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At the beginning of this episode there was a recap of plot threads, and I didn't think there was any way possible they'd be able to satisfactorily wrap them all up in just over an hour's time. I was wrong.

Some of the storylines that have been successfully concluded: Lucy's quest to find her father, what happened to her mother, the importance of the chip in Dr. Wilzig's head, Lee Moldaver and her dream of bringing cold fusion energy into existence (though not how she survived for two hundred years, so I'm assuming we'll see some flashbacks about that next season), Maximus returning to the Brotherhood of Steel, and who was responsible for the "accident" that befell Dane, leading to Maximus' adventure in the first place.

What's been left for the future: Lucy and The Ghoul teaming up to follow Hank's trail in order to find out who brought this apocolyptic nightmare to humanity; Maximus, an official Knight, going after Lucy (though I predict they'll be kept apart for a number of episodes); how cold fusion power will now change life and what the powers-that-be will do about this threat to their authority; Norman's fate in Vault 31; Stephanie as Overseer in Vault 32; and whether Chet will ever grow some stones.

Undoubtedly there'll be new characters and stories as well as revisiting side characters we've already met, such as Betty and the other dwellers of Vault 33, Thaddeus (now a ghoul), and that snake oil salesman in the Wasteland (did I see correctly that he'd been trying to kill himself?)

Like many, what most intrigues me is the continuing story of Coop Howard: what happened between him and his wife that led to the demise of their marriage (obviously some kind of confrontation over her working for the evil Vault-Tec corporation), and how he became The Ghoul. The last we saw of Coop, he and his daughter Janey were on Coop's horse racing away from the nuclear annihilation. Where's Janey now? (Barbara was probably in a vault when the nuclear explosions took place, so how is it that she didn't have Janey by her side?)

*****side rant*****

For those nitpicking about Shady Sands. Stop. Just enjoy the damn show for what it is.

*****end of side rant*****

There are so many unanswered questions that I have no doubt there'll be a season two of Fallout. The show has been such a stunning success I cannot see them not continuing to make more episodes.

Not sure how anyone could give this ten stars. Once again, the makers of this show take the easiest, laziest, route not by spoofing history, but history through the lens of the media.

And so we get a cringy sitcom about Shirley Chisholm (you cannot spoof the genre of an unfunny television comedy filled with hokey dialogue and artificial laughs, and expect an actual discerning audience to find it amusing);

a spoof of The Real Housewives (similarly, you cannot spoof a reality show presenting a group of people who are already shallow cartoon-characters; what's more, it's already been done to death, and is no longer unique or interesting);

we get Typhoid Mary on social media, showing us how disgusting she was in a bit that ran far too long;

we get the (thankfully) last parts of a spoof of The Beatles' Get Back, in which they can't even stay with what their premise is! Are they Jesus and the Apostles getting together to record psalms that happens to resemble the Beatles' Get Back session? Are they in biblical times in the Middle East, or are they in the 1960s? Or are they actors who are aware they're filming a spoof, as indicated when they discuss dropping their Liverpudian accents? PICK ONE AND STICK TO IT! This breaks the 4th wall in the worst way possible - very much UNLIKE how Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles cleverly integrated the Old West with modern Hollywood.

The only actual few laughs of this episode came from the opening segment, in which the Oslo Peace Agreements broke down over which country invented hummus. Not a classic, but at least amusing. The differece between this segment and the others? It wasn't a spoof or parody of a film, a tv show, a commercial, or a social media outlet. It was an out-and-out take on actual history - of which this entire series needed to do more of.

Otherwise, HOTWp2 falls into the same category as the painfully unfunny-and-somehow-still-on-the-air Saturday Night Live, which squarely takes aim at the lowest of low-hanging fruit, usually in the form of a spoof of some sort of the media, as if they are incapable of discerning how humor works outside of a narrow, lowest-common-denominator spectrum.

This series has unfortunately come dangerously close to that. The remedy - should it get a second season - is for it to have more of Mel Brooks' sensibility to it. Most of this seemed nothing like his work, the only reason I even watched it in the first place.

After the laughless previous episode (which might be marginally recommended for the Civil War segment), I was hoping HoTWp2 would get back on track. The only part which was mildly amusing was Amelia Earhardt's Bermuda Triangle Bar.

I see a disturbing trend trend here I should've picked up on earlier, the crutch of spoofing history through the lens of media instead of just spoofing history itself. So we've had both Antasia AND Gallieo on social media talking to their followers; an unfunny sitcom about Shirley Chisholm; a commercial for Khancestory dot com (based on the premise that many people living today are the ancestors Genghis Kahn); and a series of unamusing, barely-history-related commercials for a statue company.

In earlier episode we saw the story of Judas betraying jesus take the form of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000). Now we have a tepid spoof of The Beatles: Get Back (2021) with Jesus and his disciples taking the the place of the Fab Four as they try to get ready to record the psalms. Jesus and the disciples all adopt Liverpool accents (except for Richard Kind's Peter, who sounds Scottish). It doesn't work and the premise is too overwrought with confused historical anacronisms, as if they can't even stay true to their own premise (they're in a 1960s recording studio; someone compares Mary Magdelene, who Jesus had brought to the session, to Yoko? What?? And, this is just bad writing, making explicit the obvious joke, flimsy as it already is). What's more, a much, MUCH funnier Beatles spoof has already been done The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978).

I'm not expecting much from the next episode, but I figure they'll put everything they have left into the last one. I think this is a case of too many writers spoiling the broth. This whole project needed more of Mel Brooks' sensibility to bind it together, and the bits that weren't Brooksian should've been jettisoned.

Hard to believe this only has a rating of 6.3 at the time of this review. The first episode of HOTWp2 was hilarious. The second ep. Had some funny moments but also some bad ones, such as the Shirley Chisolm sitcom (or maybe it's that when any show or film tries to spoof unfunny sitcom tropes it's cringe). Third episode was probably the best so far, which opened with Alexander Graham Bell being pranked by his assistant Watson.

This one was far better than episode two, which got a 6.4. Loved the parody of the scene from Brooks' The Producers! Hilarious and unexpected (as was the reference in an earlier episode to Blazing Saddles' Rock Ridge).

The reviewer thought that they had to point out the historical inaccuracies of this episode clearly does not understand the principles of comedy. If you want to discuss all the anachronisms that are purposely used through out this entire series (Shakespeare having a writer's room; Princess Anastasia vlogging to her followers, Stalin being a peon who's made fun of by Lenin and the other Russians, Harriet Tubman creating an ACTUAL railroad, etc) we'd be here a long time!

This is my least favorite episode so far in a season that's been really good. My problem with it stems from the fact that I find it hard to believe that a police officer (in this case, one of the main characters, Will Trent's partner, Faith Mitchell) could be so easily accused of committing a murder, and no one even bothers to question that it's totally out of character for her to have done so. The whole thing seems ludicrous, and yet no one but Will, and Will and Faith's boss, are the least bit skeptical. Not even Ormewood (at first) thinks it's odd that she would do such a thing for apparently no good motive. I can only hope that this episode is an anomaly.

Not sure how this episode doesn't have a higher rating. Ryan's latest rivalry is with Rob Corddry, who is partners with an FBI agent for "FBI: Celebrity Division." Ryan and Rob are hilarious in their scenes together. Later, when they're forced to team up to save their respective partners, Corddry takes Ryan to see Thomas Lennon at a "cop bar" - not a place where police officers go but where actors who have played cops on television hang out. We're introduced to the backs of Michael Chiklis from The Shield; Dennis Franz from NYPD Blue; Andre Braugher (who, according to Lennon, plays a character based on his Reno 911 character, Lt. Dangle); "spinning the tunes" by the jukebox is Richard Belzer; and behind the bar is Ted Danson, "a cop on CSI, but also a bartender on Cheers, so we got him doing double-duty."

Great cameos all around, including Jane Lynch - who swoops in to save the day. Add her and Corddry to the list of half-celebrity/half-law-enforcement teams on this show along with Ryan H., Eric Christian Olsen and Jillian Bell.

Is what I'd do if I actually *had* YouTube Re--uhh, Premium (if you know what I mean - though Ryan probably does, considering the constant ribbing he gives his show's streaming service).

Anyhow, this episode had its moments, but so far is my least favorite. The self-absorbed YouTube kids making their asinine videos is just too close to real life to be a subject of humor. You can't parody the absurd.

Contrary to my review title, I'll continue to watch. Too many burning questions: What is Vince hiding regarding Mathers' shooting? Will Mathers recover when The Handmaiden's Tale 3rd season ends? Which celebrity suspect will Ryan - mistakenly or unmistakenly - arrest next??

EDIT: Re-watching this episode I had to give it another star. Lots of funny inside jokes, and great banter between Ryan and Vince. The YouTube "celebrities" are still cringeworthy though.

The title of this review points out something that isn't really touched on in any of the other reviews: How hilarious Lucifer is in this episode:

"Reese's pieces"

"We're tunnel buddies!"

"Go, Reese lightning."

LUCIFER: "I was complaining to the detective about some posts of mine that have been removed from a web site for roosters of award-winning size. You see, I was posting pictures of my--" CHLOE: "Okay, okay."

LUCIFER: "Don't think I haven't noticed you watching me. I know what this is about." REESE: "You do?" LUCIFER: "Yes. And the answer is no, I will not sleep with you.

REESE: "Excuse me?" LUCIFER: "It's not because you're a man. It's just because, well, I don't find you attractive. But maybe I could introduce you someone more... you know, your league. There's a chubby fellow over there. I'm sure he wouldn't mind giving you a reach-around or something." REESE: "I'm married to a woman, thank you very much." LUCIFER: "Ohh. Does she know you're gay?" REESE: "My wife, who's the smartest and funniest person I ever met, and the only woman that I've ever loved, is sleeping with another man. A sleazy, arrogant, womanizing piece of garbage." LUCIFER: "Well then why are you wasting time trying to pick me up?"

Out of the four feature-length Futurama films, this one is my least favorite and the least funniest. The only time I really laughed was when Nibbler realizes that he forgot to blank everyone's memories after revealing he could talk (in "Bender's Big Score"), and because of this, the Planet Express crew all know that Nibbler is a higher-intellectual being who speaks perfect English - yet they continued to let him act like a dumb pet, use his sandbox, and make pretend-gibberish nonsense sounds, as he was cuter that way.

Made even better by a surprising reference to the original Wonder Years at the end of the episode. What's funny is the commercial for this episode kind of gave it away but was also misleading at the same time.

At Monks, Jerry and Elaine are sitting at a booth when they're joined by Bubble Boy's father (Brian Doyle Murray). Elaine, choked up hearing about Bubble Boy, passes napkins to Jerry and the Bubble Boy's father. Elaine and BB's dad dry their eyes from tears while Jerry casually wipes his mouth, indifferent to the plight of Bubble Boy.

I was really disheartened with part 1 of Spyfall. Usually I'm pretty tolerant if Doctor Who does episodes that are different from what's come before. I enjoy a show changing and evolving - unlike some fans who seem to want things to conform to only certain variables that they're comfortable with. ("Wot?! A woman Doctor?? NEVER!")

But part one went too far off the mark, too far into spy adventure-land. The best thing about the episode was the creepy alien creatures made of light (whom I really thought were going to turn out to be Cybermen, 'cause their outline kinda resembled that of the popular Doctor Who enemy. Glad to be wrong.) I would also include the reveal of O as The Master as a positive, except a FB post spoiled it for me before I watched the episode, so I don't know how I would've reacted. But, knowing ahead of time The Master was in it, I was aware of the drums in the opening theme song (da-da-da-da da-da-da-da da-da-da-da da-da-da-da).

Part two, on the other hand, was great all the way through. It had a bit of Moffat's timey-wimey-ness as she saves her companions from certain airplane-inflicted death; Yaz, Ryan and Graham try to stop Barton on their own (Henry's Gareth Blackstock on "Chef!" was never quite this level of meglomaniac) as The Doctor is being hunted through time by The Master, who REALLY wants to kill her - none of this footing around that previous Masters have done with their halfedplans to kill previous Doctors. THIS Master is serious: He riddles a floorboard with a machine gun he thinks The Doctor is hiding underneath. The Doctor also gets some great temporary companions with Ada Lovelace and Noor Inayat Khan.

And finally, the episode leaves us with a bit of a mystery. It seems the Time Lords have lied - well, about everything. And because of that betrayal The Master has destroyed Gallifrey. As The Master puts it:

"I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us... the founding fathers of Gallifrey. Everything we were told was a lie. We're not who we think, you or I. The whole existence of our species... built on the lie of the timeless child."

At which point The Doctor starts to have some kind of headache/vision where "Remnants" (according to the Closed Captions) are chanting "child... child... child..."

The Master: "Do you see it? It's buried deep in all of our memories... in our identity. I'd tell you more... but... why would I make it easy for you? It wasn't for me."

Can't wait to find out more about what could possibly change everything we know about our favorite Time Lord.

And this show has not really taken off, which is disappointing considering the involvement of Michael Schur, creator of The Good Place.

There are two main culprits here: The weak jokes - I can only think that the unbelievable response to what passes for humor on Abby's must indicate an audience being held under duress ("Laugh, or you'll never see your families again!").

The second problem is the characters. They aren't particularly well-drawn, memorable, or create conflicts that create interesting storylines (the exception was the second episode, when Bill wanted to change a bar rule. But I'll get to that in a bit).

This show wants to be Cheers, but those characters were easily-defined from episode 1: Sam - charming, womanizing, recovering alcoholic, ex-ballplayer bar owner Diane - superiority complex, pretentious, snooty, upper crust

You can immediately see the conflict and sparks between those two. But there was also:

Coach - sweet, but has been hit in the head with stray baseballs a few too many times Carla - mean, always ready with a devastingly sarcastic comeback; has an ever-growing Italian family because she's often pregnant Norm - a regular; upbeat, genial, quick-witted ("What would you say to a beer, Normie?" "Daddy wuvs you") Cliff - know-it-all, postman, always ready to offer some bit of trivia wanted or, most likely, unwanted

Now contrast that to Abby's. Sure, some of the characters we feel we know more about: Abby - grumpy, ex-military service personnel, bi-sexual, runs the bar from her backyard in San Diego.

Still, she doesn't feel as fully fleshed-out as Sam Malone did, and I think part of that has to do with the premise of an illegal bar on private property NOT being immediately shut down doesn't really ring true. Which brings us to:

Bill - recently divorced, nice guy, desperate for friends, a bit of a nerd?

Yeah, really not much conflict happening here, not even a spark of a romance (not that there needs to be), but based upon the weak motivation that Bill doesn't have any friends (his ex got them, and all of the places they used to go together, in the divorce), he decides to NOT shut down Abby's, and with the wave of the hand and a few forms signed it becomes a legal watering hole.

OK, we'll let that go and accept the premise.

So who else hangs around Abby's? Fred - paternal and, uhhhh... wise? Not really. Wise-ass? Not really that either. (Not sure what characteristics you could assign to him. Tall?) He does trade in the same lame quips indistinquishable from the other characters, though.

Beth - probably the second the second-best drawn after Abby herself. Beth hangs out at the bar as a refuge to escape her kids. She has a sharp tongue and is nominally Abby's best friend. Her character could still be improved upon.

Rosie - bartender? Bar back? Who knows! Personality? Who knows! Nice? Sure... I guess? However, it's worth mentioning that she looks like Carla from Cheers. Same dark curly hair. If you took Beth's personality and multiplied it by 10 and the shoved it into Rosie, you'd get Carla.

James - erstwhile "bouncer" (mentioned in the first episode and then dropped). Large young guy lacking any kind of self-confidence. Everything he says reflects this. This is the extent of his character.

Skip - older man, asleep in several episodes, making him far more interesting than some of the conscious characters.

You can see from the amount of space it took to describe Abby's characters - and how little was actually said - how bland they are.

Anyhow, getting back to the one stand-out episode (and calling it "stand-out" is damning with faint praise, considering the mediocrity of the other three episodes... okay, maybe this one episode was a little bit better than just that). In "Rule Change," Bill tries to help James change a bar rule prohibiting open-toed shoes in the bar by challenging Abby. He has to persuade a majority of the long-time regulars (Fred, Beth, James, Rosie, and even Skip!) to vote for the change.

At last, an actual conflict! Some fresh jokes! A surprise turnabout!

Unfortunately, there was still a lot of the same forced laughter from the audience (I can imagine an unpaid NBC studio intern stood there waving a hot cattle prod menacingly until the crowd did their job. There can be no other explanation for their mirth).

Please, writers of this show, come up with some defining personality traits that will create actual storylines greater than:

"Beth is at the bar because she's hiding from her kids" or "This is some bad vodka, but let's drink it anyhow instead of telling the alcohol rep how much it sucks." (Because she might get the idea that no one actually likes it and won't come back??? Unclear.) or "James can't work up the nerve to ask out this woman at the bar" or "Fred doesn't want to ask out this woman at the bar until he's ready" with a plot twist that we all recognize immediately for what it is.

I'm not sure where this show is going or if it's given itself anywhere to go with its shallow characters. At this point it's a sitcom built on empty alcohol bottles.

The canned laugh track - and it had to be canned because I couldn't imagine anyone actually laughing at such weak punchlines - seemed to enjoy the show more than I did. Abby's desperately wants to be Cheers. It's not. The writing needs to be a lot sharper before it even before a third as good as Cheers was. I'll watch the second episode tonight and hope it improves.

I thoroughly enjoyed Jodie Whitaker's first turn as The Doctor. It's irrelevent that the character is now played by a woman. Once the action starts, it never lets up and you forget gender. You're just watching THE DOCTOR - watching THE DOCTOR do what THE DOCTOR does best: solve problems, track down monsters, find companions to help, save humanity once again. And if there's time, have a fried egg sandwich (though I'm not sure that she ever did in this episode).

I loved the new companions, but Yas wasn't given as much to do - or given as big of a backstory - as Ryan and Graham were. My guess is that she'll be developed more in future episodes.

And if you're still upset about The Doctor being a woman, or there's a certain aspect of the show that you don't like, do the rest of us a favor and just TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION! And don't come online to complain about it, either. No one cares.

As someone who regularly goes to Geeks Who Drink trivia, I was disappointed to see the broad range of questions usually asked at those trivia nights reduced to only "geeky" topics like superheroes, television shows, movies, and pop culture. How about history, science, geography, current events? The "geek" in Geeks Who Drink is about knowing a lot of stuff, not just about being the king (or queen) of Comic-con.

I know they have to make the show more TV-worthy, but discarding the GWD format played at bars (which includes audio and visual rounds) and adding out-of-place physical challenges renders this program inert, just another mildly entertaining game show. And not particularly fun. The host, Zachery Levi - whom I was a big fan of in "Chuck" - does his best to hold the show together with funny remarks, but it really isn't enough. Of course, I've only seen one episode so far so there's always the possibility that this show will get better.

I found the whole thing to be rather flat and forced. The problem, in my opinion, stems from the Pythons putting on this big, extravagant, over-long show - perhaps to justify the high ticket cost of seeing the show there in London? - with endless dancing and musical numbers, and some celebrity guest stars (on the DVD we only see Mike Meyers and Eddie Izzard on stage with the troupe; Warwick Davis and Stephen Fry, among others, also appeared during the show's run, and can be seen, briefly, in the DVD extras. Brian Cox and Stephen Hawkins appear in a funny taped segment).

The old skits performed here feel tiresome; the clips from Flying Circus are too familiar to be funny. The only genuine laughs occurred when one of the Pythons deviated from the anticipated - either purposely (a new gag scripted into an old skit) or accidentally (because someone has flubbed/forgot a line or ad-libbed an unexpected joke). The longest and best laugh of the entire show came toward the end in the combination Pet Shop/Cheese Shop skit with Michael Palin and John Cleese.

The big thing missing was irreverence, not taking themselves too seriously. Things got off to a good start with a funny piece of animation that revealed Graham Chapman's head - which then got kicked like a football (English football). Unfortunately, this was followed up by the still-unfunny-as-it-was-back-on-MPFC llama skit, with John Cleese and the Pythons addressing the audience in Spanish (not French, as in the original skit, if I recall correctly). There were far too many musical numbers, which I found myself fast-forwarding through. Hey, at least that helped cut down on this DVD's long running time!

Monty Python Live (Mostly) is the troupe taking a victory lap as establishment figures - not the take-no-prisoners comedy radicals that they once were. Besides, "Sit on my Face" seems awfully quaint in comparison to the potty-mouth kids of South Park. The end result here would've been much better if they'd allowed themselves to tweak their known skits and come up with something new and surprising, audience expectations be damned.

(On a side note, the booklet accompanying the DVD gives thanks to Tim Brooke-Taylor for allowing use of The Four Yorkshiremen skit but doesn't credit Marty Feldman as co-writer of the skit. It was originally performed on the At Last The 1948 show by Feldman, Brooke-Taylor, Cleese and Chapman).

The early reviewers on IMDb had it right, before the revisionists came along and said, "Great Film!" "Classic," etc, etc. Even if you ignore the lack of faithfulness to the novel (by the way, Mary Shelley isn't even given her proper due in the credits. It says based on the novel by "Mrs. Percy B. Shelley". What a blow to the feminist Shelley, and her feminist mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, to be listed under her husband's name!), you still have a shallow, badly acted, badly written film that lacks suspense or, even horror -- especially badly written: "based upon the composition by"; "from the novel by"; "adapted from the play by"; and "screen play by" two more names. (That's five people total, if you're keeping track).

There's no motivation or logic to what the characters do. (Examples: Why do Dr. Frankenstein and Igor, uhhhhh, I mean Fritz, cut down the hanging dead body after doing a spot of grave robbing? Presumably the body they just dug up has a brain? How does the father know his little girl was murdered? He wasn't there when it happened. Why are the leaders of the other two groups hunting the monster suddenly together in the mountains? They had been searching for the monster elsewhere). The lack of score also hurts the film's mood.

Oh yeah, we're supposed to believe that Dr. F has set up shop in an old windmill (per what his father, Baron Frankenstein says)? Doesn't look like any windmill I've seen.

And, speaking of windmills, the doctor falls from the top of the one at the film's end, hits a windmill blade, slides off, falls to the ground, and survives??? Yeah, right.

I'd say, watch this with a grain of salt (as well as with tequila and lime). It's not quite the masterpiece that others may proclaim it to be.

I saw this "famous" episode again today on WGN, and was disappointed that it didn't live up to what little I remembered about it (not having seen it since it first aired).

The first part of the show is all right -- Johnny tries to get someone to go with him to the concert and is rejected, by Jennifer, then Bailey, and finally Les; Mr. Carlson wears an herbal mask to get rid of a cold -- if a little forced in the humor department.

The second half begins abruptly, after the concert deaths occur (and yes, I believe they DO mention that the kids were stampeded to death, despite what the other poster says), with no component really tying the sudden tragedy to what came before.

Dramatically flat (the only slight question being whether Mr. Carlson will change the station's format because what happened), the rest of the episode is filled with maudlin dialogue and sentiment, as if not sure about how to present tragedy in the middle of a sitcom.

There's also some sloppy and/or confusing writing. For instance, in the episode's beginning, Johnny is promoting a show by The Pretenders. This is rather incongruous, as it is The Who who play the tragic concert (with all the staff in attendance, not knowing what has happened).

Like the other poster I agree it's not a very good episode. But, unlike him, I don't nitpick by judging it by a single phrase, that the fans, "lost their lives." Over all, it lacks the fun tone of other episodes, and the whole subject should've probably been avoided in the first place.

I'm John, and I'll be your reviewer for this program.

Having watched just the episode a couple weeks ago ("Hero") and the beginning of the following week's ep. ("Unfinished Business"), I wasn't that impressed. I liked the old BSG, which seemed more mythic, larger-than-life. This BSG seems rather ordinary. They even wear clothes that look like today's and partake in activities (such as boxing) that are rather prosaic. It's all rather dull and colorless. A friend of mine said of "Unfinished Business" that it had hardly any sci-fi in it. I'd agree.

The original BSG had an epic quality to it's storytelling, beginning with the opening theme and narration (voiced by Patrick Macnee!) about this grand quest to find Earth, and the survival of the fleet. And in the original there were these menacing things called Cylons chasing after them. The new Cylons? Not so much. All that seems to be put on the back-burner to tell other small, fairly uninteresting stories.

Plus, in the original, you got the idea from their dress and helmets (not to mention their names. I might've missed it because I've seen so few episodes -- after all, this IS Snap Judgment Reviews -- but where's Cassiopeia? And Athena? And the kid with the artificial dog because his real dog was killed in the first episode? And the black guy. And the menacing human baddie who's face I can still recall. Where's his equivalent? All the new "Cylons" are just so . . . BLAND. That goes double for the Galactica crew) that these people were the forerunners of the Egyptians, which added a whole new angle to them trying to find Earth. They're our ancestors! Instead the new BSG has a ho-hum Mary Macdonnell in ho-hum 20th century-Earth glasses, as well as a guy who doesn't know how to wear an eye patch correctly. Anyhow, that's my Snap Judgement Review.

**************** I take it all back!! Okay, I take SOME of it back. Scenes of press conferences and quorums?! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Rosin talking to that terminally ill lady in the hospital (played by Major Kira from DS9 but looking a lot like Alice from the TV show Alice)? Ho-Hum. Over-use of the word "frak"?? Annoying. But when the show focuses on the crew members who are secretly Cylons, or Baltar (easily my favorite character in the whole show) and Number Six, or one of the other non-mundane aspects, it's great.

I started watching again with the episode where Starbuck returns after supposedly having been blown up in space. She's seen Earth??? She might be a Cylon??? Wait, there are Cylons models who haven't been discovered??? Ah, now this is interesting! I get it. It's a whole philosophical angle that the original show didn't have: What does it mean to be human (a question you don't really ponder until it turns out YOU'RE NOT! "Oh crap, I've been a Cylon all this time and I didn't even know it?? But I HATE Cylons, frakking toasters!")? When is it acceptable to do something despicable, even if it's for the greater good? And, most importantly, why must the Galactica crew wear those hideous brown sweatsuit outfits?? (I'm sure that last question if something even Plato himself couldn't come up with a coherent answer for)

This is the last season for Galactica and, as they keep reminding us,

ALL

WILL

BE

REVEALED

so the show has some momentum heading toward the finale. Maybe that's what I really picked up on. A story that's finally going somewhere.

I wonder if IMDb users are watching the same film as me, or is their judgment being clouded over by nostalgia for the old studio system with actors like Kirk Douglas and directors like Vincent Minnelli.

First off, Douglas was waaaaaaay too old for the role of Van Gogh. In the opening scenes, Van Gogh is a young man of 25; Douglas was around 40, and it shows (Van Gogh was only 37 when he died). Secondly, where's the accent? Van Gogh was born in the Netherlands, and yet Douglas plays him all-American. Lastly and most importantly, this is the most terrible acting I have ever seen!!! Douglas chews the scenery frantically, playing the character like a 19th century James Dean. Call it "Earless Without a Cause." Kirk Douglas' voice and mannerisms make me cringe, his puppy-dog eagerness and submissive personality ringing untrue.

The next-worst performance belongs to Anthony Quinn, as an over-the-top Gauguin. I just wished he'd go to Tahaiti already.

The whole picture reeks of Hollywood romanticism rather than a more realistic European squalor. The script is overly melodramatic and obvious; every time it's mentioned, the word "crazy" jumps out, like a not-too-subtle foreshadowing.

This is a white-washed, sanitized version of Van Gogh's life -- though I'm surprised they included scenes where the artist lived with a prostitute (here called Christine) and her young child (in "Vincent and Theo" the prostitute is Sien, and the child considerably older, and a girl. Makes me wonder which version is correct. I'm guessing V&T). All the other stuff -- trips to the brothel, Theo's syphilis, the ear-cutting, and the suicide -- is either not mentioned, or occurs off-screen. Not surprising for a movie made in 1956.

Only worth seeing if you want to howl with laughter.

As others have stated Anna May Wong is the saving grace of this film. Whenever she's not on screen, it drags. Jameson Thomas does give a nice performance as nightclub owner Valentine Wilmot. The rest of the actors, not so much. The modern-sounding music score is distracting in most places, and some of the dialogue is horrendous.

There's a very suspenseful, well-acted scene when Wilmot invites Anna May Wong's character, Shosho, up to his office to discuss having her dance at his club. While they talk, he draws a few caricatures of her on a piece of stationary. Then, when Mabel -- Wilmot's star dance attraction and erstwhile lover -- shows up, he crumples up the drawing and throws it away so she won't see it. Mabel spills water from a vase on Wilmot's desk and retrieves the paper from the waste basket, using it to soak up the water. Shosho watches this unfold, and smirks knowingly as Wilmot tries to hide the drawing from Mabel, and keep his growing affection for Shosho a secret. I thought the scene was worthy of Hitchcock, and follows his definition of true suspense: The audience knows something that a character doesn't.

The finale, I felt, tries to go a long way out of its way to exonerate Mabel (a white woman) for the murder of Shosho (a Chinese woman) by making Jim (also Chinese) guilty so that the film could have a "happy white people ending." However, logic dictates that Mabel should be guilty of this crime of passion. But then what do you expect from a film that didn't even allow Wilmot and Shosho to kiss on screen because they were of different races (even though that was indicative of the time period in which this film was made)?

This film really makes no sense and no one is who they says they are (it's surprising, then, that the character of Ben -- a fine comic performance by Leon M. Lion -- DOESN'T turn out to be King George V, who's gone undercover to see how the commoners live!).

Also, the model work of the bus and train, racing toward disaster, looks unconvincing (to the modern eye?). The train ending up in the drink, with water filling up the boxcar containing two of our heroes, presages the airplane crash in "Foreign Correspondent" -- though here it's doesn't quite feel so dire, so claustrophobic.

That said, it's still suspenseful and funny film. Nice humorous twist at the end as to the fate of the diamonds.

In "The Lodger" you see elements that will be come standard in later Hitchcock films -- the innocent man wrongly accused; a blonde heroine; the director's cameo; and (something no one else on this board has remarked upon) a MacGuffin (Hitchock's first one?). The latter consists of a killer (The Avenger)who's identity gets the story going. And, like all MacGuffins, it's not really that important. We learn at the end of the film that The Avenger has been apprehended, but learn nothing about him or his motives for killing blonde women.

Other commentators have mentioned the generic classical music soundtrack -- much of the same music is also used in the earlier Hitchcock silent film "The Ring" -- which doesn't compliment the action but in fact works against it. I had to turn down the sound after a while when I became irritated by the repetition of the same pieces of music (again, just like in "The Ring").

Aside from some brilliant filmic devices, such as the oft-mentioned seeing-through-the-ceiling effect (I also thought that this might've been the first film with a flashback sequence, but perusing the IMDb I see that that distinction belongs to a movie almost 20 YEARS PRIOR, "The Yiddisher Boy" in 1908!), this movie is very slow-going. The acting is mediocre and the pacing is glacial.

On the other hand, you can't really judge a silent film from over seventy-five years ago by the same standards that you'd apply to a later film. However, that really doesn't make me want to watch "The Lodger" more than the two times I already have.

As others have mentioned, this film only works some of the time. But when it does, it's hilarious. It's probably one of those movies that'd be better if watched with a group of people, so that you can all laugh together. My favorite scene is when the three couples are having dinner, and the aliens are (misguidedly) trying to act human by imitating Animala -- who by the way is probably my favorite character here (the skeleton comes in a close second).

There's a lot of great quotes in this film, and though the fan favorite seems to be, "I sleep now!" mine would have to be, "Tip tip tip tip tip tip . . ." I can't think of that line and not giggle.