DoctorAtomic

Ooh. Danny McBride gets a huge burn. Do they not like him? And a Skeelo joke. That's a huge reach back. Lego priest was a big burn. Please tell me someone else knows who Connie Sellecca is. Do you want a vegetable sent to you in the mail? I cracked on this one. I don't know anyone who uses blue apron.

I can't remember the last time they did the full theme. But of course you would want your rhino to wear a top hat if you invite him to your wedding.

Weird that all the shows aren't new episodes.

That's a good take too. There's a lot of interesting things to explore, but perhaps 6 hours was needed. I mean, it's BBC and netflix, so it's not like there were firm constraints on time, and lots of one off BBC shows are 6 hours anyway. I liked the idea that he picked up intelligence from the victims. And I liked that the 'rules' weren't really rules, but they spent such a short time on it. He was like, 'oh the sun doesn't hurt. Let me die now.' There wasn't any period of Dracula unleashed. Likely, the cross would have been ineffective too. I would have loved to see him tear apart a congregation at Sunday mass.

I don't know how you let that Seattle WR get that much separation on such a critical play. It's not like he ran some crazy route. It was a straight line.

Is there any reason for the time change?

Yeah, I don't really know either. I'm just shooting the shit because I just watched the show. I don't necessarily think all characters have to be in every episode of a tv show. Adam still being in 'business' avoids that, and allows you to have an Adam centered episode every so often. I never minded that Caan didn't want to be in every episode, but they didn't really bother to provide any logical consistency for his absence.

I'm assuming between film study, actual practice, team meetings, the day in and day out for a player is likely 10 hours average? They're probably not all going to be sent home for lunch, and there's likely a half hour break or an hour here and there. What are they supposed to do? If you are in fact a good leader, you want to schedule time where the team *isn't* thinking about football. Play some ping pong. I bet some of them play xbox or cards. I work upwards of 9 hours a day and I go home for lunch because I live close. It's a huge help to get through the day to relax and not think for even 45 minutes.

My point being 'gone' - from the plot, clearly. Because he's on the bill, tbh. I'm not trying to be glib, but TPTBs had to bump him up when the others left the show, and as a regular, they have no idea what to do with the character. He started out interesting - straddling the line between legit and yakuza, and was of value to Five-0 as sort of a CI. They should have stuck with that because of all the ridiculousness of the show it strains credulity that Adam is a functioning member of Five-0.

Do they think they're clever being so disorienting each episode? At the end of 2, Dracula was arrested, and how they kick off the next one with him in Bob's house. I'm not sure on how being in a wooden box under the sea kept him preserved for over a century though. I certainly don't have a problem with modern updates of classics, but I think they wanted to have too much cake with this series in being both the past and the present. They could have got to present day sooner and spent more time there I think. E2 was kind of filler in that regard, and I didn't need 20 minutes in a club in E3 or anything to do with 20 somethings in a club. Or perhaps set the show entirely in the present and flashback. Even with the longer running time, they were trying to do too much. I did actually like the idea of Torchwood - Dracula, and the idea of him 'missing' a century is an interesting take. Having the lawyer, etc. I think they should have spent more time either in the past or in the present but ended up not doing enough of both. Like E3 could have been E1 and flashed back from the picture of Harker to the castle, from Dr. Helsing to the convent. The lady playing Van Helsing is an absolute treasure. She's very uncommonly attractive and I mean that as a compliment. How moronic do you have to be to shove your hand in Dracula's mouth?! It's hilarious that Dracula figured out the wifi password. This was peak Gatiss. Right in his wheelhouse. This is why the way the show was structured was a problematic. I don't need to characters to root for to like a show, but if I'm just bored, then that's trouble. I didn't know anything about her except that she was kind of full of herself and she bored me. He ate her and she died. Ho hum. Maybe make it a little more clear he was looking for brides or give us a peek into this thinking as to why she was a potential bride. It might have been a better choice to either show him feeding off a host of vapid 20 somethings to show that people are a mere trifle to him. Or take another episode to develop the modern time characters. I didn't really care that she was freaking out about being horrid looking. I was like 'get it over with' when Jack was going to kill her. I don't get why if she was such a great bride that Dracula was so droll about her dying or didn't try to stop it. For someone who doesn't like sunlight, it seems unstrategic to have an apartment with a giant picture window. I like the 'blood is lives' concept to allow the Van Helsings to communicate across time. I do like research into why he's afraid of the cross, etc. I wish there was more of that. It seems there were a lot of good ideas in this series, but I think it required some more forethought as to the actual story they wanted to tell.

The fanboying in the van was eye rolling. Didn't even miss that Adam was gone.

Someone green light the fuck out of this all day long. McBride can actually act too, so Charlie could be a more active participant. Leave it to Five 0 to exercise subtlety by barging into hotel guns blazing and basically getting plot armor for the hostage not being killed. I basically tuned out when Steve had to immediately go to cock measuring with the 'this badge gives me complete authority over everything and everyone in the state' and the whole 'this is our turf' bullshit. For one, it's lazy writing. For the other, it's boring because Five-0 is always right and there's no actual drama. I did like Higgins snapping about being shoved into the blue room. I would think it must be boring for the writers to have to be constrained to making everything so one-dimensional all the time. I'll give credit to the actors though - I might actually check out the show. They were really good and the not-Alphaing all over the place is a refreshing narrative. The whole Steve having to drive bullshit needs to be put to bed. It's just as easy for Magnum to have offered for Steve to drive as a friendly gesture. The whole car banter is stale.

That's why I think the longer running time serves the cast better.

I was spoiled for the reveal because the FB DW page felt the need to blare it out nearly immediately after the show aired. But - I did enjoy watching it unfold to see if I could pick up on any tells. Funny that I watched the actor in Dracula on netflix yesterday too. I really liked how he got on the plane and slowly unfolded. I didn't know the house was the TARDIS! I enjoyed last season and felt a lot of the griping was just butthurt whining or whinging. I thought with such a big change that the taking the show as a soft reboot was a good choice. The stories were good. I do think it is a bit of a challenge with a larger main cast to keep everyone involved and relevant to the plot, but perhaps the longer running time does help with that. I thought this episode was a bit of a slower pace, but still very much drew me in while still having really good character moments. I prefer the more scarier stories like this. I know this is a stretch, but there's a scifi book called Radixx that have beings called 'vors' that are essentially made of light who came from the gamma burst at the center of the galaxy. I can't imagine that Vor was a reference to this, but wow if it was. The whole car chase was hilariously ridiculous. I like how the sonic can open a plane.

I'm on E2 and I'm totally confused at Van Helsing and Dracula just bantering.

I'm on E1, and I'm dying at the sassy nun. "Huh. That actually worked." I love her. The castle was just brilliant too. All the hiding and the dark corners. Anyone catch the Sherlock reference? That gave me a good laugh.

I would likely resign from my position if a dress code were enforced. You can leave it up to me as to how I think I should present myself because I'm a professional and an adult. I'm also just philosophically opposed to ties. People only wear them because people wear them. The world will continue on if no one decided to wear a tie that day. I don't like sport jackets either. They never fit me right.

The key point is 'done well.' The series finale of Highlander did this rather well because they literally had centuries upon which the main character could reflect. Or as we said, really flipping it on its head when Married With Children did it. That's really the only show where it could have fit and the casting of Sam Kinison was the only person who could have played that role to make it work. Doing it for the sake of doing it or having it be the plot unto itself never really works.

I get uncomfortable when coaches enforce rules on clothing over players because it strikes me as a 'know your place, boy' kind of mentality. Given the vastly unequal balance of who is in coaching positions, you'd think someone would be more self-aware. Being clear that you expect everyone to be on time for practice, or turning off your cell phones in a meeting, is fair to make sure everyone is focused. I'm continually confused as to why management thinks this kind of mentality is successful anymore. It just isn't. These players are professionals and it's their job. But with the freedom (which I support) they have to move to different teams to do what's right for them, this just seems unproductive. That doesn't mean you shouldn't strive to be disciplined on the field. Then again, I don't think many owners really *want* to invest enough to have a consistently winning product which is why you see the same coaches being trotted out all the time, or the off chance a new coach actually gets a shot, he's got way too short of a leash and doesn't have the commitment from the franchise.

Yet another franchise going in a bold new direction.

A lot of people don't have the time to rewatch or binge though. So while I won't argue that the show holds up better viewed closer in time, it's also not my problem that it was.

I certainly like old west stories, but I don't get why they needed to do the v/o with Dolly. It wasn't like I couldn't follow.

That's entirely possible, but I still say there wasn't 13 hours of story left to tell either. A lot of this also was Dom. 95% of those scenes weren't necessary. Especially running around the airport. Clearly, she wasn't of much importance since Darlene wasn't in Europe and didn't even mention Dom in these final scenes. I think by putting too much of a face on the dark army (the woman that kept threatening to kill Dom's family whose name I don't know which goes to show you how invested I was) weakened them as a villain because 1 - the woman was comically ineffective, 2 - Dom outwitted her in about 45 seconds.

Yeah, great call whomever pulled that one out over here. I can roll with that. I also liked that the 'machine' was really a red herring, which I did suggest a while back. I think that was the right call. I found this season to be ponderous and it was really hard to get through the episodes because I just wasn't engaged anymore. I think this could have been wrapped up in 4 hours tbh. I think TPTB was more into playing around with filmmaking because he just didn't have enough story to fill the time.

Married with children is the exception that proves the rule.