know Truman had only met FDR twice before FDR died. They have some surprising choices for talking heads in all these episodes, I think. For example, is Jake Tapper an historian or just the only self-promotional interview they could land? (I honestly don't know anything about his background.) And I know Sen. Claire McCaskill is from Missouri, but I didn't know that she was someone who could speak with authority on Truman (I mean that sincerely, not sarcastically, as I thought that she was fine.) CNN has become my background station of choice in the last year or so, in that if I'm home and have the TV on while doing work, my default is CNN. I've always been an NBC loyalist, but at some point, MSNBC became nearly unwatchable to me. CNN is obsessed with Trump, but their anchors (generally) don't drive me up the wall, make themselves the story or shout over their interview guests, which is good.

I'm going to keep writing my unoriginal observations decades after the show aired! I just watched a bunch of Ro-related episodes over the past week, and I have Feelings about them. I had kind of avoided those epsiodes because Ro's ending (which I did remember) made me sad. But I went for it, and I really like this character. She was a nice contrast from many of the other character who thought the Enterprise was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Ro had a past and issues that gave her a different perspective, and while she did her duty (until the last time) and protected her crew mates, I appreciated that she was an individual who also honored her culture (such as with her name and earring). I didn't recall that in her introductory episode that she was put in a horrible position by that ass of an admiral and was basically being used to get some of her own people killed. I got the feeling that perhaps her court martial related to a similar situation where if she had spoken up about what had happened (rather than not defending herself) her punishment would not have been as severe, but I don't think that the show ever directly addressed it. It was more in the subtext of how Guinan noted that Ro did not defend herself. I liked that Guinan saw "Potential" in her when everyone else was being so judgy, and I like that this friendship carried over to the episode where they reverted to children (where the little girl who played Ro just did a really gangbusters job). I liked that Ro later became friends with other crew members, too, like Geordi, with whom she worked really well in that episode where aliens took over O'Brien, Troi and Data, and also that she and Geordi could have a good laugh at the end of a traumatic experience like being pull out of phase in that "Next Phase" episode. After losing Tasha and having the remaining women in compassionate caregiving roles, it was nice to have a woman in a command position, too. I'm still sad that she had to leave. It felt a little repetitive of Wesley's starfleet rejection from the same season (in that a significant part of it was focused on how Captain Picard felt personally rejected). And I'm actually surprised that they didn't have Picard understand her moral obligation to her people, given that he has been traditionally compassionate with respect to personal moral/ cultural obligations. I get why the writers felt that this would be true to Ro's character and past, although it kind of negated a nice development she had in developing relationships with her fellow crew members.

I didn't really take issue with the facts that they mentioned, more how they were presented: it just felt a little disorganized at some points, whereas at others, they were telling a cohesive story. The Seventies told a tight story. CBS blew up the landscape, gave Norman Lear a platform; MTM came at the right time to address the life of the single working woman; the rise of the miniseries, etc. Well-categorized trends. Maybe they should have talked about the "superficiality" of TV all at once: event TV (Luke & Laura, who shot JR), soapy dramas about the rich and privileged. (Might have liked to hear more about why that happened at that point in history, too, as that's hard to separate from yuppie-ism and Alex Keaton, as well) Deconstructionism in comedy dovetailed with the rise of niche programming. It just seemed a little bit disorganized in parts is all.

Sometimes a dumb and silly sketch like Space Pants is absurdist fun to me, and I can dig it, but I was not feeling it last night. I really disliked that sketch. The undersea honeymoon sketch was kind of the same vein, and that one completely worked for me. It was horrifying, but hilarious. The cold open was uninspired. I thought that Weekend Update was great, though, and the best part of the show.

I've really been looking forward to The Eighties because I so enjoyed The Seventies and The Sixties. Also because the Eighties are the first decade of which I have any actual memories (although I was still in elementary school when they ended). I'm a little sad that there is not a thread for it. I thought that the promo they aired for the series, with the quiet driving scene from Miami Vice and the Phil Collins song was a great minimalist promo for the series. I also really like the opening credits: it's a great theme song that they've carried over from the other specials and they've used stirring graphics/ images to go with it. The wall falling down in them practically made me well up. I was a little bit ... underwhelmed? ... by certain parts of the TV-focused episode. I thought that the corresponding episode from the 70s did a better job at the outset of grouping the TV trends into a larger social context, and I thought they were just sort of throwing TV facts at us here about the news anchors, who shot JR, what popular dramas were out there (why talk about Hill Street Blues at the beginning and then circle back to Thirtysomething and LA Law, for example, other than when in the decade these shows aired?), "women's shows", etc. They didn't contextualize the trends very well. And I assume that they will be having a music episode, and that's the place to talk about MTV's seismic influence. A few lines about youth-oriented TV was kind of lifeless here. I did think it picked up steam in the middle when it talked about comedy trends in TV. My mom was a huge Letterman fan in the 80s (before he became establishment in the 90s) and used to tell me that she would watch his morning show while feeding me breakfast and followed him to late night, and so that was a nice bit of nostalgia. But objectively, I thought that the show also did a good job of highlighting deconstructionist comedy trends over the decade. And I lol'd at David Letterman driving down the road with his "small town news" and then Paul's music truck pulls up beside him for musical accompaniment. I'd not seen that before.

They really lost the plot when Lena Olin declined to return in Season 3. The entire engine driving the show from the first episode was Irina Derevko, even though we didn't see her in the flesh until S1 finale/ rest of S2. It was her betrayal that created the wedge between Jack and Sydney at the start of the series, her activities that spurred Sydney's journey and destroyed Will's life in S1, her presence that developed Sydney and Jack's relationship with each other and her in S2 and her escape in the finale that raised the stakes exponentially.The natural progression would have been to really deal with the fallout of Irina prioritizing ... Rambaldi? I guess is where they were going? ... in S3. When Lena lost interest in the show, they had to start subbing ideas, but the writers clearly lost inspiration: they threw in one Derevko sister, then another Derevko daughter, then another sister in an attempt to capture some of what I think they thought was the pull, but actually was not--the Derevko "mystique"; they detoured through other plots that had lesser impact (like Lauren and Vaughn's stunningly passionless marriage); they moved on to general spy stories and other unrelated characters. Sure, lots of people were watching for Syd and Vaughn ship, but the compelling plot driver of the show from the start was how the choices made by a group of family/ friends 20+ years prior (Jack, Irina, Sloane, Emily and Bill Vaughn) impacted the next generation and the old guard's relationships with Syd and to a lesser extent, Vaughn. I think that the writers thought that they needed Irina to tell that story and used pale imitations of it when they couldn't have her. Like, does anyone care that Elena Derevko was living in South America, doing her thing? No, because other than 1 line, they didn't tie her to Bill Vaughn, or whatever happened at the CIA in 1982 that caused all hell to break loose for our characters or anything about Irina Derevko's impact on Sydney's and Jack's lives. As a superfan at the time, I was so angry about that line in the finale. It made no sense for his character. Lots of things in S4 made no sense for his character, like his truly half-assed "investigation" into his father's death. The story of Bill and Michael Vaughn had so much potential and would have been a great plotline to explore, given that Sydney's mother killed him (or didn't, whatever), but it's like they were afraid to touch on the topic.

I just watched the episode on Netflix today where Riker is kidnapped .... okay, I'll be more specific since he is kidnapped all the time! .... while on an away mission and is tricked into first thinking he's lost 15 years of memories due to a virus, then tricked into thinking it was a Romulan setup before getting the truth (that it was a lonely alien)-- "Future Imperfect." I read somewhere awhile ago that the birthday party scene at the beginning of that episode contains a sort-of-blooper that made it into the show: when Deanna asks Will what his birthday wish is, he pauses too long (as though he forgot his line), she kind of playfully hits his arm and her eyes get big, and he laughs and finally says that he wants music lessons. And then Marina, Jonathan and Gates all laugh. It is an adorable and endearing moment. Are there any other "blooper" stories like that? And did the cast actually get along? That was a really enjoyable episode. Not just for the "Shut up. As in close your mouth and stop talking" scene, which is so well- and memorably acted by Frakes that I've seen it memed around the Internet many times. Good episode for cast interactions and very cute to think that Will would name a son "Jean-Luc."

Huh. I thought that Maya's last variety special didn't set the world afire, ratings-wise or critically, and so I was a little surprised to read in that article that they are doubling down on a series. I did think Maya and Martin had great comedic chemistry on the 40th anniversary special. I hope this works out for them, although I will definitely miss Keenan on SNL when (if) he leaves. He pretty consistently makes me laugh, and he's king of the reaction shot. He's actually one of my favorites. I really hate being negative, but I have to say that Sasheer and Jon are the weakest cast links for me. Sasheer has a nice singing voice, and maybe it's the writing, but I've never laughed at anything she has done. She always plays the "wallpaper" character in a sketch. Jon may need some time to develop, but he's kind of a nonentity to me these days, save his (as someone put it in the episode thread) somewhat offensive Anderson Cooper impression earlier this year.

Haha, well-put. Shapiro can walk up to evidence laying around unattended in a crowded courtroom and manhandle it until his heart is content, but they make OJ put on latex gloves before he puts the gloves on? Does not compute. ETA: there is a post later in this thread that says this actually happened. That's wild.I feel like I'm in a Seinfeld episode, but I didn't know about leather glove shrinkage when wet until reading it in threads around here. That didn't really come up last night, did it? Were the gloves that OJ tried on really soaked in dried blood, or had they been cleaned off? My only thought was that blood would have turned the gloves stiff and unyielding.

Because I'm getting old, the only thing I knew about Ariana Grande was that she licked a doughnut once, but she's a talented little vocal impressionist. That Tidal sketch was bonkers amazing. The cold open was a lot of fun (as I weep internally for our nation, of course). I like Beck as Tapper acting as a master of ceremonies for the cray-cray the past few weeks, and Larry David had another great turn as Sanders. He wears his jammies under suits, and that's why the suits are so baggy--haha.

I missed everything after Update, but I really liked Update and The Champ, and it was really nice to see Jason Sudeikis again as Romney. Jay Pharoh is a both an insanely talented impressionist and a pretty good actor who gets better all the time (which I most often notice in the pretaped bits). He needs someone on the writing staff specifically to write for him and his strengths going forward, though, because he kind of blends in until he pulls out something like that tour de force of impressions that he did on Update and shows some real star power. I agree with vb68 that for the show as a whole, I've definitely seen much worse.

I also really liked that they didn't "correct" the crowd about their sexuality when they got on stage. Yes, this is just a nostalgic little sitcom on a niche web platform, but portraying a world where being assumed to be gay is no big deal is important for normalizing an atmosphere of tolerance, and so good for the show for doing that. Plus, they're in central San Francisco: it would strain credulity not to begin to acknowledge that there is a gay community that's an integral part of the fabric of that city. I also just really liked that their idea to get back at the cheating ex was just to dance with each other and not need to call in those DWTS dudes to "save the day." Nice bit of girl power. I just binge watched 3 epsiodes. I guess it was because I loved the show dearly when it was first on, and I thought, "why not check it out for old time's sake?" And then I got kind of into it. I cannot believe how amazing Candace, Jodie and Andrea look (Candace especially). The producers did a surprisingly good job with this.

That was two years ago, wasn't it? Around this time in 2014? If I recall correctly, I was still a regular watcher when she took that leave.

I used to watch MHP pretty regularly, but within the last little over a year, my weekend schedule changed, and I didn't tune in very often. I did notice that when I would get a chance to watch, MHP herself often seemed to be gone. Maybe that was just my bad luck of missing her repeatedly. I never enjoyed any of her substitutes trying to do her shtick, though, as they just didn't seem to have the flair for it. When I heard this most recent news, I wondered if the network hadn't written her off already as "not a team player" (if she had been taking off more than some others), and if that exacerbated anything. I didn't see any of these articles mention anything about that, though. I was a bit surprised at how confrontational MHP's public response to all of this was. I mean, I guess it's not surprising because it's not like she "needs" the show (in the way that others who are trying to make their living in broadcasting need to stay in the good graces of the networks). MHP has a good job in an entirely different field, and the show was only a platform to explore her ideas. But still, that statement was a pretty thorough burning of bridges if all that was at issue (thus far) was one month's worth of editorial content. If the network suits picture-and-picture an episode and then take her off for two weeks in favor of election coverage, is the answer to insinuate racism (no matter how she walked it back, that's how that statement reads)when it looks more like desperate ratings ploys by a network on life support? She's a perceptive lady, though, and so if she saw fit to call it like that, I don't know that I necessarily doubt her all that much. NBC and its subsidiaries always seem to have odd public crises with their talent that other networks don't. I don't know if that's because I have tended to pay more attention to NBC over the years, or if they just kind of stink at managing their talent. They're really terrible at it, though.

I would like to explain my post that was being responded to here. I am seeing that this show has a point of view on everyone: Kardashian is a basically decent loyalist. Marcia Clark is a dogged prosecutor. Shapiro is a tone-deaf blowhard. And Cochran is fighting a power structure he sees as rotten to the core using his intelligence and charisma. That may or may not be how any of those people "really" were.I didn't watch that scene in the jail between Cochran and OJ and think either that (1) it was a verbatim depiction of actual events or (2) the character of Cochran in this story was entirely truthful with OJ when he told it. Why I thought it was a "genuine" scene was because it shed some light on what the character of Cochran is doing in this case. He's telling OJ that the power of being a black icon in power is that symbolically, you are overcoming a system stacked against the common man. The story may or may not have been true for the character of Cochran, but it could be true for someone: there's value in the symbolism, and when weighed against a rigged system, it may be "God's work" to elevate the symbol over all else. Cochran is wily and ambitious and was maneuvering in that scene to get OJ on Cochran's side instead of Shapiro's, but like Darden said, Cochran has his cause and is a true believer. Of course, to contradict myself in discounting the "truth" of it as related by this character, Cochran told that story, recounted OJ's feats in that game, and OJ recognized it as one that his team lost. If Cochran were making this up out of whole cloth, you'd think he'd have picked a game that OJ won. In any event, the scene worked for me in showing what this character is about in this story.

I thought one of the first things attorneys did was to work out an engagement letter that establishes rates, scope of work, etc. so that everyone is on the same page about how the bill is going to be run up. I don't know anything about criminal law or Hollywood lawyers, though. It seems grossly irresponsible of (and possibly an ethics violation by) Shapiro to have done that, though (if the show accurately portrays this issue): engaging help without setting the parameters is not serving his client's interests.Shapiro came off rather terribly in a lot of ways tonight: racially insensitive, not a great case manager, pompous, hypocritical (grandstanding in chambers about not bringing race into this) and arrogant. If the real man is like this, I wonder how he could have been so successful. I guess they are really highlighting Shapiro being out of his element with this case. I thought that the show did a good job with shedding light on what possibly made Cochran tick. That speech in jail about how OJ's football feats inspired him kind of hit on how Cochran, aside from his ambition, might have genuinely been personally invested in keeping a black icon from being bested by a police system he had resented since the early days of his career, regardless of this particular client's guilt or innocence. You really get a sense of where he could have been coming from. That jury focus group was painful, and honestly, I don't think the misogyny (from men and women) would be any less today. A woman who wears pantsuits instead of skirts is "not feminine enough." An aggressive woman is often a "bitch". A man scrutinizing Clark's actions puts himself in the role of her boyfriend because how else does one evaluate a woman? Ugh. It makes me want to scream. And that OJ the handsome star had higher ratings than Nicole the mercilessly beaten victim was quite chilling. Lots to think about in this episode. It was a great one.

Just tangentially, that episode where Data commandeers the ship starts off quite suspensefully in those first few minutes and then kind of loses some steam. I dunno, but it was kind of a letdown that it was Dr. Soong making Data act in a "cut the life support level of crazy" manner. Data was endangering the ship and the crew and doing it entirely unconsciously. That's a pretty messed up way for Soong to get some one-on-one time with his "son." I did like Riker's sarcastic "That's just great" (or something like that) when he and Worf were trying to access the bridge but were blocked by Data's force field. Soong was also a dick for not listening to Data about activating Lor. Parenting fail, Soong.