Mainly because there's a disclaimer on Boxed Set that it is not a general TV thread but a sci-fi/fantasy/horror thread, and the DEADWOOD posts were getting lost in natter for some who don't keep up there.

Oh. Makes sense.

Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka freaked me out as a kid. Still does. There was this underlying menace that scared me.

He's gone on records saying he did that deliberately - that he wanted the audience to wonder what he was really up to, that you weren't sure what he was capable of, and that anything might happen once they were in the factory.

Thank you. I haven't actually seen it in years. Decades even. See above re: freaked out.

He's totally grabbing children and admonishing them sternly and lacing his every comment with malevolent subtext and not caring in the slightest when children are in peril simply because they brought it on themselves. I love his apathetic "No, stop, don't."

There was this underlying menace that scared me.

See, I didn't get that at all. Except at the end, which shocked me the first time I saw it, before he called Charlie back.

ET CETERA ET CETERA!

See, I didn't get that at all. Except at the end, which shocked me the first time I saw it, before he called Charlie back.

Not even the boat scene, with that patented Wilder hysteria reaching a fever pitch? It was pretty much "all bets are off" for me at that point.

Not even the boat scene, with that patented Wilder hysteria reaching a fever pitch?

My take was that he was a little crazy, but not menacing. Maybe I'm weird.

ET CETERA ET CETERA!

Heh.

Yeah, wasn't bad, but why? Love the Weigart story, Frank. Not interested in kinder, gentler DW(Deadwood, not Domenic West) It is bad enough that TV SATC have more jump-cuts than Homicide now, lest we see something smutty. Swergin really surprised me this week. Want to write a drabble where Al says "I'm not evil. I haven't been evil for a very long time. Why does everyone keep asking me that?" But I probably won't really do it.

erika, heh. Hadn't thought of him that way. It seems to me, and this is still without having seen more than random episodes from the first two seasons (I know, I know) that Al has gone from doing what he needs to in order to protect his interests/business to doing what needs to be done to protect his town and the people in it. Fits in with the growing sense of community that others have commented on. Helping Alma was also a nice callback to Bullock being the first person to go to Al's aid after Hearst took his finger.

Oh, I wasn't being serious...just kind of struck me funny as I was watching. But I think you're right, mostly. Oh, reminds me I was gonna change my tag today. No disrespect to my imaginary spouse, another member of HBO's cabal of Daves.