u/Master-Ad-9922

In season 5 Christopher Henderson apparently tries to kill Jack using a bomb. Not only does this fail completely, but it doesn't fit Henderson's M.O. at all.

Also, later he goes home without realizing Jack is in his house. The writers made him look like an idiot for two episodes in a row.

He certainly had many valid opportunities to kill Jack, and yet the best they could come up with was a half-baked bomb? A bomb that cannot kill one person who is trapped in the room?

Season 7's twist with the Jonas Hodges assassin was much better. Hodges had a valid reason to keep Jack alive. Otherwise there would be no way Jack could survive that either.

Since 2013/2014, these two are both following a "one new project every three years" pattern.

Dream Theater studio albums: 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2025 (the 2021 album came a bit early but the next album was released in 2025, so it balances out)

Christopher Nolan films: 2014, 2017, 2020, 2023, 2026

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Also Agalloch maintained a four-year gap between each album from 2002 to 2014, every time there was a world cup there would be a new Agalloch album.

From season 4 to season 6, a season of 24 starts in January and ends in May.

It seems that season 7 was delayed by a year due to the 2007 TV writers strike. However, the writers strike started in November 2007. By the time 24 season 7 was supposed to enter pre-production, the writers strike didn't begin yet. (This is the part confusing to me.) Considering the show was expensive to produce, I'm thinking the pre-production must've begun months earlier. So the production crew should be preparing a new season starting in October at the latest.

So was season 7 actually in the middle of production, and then halted due to the writers' strike, or, was season 7 delayed from the beginning?

One clue is that Kiefer Sutherland was shooting a horror movie during summer 2007. He just happened to get a movie role right before a delayed 24 season? I'm thinking he got the role because he already knew season 7 was going to be delayed.

Another clue is the final scene of season 6. Jack gazing at the ocean, unsure what he's going to do next. That's actually how writers were feeling at that time. They were unsure what they're going to do with season 7.

So, my theory is that season 7 was meant to be delayed right when season 6 ended. The writers strike just happened to take place in that same year too.

Season 3 has seen:

- David Palmer recovering from the poison at the end of season 2,

- Chase tortured, shot in the hand, and goes right back in the field and single-handedly (pun) takes down terrorists,

- Chase's hand cut off, but still survives (unlike the other guy in season 6),

- Jack quits heroin in a day (well, not really, but he's doing very well for a guy who was still an addict at the beginning of the day),

- Tony gets shot in the neck and apparently recovers in just a few hours,

- It's also the only season where Kim Bauer even remotely shows some sign of being Jack's true heir -- by being a somewhat capable CTU agent rather than a helpless victim.

I think there's an explanation for this. Starting in season 5, and all the way through the end, the writers developed a habit of killing off major characters. Tony and Chase's injuries in season 3, for example, would have possibly meant an outright death for one of them, had they happened post-season 5.

But season 3 was before the writers realized that the show could be done this way. Season 3 likely lacked an authority figure in the writers' room that told them they could kill off characters. So they didn't. No matter what happens, people stay alive and even recover nicely.

An IRS agent only needs to do the exact same thing that Skyler did, and finds out that the car wash doesn't make nearly as much money as they claim to.

When Kellerman sends an assassin to kill Lincoln during the riot, Lincoln sees the guy fall to his death.

One thing I was never sure of -- Did Lincoln kill him?

At first I thought he did. But in later seasons Lincoln was revealed to be unable to kill anyone (not pulling the trigger on Mahone.)

Michael has the same trait, but he did kill several people in season 3 and season 4.

One thing I noticed about this parallel. While both Irina Derevko and Lauren Reed betrayed their husbands, the key difference lies in that Irina truly loved her husband.

Edit: Although Irina slept with Sloane, and Lauren slept with Sark, Lauren was the one who left Vaughn to die. I think that explains why Vaughn was so hateful towards Lauren, while Jack and Irina still had quite a bit of chemistry going on after Irina's affair.

So I heard ABC executives forced the showrunners to resolve the murder earlier than they planned. The show's quality declined after that.

However, from what I can tell, the majority of the show was not about investigating the murder anyway. So why would resolving the murder be such a big deal? Was season 2 originally supposed to be focusing on the murder investigation, or a large chunk of plot depending on it?

We can pretty much all agree that the themes of The Wire are universal. They're not limited to the police or drug dealers' line of work. David Simon chose these two fields because he happened to be in Baltimore where drug crimes are prevalent. But I could imagine the show working equally as well if David Simon happened to grow up in a city where drug dealing isn't nearly as big of an issue. Maybe the show would focus on other aspects of city life. Politics and schools would still be in it, of course, since every city has those. Season 2's dock could be replaced with some other industry -- just use what you've got in your city.

Thoughts?

Since there's a rule that doesn't allow spoilers in the title, I had to be vague. Hopefully you can figure out what the topic is.

When House >!rejects Cameron!< in season 1, "Love Hurts", at first it might be a bit hard to understand. House is a miserable man, always in pain, lives an unhappy life. >!A beautiful young woman wants to be with him.!< This has to make him happier. If you ask 100 men if they wanted to >!be with Cameron,!< 100 of them probably would say yes. Especially for House who is in pain, this is one of the few things in the world that could potentially make him happy.

And yet, he denies himself this opportunity. He doesn't even want to give it a try. What could it hurt anyway? For the love of God, at least>! sleep with her a few times!<. And House doesn't even want to do that.

I keep thinking about this. There is a very clear answer why, and I think the show explains it quite well. I'm just wondering if that is the consensus among all House viewers. There is absolutely no other interpretation here, no debate, as to why this happened.

House did it, because >!he is afraid of losing Cameron.!<

As much as House wants to >!date her and sleep with her!<, he can't handle the possibility that >!he's gonna lose her in the future!<. Because that gives him more pain. He won't even try to >!date Cameron!<, because he wants to avoid that pain, as much as he can.

That's the reason everyone can agree on, am I right?

In other spy shows or action shows, you can shoot one rain scene that lasts a few minutes. But on 24, if it's raining in Los Angeles in one episode, they would have to either keep the rain falling for several full episodes (as opposed to just one or two scenes in another show), or make the ground look wet. That's too much budget/work on top of an already heavy budget.

So in 24 all we get is the day/night cycle dynamic, but we never get different weathers. It's always sunny outside. It never rains.

It would have been cool to see Jack wear a raincoat and sneak up behind enemies in the cover of rain.

Recently I've been playing Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Prey, and realized both of them came out within the 9-month span between August 2016 and May 2017. Dishonored 2 also released in that same time period. And then the genre seems to go quiet for many years. Three "mega-hits" within the span of 9 months.

Not only that, these three titles directly correspond to another golden age in immersive sim history -- 1999/2000.

System Shock 2 (1999) -- spiritual successor Prey (2017)

Thief 2: The Metal Age (2000) -- spiritual successor Dishonored 2 (2016)

Deus Ex (2000) -- direct sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)

Essentially, the three most-acclaimed immersive sims of all-time were released between 1999 and 2000. All three of them got modern versions between 2016 and 2017. All of them did a pretty good job too. None of these games screwed up or disappointed fans (like Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 did, for example).

I'm aware that these are among the most famous examples of immersive sims. There may very well be hidden gems after 2017 that I don't know about. Still, 2016/2017 was such a huge time period for the genre, I wonder if the fans realized what they had at the time.

Quick review - Dead Island 2 (PS5)

First-person shooter with a Diablo 2-style looter mechanic. Boss fights are considerably more difficult and sophisticated than those in Diablo 2. Each of the final 4 bosses was a tremendous struggle, and the final fight was glorious, with the boss dying from something I absolutely didn't see coming, and yet it made total sense as soon as I saw it. This game has the rare design that enemies scale to your level and stats, which makes grinding and farming levels a useless tactic. The only way to beat it is by improving your strategy, rather than improving your stats. I'll remember and praise this game's design for the rest of my life, a modern cult classic.

And about this specific mechanic: Enemies scale to your level and stats.

This is ground-breaking to me. I've played so many grindy games, grinding and grinding for countless hours. They feel so tedious. Dead Island 2 has this one genius mechanic that makes grinding useless, and I'm looking for similar games (doesn't have to be first-person shooter) that also has this mechanic. Thanks.

I must be the last person to figure this out, but today it dawned on me that Ed uses a vacuum cleaner shop as his business front, because what he does is essentially "remove all traces of your existence". In other words, he vacuum-cleans you.

I always thought the actor looked appropriately aged as Dean's father. I only found out today he's only 12 years older than his on-screen son.

I looked this up because I saw the actor dating a woman who was exactly the same age as Jensen Ackles, in Grey's Anatomy season 2. I thought to myself, that can't be right. How old was he?

Dean's mother was played by an actress only 8 years older than Jensen too.

Does it bother you that House is the smartest doctor AND makes a ton of diagnostic mistakes in each episode?

There are only a handful of episodes where it's eventually revealed that House had the right diagnosis since the very beginning. I'm thinking maybe 5 episodes in the entire series. In all the other episodes, he struggles to find out what's really wrong with the patient.

And he always needs that "Wilson eureka moment" before finally solving the case. I would think that if you're smart enough, you shouldn't need to rely on those. You should be able to solve the case just by casually observing the patient.

Not a complaint. These elements make the show entertaining. I'm just saying it's far from realistic.

One thing that always bugged me was Veronica conducting investigations nearly on the same level as her father Keith Mars. I mean, an 18-year-old having the same professional abilities as a 40-year-old. Or did we simply not see the full capabilities of Keith because the show isn't built around him?

This is not a troll post. If my observation is wrong, you're welcome to correct me.

Rift Apart is my first Ratchet and Clank game and I have absolutely no idea how the combat works. To me it's just use any of the weapons to shoot at any of the enemies. The game doesn't say anything about how to correctly fight them. This makes the default difficulty very hard for me.

So I switched to one lower difficulty. And damn it's now too easy. I quickly levelled up to have 40 health and there is so much health everywhere I can never die.

Like they can't balance the difficulty a little bit to make the lower difficulties a bit harder? The default difficulty may be fine but the lower difficulty does not need to be that easy. It just removes all sense of challenge.

I played Battlefield Hardline 10 years ago. The game is set in an urban environment, like a GTA game. You play as cops fighting drug dealers and criminals. Because you're not a military soldier, your guns, clothes and equipment are more the type you see everyday on a police officer. Battlefield Hardline isn't a particularly great game but it's extremely memorable just because of the unique setting.

I don't understand why Call of Duty can't do something similar. Year after year it's a military setting. There are so many other possibilities, plenty of other settings that also work in a first-person shooter.

Desmond had been missing a few days of memories from 1996, and those memories are uploaded to his brain in the episode The Constant.

I've seen explanations that tie this to the electromagnetism on the Island. Because Desmond spent three years in the Swan station, he was exposed to a large amount of electromagnetism, and this caused his memories to become corrupted.

So am I to understand that, Desmond actually still remembered meeting Daniel Faraday between 1996 and 2001, and he only started losing these memories during his time in the Swan Station?

In that case, it would be incredibly strange, because in 1996 Desmond got instructions from his future timeline. How the hell did he figure out what was going on?