u/SandorSNL

I'm generally not a podcast person; I get aggravated waiting for it to be my turn to talk. I always watch the video version like it's a talk show.

I think a critical element of why I enjoy Good Hang but not other podcasts is because even though the tone is so light, Amy is clearly taking it seriously. She's well prepared and well read. In a way the show feels like it's filling the void left of shows like (pre finding out he was awful) Charlie Rose. It's a very informed compassion.

I am very much on board with the team of people who thinks Brooks is boring and not bringing much to the table.

I think it speaks to his larger delusion - he simply ISN'T Meredith, and cribbing her catchphrase/phrases isn't helping.

The reason Meredith still has a job and still has fans is because she ENGAGED FIRST. You cannot only ever disengage. He refuses to touch anything. There's a difference between someone who is low conflict (look at Rowan) and someone who will not even put in interest (Brooks). Meredith has actual experience in conflict and knows (sometimes correctly, sometimes not) when having a conversation is not going to benefit/change anything. That's when it's time to disengage. And she can do that for a few episodes at a time because eventually she ENGAGES BACK IN.

You can pull this card after you've fought or after you've been piled on, but for lack of a better term, Brooks refuses to play ball and then seems to be baffled on why he can't score.

I think if there was one most common complaint about the reboot cast (after just missing the OGs), it was that they weren't very "real." The friendships and conflict felt both fake and minor. I think some cast members (particularly Racquel last season) were better than others about showing their lives, but broadly it felt like watching co-workers avoid getting into trouble.

The trailer, to me, signifies that they have taken the wrong lesson from this. Now I swear like a sailor and am not timid about language, but the repeated use of swearing and vulgar language in the trailer to me indicates that all they intend to do is ACT more real, with no further basis for it being real in any way than before.

Think of it like the "cool" substitute teacher or boss who lets you know "you're on the same side" by saying an expletive or something a bit shocking. It's a meaningless action only meant to give you the illusion of being "let in", not an actual alliance.

Combine that with the fact that Jessel/Sai/Erin feel separate from the newbies feel separate from Carol already.

There's a great quote from Kate Mann in Down Girl (which I highly recommend) that defines misogyny as the enforcement mechanism of sexist and patriarchal norms.

As someone who would like to believe I keep pretty good company, it truly feels like looking into a different (albeit much more common) world when it comes to gender on this show. Just off the top of my head:

• The normalization of threatening violence and eventually escalating to violence
• Especially in early seasons, whenever there is a question of truth, the man in the situation is always the one given the immediate preference for their version
• James and Lala enter the show on wildly different footings. James is immediately allowed to be "one of the boys" even though they like him less; Lala remains isolated from the rest of the girls for quite a while after the introduction
• Peter's preferential edit as the "good guy" which just doesn't need to exist because any time he has a vaguely salient point the idiot bros just ignore him
• While Lisa is objectively the boss, Ken is the one who they all see as the only further escalation of trouble you can be in
• Slut shaming is actually effective in diminishing the girls' credit and options
• Jax gets called "horndog" while all the women are "sluts"
• Every single thing about TomTom from conception onward
• Schwartz gets better treatment than some of the women at SUR and he DOESN'T EVEN WORK THERE
• The boys are only judged on their actions; the girls are judged on both their actions and their personalities. It takes years for anyone to even suggest Schwartz is wimpy, but Katie is seemingly defined by anger from the outset

In short, rewatching, the men are literally openly given so much more permission and power than the women. The Toms have known the women for ages and STILL side immediately with their male partners as soon as they come around.

Something that I think make this show feel much fresher than the Housewives or older Bravo shows is how many adjacent people each person gets on camera time with.

Even newbie Liam gets a moment with his two friends, Georgia does with her friend, Little Wig with Mini Wig. All of the stories feel more fleshed out when their worlds feel more real, which populating it with people helps even if they don't appear very long/notably.

Obviously "best" Trek and other questions are always subjective and account for a wide range of factors. My question: what does Voyager do as a singular element better than any other series?

For example, I think TNG has some of the best dialogue not only in Trek, but TV at the time in general. Conversely, for some reason DS9 is the only one to me which feels like it actually could occur in a future derived from our own time.

Believability? Casting? Acting? What's the single piece Voyager wins on, even if you think overall it might not be everyone's favorite?

Dr. Ellis has me thinking of this. I've said this before, but I'm so over the following character:

• Hates mutants
• Plot armor to the point that they take down insanely powerful characters, usually with some sort of tech the size of a cell phone
• Shhh but did you know they were actually CLOSE with a mutant? Family/spouse/friend
• OR I actually used to be normal then a mutant killed my whole family/burned my town down/some other tragedy you are supposed to side with

It feels like the spin on "mutant hater" is so overdone that I can't tell them apart. How many people fit the description I just gave?

What are other trope characters where you feel like they've invented functionally the same person 20 times?

I'd also say this feels like a last 20 years phenomenon, and I know it obviously gets harder to make new characters when so many exist, but c'mon.