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If Philip and Penny had so many "intellectual" discussions over this, wouldn't he have mentioned Queen Mary's reasoning for not helping? Why would Philip insist on Elizabeth meeting Penny to hear her point of view, as if Penny happened upon some new discovery?

I think that was the intention with Frasier being the title character, who is usually surrounded by more quirky supporting characters in a typical sitcom. Frasier had more relatable issues, starting from the main premise of moving in with his aging father. Niles was a more extreme version of Frasier in some respects, which also made Frasier more "normal" by comparison.

The show certainly wasted no time in introducing a whole new set of character and plot direction. It was a little confusing but still comprehensible, and a relatively skillful segue linking the last arc with this one. I do find it interesting to see the political side of the empire, compared to the other Star Wars shows so far. Luthen's face and demeanor totally transformed when he went back to his "life", so that was really neat. The clandestine meeting with Mon was fun to watch. I don't know Star Wars enough to know where she appeared before. I felt a bit for Vel having to defend adding this new guy she didn't even want. I guess to replace the deputy guy, now they have the equally despicable blonde woman climbing the ladder at security. I am assuming the leader guy will promote her after the heist succeeds, and then she will be searching for Cassian, maybe recruiting the deputy guy. This mission-oriented part seems more like the usual Star Wars plot.

Everything came to a head in this episode, so the whole thing feels a little like a movie. It was pretty tense, and I liked the subtle resistance of the people in the city. Cassian's carelessness with the box in the warehouse was a little frustrating. Why leave it to chat on the other side? The backstory made me more interested in Maeve. Luthen's scenes with Cassian were really good. It was cool to see him give pointers to the younger man. The main contrived part was how they didn't kill the annoying deputy. Cassian didn't hesitate in killing that thug in the first episode so I don't see why he would spare this guy other than plot armour. I hope the deputy won't retaliate by harming Maeve or Bix to get Cassian to give himself up. I would have preferred to see Timm reap what he sowed for a little longer.

This episode was a nice continuation of the last one. I sort of like the slower pace, the lack of constant fight scenes, and a plot with a rather narrow focus. I still feel a little lost and I'm not sure if it's because I haven't rewatched "Rogue One". I'm still intrigued without knowing anything, though. I was wondering who that random guy who was travelling into town was, but I'm guessing he might be the buyer.

"Rogue One" was so long ago that I remember very little about it, except I liked it when I watch it. I don't even remember the Cassian character other than he was on the poster. I was debating whether I should rewatch first so I can catch all the call-backs, which seem to be the main goal of prequels. But that also makes it boring sometimes since you know what's going to happen beforehand, so I decided not to rewatch "Rogue One" for now. I though the first episode was solid. Much more engaging and interesting than the first episode of "Obi Wan", though that isn't saying much. The main character seems like he just uses people and doesn't have much of a moral compass, but the actor is charismatic enough to pull it off, and the flashbacks were effective enough to show he has a possible good reason for it. I too thought his best friend at the beginning outside the factory was the same guy as Bix's boyfriend. I was also a bit confused by Cassian's whole conversation with Bix, about what he needed. The geography of where everything is was also unclear since I don't know the Star Wars universe too well. At first, I thought the deputy inspector guy was a good guy since he actually wanted to serve the murder vs. the corrupt superior only worrying about how the crime rate would look to the higher-ups. But the deputy is clearly a bossy tyrant, so I hope the underlings will undermine him so Cassian's identity is not found for awhile. Of course, it will inevitably happen so that aspect is kind of predictable and not too much of a draw.

I was looking it up and maybe it's the effect using anamorphic lenses, but it's so exaggerated to the point it's distracting.

You all are making me compelled to watch "Andor", LOL. I think it would depend on which viewers' expectations. If they are aiming at book fans, I don't think they were looking for mystery. They just wanted to see their beloved story play out. Since Sauron could shape-shift, they wanted to see him in that form doing his manipulations as he had in the books. But the showrunners/headwriters in their interviews basically said they wanted book fans to be surprised. Whereas for the casual viewer who probably only watched "Lord of the Rings", they did the more common route that prequels or stories based on known properties do, which is enticing viewers with mysteries. How does this new character fit into the known "future"? Who might be Sauron? Who might be Gandalf? etc. "Once Upon A time" also did this since it's based on all these known characters. Who was Graham? was a bit of a mystery in Season 1. And "Once" also used the "How might these characters be connected?" angle, which "Rings of Power" also did. But I think "Once" could be freer with this because they were connecting disparate stories together, like how might Snow White be involved in the Cinderella story, whereas "Rings of Power" was playing around with characters within an established story. So I don't blame the writers for creating mysteries, per se. For me, it was more a problem with the plotholes, the clunky dialogue and the fact that I couldn't care less about any of the characters.

Just throwing in Navy Seal dad for good measure since initially, it looked like he would become part of the triangle but then he got replaced by a bigger hunk.

It took me awhile to get to watching this episode, and they certainly outdid themselves in the stupid department. The potential fallout from the various cliffhangers (Gavin's vision, Scott's stupidity, the half-cure) feel like they will all be irritating to watch. It was obvious they were all going to return to 10,000 BCE so quit with the dumb "last minute" change of plans. I wouldn't put it past Levi to be stupid enough to throw himself into the portal after they leave because Gavin's evil stepuncle shows up and tells him Eve is going to be in grave danger and he will pop up right when Gavin reveals he lied about his latest vision. So Riley's father had a part-time job on the pier, and that was also where Gavin and Eve met? All the emotional beats were total failures in this episode. The sudden cut to finding the building where Gavin's mother was being held captive (using that convenient radio transmitter) was jarring. Did Lazarus' people all come through the portal to find Gavin's mother, or what? Or had they been around in 1988 for awhile? What was Levi going on about "clearing the building"? So he could get shot and Izzy could see her mother's lingering looks? Levi was walking around normally after the surgery, even hugging everyone with nary a wince. Gavin's mother was in such a huge rush to finish the virus, but she had time to stop and chat with Gavin while telling him absolutely nothing useful? Wasn't all the computer equipment trashed when she was captured? Good thing there wasn't a power issue this time, or they could have all gone to have a skating party at the rink. Eve could rock out to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" while her three boytoys spin around her. That fight to the death was a total joke. Ty's secret weapon was his deep psychoanalysis of the ex-husband's emotional weakness? When he told Paara there was something he hadn't told her before, I thought it was that he was a secret master fighting ninja. He got hit in the face a few times and no bruising. Good thing his terminal illness didn't show any symptoms today. What was up with the weird filming style where the periphery of the screen is out of focus. I've noticed that on a few different shows recently. The funniest part of the episode was the terrific plan of driving those carts at the Lazarus agents while they are shooting directly at you since of course all three would stand together so they could fall backwards off a cliff.

I have mixed feelings. Some revivals unfortunately do end up treading old ground, with nothing new to add, so it feels like a pale imitation, with the characters' current ages being a distraction. I found that with the "Murphy Brown" revival, even though I wanted to like it. It might have been the writing, but the characters just didn't feel like their quick witted selves from the past. Other revivals focus on the next generation, which doesn't quite work if you don't care about the young ones. I felt that with the "The Connors" to some extent. Revivals can also be damaging if they reverse character development from the original series in order to create conflict or to make some artificial character arc that we already saw decades ago. Or even worse, bring back a show and then kill off a beloved character for shock value. In that sense, it might be a better idea to have Frasier in a different setting. Of course, that will all depend on the quality of the writing and casting, and if they still have somewhere for the Frasier character to go from here. I agree with the comment the best aspect of "Frasier" was actually Fraser and Nile's interactions and without that, it's a wildcard. At the same time, I would have loved to see the old cast reunited. Maybe they could have the best of both worlds by having some good cameo episodes.

I also felt this episode had scenes which felt sort of stilted, something which has not been the case lately. For example, the scene between Ryan and his mom felt a bit off, even though both actors are great. Those flashback scenes with Bo also didn't quite work. How long was he trapped in that overgrown cityscape where the Alchemist trained him to travel? No one missed his absence? The Alchemist just didn't have the gravitas needed for a major villain. I don't understand how the travelling works. Why does Bo need to appear and walk around for a bit before travelling again? It was highly unlikely that Nicky and Co would be able to catch up to him when he's apparating here and there. Heck, why didn't he apparate out of the city to where The Alchemist was, instead of her conveniently coming back to his apartment? And now, Henry has a "I've a got a feeling" power. I had to laugh at Zhilan's reaction to it. I liked her tagging along in this one. I agree that Nicky finding out about Bo's betrayal was anticlimatic. If they wanted to do this big reveal, it should have been big and satisfying. I'm surprised Anthony was playing dirty like that. He seemed to so nice. I guess he must not have been *that* nice since he got to where he was as a politician. Don't people love Nicky as the vigilante? The lady at the previous community meeting sure thought so. Meanwhile, Carrie's mean side is showing. Why was she so willing to go to bat for Mei-Li before but now she's being so difficult. Kudos to Mei-Li for going above Carrie and speaking to the other guy. What's Carrie's angle, anyway?

Nielson also notes that 99.9% of the viewers who tuned in have no idea why they do so, and this may be attributed to ultra low frequency waves.

I was watching "The Crown" and this one character just looked so familiar and I couldn't place her at all until I looked her up. I can't believe I forgot she was in "Gotham"!

Mawle was definitely one of the more memorable. Maybe this means Adar is the real Sauron, shape-shifting into someone else.

By ignoring Diana's family background, they simplify the narrative. They're good at doing that.

I didn't expect the episode and season to end in such an unmemorable way. This episode wasn't very engaging, and it felt like a repetition of the weak season premiere. The Britannia issue was still there, with no real solution. I can understand why the Queen would feel emotional over it. Charles was still going on and on about how much more progressive he was than his parents, and seemingly trying to take the Queen's job, which I still found ridiculous, unlikely and off-putting. And of course, the tired old metaphor of Elizabeth as the Britannia, just like she was compared to an old TV an episode or two ago. And like the last few episodes, it was still the Charles and Diana show, though I did like some of Diana's scenes, like at the ballet and with Mou Mou. I didn't find any of the characters too charismatic or relatable in this one. I felt a little sad at John Major's last scene with the Queen, but it also reminded me that they did practically nothing with him all season, at least related to his role as Prime Minister (Family Law doesn't count). Most of the previous Prime Ministers got an episode to show off their character. The scenes in Hong Kong were nice visually, so I didn't mind if they had built an episode around that, just with a focus that we didn't see already multiple times this season. Although I had mixed feelings about this season, it was still engaging enough to make me want to watch an episode a day. For me, it was probably on par with Season 3, where I also struggled to like the characters and their new portrayals. I almost want next season to have a whole bunch of flashbacks and feature some of the old cast members again, since that might be more fun.

Charles and Camilla were at the fireworks at the Guy Fawkes festival and so was the Queen, and we didn't get to see them interact. I guess we won't get anything until an actual episode next season that focuses on the elephant in the room.

What do you mean? Showrunners are a rare breed. Some can improve upon classic literature or iconic source material, while Peter Morgan knows better and can improve upon history.

This episode was sort of interesting, built around divorce negotiations. Though it was also less gripping than the last few episodes, maybe because it was a little repetitive with the stubbornness from both sides. The scenes with Camilla and the spin doctor guy was at least a little different. I also liked seeing more of John Major and it seemed like his own marriage was also on the rocks and I expected them to go back to that but they never did. This was a situation in which the two people were very unsuited to one another and never should have married, and divorce was the best for both of them and should have happened a lot earlier. The civility between Charles and Diana at the end was clearly not going to last, so I was just waiting for it to go south and it was well acted when the anger bubbled back up again. Both of them felt like they were the injured party, and in some ways, they both were. I agree with the comment above that on this show, at least, we never really saw them happy together. With "The Crown", we only see occasional glimpses into each of the characters' lives, sometimes with years between featured episodes, so this show is more like vignettes, to the point where it's hard to get a handle on what each of these characters are truly like, from the Queen to Diana.

From an entertainment perspective, I think they did a good job of building tension around a television interview and making it quite dramatic. This episode and the last one felt like a two-parter. I was still able to sympathesize with everyone in this episode, so I don't think it was egregiously in any character's favour. I was surprised they gave so much time to William. Again, I'm not sure if any of it is true, but I liked his scenes with the Queen and his phone calls with Diana. They did a good job of showing the potential impact on him. The whole Guy Fawkes = treason school lesson wasn't subtle, LOL. With Diana, they clearly showed Bashir once again lying to her and playing on her paranoia. It seemed like she genuinely felt what she felt and she was so deep in her mental state that she couldn't see that this interview would not free her or make her feel better. They could easily have made the Queen a total monster in that confrontation with Diana, but it was a nicely written scene where you could see how they could not understand each other at all.

One thing I like about this show is they do generally manage to make you feel for the character they are focusing on and uncovers some of the possible complexity of their perspective. That "journalist" was despicable, preying on Diana's paranoia. She just seemed so starved for attention, pity and validation. It's sad. But her actions and responses tended to make things worse. Anyway, I did feel for her, but as others said, why couldn't she have spent more time with Harry. They really make her seem completely alone, on this show. No surprise this season, but once again, the Queen came off rather insensitive with her various descriptions of Diana to Margaret. I liked her lunch with William, too. That doctor seemed nice. Calling him a frog wasn't so nice, though. Diana looked good in that wig at the theatre. She should have worn it when she was driving around too.

It was hard to watch the killing of the Romanov family and they kept going back to the gruesome imagery, with the later mass grave scene. The brutality of these scenes intercut with Queen Mary implied she was heartless and evil, just so they could have a later scene of Elizabeth explaining to Penny what Mary's true motivations were and the difficulties of being a sovereign unable to show their emotions publicly. Someone was saying the other day to me how this show makes a metaphor about of everything. In some ways, I do appreciate writing that draws parallels between different events weaving them into a cohesive narrative. So I do think the episode was well crafted. But with this particular show, at the back of my mind, I can't help but feel a bit uneasy with that technique because they are tying historical events and real people into a neat little bow and in the process sometimes distorting what happened or misrepresenting these human beings. From a fictional perspective, the whole issue with a husband and wife not sharing too many interests and one of them feeling disconnected from the marriage was interesting. But they were clearly adding subtext to the scenes with Philip and Penny, teasing that it could be more, while making the Queen look like a simpleton with no intellectual interest. Which in turn allowed to them to draw parallels between Queen Mary and the Tsarina being rivals, or how the relationship between Britain and Russia paralleled the marriage between Philip and Elizabeth. It did lead to some nice and well acted conversations between Elizabeth and Penny, and Elizabeth and John Major. But still, I could not help but see the puppet strings of the writers and I could not help wondering if all of this could be fiction. Finally, we got a more Queen centric episode and overall, I think the actress did a good job. Like Margaret's tirade in the last episode, Philip's tirade about everything he gave up for her felt a bit out of the blue. Again, it was well acted and dramatically quite effective, but still left me with mixed feelings.

That is exactly what I thought of "Rings of Power" too. It was disappointingly underwhelming and I agree it has some of the same writing flaws as "Once", relying on a twists and spending more time teasing than character development, logical plot or worldbuilding, despite its beauty. The showrunners were inexperienced and it showed in the writing and pacing. Their interviews reminded me of A&E's interviews and felt similarly arrogant and dismissive of criticism. Galadriel reminded me of a character like Merida right from the first episode. I am still impressed how "Once" created such a strong female character as Emma, who was tough in the pilot but not in an abrasive way and with vulnerability (though a lot of credit also goes to the actress). For its huge budget, the "Rings of Power" pilot didn't have a quarter of the charm of the "Once" pilot. Personally, I still love "Lost", but none of the mystery boxes wannabes that have come after have compared to it. "Rings of Power" had Tolkien's world. Why did it need to rely on mystery boxes is beyond me.

I've listened to the songs a few more times now and they're growing on me. I expected slightly more impressive lyrics from Stephen Schwartz, though. When Giselle came downstairs the morning after the spell, and Morgan started to sing and "do" housework (really badly, I must say, sweeping the dust under the rug?), Giselle didn't think it was a problem that Morgan wasn't going to school anymore? I was also wondering if Giselle ever took Robert and Morgan on a vacation to Andalasia. There didn't seem to be price for going back and forth. Did they ever consider moving to Andalasia instead of the suburbs? Maybe in another 15 years, when the actors are even older, the majority of the film could take place in Andalasia. "Re-enchanted", it will be called.