Darn

The ratings have gone down every episode this season so far, wasn't the show on the exact opposite trajectory in the other seasons? I'm not one of those people that thinks good ratings equals good storytelling but this show is very zeitgeist-y and I worry what happens when it loses that. Luckily they have a lot of story still to tell, from Michonne's backstory to Daryl and Carol's potential, possible, future relationship. They didn't shoot their wad in the first season or anything.

How is that possible when Hurt was shown as the Doctor in the last episode? Did they intend for Eccleston to play the Doctor in that episode first? I just got inexplicably emotional over the idea of Matt Smith leaving. He's "my" Doctor and I just find him so incredibly talented and joyous in his portrayal. I would have loved to have seen him interact with Martha or Donna.

Ugh, Looking.

For the first time since the show started we decided not to watch last night's episode. The number of people who care about seeing the Governor featured for two solid episodes could fit into my shoe. And from what I've read the story hasn't moved an inch.

She's so bland. Donna, Martha and Amy are my favorites. Clara is too twee (so was Amy when she started but she got better). I liked Martha and Donna so much because they were Strong Female Characters™ without having to do "masculine" things to be seen as such. They were just...good people forced into extraordinary circumstances who showed they were up for the challenge. Clara seems to think she's already pretty effin special and I find it obnoxious. I have AAISAT downloaded. David Bradley looks so eerily like William Hartnell.

Quite enjoyed the special (I have a feeling *someone* here hated it), I didn't watch all of the last series. The Doctor and Clara are entirely too cheeky and I swear she's always smirking and practically winking at the camera to remind us how adorable she is. But Tennant and Smith were fantastic, so were Hurt and Billie Piper (couldn't stand Rose, don't get the all the fuss). I'm a New Who fan so while I didn't grow up with the show I'm a huge fan of the reverence the show has for it's own history. And I loved that the twisted the story of the Time War, it just doesn't seem like the Doctor to get quite that desperate and destroy so many people. In every other circumstance he finds another way but not with his own people? It didn't make sense, I like that they altered things to make him much more creative. He can travel through time! There's no good reason to leave his own race dead.

I worry about you...

I see we've reached the point in a series where TPTB are more enamored of a character/actor than the audience is. This episode was beyond dull. I have no idea why that family grew so attached Brian/Phillip/Boredom so quickly. Yes, he picked up their dad and got two oxygen tanks (he would have gotten more if he had killed some walkers but I guess on this show you either want to kill all the walkers or none of the walkers after a psychotic break). This half season is only 8 episodes and two of them are going to be wasted on how the Governor got back to the prison? We have to wait 3 episodes to see Darryl react to Carol leaving? Does this show have something against keep up the momentum?

Lol, that's insane. Maybe Carol didn't understand infectious diseases but she's not some psychopath wanting to murder anyone who threatened her existence.

That's not how Carol's thought process worked...she was trying to stop the virus when it had only infected two people, not willynilly killing everyone infected with the virus. Remember she still around after it spread and everyone was quarantined in Block C (or A or B or whatever block it is).

I agree about the writing, no matter the story they're telling or the showrunner the dialogue is incredibly hokey. I mean, some of the crap they have Rick say...and I swear Herschel's made the same speech 8 different ways since he first showed up. So has Rick actually. They speechify. I feel like I'm watching a Shonda Rhimes show. And the Governor is just so stupid, I 'd rather focus on the very real, in character repercussions of Rick abandoning Carol. I hate that Maggie just rolled over and accepted Rick's decision. It doesn't seem like her. But you know, if Rick says so (or if the show tells us repeatedly that he's a good leader) than it must be right and just. Don't get me started on the fence thing, the zombies were essentially moths and the prison a flame, there's no good reason they couldn't have taken them out one by one. And I'll never understand why they don't kill EVERY zombie they see.

This season is getting progressively better. Richer. It's reminding me more of the 2nd season (which I enjoyed, minus Lori) and the first half of the 3rd. I think the ratings will only continue to rise, because you can still watch the entire series up to now over a long weekend. That's something you can't do with the best show on TV at the moment, The Good Wife. This show has so much going for it, great characters played by great actor and plenty of action and character study. Great stuff. Carol wasn't right or wrong, she was resilient. That seems to be her defining characteristic. Whereas Rick or Tyrese let the deaths of their wife/girlfriend define and destroy them, Carol lost her daughter and found a way to survive. The women on this show are proving so much more mentally sound than the men.

Tyrese would fall into the Angry Black Man stereotype if that was all they'd shown of him. But it's not. Before this episode he'd barely raised his voice. You can be angry and black without falling into that stereotype. I can't get over how bad Andrew Lincoln is when he has to act angry or sad, or how his accent slips when he has to raise his voice. I was so happy that they didn't kill Dr. S and Sasha this episode, I don't think I could handle two minor minority characters dying in the space of an hour. And I KNOW I won't be able to handle it if Glenn dies. His hair is too pretty. I'm so for Carol killing those who endanger her group. When the Governor comes back I want her to just pop and shoot in the mofo in the head. So what, who cares? I'm all for Michonne and Daryl. I'm for Michonne and anyone. She's such a sharp contrast to most characters on television that her interactions with anyone feel fresh.

And a machete would make up for the height difference. Swift cut to under the jaw, one and done.

I don't even know what you're euphemizing but you stop that right now. But really, watch Breaking Bad. And Orange is the New Black. And The Good Wife. Best shows on TV bar none. Bar none!

See, the way you feel about BB is the way I feel about The Wire. As in I want to jump out of a window every time someone mentions it.

Oh you're one of those people.

I just hope it's someone we get to know. Even a little bit. The death of father of those little girls would have been a lot more impactful if we'd met him even one episode before this one. Yes, we would have quickly dismissed him as cannon fodder but still. I liked Mika calling Lizzie stupid, that got a real laugh out of me. Someone had to say it. Maybe I'm grown numb to it but I used to have a much more visceral reaction to the zombie attacks/violence. Now I'm just like "Well, ok as long as Glenn, Maggie, Michonne and Carol don't die I'm good." Or maybe I just miss Breaking Bad.

Isn't Christian Grey supposed to be really attractive? I mean, he's not ugly but he's not...say Matt Bomer.

I don't know about that, most of the time I find Andrew Lincoln laughably bad. And the girl who plays Beth is not very good at all. And when Andrea was still alive I found the actress so incredibly off-putting that I hated the character even when she was the only one making any sense.

I want Michonne to somehow adopt Carl somehow without dating or sleeping with or marrying or touching Rick (who always looks like he just rolled around in grease). I didn't think this episode was slow at all, a lot happened with a ton of characters. It didn't feel any slower than episodes from last season with Andrea (R.I.H.) and the Governor. I had the perfect word for it last night but I felt like last night was less...deliberate than usual? You know how shows get when they've entered their 4th or 5th season, where the crew and the actors know where to shoot and how to shoot and scenes are done quickly and sort of clipped (whereas a show like Breaking Bad (sob) treated every episode like a mini movie)? I'm probably not explaining myself well. Anyway, the show did it's job but not much more yet I feel like they were reaching for more in the past.

I've seen Chris McKenna (ex-Joey Buchana, OLTL) in two commercials recently, one where he played dad to a teenage girl who wanted to go to a Katy Perry concert and another where he woke up in bed (no idea what this commercial was about).

Stacy Haiduk (ex-Patty, et al, The Young and the Restless) was on the last two episodes of True Blood, completely nude. Full frontal. Check it out if you're into that stuff.

I think the actress playing Katherine is perfectly fine. And Peter Parros is a better actor than OLTL or ATWT ever gave him credit for. And you know, not every soap can be full of Andrew Trischitta's.

I don't see the huge problem everyone has with Veronica. She's not a great actress (though really, look at her material) but she's also not distractingly bad like Wyatt or the Cryer daughter.