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What's always struck me about this episode is why don't Betty and LuLu actually work together to avoid each other? I mean, seventeen moves and they never think, hey, maybe we should *decide together* to go to separate places and then keep each other posted about our whereabouts so our paths don't cross? I know they can't be in the same room without everything going to hell, but surely they could have a telephone conversation, or send each other postcards.… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:26 PM on August 5, 2020

My roommate still calls popcorn “poppin’ corn” because of this episode.

Ultimately I thought the killer’s motivation was a little half-baked (or maybe it just wasn’t effective as a secret late reveal), but the actor was great so it didn’t matter too much.

Is the doctor too nice in this episode? I get why they did it, but it felt like they maybe put too much effort into making him a super great guy who totally doesn’t deserve all this.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:28 PM on July 29, 2020

He's barely literate and has never seen a microwave before, but he's as up on his medical conditions as though he subscribes to The New England Journal of Medicine.

I figured he didn’t have any special knowledge of these diseases, he just thought “I want X horrible effect to happen” and then his magic made it happen, within certain real-world constraints.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:15 AM on July 30, 2020

The Bay Area Doctor of the Year's life felt far too charmed - and uber privileged.

Yeah there is just no way they’d give a sympathetic character a house like that in 2020.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:30 AM on August 1, 2020

We're on ep 3, and when we're done I plan to post a full season thread unless there already is one, because it feels like people aren't that into discussing the individual episodes. But fwiw I thought 3 was better than 1 or 2.

And I love the Sister Alice character. After reading up on her real-life inspiration, I kinda just want a show about her.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:45 PM on July 30, 2020

Why have Hazel wear gloves in the office? Did I miss the explanation?

She's a hand model/hand double. In the episode where she's introduced, Della asks her "how are Myrna's hands?" and she takes off the gloves to reveal a perfect manicure and says "better than the rest of me."
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:52 AM on July 31, 2020

I! Love! This! Show! I have watched every season and am totally evangelistic about it. Makes me want to learn knot tying and mushroom identification. Makes me want to join Adult Scouts.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:27 PM on July 21, 2020

I do wonder why anyone with small children even thinks to do the show. The bonds of family always seem to be more of a weight than a motivation in the long run.

Well, a lot of the time, those people are basically saying "I want to give my kid a better life than I had," which is a pretty powerful motivator.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 2:18 PM on July 28, 2020

The best part of this episode is that it made me read the New Yorker profile of Ricky Jay, which you all absolutely should too.

I did a full-series rewatch last year and I remember a lot of the visuals and moments from this episode, but basically nothing of the actual plot. And upon reading the Wikipedia summary... yeah, none of that EFT stuff stuck in my head at all.

For me this episode is perfectly watchable, but it falls in a weird zone that a… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:00 AM on July 24, 2020

My dad is a huge folkie and he said that in comparison to other Guest movies, it seemed like in A Might Wind he loved his subject too much to really skewer it. (It was really fun to watch this movie with my dad, who could tell you the amalgam of bands that every band was based on, plus all kinds of other context.)
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:07 AM on July 20, 2020

To me, Dawn seems to be very much playing up her Cali-girl-ness, like maybe she's a tiny bit self-conscious about how different she is and she's decided to just lean into it and own it. If anything I think she's poking fun at herself.

It's an interesting contrast to Stacey, who definitely has New Yorky characteristics (the black-and-white room and clothing, the knowledge of designer labels), but who is making much more of an effort to blend in with her new peers. Which… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:03 PM on July 12, 2020

Well I loved it, even if parts of it did get repetitive - there were just a few too many lines that got repeated a few too many times in different ironic contexts. But it ended the way I had basically decided it had to end, with the death-via-erasing-from-existence of most of the cast, so I was satisfied.

Plenty of unanswered questions of course, but most of them I can live with. (Like, how did the intricate steps of each universe/time loop get… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:40 PM on July 11, 2020

I mean I guess on reflection, Boris/Aleksandar was ultimately quite instrumental in both apocalypses. In universe B he offers to open the barrels and in universe A, Clausen - who came to town looking for Aleksander - opens them. But in both universes, it's his handling of the cover-up that ultimately leads to their being opened. And of course, Bartoz is heavily involved in both timelines and Bartoz is his son.

But since that's all true, I'd have assumed that his path in… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:37 AM on July 12, 2020

Before my recent rewatch I don't think I remembered that the one with the evil HOA and the one with the garbage monster were the same episode. On the surface they really don't connect at all, and the later-revealed connection that the development was over a garbage dump just seemed tenuous. I get the whole "it's all built on a rotting foundation JUST LIKE THE COMMUNITY" thing but, eh. I don't even mind that the Pier 1 guy enforces the rules via created monster - it… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:22 AM on July 12, 2020

"Get out cookies. I need some refreshments for the wake I'm having for my doll."

Man I wasn't sure if I'd wind up just watching a couple of these for the nostalgia kick, but I'm loving this so far.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 2:46 PM on July 6, 2020

Also: I am always down for Marc Evan Jackson. Had no idea he was in this!
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 2:56 PM on July 6, 2020

As a kid I literally made a hollow book that I used as a secret candy stash because Claudia did that. It made me so happy to see that little detail.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:59 PM on July 6, 2020

She's stubborn and narcissistic as hell on her worst days and can't find that validation in Debbie giving her an awesome opportunity, especially when it's packaged in the tough-talk of "if it was going to happen it would have happened by now."

To be fair, Debbie did make the offer in the most insulting way possible, even if she didn't realize it. If I hear "Take this job as a consolation prize because your dream is dead and you are a… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:53 PM on July 5, 2020

That is why I was thinking there might be three universes. Jonas doesn't exist in Hanna B's universe, and 1888 Jonas doesn't have any memory of meeting Hanna B, so I don't see any other simple explanation.

The other explanation is that each iteration of Jonas we see is actually a different "version," but because of Sic Mundus's interference, their lives play out the same way every time. But then, in the loop we've been watching, Alt-Martha… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:16 PM on June 29, 2020

So if Tronte is Regina's father, that means she and Ulrich are half-siblings, which makes Bartosz Martha's cousin.

My roommate has a theory that Helene Albers is actually Hannah and that she had Katharina in an affair with Egon, which would be incredible.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:40 PM on June 30, 2020

Fun theory, but already disproven onscreen in this episode, since adult-Helene is not being played by the same actress as adult-Hannah.

But Hannah went to the 50s and Katharina went back to the 80s. Hannah would have to be 33 years older by that point.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:25 PM on July 1, 2020

Watching one episode a night, this episode was a bit frustrating - it felt like mainly tablesetting for things to come.

We are also much more confused now about what the eff is going on with the two universes, because Old Alt-Martha seems, like Adam, to have been going through these same cycles over and over again, but Middle Jonas doesn't know Alt-Martha.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:35 PM on June 30, 2020

I'm listening to a filmography podcast where they're discussing the Matrix movies and suddenly the recurring "a glitch in the Matrix" line is so much more significant. I had forgotten a lot of the plot, but at the end of the second movie, Neo meets an avatar of the machines who tells him:

-All of this has happened before, you're the sixth iteration of "The One".

-The actual purpose of The One is to ultimately have to choose… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:20 PM on July 1, 2020

I like this kind of show but I'm not sure why this has to be Perry Mason instead of Joe Detective.

Well, would we all be talking about it if it wasn't?

I haven't seen this yet but I'm really excited about it. The original is one of my dad's favorite shows and we watch it a lot when I'm home for Christmas, so I'm looking forward to discussing this new one with him. Plus I used to work in legal aid, and it has long bothered me… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:57 AM on June 22, 2020

After watching, it feels like maybe this series is meant to be the story of how he decides to become a defense lawyer. Particularly in the scene where he was giving expert testimony and got so frustrated with everyone's incompetence.

I have a weirdly specific soft spot for interwar period detective shit so I was happy enough with this, but my roommates were meh on it. In particular one said "if you're gonna show the close-up of that baby you gotta earn it and they didnt."
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:10 PM on June 30, 2020

Ok my roommates and I just stayed up for an hour past our bedtimes debating how the time loops work on this show. It actually got kinda heated. I am thrilled. This episode was amazing.

We are watching one episode a night and I am DYING to cheat, but it is kind of more fun to have one episode at a time to puzzle over.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:41 PM on June 27, 2020

Is the 1888 scene taking place in yet a third universe? At first the idea seemed extravagant to me, but there is a lot of imagery that occurs in threes, like the Sic Mundi logo.

I thought that was our own original Middle Jonas at a slightly later point in his personal timeline, on his way to becoming Adam.

It seems to me that all these Jonases are actually different people, not literally each other's pasts. But because the… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:54 PM on June 27, 2020

There were lots of examples of mirrored shots in this episode, it wasn't just the Kahnwald house. The Obendorf greenhouses for sure, I think the school hallway too, and others I'm forgetting.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:25 AM on June 28, 2020

Wöller did seem disapproving of Ulrich and Charlotte. I can't recall -- is this just a general disapproval or did he have a latent interest in her in earlier seasons?

Nope, he never did. But you don't need an extra motive to disapprove of your married boss canoodling with your married coworker.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:53 AM on June 28, 2020

It is a testament to the quality of this show that Wöller could wind up being the secret most important character OR could just remain the background flavor character we've seen so far, and I would be completely happy with either scenario. (The thing from last season where he ALMOST tells Clausen what happened to his eye is the best joke in the whole show imo. I knew it was coming on rewatch and it still slayed me.)
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:28 AM on June 28, 2020

I had trouble feeling much of any sympathy toward her even with the loss of Mikkel because she's routinely shown as having a massive mean streak and even as an adult and a school administrator is still a petty 'mean girl', bullying and belittling the women she looked down on during their school years, while emotionally neglecting her other children to the point Martha angrily calls her out for never being there for her and Magnus.

I don't completely… [more]
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:40 AM on June 28, 2020

Say, does anyone know what denomination Alt-Peter is likely to be? I didn't realize anyone but Catholics and Anglicans wore those collars, and he's certainly not Catholic, what with the wife and all. Do pastors/priests of other protestant denominations dress that way in Germany? Lutherans maybe?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 11:44 AM on June 28, 2020

Is Marta B's orb the first we've seen of precision time jumping?

No, Adam sends Jonas back to the day Mikkel left, and he gives a whole speech about how this is the final evolution of time travel tech.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:40 AM on June 29, 2020

I just realized that Adam/Jonas has to be wrong about the whole time travel mess being because of him. It is NOW, it seems like, but it can't have been Jonas who caused the loops to begin in the first place, because before the loops began, he didn't exist.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:44 AM on June 29, 2020

I like to imagine the bluegills encountered the Ferengi, whose penchant for exploitative capitalism and love of eating bugs rendered them extinct within a year.

Just like the anchovies in Futurama!
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:11 PM on June 27, 2020

Who among us would not welcome it, at this point?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 7:52 PM on June 22, 2020

The first time around I made an elaborate chart that I annotated every episode. It was three pieces of printer paper wide. And on rewatch I'm still remembering stuff I'd forgotten with every episode.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:36 AM on June 24, 2020

We just finished our rewatch - perfect timing! - and, shit, I had forgotten A LOT of things from that last episode. This show is wild.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:22 PM on June 26, 2020

Yeah this episode was fun and funny and then suddenly I was like "fuck, did I just gain enlightenment?"

And upon googling, Brennan Lee Mulligan has a philosophy degree, which explains a lot.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:54 PM on May 21, 2020

I actually thought there was a chance Albee would reclass away from being a monk at the end of the episode, but the way they went is much more interesting.

I'm not really feeling the new in-between series but I can't wait for this to come back.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:51 AM on June 17, 2020

I like this one more than a lot of people seem to. In particular I think that first scene is an incredible if hard-to-watch piece of horror filmmaking. And the mom did a great job - you could buy that, by the end of the episode, she really thought killing her own kid was her only option.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 1:36 PM on June 13, 2020

I think we see the pencils again later as an Easter Egg.

I rewatched the whole series recently and they bring it back like half a dozen times! It's right up there with the sunflower.seeds and porn re: Mulder quirks. I had forgotten they introduced it in this episode.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2020

I'm three episodes in and loving it.

Does anyone else think Count Orlov is a deliberate critique of moderate liberalism? It was especially striking in the beard episode, how convinced he was in the value of incremental change while being proven wronger and wronger at every turn.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:41 AM on May 27, 2020

We just got to the variolation episode last night. It fell flat for me. Up to that point all the modern-day parallels had been handled pretty well but that one was just an hour of heavy-handed "SEE IT'S JUST LIKE THE DEBATE NOW OVER VACCINES! GET IT? GET HOW MORONIC IT IS TO OPPOSE VACCINES?" Sure I agree with the message but it took me completely out of the setting and made me feel like the writer had a personal bone to pick with, like, a specific aunt on Facebook.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 8:09 AM on June 1, 2020

Meese are you a Max Fun donor?
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 3:38 AM on May 30, 2020

In that case the inital lack of ad was probably just a mistake.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 3:55 PM on May 30, 2020

I would love a candid TTAZZ parting the curtain a bit but it doesn’t seem likely.

They did a pretty candid one about Amnesty after it was over.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 6:23 AM on May 31, 2020

I am still catching up even further behind than DirtyOldTown and I gotta say, watching this one during the Covid-19 pandemic was a little disorienting. It’s like reality had seeped into a two-and-a-half-year-old TV drama.

For sure. So many little details on point. I've never seen this show before and this episode was bizarre to watch.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 10:39 AM on May 29, 2020

Yes, totally not credible that the doctor could get a job as a plastic surgeon elsewhere so easily. The FBI would have alerted plastic surgery clinics to be on the lookout for such a man.

To be fair, I think you can easily write that off as "he's a witch." Maybe he magicked himself up a new social security number etc. (This same problem plagues modern-day vampire stories too. Damn panopticon.)
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 12:08 AM on May 19, 2020

I always thought this was a very odd choice of plot for a series premiere. To introduce you to the long-awaited reboot of our rollicking space adventures, we'll start out with... an existential trial to determine the worthiness of humanity? Feels more like season finale material to me. I know that was an old Trek trope already but so were a lot of other options.
posted to FanFare by showbiz_liz at 9:56 AM on April 7, 2020