I love the suicide. Yes, it's very unlikely, but I like that these people are immediately set up as beyond normal parameters. If Rebecca's predecessor was capable of committing incredibly grisly suicide with even a partial goal in mind, and devoted enough that she would go dangerously unmedicated at all, presumably to help her get inside the bad guy's head, then what might her young replacement be capable of? What bounds of humanity will we get to see her break, and will she, unlike Alvarez, be able to ride the wave of her own near-supernatural abilities?

Ooooh, D. Griswold -- wanna come join my writing staff? Or at least just hang around me, like, all the time?

First thing I thought of after the show ended: I want more.

I'm pretty sure I'd be a terrible TV writer - I'd have to be ghostwrit. But I wouldn't be opposed to being your bosom buddy, on the other side of the country.

Tim, I'm so reluctant to get involved in watching a new series, because it seems every time I do whichever network it's on yanks the rug out from under it. (I know I'm not telling you anything you don't have bitter personal experience with.) But I watched this one, and encouraged others to do so as well ("it's a reunion of 'Buffy' and 'Angel' and 'Firefly' talent!") So I'll be keeping my fingers and toes crossed for you.

By the way, when your name came up in the opening credits, I was muttering "Dear Doyle killer" at the screen, because I remembered you mentioning the hate mail you had received lo those many episodes ago.

I've now raved about the pilot everywhere I know to rave (except the offical board, which I still fear), and need to do that thing I planned to do hours ago - sleep.

Thanks, Tim, for giving me something so great to look forward to this summer. And thanks, Allyson, for pimping it so relentlessly and intelligently that I was required to watch. And thanks, my parents, Ayn Rand and God, for always being there for me in the tough times.

The pilot has been posted online in HDTV torrent form, and has 1500 concurrent downloaders at the moment. That's larger than any original series I've ever seen, so hurray. Although boo hiss, piracy.

Wanders in, checks to see if anyone else is still alive?

by the way, east coasters -- now that you've seen it, doesn't all this hand wringing by the MSM critics about the gore seem a bit overwrought?

I have a very low gore-tolerance. The one thing that got to me was when Martinez was on the slab and the ME moved a flap of her face into place. I, forgive me, nearly jumped right out of my skin. It was a really disturbing image -- but very simple and subtle and not (forgive me again) in-your-face bloody.

It was honest, not overwrought gratuitous gut-splatter. Maybe that's what freaked the critics out.

Favorite Line of the Night Which Had Me Shrieking 'Tim, Tim, I've Missed You So, You Stud': Now wouldn't it be sad if I had to shoot his little boy or his mother just because you were a bitch?

It is interesting to me, however, that with all the intense, high-tech, major brainiac training they have a Quantico no one in the FBI can work a lightswitch. Clarice, Mulder, Scully, now these kids -- they walk into the creepy room, guns drawn, squinting madly... if only they could SEE THINGS while they searched! Would that there were some mystical ILLUMINATING DEVICE!