Should I be happy that The Inside increased it's rating slightly over its lead in this last week (according to Zap2it)?

You should be happy that it held through the half, which means that the people who tuned in, stayed tuned in.

Firefly lost a huge number of viewers at the half, which means people tuned in to check it out, and it didn't hold their interest. I think that fact sealed the show's fate.

I think maybe a problem with Rebecca is that she isn't relatable. I don't think we've seen one scene of her outside of work. Sometimes it's okay if you don't have that one character to root for if you have a really great one to root against. Web seems like he could be a character like that. So far all we know is that he's some kind of puppet master but I think I'd feel let down if he didn't have more of a hidden agenda than that. The first 3 episodes of many a Buffy season are forgettable. It's tough, audiences just don't give shows time to find their footing.

There can be difference between not liking characters and disliking characters. I don't have enough to go on yet for this show, but when I have failed to like characters (as opposed to disliking them) it has been the rooting thing, or at least, it has been that they didn't grab me and pull me in, in some way. I didn't think the SFU characters were particularly likable, and I don't think I rooted for any of them (perhaps Claire) but they did pull me into their stories.

You should be happy that it held through the half, which means that the people who tuned in, stayed tuned in.

Thanks. I can't imagine how someone couldn't.

So it's impossible to want to grab her hand and see her through it in these few eps, she's little more than pain!girl right now.

When you say it like this, it makes me try to imagine starting Buffy with Season 6. That's a tough sell.

Tim needs to work on that First Impression Strategy.

Tim needs to work on that First Impression Strategy.

Heh. My first impression of Tim was that I'd just love him to pieces 4 evah.

My first impression of Rebecca was that she was worthy of me loving her, and was worth the investment.

This, I realize, was not everyone's first impression.

How much do you think your first impressions were slanted by reading first, Allyson?

My first impression of Rebecca was that she was worthy of me loving her, and was worth the investment.

Huh. This is not the way I remember it at all.

I don't normally watch cop shows, I don't watch much horror, except for certain kinds, which generally means they have to end with some sort of hope, even if the whoever-survivor may be is fooling him or herself, because...that's what we do. We pretend this world isn't a great big old ball of pain, and that's how we can have more children, and eat ice cream, and go to the park on Sunday afternoons. I like my horror with a dash of fun, Shaun of the Dead rather than The Ring.

There are many things I like about The Inside. I really like Peter Coyote's character, and I like the way Coyote is playing him. I don't think he's a good man, but I do think he is working to get good results. He's hard, and manipulative, and I think he's honest in a way I can't quite explain--honest that he's a bastard, anyway.

I like Rebecca. She's PTSD girl. She does interesting things that fit her character and intrigue, like the inappropriate perkiness when she was accomplishing things early in the morning; the fleeting (pride? something creepy, anyway) look on her face when Web said, "That's my girl."

I like Danny and Mel, though I wish we'd had a better introduction to them. The scene with Danny and the little boy was funny AND disturbing. Mel's glee in her "pre-filer label" was endearing.

I don't like the gore. Not just the bodies, or, worse so far to me, the pictures on the boards and in the files (and what DX said about the descriptions too), but more the fact that they're there (the pictures, the descriptions). Those bodies have no dignity. There are too many of them. For every one I see or hear described, I imagine 100s more. Pretty gritty and yes, realistic, and even effective, but not my favorite type of entertainment. All those mutilated bodies, for me, lend themselves to a feeling of hopelessness that I can't ascribe to a fictional world because the show is set in a place too much like the world I live in.

I didn't like the feeling of hopelessness at the end of the last episode. No one, so far as we could see, told the guy who got turned on by little girls that he could/should go for counseling (whether they believed in the efficacy of counseling or not, it would have been something). No one said that he'd be watched. No one warned the parents of the little girl on whom he was fixated--or if they did, we didn't see it, and so I don't believe it. Maybe there will be fallout later, but that doesn't fix my feeling of dissatisfaction now. The ending scene had an amazing impact on me; it was great, perfect, but I'm still dissatisfied. I want white hats and good guys and all the other lies.

I don't know if I'll stick with the show yet or not. I love catching the shoutouts. I love having a show to chew over again. This one has depth, complex characters, intriguing storylines, and shoutouts to shows I love and miss. I think the characters, while they don't grab me yet (and of them all, the only one I don't really like is Paul), are intriguing and could do, if I give them the chance. It kind of depends on which hits my "enough" meter first--if the stuff I don't like eventually outweighs my growing fascination with the characters or not.

My first impression of Rebecca was that she was worthy of me loving her, and was worth the investment

Not love, for me, but intrigue, definitely. I relate to her in some way I can't quite figure out well enough to explain. I just don't know, yet, if that feeling is worth the investment.

Nevermind, I apparently don't know what I'm talking about anymore.