That Carnivale scene was just heartbreaking and scary as hell. My fave scary Twin Peaks scene was when Laura's dad looked into the mirror and saw Bob looking back at him. YIKES! I know that I freaked.

Not sure if I needed to whitefont that, but just in case...

Yeah...three years later, still makes me squirm. Although thinking of him opening his bong, black light and munchies with love from his daughter on Father's Day is kind of funny. I don't really have the stones though. But it would be nice to buy a gift that he would like for a change.

Yeah, it's up there with a few select Twin Peaks and X-Files moments for sheer creepiness, but it's sadder and more haunted. Really devastating.

I've still never seen Twin Peaks. Yes, I know, I need to. Eventually I will.

Jilli! Let's watch it together. Um, magically.

I've still never seen Twin Peaks. Yes, I know, I need to. Eventually I will.

Huh. Well, the Julee Cruse song I included on the Goth Video Collection is a song that's from the show. It's stylish and dreamy and funny and scary as hell and has the most beautiful cast ever put on TV.

My BFF in high school and I loved "Rockin' Back Inside My Heart." That's one of those songs that you hear and are just transported to a specific place in time.

it had a handful of really great moments.

Yes. Most of which Ron Moore wrote.

(Bitter? Oh, a tad.)

But for the sake of an argument (and I actually mean that, since I have to do laundry and am trying to stall):

Deadwood and The Wire are deliberately slow over the first few episodes.

Is that really a plus? Deliberately boring your audience seems more obnoxious than doing it accidentally. If you said, "after the first few episodes things pick up" I'd understand, because lots of shows take a little while to work out the bugs. But when you tell me it's intentional, it sounds like the people making the show can't be bothered with mundane concerns like entertaining their audience.

Hm. Now that I think about it, I feel like the HBO shows I've seen always have a certain self-indulgent quality, to a greater or lesser degree. And that might be part of what turns me off. I dunno, it's clearly true that network TV places all kinds of goofy, arbitrary restrictions on content and storytelling and blah blah. But I also firmly believe that sometimes, working within those restrictions leads to more creative solutions.

"Um, dad? I'm pretty sure nobody was meant to identify with Lester Burnam."

Didn't TWOP call that guy Pimpdaddy McGee or some such? Or was that my wife?

Anyway, despite the greatness of the aforementioned episodes, we quit Carnivale after the first season, when it appeared that all the Clancy Brown in the world couldn't move the plot forward. Come to think of it, that's why we quit Lost, too. I wonder if it's some sort of cosmic backlash against the greatness of Clancy Brown.

Is that really a plus? Deliberately boring your audience seems more obnoxious than doing it accidentally.

I didn't find a moment of Deadwood or The Wire boring. Boring and slow are different.

Also HBO shows REALLY use season-long arcs, which means earlier episodes have less wrap-up than most viewers of hour-long dramas are used to. It's a different rhythm which takes a while to get used to. It pays off as the season progresses, though, when story strands interweave and influence each other and all build together to a set of climaxes which are much more powerful for having so much back story.