Vee

The media absolutely loves the drama and the ratings, which is why they chase Trump. But most of them (and that does include cable news) also know he is incredibly dangerous, which is why they've pushed Rubio so hard - they think he's the last hope. It's a symbiotic and contradictory relationship they have with Trump, but that's the way the media has been for a long time. The Republican establishment is not behind Trump and does not want him to win. The article above indicates that, though it was obvious before. They know he will destroy them, but due to the party and base they have created they cannot control him or it.

No, they're terrified of him. Most of them.

Lord Trump vows to crack down on press freedom.

The NYT covers the GOP's desperation.

An amusing promo for a terrible idea.

Stop. (That's a whole other conversation) I've only seen the first few but so far Steve comes off like a stalker out of a Gavin DeBecker 'know your fear' manual.

I mean, I was citing those programs as good ones that are worthwhile but I think we can both agree that FH understanding its trite [sic] and true formula and embracing it is a very different side of television these days, and IMO a sane counterbalance to everything else that is either very good, very modern or simply trying too hard. And yes, I'm disturbed that Nicky and Alex grew up hot.

At no point in my past life would I have ever anticipated watching a steamy homoerotic tango between D.J. Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler at 2:30 AM.

Danai and Lupita Nyong'o talk about Danai's new Broadway play Eclipsed. I hope I can catch it.

I don't think that'll ever happen with Trump.

I mean, I know what you're talking about with Beverly Katz? But that was a one-week tempest in a teapot at best - she was supposed to die in the first season. The whole thing blew away overnight because it was not as big a deal as a handful of people on Tumblr made it out to be. And regardless of that mini-controversy most fans and critics considered Season 2 to be the show's best - ask around, they'll tell you. It's just not that serious. The very existence of a controversy doesn't make it hopelessly damaged. I understand the problem with cults of personality. But I don't think it applies here because whatever fans feel on their end, I think Fuller's relationship to them is healthy. I don't think he writes the show based on them. If fans forget the wall that's their problem - the problem is if the showrunner does. I don't think Bryan Fuller ever has. He jst makes what he wants to make, and if it works for the fans as well he's happy. I've seen pandering, I hate pandering. I don't think that show ever did. And I hope you will watch Star Trek.

It's not that I don't think there's fire behind some of the smoke in those allegations. It's that I don't think it will ever amount to anything. My biggest concern about Hillary is that she purges or hopefully already has purged some of the counterproductive, dramatic loyalists in her team who tanked her in 2008 (along with Obama's incredible discipline and campaign). You can't handle someone like Trump without focus. You have to know how and when to hit back. He is an idiot but he's also a juggernaut. I don't believe Bernie Sanders could handle it.

I promised I'd get back to this argument above and now I shall. Re: Hannibal - the thing is, you talk about some of these things as though they're obviously part of the equation when it comes to Bryan Fuller, but what you have to realize is that I have no idea what a lot of this is about. An action figure? Wacky uncle? I don't know what any of that is. And I have no sense that the guy has a towering ego that sucks all the light out of a room. I also don't recall anyone turning on the show, really. Some people got bored in the first half of Season 3, but that was about it. There was no major backlash. When I say I don't know what any of that stuff is, I mean it. And I was a very avid fan of that show - I just have no idea what that is and I doubt I'm the only one. Because it's not relevant to me or to the show IMO. I realize these things irk you - whether it's a fanbase, or the critics, or social media, or an outsize personality on a creator or whatever - but all those are ancillary at best to the actual product. All I care about is the show. I'm not interested in the fangirls, I'm not interested in what they did today and what it might mean for a larger picture. When it came to that show they were pretty high-strung and annoyed me sometimes, but I don't remember them doing anything terrible to anyone or campaigning to get anyone off the show or anything like that. And I also think there's a big difference between judging something for what it is vs. trying to judge it based on everything around it. I think that creates a skewed perpective on any show. I also don't think it's a sin if the creators engage with their audiences - it doesn't always mean they're going to run their shows based on shippers or throw someone nice to the lions. I don't think Hannibal was run that way, though it certainly had a close relationship with its audience while struggling to survive three years on NBC. I understand that that's something we especially deal with on daytime soaps and their crazy fans but I don't think it applies to everything in pop culture. Some of primetime, yes; not all of it. And there's always going to be an unbalanced segment of the audience who turns on any show, or tries to do X or Y or throw a fit or whatever - but that doesn't mean we don't watch shows. I think it's reactionary to treat the whole landscape the same way as that subculture (or any fannish subculture really, not just soaps), and I think it's unfair to a lot of really great content. Also, it is unavoidably a creator's age these days in television - we can either go with it and judge the product as it comes, or resent the rise of personalities entirely. All I see with Bryan Fuller as a creator is a very gregarious guy excited to create, not an egomaniac. And it really wasn't that different in the old days either - we had the Bloodworth-Thomasons, the James L. Brookses, the Steven Bochcos, the Susan Harrises. The only thing that has changed is the mediums. On a related note, I think there are a lot of shows that take heat where it's undeserving, or don't get enough attention vs. other critical darlings. (It's worth mentioning Hannibal was ignored by NBC, preempted and quietly cancelled, not feted in the square.) And I agree with you that a lot of the times that's unfair, and there are plenty of popular shows I get sick of hearing about to the point where it'll take me years to give them a shot just to wait for the noise to die down (Mad Men). But I don't think Mad Men must be overhyped [!@#$%^&*] because everyone is all over it - I'll give it the shot eventually. I also don't think the way to balance those kind of scales is to dismiss other shows that are acclaimed or are popular out of hand, or based on stuff that's exterior. I should know because I still do it a lot myself. I'm trying very hard not to offend you because I think you know you're one of the very few people around here I respect, but I think you're wrong about this. And whether or not you like Hannibal specifically, I worry that someone who loves the best of television through the ages as much as you do, and has such a rich memory and wealth of history with it, isn't always giving stuff a fair shot simply because it is 'hot 'right now. But I don't think that's a dirty word. And I'm not going to dismiss a creator or a product based on a fanbase or a wave of hype around them. I think scripted programming (on any outlet, be it TV or streaming) is in some of its best years lately - the quality and freedom is unlike anything we've had before. I think it would be a waste to shun so much of it just because we're all tired of the overblown Internet thinkpieces about how, say, True Detective is better than any filmed mystery since the '90s or whatever. There will always be overblown thinkpieces - it doesn't mean television isn't in a golden age. (Though I think we can all agree that Fuller House falls into absolutely zero of these categories.) I just wish the traditional soaps had the same opportunities. And that's the last time I'm gonna go over this, I promise. But as always, YMMV. As for Trek - after Hannibal Bryan Fuller was my first best choice for the job. I thought some of his past shows were too twee and obnoxious, I thought they were wildly overrated, but Hannibal shocked me and turned me completely around. I think he's incredibly imaginative, I think Hannibal was the closest thing to art that our network television had seen since the days of Twin Peaks (excepting maybe some of Homicide, or American Crime now) and I think he knows the roots of Trek's best years and is totally proud of those geeky years in syndication, not ashamed like so many other hot talents would be. I think he's the most forward-thinking and creative choice they could've come up with to take this franchise back into television, where it belongs IMO. And I couldn't be happier about it. If you think his fans have made him a monster, I don't see it. And I don't think it's fair to judge what he brings to Trek based on that perception. I just hope eventually you will reconsider.

Well, I loved Bloodline, Daredevil and Jessica Jones among other things but that's me. My advice to anyone wanting Netflix: Take the 30-day trial, try the programming out, see for yourself. Same goes for Amazon or any other similar service.

I would heartily disagree with that about their programming, but that's old news. All you need is a decent connection.

Netflix (or streaming in general, really) is the future of programming. I just wish the soaps would take advantage. I think you can get it for $8 a month now. Nobody is buying the DVDs.

I just don't find them as unpleasant as you do, or think it was just quite so rancorous. I think it's a lot of noise. John Stamos is a little extra, obviously (which is probably why his online feud with equally can't-let-it-go Ron Carlivati was so entertaining) but I don't think there was any malice with those people. Even though they created such a virulently saccharine show they've apparently all been thick as thieves together for decades. I think it's one of those guilty pleasure and/or love-to-hate things; I know it is for me. I think a lot of people (at least in my age range) have a complicated relationship with the show that came on after the soaps and dominated the late afternoon-early evening block. I always hated FH and found it so lame. But I also always watched it and had real affection for some of the characters/actors (Jodie Sweetin, Lori Loughlin, Andrea Barber, Stamos, etc.), so there is something there and it is good to see them all again. Also I consider it karmic justice that D.J. Tanner's oldest boy on the show is clearly a gayby just from a few lines. BMW, I didn't really watch much. I was aging out of those shows and I found Ben Savage a little obnoxious. I am glad they appear to be doing well and I know people a little younger than me who just love it, and it obviously is (and was back then) more interested in tackling real things than FH ever was. I bear it no ill will, I just think it's a totally different phenomenon. People know what FH is in all its oppressive sticky-sweet old-fashioned sit-comedy, I just think most critics don't want to admit they'll still watch it. To me it coming back is a kind of balancing of the scales given the new frontiers television has gone to, both on streaming and cable and the experimentation we currently see on some of the networks. We get Fargo or Breaking Bad or American Crime, we get the new Twin Peaks, we get Black-ish or Carmichael or Fresh Off the Boat to revolutionize sitcoms - but we also get something that's purely and simply anti-art. It is only pop and nothing else. I think there's a healthy place for that sort of extreme. The problem was when there was only Miller-Boyett shows on the dial.

Various agencies have been 'investigating' Hillary for 20+ years. That dog won't hunt. And I don't think Trump stands a chance in the general election or against Hillary (she's much better when it's not her own party), but I also don't think it should get that far. I do worry about if Sanders had to face him. I think he's a good man but I frankly don't think Sanders or his organization has any concept of what going the distance will require. Rubio is still a joke - Hillary would take him apart.

We can argue about that later, but first I wanted to freak the !@#$%^&*] out over this. Meyer has not been involved in a long, long, long time and his two films are easily the best.

I don't like any of these people, but this is worth a read: The Republican intelligentsia perspective on voting for Trump - or not.

I'm a little amazed at the vicious reviews - like, what do you expect? Of course it's awful, it's Full House. I'm gonna watch it anyway.

It's not about Rubio and it hasn't been for awhile. He's not the concern. They're desperate to prop up Rubio because they (and the Republican establishment) cannot conceive of facing the admittedly horrific possibility of Trump taking the nomination. Rubio is not a superstar and I promise you absolutely everyone knows that now, no matter what they pretend on TV - he's just the last clear chance. Trump has to be stopped and I think he will be either in a general election or here, but I feel absolutely zero sympathy for the GOP and the conservative end of our media, who fanned the flames of the most ignorant bigots in our country and enabled the disgusting Tea Party movement until they engulfed the entire party and made something like Trump possible. They should have seen it coming. And for the record, if you have a perfect storm of Trump and the Supreme Court on the table, we will very possibly take back the Senate. The GOP knows it will be a bloodbath. That's another reason they're trying to stop him. If Trump is the candidate the fallout for the GOP could possibly fracture them for a generation.

Misty is going to be (probably) be in both Luke Cage and Iron Fist, IIRC. They cast her a while back and I think she is filming presently. Can't recall who. I think she is also active in the comics at the moment. ETA: Simone Missick.

I think they've been extremely inclusive and forward-thinking of late and in their upcoming film slate, but I think acting shocked that Doctor Strange and Iron Fist are still white, or that Marvel is actually using Peter Parker before Miles Morales after years of waiting to get their hands on Spider-Man is just asking to be angry for anger's sake.

He isn't. The minor outrage is because some people hoped the new series would change his ethnicity, which I could understand but do not find necessary.