The principals were on cold meds or something, though. Flat delivery, to the point I had to wonder if they'd sent in the clones. I guess lines that uninspired can't be salvaged by technique or tears.

I did love tying up the magician and being surprised he escaped, though.

a couple of really strong guests who made up for a lot of flaws. The funny bits were pretty funny

These I enjoyed enough to have enjoyed the ep as a whole. It felt very one-offish. Which is fine.

And the rain of anvils is not a new thing, so I don't really count it anymore. Much.

I'm in the "meh" camp. It wasn't complete dreck, but it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. While last week really ended up requiring a lot of handwavium, it still had a lot of suspense to it that kept you on the edge of your seat and not even seeing the handwavium required until after the fact. This one required a lot of "come on, now" every time something stupid happened. And I think I broke a toe on one of the anvils. Ow.

There were anvils?

Really, it was a poorly-written and poorly-plotted episode, with some interesting thematic parallels and a couple of really strong guests who made up for a lot of flaws. The funny bits were pretty funny, and (for once!) the episode didn't end with a forced and emotional conversation in, on, or near the car. As a result, the pacing wasn't as bad as it could have been, either.

Nice summary.

Honestly, I do think I'll enjoy this more on rewatch (holy crap, Pippen, you're so much older than you are in my head! Brad! You... okay, well, you've aged due to Spin City, but you're still older than my mental age for you, BB). Between the crying child upstairs and the stress of surviving layoffs at work today, it was hard for me to get in the groove of watching anything.

How could I have forgotten Brad?

t natter

the stress of surviving layoffs at work today,

Ugh. I'm sorry you and Jilli and the company had to go through that, even though you are both safe.

t /natter

I was thinking about the episode this morning, and it's starting to feel like there's two different shows. We've got one show (Show A), where Our Boys hunt something supernatural and defeat it. And then there's another show (Show B), where Our Boys are players in a vast, impending apocalypse, and are trying (and mostly failing) to prevent a power-hungry demon from destroying the world.

I'm getting a little bit tired of the writers allowing Show A to do all the emotional heavy lifting for Show B. It's like Show A is 38 minutes of every week, and Show B (which, at least right now, I'm far more interested in) gets the other 4 minutes.

Oh, they've never been good at weaving in A&B plots but I didn't think it was all that bad this time. I mean for me the MotW is the time between when they're doing their decision making about what to do about the big picture.

At least it seemed like that to me.

And was that John Rubenstein's son playing the newly reyounged Charlie?

How could I have forgotten Brad?

I met my first boyfriend in the RHPS local cast. He was playing Brad, I was Columbia. Good times, good times.