What TV SHOWS are you watching?

The last 15 minutes was a better Aliens sequel than any of the Aliens sequels.

it was Eleven's journey to Dagobah and confrontation with the Emperor in one fell swoop. 008 helped her learn her powers and also tempted her to the darkside. Ultimately she left to help her friends who she felt were in trouble.

The Star Wars anology is spot on. This was Dagobah and Bespin all in one- the training, the trap, the temptation to the dark side. And much like Empire, it really expanded the setting quite a bit- we saw outside of Hawkins more, we saw different types of people, different types of powers. I thought Kali was an interesting character and her gang was cute but sort of silly. I also really liked how it felt so _human_ for Jane to go looking for herself and fall in with a bad crowd. She has her punk/goth phase right there before our eyes. It was a terrific episode in developing her character as something beyond quiet, awkward but incredibly powerful psychic. The ramifications of this episode are huge- Kali will almost certainly return, but who knows at this point in what capacity. This episode was also important because it puts Jane back on the expected path of her reuniting with Mike and the boys back home- something everybody wants to see. I have to be honest, I actually wondered if this episode was going to put her on some kind of "evil" or "dark" path- it felt really perilous emotionally, thanks to the great writing and scenario development. I love that it felt like she could go either way, and Kali's arguments were certainly not without basis...especially because we have seen Jane kill and we are reminded in the episode that she carries that in her.

I thought it was a brilliant episode, 15 or so hours into it, it was a compelling change of pace for the show. But I'm sure the fucking nerd brigade hated that it didn't just go straight into the full-on Aliens homage that episode 6 teased.

Mostly because the new group of 80's-urban characters simply aren't written very well and come off as awkward red-shirts that we're immediately supposed to invest with some sort of RPGish rapport that exists nowhere in that milquetoast dialog. They feel like a watered down, almost disney-fied cocktail of AVALANCHE from FFVII mixed with the try-hard scrappy resistance vibe of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. And those masks... are we supposed to think that they hold any kind of menace on the level of Clockwork Orange? Hope not, because it's not there.

I didn't actively dislike them enough to never want to see them again. They just felt like undeveloped cyphers. Even their gambling banter felt phoned in. Compare anything that comes out of their mouth to the dialog we get between say Dustin and Steve, spilling his secrets about hair products. It's a goofy moment, but an order of magnitude more interesting than 2/3 of episode 7.

I know they'll be back; and part of me is interested to see where they'll take the characters, but another part of me cringes a little at the potential for diluting the chemistry between the existing set of characters with these awkward toons in search of personality.

In the meantime, I'll take Bob Newby, Superhero, who could potentially save the day with the power of BASIC. Edit: well that was short-lived.

Michael Barnes wrote: People hating on episode 7 are dumb.

Warning: Spoiler!

The Star Wars anology is spot on. This was Dagobah and Bespin all in one- the training, the trap, the temptation to the dark side. And much like Empire, it really expanded the setting quite a bit- we saw outside of Hawkins more, we saw different types of people, different types of powers. I thought Kali was an interesting character and her gang was cute but sort of silly. I also really liked how it felt so _human_ for Jane to go looking for herself and fall in with a bad crowd. She has her punk/goth phase right there before our eyes. It was a terrific episode in developing her character as something beyond quiet, awkward but incredibly powerful psychic. The ramifications of this episode are huge- Kali will almost certainly return, but who knows at this point in what capacity. This episode was also important because it puts Jane back on the expected path of her reuniting with Mike and the boys back home- something everybody wants to see. I have to be honest, I actually wondered if this episode was going to put her on some kind of "evil" or "dark" path- it felt really perilous emotionally, thanks to the great writing and scenario development. I love that it felt like she could go either way, and Kali's arguments were certainly not without basis...especially because we have seen Jane kill and we are reminded in the episode that she carries that in her.

I thought it was a brilliant episode, 15 or so hours into it, it was a compelling change of pace for the show. But I'm sure the fucking nerd brigade hated that it didn't just go straight into the full-on Aliens homage that episode 6 teased.