sepinwall

Considering that Ebert's the one who inspired me to do what I do, that's the best compliment anyone can give me.

Arrogance from Jeff Zucker, who was inserted into the game at third base and assumed he had hit a triple. NBC when he took over was still in very good shape, thanks to Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, ER and the L&O franchise. If Zucker had had even the slightest bit of talent at developing and selecting new sitcoms and dramas to groom behind those huge hits, NBC would still be in fine shape. But he had no talent for it, and then gave up on the idea altogether in favor of milking the pre-existing hits through supersizing, ordering expensive additional seasons, etc. He had an amazing foundation that he never built anything on, so when it rotted away when all those shows left, you got the NBC we have now.

Fuck. Fuck. Motherfucker. Fuck. Fuck it. Fuck.

Walter White. Don would underestimate the nerd with the bland wardrobe, while Don is the kind of good looking success story that Walt would resent and plot to destroy from the moment they met.

Also? Walt can blow shit up and make poison out of rice. Don can't talk Walt to death.

I hate the Seinfeld finale. I appreciate what Larry David was trying to do in reminding us that we'd been rooting for such terrible people all these years, but it ultimately felt like a lecture rather than an hour of comedy.

Endings are hard. Of the shows in my book, the only ones whose endings are universally beloved are The Shield (so much so that I think our opinion of the entire series was elevated by how it ended) and Friday Night Lights (which had multiple chances to end things right). The others had either stayed on the air too long and run out of material, or else tried something bold that some part of the audience hated. Ricky Gervais and John Cleese have the right idea: get in, tell a few stories, and get out before everyone gets sick of you.