Lazlo

Maybe 30, at least as a lower limit. Kirk was a captain at 29 and Picard at 28 so Ramsey (presumably the same age as Mariner) being a captain before she's 30 would be impressive and unusual but not absurd. Mariner being 30 would also be a reasonable sort of age for Boimler (presumably early 20s) to mistake her as someone the 'same age' as him.

Is Lady Anne Glenconner the first significant character on the show who has commented on it in real life? I know the real Anne gave HBC tips on portraying Margaret.

I get the impression the show intended us to see Charles's sympathy for the Duke of Windsor as misplaced, even actively manipulated by the Duke and Duchess. Whatever his other issues Charles (at least as seen in the show) is someone with a strong if frustrated sense of duty. The Duke just seems completely feckless and self serving.

I was a little shocked the show acknowledged that Eleanor's one sided letching over Tahani could be a bit problematic.

I have a confession to make: I didn't entirely hate The New Class. I'm not going to say it was ever as good as the original (or California Dreams or Hang Time) and Screech got very tiresome as Mr Belding's aasssistant but some of the cast and stories were fun. I guess age helps - I was born in 1981 so was still the 'right age' demographic when The New Class started. In fact I can even remember having early teen crushes on Lindsay and Rachel. I'm sorry it seems to have vanished so completely.

Under the current continuity both Bart (aged 10) and Lisa (aged 8 ) would have been born during the Obama presidency. I think we just have to take it as read that some jokes and references just don't work with a floating timeline. For instance Homer as a teenager listening to music during the moon landing or Marge voting for Jimmy Carter (twice!) which if calculated from the current season would make both Homer and Marge north of sixty. I'm more puzzled by the fact that Mr. Largo, mostly bald and grey-white with what hair he has left, is apparently only about forty. If I'd have to pick an aged I'd have said mid-fifties at an absolute minimum.

That was a weird one. I get the feeling that we were meant to be siding with Lisa but her rant seemed really off base; Bart all but worshiped Bossy Riot and was desperate to be part of their gang. Obviously he wasn't read up on feminist theory but his admiration for the older girls seemed a hundred percent genuine, even though they treated him like crap. How is he a 'mercenary' again? The showed also forgot to make the BRAs actually villainous. I get why they why the writers would balk at Milhouse and Nelson viciously trolling female characters on the internet or indeed in school but the only thing we actually saw them do was 'hate non-watch' Itchy & Scratchy and stage a protest outside the studio. It just seems weird that we're meant to cheer at these children who were immature but didn't actually hurt anyone get their comeuppance while Bossy Riot, who committed a petty vandalism spree, tried to destroy a beloved tv show and were relentlessly mean to the adoring Bart rode off into the sunset lionised as heroines. Um, yay?

Ooff... I think this episode gave us both the strength's and weaknesses of this show. Airiam's sacrifice was very sad and Hannah Cheesman really did a great job of giving her emotion and depth. On the other hand the show did an abysmal job setting up the character in previous episodes. I'm pretty sure it was never told Airiam was a human cyborg prior to this, and to be honest I doubt that was the original idea when they created her ('Airiam' sounds more like a name for an alien character.) We didn't see her apparently very active social life either, which seems a real shame and robs her death of much of the power it should have.

I assumed Israel Broussard was Jewish based on that first name. Is he Born Again? I never read Twitter. I also Jessica Rothe and Rachel Matthews do well.

I strongly suspect that if Michael does turn out to be the Red Angel we will get a reboot with her saving her biological family and thus never ending up as Spock's sister.

I have to agree that I think the marketing might have made a mistake focusing on the horror trappings when this was really more of a sci-fi romcom if anything. In fact I'd put the horror episodes third or even fourth behind the comedy, Tree's emotional arc and the sci-fi stuff.

This going to be very unpopular but I feel the same about Leeland. Yes Michelle Yeoh is charismatic as all get out but the Terran Emperor is just so utterly smug that I'm longing for her to get taken down a peg or two. Also as bad as he is I don't believe Leeland has committed genocide several times over and delighted in eating other intelligent beings. I loved seeing Vina and her interaction with Pike. It makes their eventual fate... well, still bittersweet but more meaningful. Plus Melissa George is always great.

Yeah, and I'm gutted. I would have love to see a third movie just to see if they switched genres again. 😞

I guess they've decided that Homer (and presumably Marge) are well into their 40s at this point. Welcome Back Kotter aired 1975 to 1979 and they seemed to be in their teens working on Krusty's movie in the late 1980s. It isn't a huge issue but it is kind of strange to think they were already past thirty when they had Bart, assuming he is still meant to be ten years old. I'm a D&D fan so I loved the 'Dice Throwers' Wrist' sign - a very Knights of the Dinner Table style joke. That was a fun episode. I'm usually meh on celeb guests but the Mr. Burns film was a definite highlight.

I never understood the hostility to the mystical direction BSG went. Spirituality was literally baked into the DNA of the show from the original after all. Having the angels really be angels was very much in the spirit (so to speak) of the old BSG.

I suppose it depends on whether we were meant to see the Red Angel as an ambiguously supernatural entity or not. It is the same with Tilly's old friend/ghost who turned out to have a 'normal' techonobabble explanation.

While that's true it also means the Red Angel actually doesn't reach that level - its tech might be unbelievably advanced but is still recognisably technology. I think Clarke's Law better applies to beings like the Q who essentially are indistinguishable from deities. I'm not sure how to feel about that to be honest. Oh and this is pure speculation but at this point I'd be astonished if the Red Angel turns out to be anyone other than a time travelling Michael.

I know what you mean. I can easily believe Michael and Tilly are friends but from what we've seen recently Tilly actually seems closer to Saru and Stamets. Having Michael be so devastated didn't really feel earned. I had the same issue with the show trying to push the idea of Michael and Saru as BFFs last week - again there is a connection but it felt like the show forcing something more because Michael is our view point character. I enjoyed this story but I'm beginning to worry the writers have forgotten that the Emperor (entertaining and charismatic though she is) is essentially Space Hitler. Deep Space Nine had a very similar problem with Gul Dukat were because the actor/character was so much fun the creators and audience lost sight of what a monster he was and eventually had to do a messy course correction.

I think that like 'Mad about the Toy' earlier this season this is an example of the sliding timescale of the show (where characters don't really age) running into the age of the showrunners. This one isn't has much of a problem as that one where the toy company executive and his secretary still worked the same job after seventy years but the timing has issues. At this point assuming they still are meant to be around forty 'now' Homer and Marge are just too young to have been in their teens in the Eighties.

Yeah, that was what I took from the film too. There was a really heartbreaking moment where Tree realised the happy memory her mother was sharing simply hadn't happened to her. I do wish the film had explained what happened to the Tree from the alternate dimension. I assume she was thrown back into the 'right' place but I think I'd have liked to hear a line from Ryan or one of the others on that.

I very recently binge watched the whole show on Netflix over a few weeks. It is interesting to see some of the very early aspects that got phased out over time. Like in the first two episodes we see Monica talking to her friends at work the restaurant she works at ('Iridium') even has its own establishing shot. Even though she stays working at Iridium until well into Season 2 we never see Monica at her original work again after those couple of episodes. Another weird thing from Season One that got dropped was referring to people by a combination of their name and some distinguishing feature: Paul the Wine Guy, Fun Bobby, Young Ethan, Brian from Payroll, Fake Monica and of course Fat Ugly Naked Guy.

I loved it. I think in some respects the first movie was better. The technobabble left me cold - I prefer the Groundhog Day-style lack of an explanation in the first flick more enjoyable and I have to admit I like the implied mystical aspect of the original more than the solidly sci-fi nature of the sequel. Still I think the multiverse angle gave them a lot to play with. Jessica Rothe is brilliant; just a great hand at comedy, action, romance and real emotion. Quite honestly I think she gave a better performance than most of the Best and Supporting Oscar nominees this year. I'm amazed how emotionally invested I got in Tree and how much I was rooting for her and Carter. I even got a little teary at her conversations with Alternate Timeline!Lori and with her mother. I know the film played Danielle really broadly but I found her a lot of fun, especially the Alternate Timeline version. It was neat watching someone so self absorbed and dim trying to be nice. I do have to think she isn't trapped there for a long time, since I don't think Tree is that cruel. I've heard the box office isn't stellar which makes me sad, but I've read these films are very cheap so we still might get a third one. I hope so!

I honestly expected the show to be going somewhere with Julia being voiced by Nancy Cartwright (sounding very like Bart.) Either just for a lampshade hanging joke or an actual plot element. I even wondered if they were going to have her being a time travelling future version of Bart gone back to the past to save his parents marriage.

That was kind of fun, especially with Ned's Homer impersonation and Homer's four lines. Lisa herself was pretty unsympathetic though and it was surreal to have her complain about not having a friend with similar interests when Alison was prominently visible in the background. Is Sam the first non-binary/lgbt kid character we've seen on the show (Sam's father definitely said "I love you son")?

I suppose the difference for me is that Tom had/has an obvious personality and Sian doesn't. While smart and pleasant she seems remarkably dull, and outside of her personal clashes with Sabrina there just doesn't seem to be much of a person there. There are certainly worse things to be than being a bit of a blank and in some ways it might be an advantage in that I'm sure her business is her life but for someone in such a glamorous field she's just oddly absent. Camilla on the other hand had to fight against her own instincts to sex things up this time and I think she did pretty well to take on board all the criticism. I was rooting for her but i think she probably didn't need this in the way Sian did - she seems to have more of a life going on. Great to see some of the old faces back, especially Jackie (still my favourite out of this series and I'm not ashamed to say it), Kayode and Kurran. I did feel sorry for Sabrina; hitting the top five and still picked last must have hurt.