Ottis

Not sure what this has to do with anything? Colin clearly "took care of himself" by disappearing to create his joke, I guess. The whole point of the show is that Baylen isn't "most adults." And she didn't expect Colin there every minute, just for the couch delivery and then to head to the party. As the show has emphasized in every episode, Baylen moving out on her own, away from the people who have cared for her her whole life, into a new location and apartment, is a giant step for her. Leaving her alone for a couch delivery is not the point. The point is that while she is working hard to deal with all of those changes, on her birthday, with a party planned that will introduce her and his parents, Colin disappeared. And the reason he disappeared wasn't some kind of military training issue (which I assumed), it was a lame joke. It's the kind of decision a teen boy makes, getting caught up in "this will be sooo great!" while ignoring the needs of others. But as I noted before, OK, bad judgment. It happens. But the way Colin reacted when Baylen was upset, and then later tells Sami that he couldn't have reacted any better ... that's immature and shows he isn't figuring this out. And THEN he wants to marry her. He needs to grow up fast.

I haven't seen that as his schtick. It's pretty basic bro humor, which is more about insisting certain things are funny because you think they are and not recognizing that other people aren't interested. Plus, the very low brow "beer and cooler" stuff. He's a tailgate comedian. I don't know a lot about how SNL works, but I had always read that the writers write skits and the host can choose whether to do them (and make changes). If Gillis "chose" the loser characters, it's because the skits he was presented with featured loser characters, i.e. that's the path the writers' chose. Agreed, I noted in my original post that IRL Gillis was fine (i.e. in his own sets). And his monologue was horrid. The skits were OK, but they almost all presented the same kind of humor.

Big black mark for Colin. Not on his effort to make his girlfriend laugh on her birthday, but on the way he reacted to her reaction. Dude, man up. You screwed up. It isn't about what *you* thought you were trying to do. You disappeared, and then got mad when your girlfriend, who just moved in with you, was upset. You should have immediately apologized. Not a good sign. And now he wants to propose right on the heels of moving in? Colin seems to be caught up in his own idea of relationship bliss, and not their combined welfare. I love Braylon's sister. She has a good head on her shoulders. I don't understand how their lives work, if Colin is awaiting basically a transfer and yet they rented an apartment and bought a lot of stuff for it.

I think he's huge with the bro crowd. The funniest bit I've seen him do was about Down's Syndrome.

Not the monologue... the skits. Which almost featured Gillis as a loser of one type of another. My vague recollection was he was not liked at SNL because of something he said and/or his political beliefs.

The theme of this ep must have been, "How annoying can every skit be?" That opening monologue was awful, perhaps the worst monologue I've seen in 50 years of watching SNL. Gillis was hesitant and unsure and his comments were dated and dull. The cold open was more documentary than skit. That's basically what happened. And why did Mike Myers play Elon with an English accent? The social media girl at the vineyard was like nails on a chalkboard. The topic itself is unfunny, but the actual skit was even worse. Then "CoupleBeers" and "A Little Bump." Bro humor, lowest common denominator. The newscast skit was better, which funny comments on both "sides" of the news that reflect common tropes. I wish American society would laugh like these guys do about it. Calliou: The College Years was hilarious. Pity they didn't do that skit. Instead, we get another "disinterested, loser dad" skit. "The Sound" ... more lowest common denominator. It would have been funny if we hadn't already actually had that happen with Susan Boyle. That's as far as I've made it. Gillis is fine IRL, but man, did these writers hold a grudge. Agreed. And I bet I'm way older than you (I watched the debut of SNL)!

It's a shame they went that way. I like the idea of "normal" people wondring about the cost of having super people, and exploring what the super people notice or care about as they are involved in carnage. The Boys is based on that concept, and as you noted, Superman vs. Batman focused on an aspect of it (though poorly, IMO). I liked Scott as a man struggling through not only grief, but the fact that the supes killed people he loved and just flew away. I would have liked to have seen him as less crazy and more brilliant and driven, to be a real challenge for Invincible and the Guardians. His mental issues create a huge disadvantage vs. supes. I assume those multiverse Invincibles have been lied to, and some won't agree with the mission once they figure out the truth. It would be funny if the show then brought in multiverse Ominimans, who each have to kill an Invincible. That'd be twisted.

I don't think they needed any of that visible back story. They could have cut it down to a quick scene, showing the same angle of her body hanging, and filled in the rest by having Reacher say in the present time that she did everything right, etc. It felt like filler, and a long way to go to have it link with Duffy and her informant. I'm having a tough time caring about Duffy and her informant, in any case. I like the show's overall premise of Reacher being who he is and drifting into trouble. Sometimes I struggle with connecting with the trouble at hand. I find that New England/Boston accent grating IRL, so I'm sure that's part of it. Also, this thing with Reacher killing people "off the books" is a bit disturbing. Yeah, Reacher likes people who try. They may indeed may not be good at it, but they are trying to improve themselves, which he respects. Also? There are times I just cannot believe that this Anthoney Michael Hall was "The Geek." I'm older, too, I get it. But that is a BIG change.

I thought about it a little more, and it made me consider two scenes that the show may be stretching out vs. providing answers. The first is the dinner with Burt, Fields and Irving. During the conversation, Fields says a few things about the past that we know (and characters confirm) to not be true. One is that he and Burt met thanks to Severance 20 years ago, but Lumon/Severance offices were not open that long ago, it was just 12 tears ago, Irving corrects. Interesting. There could be several explanations, among them: - Fields is being a jealous ass, and has been drinking The show seems to want us to believe it is that simple, but I'm not convinced. - Fields is making up stuff on purpose for some reason. Not sure why that would be. A test? - Fields is making up stuff and doesn't realize it. If he was one of the early "severed," perhaps there are long-term consequences that we haven't seen? Or perhaps he has been "severed" over many, many years somehow (or even multiple times?), and being severed over that amount of time is damaging? - Or perhaps Fields was severed, and then reintegrated, and that act has damaging consequences? The latter two explanation are most intriguing, because we know Mark S is trying to become "unified." Maybe that's been tried, and memory issues (or worse) are one consequence, and might Mark S be in danger if he stays on this path? If that is anywhere close, that advances the story. If it is Fields is being a jealous ass, then meh. Fields is a peripheral character and I'm not invested in him. If we keep seeing him getting jealous over Burt and Irving's relationship, that's a soap opera, not an intriguing plot point. The second example is the scene with Gretchen and outtie Dylan, where he mentions he wants to look at a car, she is not thrilled and he promises not to buy anything. They don't seem to have a lot of money. It's possible he buys things left and right anyway, and that is a big part of their relationship issues. But if that's the case, and he might buy a freakin *car,* then these issues should appear worse than they do. They should be borderline homeless. Unless ... one reason why Dylan has an innie is that Lumon pays people a lot of money to sever. It becomes purely a financial transaction for people like outtie Dylan, and what happens to innie Dylan is of no consequence to outtie Dylan. That's a dirty underside to severing we haven't seen much of so far. If the explanation is that outtie Dylan is a loser who spends money, and makes Grethen unhappy, meh. If it is more that outtie Dylan severed for money and doesn't give a crap about his innie, *that's* interesting and has more societal implications. Which way will the show go? One is interesting and moves us forward into the world, the other belongs in a soap opera, IMO. Interested in any and all speculation on those examples!

I, too, can respect your opinion. I'll point out that my perspective doesn't mean I don't want it to take time to find all the answers (and pose more central questions!). This isn't a "Grog need more action!" complaint. It means that when a show throws in a bunch of uninteresting side plots focused on personal drama, it often is a bad sign for those who began to watch Severance for its fascinating mysteries. Lost is one of my favorite examples of taking the wrong path. Don't know if you saw it, but the first season was a surprise hit. It revolved around several major questions, including (and if you haven't seen Lost, this may not make sense) why and how did these people survive a commercial plane crash, where did they crash land, what is the smoke monster and what else is on the island. I can't remember if season one introduced "the hatch," but it, too, generated a lot of interest. Between the first and second seasons, Lost's producers started talking about how season two "would be about the characters." Groan. That usually means lots of pointless side plots and emotional drama, while the reason people were attracted to the show were set to the side and only touched a few times all season. That's when Lost doubled down on flashbacks that gave us utterly fascinating back stories like how one character got a tattoo, and how a married couple got together. I'm sure some people liked those character bits. But there was a growing sense of annoyance and impatience as the show wouldn't move forward with any of the original questions that brought in viewers in the first place. And of course the ending of Lost is considered by most to be a fail. So now we have Severance, and it seems to be following the same path. I don't know if that will begin to annoy more viewers. Guess we'll see. But it is why, during the slow dinner with Fields, when the trio suddenly started talking about the religious debate over innies having souls that my head snapped up. We were back, baby! Anyway, that was my point, that what fascinated many people about Severance seems to be lessening in importance, while we get caught up in love stories, etc. And as you said, YMMV. And that's fine.

Well hey, it took them 6 episodes, but the show *finally* brought up one of the handful of points that matter in the discussion about how the outie world views innies (i.e. whether they have souls). We need a lot more of that, and a lot less of who loves who, and who should love who innie vs. outie, and other random things like an outside "retreat" as a reward that, even if it had gone well, did *not* look fun. But it takes foooooooorver to ask address any of the few questions that matter, i.e. what are the rights/standing of innies vs. outies and what is the ongoing discussion around this in the "real" (outie) world, what happens to innies when outties are fired or die, what is the work the innies are doing (and why do they do it vs. outties), and what is the purpose of having an innie (is it just to hide from pain, or is there some monetary or lifestyle benefit)? I don't care much about Burt and Irv and Fields and whether Mark slept with Halley or Helena and goat people and lots and lots of white hallways.

"This is some bullllllshit." LOL.

That's what I assumed. This, I think, is part of the problem. I'm halfway into ep 2 now, but so far the show is twiddling around with a bunch of stuff that doesn't interest me. There are only a few meaningful questions: - Is the innie/outie situation exploitive of the innie? If so, why was it allowed by society? If not, why should we care about it? - When either the outie or the company wants to end its relationship with this situation, what happens to the innie? For instance, if the company "fires" an employee, what happens to both the outie and innie? - I suppose some may want to know what the actual work is that the innies are doing. Is it in support of a specific goal or is it busy work? if the former, what goal? if the later, who cares. - What is the end goal of the innie/outie situation? is it something more than allowing the outie to live its best life while the innie does work and earns money for them? Unfortunately, this season is so far addressing none of that. We're watching innies fumble with the outside world and bad management within Lumon, with a bunch of "ooooo, mystery!" throw in as a distraction.

The actual problem is that Kurtzman and TPTB seem to be concerned that the core ST fan base is getting old, so they are going after a younger audience. And they are doing it with (mostly) younger actors and, I am betting, younger writers. The problem with that is, and I've seen this on series after series, so many of the younger writers/get a younger audience crowd are sloppy. Half-formed thoughts go nowhere. Key points are ignored later. There is very little continuity with the larger franchise even at the macro level. It's like watching a middle school play. There is a plot, but it's amateurishly told. I loved TOS and most of TNG and all of DS9 (hated Enterprise), and I toughed out Discovery (which had its moments but really screwed up with the constant emoting) and love Strange New Worlds. "Nu Trek" is fine, if it is done well. But stupid alien motorcycle chases with Chris Pine, and pod racing with Discovery and now pointless action scenes in Section 31 are not Trek. Trek never tries to be cool. It's not Mission Impossible. It's smarter than that. It's engaging. It makes you think. Section 31 started off fine, with a gritty (though predictable) opening segment. Then a bunch of buffoons appeared and we had to listen to their lame and forced "banter." They could have skipped that whole section and gone right to the scenes with the creation of the weapon years later. Yes, I get that they were setting up a possible series, but that was godawful. I cheered when a couple of the crew were later killed. They trashed what had been an intriguing character (Emperor G). Her arc is in tatters. None of the ships or settings looked anything like ST. And there was no moral argument. It really didn't even make sense ... San, to stop his evil emperor and her cruelty, would ... be evil and cruel? The saddest thing about this Section 31 movie, is that some people will accept it as OK, or even good. It's not, especially if you look at it through the lens of Star Trek. But like so many things today, fewer and fewer people seem to be able to discern what is actually good or great. They just accept what is presented. It's horribly depressing. A little different situation, in that it was the return of a franchise after almost 20 years (and one lukewarm movie). Even so, it retained what made Star Trek great, which is why it eventually succeeded. So did Voyager, and DS9. Enterprise, I never liked. But I think most ST fans are fine with new actors and characters, if it is done well. This section 31 was almost a comedy.

Call me Team Cecil, then because I would have no issues working alongside Batman (or Cecil) and would understand what they did. It wasn't done to force the superpowered to do evil, it was done to protect those without powers if powered beings decided to harm them. Defensive vs. offensive (and using it to stop a rampaging Mark was defensive). Could it fall into the wrong hands? Sure, and that's an obvious plot angle. But unless Mark said, peacefully, that he was walking away, and Cecil tried to control him and do his bidding, no issues that a failsafe exists. Heck, look at The Boys for an example of what happens when one doesn't exist. What part do you mean? When he used the sonic thing to calm an angry Mark? To talk with him? I have watched these sporadically so I may not remember your example.