Ottis

It's almost like this is two different shows now. The one I enjoy is the blacklister of the week, and all that goes into learning about him/her, and catching them. The part I don't care about and pay less and less attention to is all the stuff about the suitcase and the bones and who is whose dad. My laugh out loud moment was during the set up of Garvey and the drug dealer, where multiple parties had expert soldiers/muscle around and none of them saw all the FBI agents standing up within binocular distance, watching it go down. That was hilarious. As was the bald skin care commentary between Red and Dembe.

Finally. Finally! Carrie and the team do something clever, and disguise others to resemble Carrie and Simone as they flee the building. Up until then it was a continuing series of, "Really? Not even Saul thought of that?" Starting with why Saul's team wouldn't have been prepped in advance on what to do if anyone showed up to squeeze them (way to cave, Clint). Bayne is either the most obnoxious, pushy chief of staff in history, or she is in on it with the Russians. The Russian general's behavior was ... odd. Yes, he was positioned as a bit of a hot head, I get it. But sending 30 masked, armed agents to attack a fellow Russian agency's HQ, and doing so by dragging everyone out of the building? Even if you give him the 30 armed thugs, and assume he doesn't give a crap about politics OR what the world sees, there were better ways to accomplish his goal - starting with being less visible so as not to tip off Simone and her boyfriend. And really, as much as I want to suspend disbelief, having an American special forces team conduct a relatively obvious black op on Russian soil ... the Russians would have gone nuts. Also, I still don't care if Keane resigns. I realize this is about more than Keane, and is positioned as an attack on US democracy. But the show made a strategic error by not making Keane someone we would root for. Even with the Russian interference, you're left shrugging and saying, 'Well, maybe the VP would be better as president, anyway." Still, this was probably the best episode of what has been a very uninteresting season. In that chaos? Not that hard to hand wave. Throw me a bone, man.

I probably have watched too many Terminator and Bladerunner movies, and Battlestar Galactica episodes. I would never assume I am safe in a place full of intelligent robots. I don't even trust Alexa. More seriously, yeah, I can see that for most people. But cars also have tons of safety features, and we all feel safe in them. If the brakes fail, however, some of us know what measures to take to slow the car. And if you stay at a hotel, workers there are trained what to do if there is a fire. In this episode, no one we saw knew what to do.. I think some would, and the show is choosing not to let us see that because again, it wants us to view all humans as bad.

Absolutely, agree, and this is what the story is about. My issue is that it has been 100 percent "robots are victims, humans are evil" and 0 percent anything else. I like complexity. It would help if there were a little gray in what we are seeing, and there isn't any so far. I realized this last season when we saw foreshadowing of what was coming. I had hoped the show would give us something to think about regarding the robot rebellion, and its cost to both robots and humans. This season instead has run with the black and white, to the point of androids setting traps for humans, and leaving humans in torturous situations, and showing the human "rescuers" executing "good" robots., and the human MiB being thrilled with the challenge of defeating free will robots. It's moustache-twirlingly evil, and this show is so good, it should be better than that. I wondered briefly this week whether Maeve and Dolores might end up representing two different paths for the free robots. Too early to say. And Meave had no issues shooting humans, so I'm thinking maybe not.

I think we have the same overall view, we just have different perspectives on what the show has shown/not shown. You have taken what the show has shown us as the only evidence. While I, on the other hand, cannot believe that, in the many years(?) Delores has been a character in Westworld, that she hasn't had multiple *positive* interactions with humans as well as the negative ones the show has shown us. I also don't believe that all of Westworld's fantasies are violence and forced sex. That would make no sense, in a world populated by humans with varied interests. The show hasn't elected to show us the positive interactions, at least not many, but they have to exist, IMO. As a result, I feel like the narrative the show is pursuing through Delores (and Maeve) is rigged to entice us viewers. It should be more nuanced. To have Delores work with other robots to set up ambushes of humans, for Pete's sake, takes Delores someplace that does her development as a "woke" robot no good. Now she is as bad as the humans - and what's worse, she is *choosing* to be that way in spite of the fact she knows what humans have done and views it with contempt AND she must have some experiences with nicer humans. It brings me out of the show that she has become this avenger, when logic indicates she should be better than that. Only because that is all the show has shown us ... so far. Not every human is part of a private security force that thumbs its nose at national boundaries and eagerly shoots robots in the head. There are likely people in that world who would support human rights for ascended robots, because we know that in our own world, there are people like that. We just haven't seen them on the show, yet. That's what feels manipulative to me. And it is harder for me to buy into anything right now in Westworld except that humans AND robots both suck. And where is the fun in that? There is no moral or side to root for here.

There is no reason to believe that "100 percent of the humans you have encountered were trying to have sex with you or kill you." Humans come in many varieties, and Westworld was about fantasies. Surely there were fantasies that didn't involve killing or having sex with the hosts. Even hosts whose roles put them into violent situations must have run across humans who didn't go along with the prewritten plots, or were in plots where they *stopped* violence. Therefore there is no reason to believe that Dolores has only seen the bad in humans. Which is why I continue to have issues with the show's narrative, driven by Dolores (and Maeve, though Maeve seemed to have a more rational approach of escaping vs. killing and revenge, at least until they added the child motivation). ITA agree about this being about survival. My issue is that you can survive without killing (and torturing) every human you run across. Teddy is naive to think they can "grab a corner" of Westworld and live in peace. But Dolores is also wrong. Becoming the thing you hate isn't progress, or even survival, over the long term.

I was a little surprised at how stupid the humans acted after the party. They couldn't seem to get their heads around the fact that the robots had rebelled and might shoot them. I would think in a society sufficiently advanced to have these sorts of robots, there would be protocols that are common knowledge (or in-park training) for what to do if they go wonky (wonky not being defined, doesn't have to be a rebellion, could be that they just start staggering around breaking things). I think that's the result of the show trying so hard to make the investors/owners/management appear as human jerks, which also includes being stupid. Surely some of them are smarter than that, maybe even feel discomfort with what they see in the park? I'd like some nuance, please. This is the same criticism I made last season, BTW. Just because an injustice exists, all humans do not equal bad.

I wasn’t as enamored of the OK couple as others. What was with their weird preoccupation with the entry way? You stand in it for two seconds. Walk through or look at a nice painting or mirror on the facing wall. Also, they wanted a lot for 250k, even in OK. Given the size of their family, it’s understandable they needed more bedrooms and bathrooms. Behind that, not sure you can be very picky. Narrow yard, lightness and darkness of each room, etc. Also, what in the world made them move so much? The show never explained. He didn’t look military. I’m guessing it’s tied to their religion?

Finally finished this series. Loved the world building, and some of the characters. Didn't love the plot of the last 3-4 episodes. Too many examples of villains listening to good guys instead of outright shooting them, too many improbably successes. More than that, though, there was both too much going on this season, and then, at the end, not enough. Starting with the rise of the Klingons, then jumping into another universe, then realizing the jump was on purpose due to Mirror!Lorca, then battling the emperor, then coming back to find the Federation losing to the Klingons, then the ending. The show would have worked better IMO with either only the Klingon war, or only the mirror universe. Either one could have been examined in more detail. At the end, the final episode was a whimper. I was expecting some kind of tense space battle with a clever ruse that wins the day. Instead we end up at an inexplicable Farscape-like cantina, where humans aren't killed on sight during a war against them, and the winning move was a highly improbably threat of a bomb that no one can actually see or understand when the threat is made. This episode felt like it should have occurred 1-2 episodes ago. The ending was unsatisfying. That said, I have to praise the show for making the ending about something. The recent Star Trek movies miss this again and again. Star Trek was always about higher ideals and moral lessons, and while it was admittedly heavy handed and cheesy at times (like Michael's speech - why was she talking, and who was she talking to? A council of some kind was in front of her, but way more people were behind her), the conclusion was indeed about something. Thank you for that. Just please use a lighter touch next time? Finally, I recognized Clint Howard immediately - very nice, show. And I, a Star Trek fan for 50+ years who loves the franchise (well, except for Enterprise) and all it stands for, don't give a single shit that the Klingons look different. It makes no meaningful difference.

This season is terrible. It’s taken me weeks to try to finish this episode, because it’s all soap opera drama. And after watching for 5 more minutes, I hear Jessica’s mom trying to make Jessica feel better about the accident that killed their family, see the Super ask Jessica to get his kid back and watch a highly agitated Trish rant and quit her show. I. Don’t. Care. This is the least interesting Marvel show ever, and I’m including Iron Fist. I think this is where I get off this season. Maybe I’ll try again if there is a season three.

My response seems to have disappeared. I'll try again. I don't understand how the show is asking us to view Becky. They seem to be offering her life sympathetically, when - with the exception of Mark dying - everything about her life stemmed from *her* choices. Don't want to be a waitress at 43? Finish high school, go to and finish college or learn a trade. Don't want to "lose" $50,000 in baby money? Don't lie about your age to your "client," for a physical process that you have to know, at some point, will reveal your lie. Don't want to give up your dog? Don't get a dog before you can provide a home for it. (And BTW, going back and getting the dog she had for about 10 minutes? Really?) Becky didn't move on when Mark died. But her life is tied to her decisions that she made before and after Mark died. I didn't watch all of the original series, but I've read she left school to be with Mark, or something like that? She owns her current life, and based on her baby story, she isn't making any better decisions now than she did when she was 23. I don't know why the show portrays her in such a sympathetic light. It feels like they intend to have her stand for something IRL, and if it goes the way I suspect it will, she (and the IRL analogue) has no one to blame but herself.

I spent the first 15 minutes trying to figure out who the guy was Carrie was talking to. Really? You’re going to tar your sister to get custody of a kid you barely can take care of? And let the thief in to gather evidence? Why would the VP stay to talk to Paley? I would have turned around and walked out. It’s kind of hard to get invested in the VP when he just showed up. Who knows what he believes or what he is really like? That said, I still have no interest in this president and whether she is removed. Also, fast forwarded through the whole court scene. I don’t watch this show for family drama. And really, neither do I watch it for political drama. I only watch for Saul at this point.

Are there any more annoying people than aspiring actors? All of their interactions are so needy. So Sally can casually bang Barry, be completely blind to how he feels and can blow him off (not in a good way) to go to an interview. But she can’t be honest with him and tell him what happened to her, or respond to his offer of a laptop graciously. And then they turned Barry into a twat over Sally. At least Fonzi is weirdly amusing.

For some reason my DVR missed the cold open and came on in middle of the monologue. I had to look up the host. This isn’t a knock, just a question: Why was he hosting? Wait, I just realized this is one of the guys on Big Mouth. Is that it? Missed the political open. Well, didn’t see it. Don’t miss it. Shade restaurant had a great premise, but lost me when it focused specifically on “privilege.” Couldn’t it just be about being mistreated by an old boss? Gun protest was a single joke that went on too long. At this point, the host’s delivery began to bug. It wasn’t quite right for the skit. And this is when I realized who the host was, because his line delivery was just like Big Mouth, every time. The Bloods.... mostly loved just the guy who participated “for the ass.” Because I have always felt there were a lot of those guys in cause movements Diner on Broadway was kind of fun, even if I liked the premise that no one orders lobster in a diner more than the way it went because the location was on Broadway. Weekend Update was OK. I don’t know why anyone cares if Trump watched people pee on each other, just like I didn’t care if Clinton had an affair. Also, I clearly don’t watch enough political shows to get the context of what upsets a lot of people. And I have always despised cream soda and also never knew white people liked it. Keenan is just delightful, though, every damn episode. Switcharoo... this was the first time I laughed out loud in this episode. “Even the Haitians were like, ‘No dice.’” Horn guy... man, this host has exactly one way to deliver lines. Jack White has some odd music. I can’t quite place him in any category. Haven’t seen him since the White Stripes debut. Bravo... OK, then. I didn’t see any of the goodbye. DVR didn’t get that far.

Red is turning into Felix Unger. So Liz just tells an unknown contact of Garvey’s what is going on? And the contact, seeing Liz worked out of her apartment, and hearing Garvey killed her husband, has to see that Liz is unbalanced and running her own revenge investigation. Liz is still an idiot.

I actually thought Gloria was going to one-up Jay in the smarts department by selling both her business AND her family's farm (or at least some poor relatives' land, making them wealthy) to NERP. And I thought Jay was picking up on this when he sat back and started considering Gloria as she told her story about her "familia" and the river, etc. It was hugely disappointing when it turned out they were both idiots. The Phil/Claire thing about working out and aging was the better story, and deserved more attention. "Sometimes I'm hungry at 5!" Indeed.

I realized during this episode that I don’t care about any of this. I enjoyed Saul’s meeting with Paley, because I love how Saul works when he is right. Assuming he is. The rest? Don’t care. I fast forwarded through a lot of this. The woman helping Saul is wiser than Carrie. Not sure I’ll be back. This entire set up has no sense of risk, no sense of threat, it’s a procedural drama about media musings.

I don’t find the actor stuff funny. They are all so desperate and needy, and that turns to self importance when they have success. I would rather they explore who these people are and why they chose to pursue this life. It felt like this ep took us in one, big circle. Aside from Hank, it was monotonous.

I also didn’t know Sprite was was popular with black people. I echo the earlier comment that when I worked at a movie theatre, orange drink was overwhelmingly a choice of black customers. I saw Black Panther and don’t remember there being a salute. Loved Black Jeopardy. And I like Cardi B. There is a T’Challa jacket?

EVERY Star Trek was a better series than Enterprise, IMO. That is the only ST series/movie/cartoon that this lifelong ST fan stopped watching, long before its run ended. That is a fantastic observation! And one the show should explore more. Just because you are in a different universe doesn't mean you become a different person. It would be interesting to see who remained "true" vs. those who flipped. Thank god. DS9 was my favorite ST. I didn't realize it right away, but with the passage of time it became obvious. Followed very closely by TOS, because it's TOS! SOMEONE must realize this Burnham isn't quite right. As viewers, we see our universe's character changing to try to be seen as their universe's character, and so we think it is working. But to the characters of the mirror universe, our Burnham, even while she shows flashes of being "normal," must seem different in 100 ways ... how she walks, how she gives orders, how she recognizes loyal performance, how she punishes small transgressions, who she sleeps with, where she spends her off duty time, what she eats, etc. It had to be clear to someone. Even what she does while Saru preps her each morning is likely different, and he must notice it. Also, up until that reveal, we had seen a variety of past characters appear in the mirror universe. Some we knew, some we didn't. But there was an obvious "restocking." What was the single most familiar character left to appear? It had to be her. I was actually disappointed. It would have been way more fun if it were someone out of left field, from another ST series.

Thing is, I don't believe that class is much different from reality. This needs to happen fast. It felt like the second episode lost its way a bit when it came to Barry (the Chechnyans remained perfect). Barry muddling through finding his purpose, deciding it was acting and then wanting to give up being an assassin was too fast to no end. It would be far better if, as you say, he first tries to compartmentalize his two lives, and we see the cracks begin from that. The aimlessness wasn't interesting.

This was one of the few episodes that we turned off, in the midst of the first house. Their intro triggered a bunch of red flags, but we hung in there until they started commenting on the house and confirmed the red flags. Maybe they are fine people, I don't know. I just think I wouldn't like spending time with them. You know, we can afford a $1 million house, we elect not to do so and instead save the money because we don't care how we look to others as long as we have enough for an enjoyable retirement. Priorities, I guess. The funny thing is, we know a bunch of people with retirement homes or vacation condos in Naples. And they are ALL like these people. Naples isn't on our retirement destination list!

As a viewer, it is, IMO. Why should we care that Keane resign? What has she done, what traits has she shown, that makes viewers feel she needs to remain president? The show needs to give us something besides a general principle that we oppose foreign governments meddling in our elections. Otherwise, all the drama with Keane and those who want her to resign is hollow and a waste of valuable show time. I don't even know what it would show Russia accomplished if she resigns. They played a role in toppling someone who seems to be an unpopular or at least controversial president? OK, I guess. So we have the main story, which is less than compelling. Then the subplots of Franny and Carrie's meds/no meds, neither of which are interesting. Remember when there was an imminent threat to innocent people or the US and Carrie had to help stop it while also staying clandestine? Man, I miss that.

I am not into this season. A vague threat to Keane, just because, who is a president who is hard to like. And Franny. With lots of bu mbling. Not very inte resting.

Being anti-Cosby doesn't have anything to do with countering a show that showed a successful black family. It wasn't about race. Cosby was about a family where the dad was always right, the mom and dad always had wise and pithy advice for their kids (or a funny joke), where the kids recognized the wisdom of their parents and where no one ever really made a meaningful mistake. Cosby was the epitome of happy family sitcom to that point. Roseanne blew it up (as did The Simpsons) with a family that featured people who didn't like each other at times, who were ignorant and flawed and made bad decisions and who, partially as a consequence of those decisions, didn't have a great life - and yet they were also a family. I'm pretty sure that when the show came out, reviews often contrasted the two shows along those veins. I watched Cosby for several years, and then tired of how wonderful everyone was. Roseanne showed a reality I felt was more in tune with most families. I think you actually stated the joke. Being a "life coach" is what many people who don't know what else to do grab onto, and then they struggle to find meaningful employment. because as you noted, how many people need a life coach? And the irony is, people who become life coaches often haven't been very successful coaching their own lives. They just don't know what else they want to do for a living. One lives across the street from me IRL, BTW. Anyway, Jackie is a retired cop, who gets a pension. She probably makes enough to live OK, and chooses to keep working to do better than OK. And her life coach path is clearly is a struggle for her, and those around her.