Bear McCreary was the first time I ever actually looked up who did the score on a TV show.

Prelude to War is just an amazing track on its own. You would never guess it came from a basic cable sci-fi show.

I hope they take inspiration from the recent Flintstones Comics, which really delved into modern issues as reflected in the weird Paleolithic pastiche of The Flintstones universe. Like Fred's pals Adam and Steve.

Or this infamous panel.

It's a fantastic satire.

The FBI is supposed to move out of that building in the near future. Hopefully they remember to tell Mulder in the basement before they turn the lights off.

The one about the Mandela Effect perfectly encapsulates why Fox Mulder's quest doesn't work in the post-Trump era. It's also really funny.

It felt more like an episode of Black Mirror, but I did love how it had almost no dialogue. Really cool concept.

Here's some highlights of him dunking on Cruz

He went to Princeton (he was Ted Cruz's Freshman roommate, who he famously hated) so he's obviously a smart guy.

Also in addition to the credits you see on his imdb, he did a lot of script doctoring, and developed a reputation for being able to come in and fix scripts last minute. That gave him a ton of cred within the industry.

This feels like an email forward from one of my Muslim aunties.

Busey's insane monologue about his dog is worth the price of admission alone.

I noticed a YouTube thumbnail for a Parks and Rec clip with Nick Offerman with The Last of Us font and a title something like "The Last of Ron Swanson's Patience" or something...just a day after his acclaimed ep of The Last of Us aired. Thought that was pretty clever.

Also, I love that Peacock/NBC has an active Columbo channel with clips and compilations. Perfect for when you just want to watch one more thing.

Also his name was Kessler.

They recommend more than that. His mother shows up on Cheers and she's nothing like the woman they talk about in Frasier. She's a lot meaner, for one.

If you were an adult in the late 80s through mid 90s, you could have been a part of the writer's room. They had an open submissions policy; they would take scripts from anyone. Ronald D. Moore, who ended up as a TNG and DS9 producer, was some random guy working a dead end job when he submitted a script to Paramount.

Apparently , Baywatch's demographics were 65% women.

>The audience was 65 percent female,[11] with its number one audience being women aged 18 to 34. Speaking in 2001, Schwartz explained that, after doing focus groups on Baywatch for about five years, they learned that the show appealed to this demographic because "most of [its] lead characters were strong, independent women who were heroic, who were saving lives, who were equal to men".[12]

I was a kid when Baywatch was on, but I do remember the jokes on Friends about Chandler and Joey watching it for Pam Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth running in slow motion.

Ironically, I imagine the success of Frasier convinced NBC that Joey could be a good idea. Single character from wildly successful sitcom set on East Coast moves to West Coast, has new adventures with sibling...

Babylon 5 does have the original showrunner, but like the original, it's airing on a doomed network (The CW)

Sean Penn played Byck in a movie called The Assassination of Richard Nixon, and they show the hijacking. Penn plays a pretty convincing psychopath, I have to say.

Operationan Mincemeat and The Man Who Would Be King are my favorite MacIntyre books. You're right; he has a novelist's sense of pacing when it comes to non-fiction stories.

Star Trek Deep Space 9's Final Chapter. The last 9 episodes from 7x17 to 7x26 were even marketed in commercials as "The Final Chapter" and formed one, long, nine episode storyarc that wrapped up almost all the show's plot threads.

It was pretty revolutionary at the time, though some things didn't quite work.

I don't think the takeaway is necessarily that Star Wars should look like Michael Clayton and The Bourne Supremacy from now on.

I think it's that each project should be approached with more consideration, a better appreciation for tone, and maybe more inspiration from other genres. Andor borrowed a lot from The Guns of Navaronne, 1970s political thrillers. Mandalorian borrowed from classic Western TV shows. Star Wars needs to borrow from things that aren't just other Star Wars shows.

I'm pretty sure he's meant to be a regular Earth raccoon that was experimented on. The Nova Corps mention he's the result "illegal enhancement of a lower life form."

I remember when Parts Unknown started and Bourdain left The Travel Channel to to go to CNN, he mentioned that the CNN leadership at the time was investing in original series because there's only so much news happening at any given time, and only so much people will watch.

I guess new management disagrees.

Speaking of Elliott Ness and Al Capone...the original TV show The Untouchables (with Robert Stack as Eliott Ness) aired in the early 1960s, only roughly 30 years after the events it was based on.

But the 1960s and 1930s feel so incredibly far apart to us today, even though to the audience watching The Untouchables on ABC in 1960, it would be like us watching Stranger Things.

They were both filmed in Vancouver, thats why.

Kind of funny that the branch Jean-Luc Picard came from were Luddites who didn't believe in using 24th century technology like replicators (or, tragically, fire supression systems).