sad also there are no writing nods for Speechless!
A sweeping year of Peak TV dominated the Emmy nominations Thursday morning, with new series like The Crown, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, Westworld, and This Is Us entering a drama field now dominated by shows on streaming networks. The comedy field remained more stable, with old favorites like Veep and Modern Family leading the pack, but overall the industry awards reflected the ongoing state of change in the world of television, as established networks like HBO, FX, and AMC contend with an onslaught of high-quality scripted programming from sites like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.
The nominations, announced by the actors Shemar Moore and Anna Chlumsky, also suggest that the limited series is still en vogue, with some of the biggest critical hits of the year (including Feud, Fargo, Big Little Lies, and The Night Of) doing battle in a category that was a relative graveyard of quality only a few years ago. Though some new comedies broke through (particularly FX’s Atlanta), it was the Drama Series nominations that saw a real shake-up, with last year’s winner Game of Thrones taking a year off, the longtime Emmy favorite Downton Abbey finally out of the picture, and last year’s critical darling Mr. Robot contending with a sophomore slump.
The winners will be announced Sunday, September 17, at a ceremony hosted by Stephen Colbert (it will air on his parent network CBS), though most of the smaller technical awards will be given out at the “Creative Arts” ceremonies on September 9 and 10. In a year without Game of Thrones, the Drama Series category will be wide open (five of the seven nominees are in their first season), with Netflix’s The Crown possibly holding a slight edge because of its costume-drama credentials (a longtime favorite for awards voters), though its sci-fi series Stranger Things may coast to victory on pure buzz.
Comedy Series only has one new nominee (Atlanta), and the Emmy veteran Veep, which has won the last two trophies, may be tough to dethrone. Limited Series is a total free-for-all, but HBO’s Big Little Lies, which drew several nominations for its all-star cast (including Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, and Alexander Skarsgard), is probably the front-runner on name recognition alone. A full list of the major nominations is below, with a longer list of all the technical nominations available at the Emmys website.
Outstanding Drama Series
Better Call Saul
The Crown
The Handmaid’s Tale
House of Cards
Stranger Things
This Is Us
Westworld
Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Anthony Hopkins, Westworld
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards
Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us
Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Claire Foy, The Crown
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale
Keri Russell, The Americans
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld
Robin Wright, House of Cards
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul
John Lithgow, The Crown
Mandy Patinkin, Homeland
Michael Kelly, House of Cards
David Harbour, Stranger Things
Ron Cephas Jones, This Is Us
Jeffrey Wright, Westworld
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series
Ann Dowd, The Handmaid’s Tale
Samira Wiley, The Handmaid’s Tale
Uzo Aduba, Orange Is the New Black
Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
Ben Mendelsohn, Bloodline
BD Wong, Mr. Robot
Hank Azaria, Ray Donovan
Denis O’Hare, This Is Us
Brian Tyree Henry, This Is Us
Gerald McRaney, This Is Us
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series
Alison Wright, The Americans
Alexis Bledel, The Handmaid’s Tale
Cicely Tyson, How to Get Away with Murder
Ann Dowd, The Leftovers
Laverne Cox, Orange Is the New Black
Shannon Purser, Stranger Things
Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series
Vince Gilligan, Better Call Saul (“Witness”)
Steven Daldry, The Crown (“Hyde Park Corner”)
Reed Morano, The Handmaid’s Tale (“Offred”)
Kate Dennis, The Handmaid’s Tale (“The Bridge”)
Lesli Linka Glatter, Homeland (“America First”)
The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
Jonathan Nolan, Westworld (“The Bicameral Mind”)
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
Joel Fields, Joe Weisberg, The Americans (“The Soviet Division”)
Gordon Smith, Better Call Saul (“Chicanery”)
Peter Morgan, The Crown (“Assassins”)
Bruce Miller, The Handmaid’s Tale (“Offred”)
The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things (“Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”)
Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan, Westworld (“The Bicameral Mind”)
Outstanding Comedy Series
Atlanta
Black-ish
Master of None
Modern Family
Silicon Valley
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Veep
Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Zach Galifianakis, Baskets
Donald Glover, Atlanta
William H. Macy, Shameless
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series
Pamela Adlon, Better Things
Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie
Allison Janney, Mom
Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series
Louie Anderson, Baskets
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Alec Baldwin, Saturday Night Live
Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Tony Hale, Veep
Matt Walsh, Veep
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series
Vanessa Bayer, Saturday Night Live
Leslie Jones, Saturday Night Live
Kate McKinnon, Saturday Night Live
Kathryn Hahn, Transparent
Judith Light, Transparent
Anna Chlumsky, Veep
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
Riz Ahmed, Girls
Matthew Rhys, Girls
Dave Chappelle, Saturday Night Live
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Saturday Night Live
Tom Hanks, Saturday Night Live
Hugh Laurie, Veep
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
Wanda Sykes, Black-ish
Carrie Fisher, Catastrophe
Becky Ann Baker, Girls
Angela Bassett, Master of None
Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live
Melissa McCarthy, Saturday Night Live
Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series
Donald Glover, Atlanta (“B.A.N.”)
Jamie Babbit, Silicon Valley (“Intellectual Property”)
Mike Judge, Silicon Valley (“Server Error”)
Morgan Sackett, Veep (“Blurb”)
David Mandel, Veep (“Groundbreaking”)
Dale Stern, Veep (“Justice”)
Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series
Donald Glover, Atlanta (“B.A.N.”)
Stephen Glover, Atlanta (“Streets on Lock”)
Aziz Ansari, Lena Waithe, Master of None (“Thanksgiving”)
Alec Berg, Silicon Valley (“Success Failure”)
Billy Kimball, Veep (“Georgia”)
David Mandel, Veep (“Groundbreaking”)
Outstanding Limited Series
Big Little Lies
Fargo
Feud: Bette and Joan
Genius
The Night Of
Outstanding Television Movie
Black Mirror (“San Junipero”) Dolly Parton’s Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Sherlock (“The Lying Detective”) The Wizard of Lies
Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries
Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock
Robert De Niro, The Wizard of Lies
Ewan McGregor, Fargo
Geoffrey Rush, Genius
John Turturro, The Night Of
Outstanding Actress in a Miniseries
Carrie Coon, Fargo
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies
Jessica Lange, Feud: Bette and Joan
Susan Sarandon, Feud: Bette and Joan
Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries
Alexander Skarsgard, Big Little Lies
David Thewlis, Fargo
Alfred Molina, Feud: Bette and Joan
Stanley Tucci, Feud: Bette and Joan
Bill Camp, The Night Of
Michael Kenneth Williams, The Night Of
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries
Regina King, American Crime
Laura Dern, Big Little Lies
Shailene Woodley, Big Little Lies
Judy Davis, Feud: Bette and Joan
Jackie Hoffman, Feud: Bette and Joan
Michelle Pfeiffer, The Wizard of Lies
Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries/Movie
Jean-Marc Vallee, Big Little Lies
Noah Hawley, Fargo (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan (“And the Winner Is”)
Ron Howard, Genius (“Chapter One”)
James Marsh, The Night Of (“The Art of War”)
Steven Zaillian, The Night Of (“The Beach”)
Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries/Movie
David E. Kelley, Big Little Lies
Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror (“San Junipero”)
Noah Hawley, Fargo (“The Law of Vacant Places”)
Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan (“And the Winner Is”)
Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam, Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan (“Pilot”)
Richard Price, Steven Zaillian, The Night Of (“The Call of the Wild”)
Outstanding Reality Competition Program
Amazing Race
American Ninja Warrior
Project Runway
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Voice
Outstanding Host for a Reality Competition Program
Snoop Dogg, Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner
Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef Junior
Alec Baldwin, Match Game
Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, Project Runway
RuPaul Charles, RuPaul’s Drag Race
W. Kamau Bell, United Shades of America
Outstanding Variety Talk Series
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Late Late Show with James Corden
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Real Time with Bill Maher
Outstanding Variety Sketch Series
Billy on the Street
Documentary Now!
Drunk History
Portlandia
Saturday Night Live
Tracey Ullman’s Show
this is also how the doctor finds the aliens at the beginning of an episode where you're like are these good aliens or bad aliens oh wait they're definitely bad aliens.
Sperm whales sleep together in a pod facing up in the water. From bioGraphic:
Photographer Franco Banfi and his fellow divers were following this pod of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) when the giants suddenly seemed to fall into a vertical slumber. This phenomenon was first studied in 2008, when a team of biologists from the UK and Japan inadvertently drifted into a group of non-responsive sperm whales floating just below the surface. Baffled by the behavior, the scientists analyzed data from tagged whales and discovered that these massive marine mammals spend about 7 percent of their time taking short (6- to 24-minute) rests in this shallow vertical position. Scientists think these brief naps may, in fact, be the only time the whales sleep.
How To Tell If Your Cat Is Trying To Kill You? I’ve Been Finding Thumb Tacks In My Shoes Lately And I Couldn’t Figure Out Which Cat Was Doing It. Needless To Say, The Door To My Office Will Be Remaining Closed From Now On
Me, at an art store: I need a paint marker with low toxicity and a delicate tip.
Employee: What kind of project are you working on?
Me: It's for a research project. I just need bright colors.
Employee: What medium are you using? Canvas or paper?
Me: uh....spiders.
Employee: Plastic or felt?
Me: ....live spiders. Like, from the forest.
Employee: ....
Employee: I have to get back to the counter.
hillz and i have a lot of reading list overlap and this is important to me.
Yesterday, the Cut reported that during a speech at the American Library Association conference, Hillary Clinton listed all of the books she’s been reading with her unexpected time off since November, saying that besides for going on hikes and drinking white wine (relatable), she’s been consoling herself by “going back to the familiar experience of losing myself in books.” As such, there are lots of novels and mystery stories and some uplifting poetry, all of which we’ve gathered below.
It started almost a year ago, in the car on the way home from Riis Beach, windows down, skin sticky with sand and sunscreen. “Again!” the two-and-a-half-year-old cried from the backseat. “Again! Again!” And so I pressed play on Carly Rae Jepsen’s “I Really Like You,” once again. Or maybe, actually, it started Summer of 2012, my now-kindergartener in my arms as I bounced him around the house, dancing and dipping his big laughing baby head towards the ground while listening to “Call Me Maybe.” All of it — that post-beach car ride, my kids, the living room dance parties, Carly Rae Jepsen — feels like it’s always been there in me. Before they came into my life, I missed them so bad.
My smaller son loves Carly Rae Jepsen with a purity and devotion that comes from his core. Literally his core; he is the earth to his older brother’s air, he is, to paraphrase Melville, “the very pelvis of [our family],” the one who exhibits such easy pleasure in his body that to simply glance at his feet making full and savoring contact with the ground is both joy and accusation. In the bath one night, he asked me for “Carly Rae hair” and I wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted. Surely, I couldn’t approximate heavy bangs for him. But with some trial and error, we figured it out. He wanted me to gather his little bit of hair on the back of his head into a modest, wispy ponytail: exactly the sort Carly Rae favors when she wears her hair layered and shoulder length. His fine preschooler’s hair now somewhat thickened with suds, I gave him his ponytail; he asked to be taken over to the mirror where he gazed at himself with love and wonder, touching the back of his head with a sense of discovery. He knew he was beautiful.
How would a three-year-old know what Carly Rae Jepsen hair even is? I’m glad you asked! Mine knows because, after giving up his nap early, right after he turned two, I stopped fighting him about lying down alone in his room and let him join me — or more precisely me and my phone — in my room, dim and cool at midday for an hour of “quiet time,” which means, actually, an hour of him watching Carly Rae Jepsen videos in bed. I doze and he practices a new kind of love, both of our endeavors set to the sweet, synthetic sounds of longing and desire. It’s perfect.
I confess that I was no CRJ completist before all of this started, and with a mother’s vigilance, would initially drag myself out of my snooze each time I heard him click over to a new video. Was this okay for a three-year-old to be watching? I don’t do that anymore, and it’s not because she’s pastel pink and anodyne. Rather it’s because I trust and believe in Carly Rae. Carly Rae Jepsen has signature hair, she wears great and stylish tailored shirts, she wears skin-tight leather pants and mini-skirts, she’s a little awkward on stage, she has a beautiful voice.
In the video for “Your Type,” feeling heartbroken after someone has done her wrong, she puts on a skimpy outfit to perform for a collection of queer misfits in a glowing red and glittering dive bar. She is an interesting woman practicing a popular art form in a way that’s generous and loving toward outsiders and oddballs. And what my son gets from her requires very little counter-programming from me. Somehow — even though she is obviously there for us to look at and admire — she inhabits a type of female sexuality that is appealing to a large audience, and manages not to suggest that that’s all women are for. I’m not sure how she pulls this trick off. Is it Canada? I’m sincerely asking.
Our evenings these days usually feature a CRJ dance party (and a lot of arguing and yelling and whining and throwing things, but let’s keep our gauzy pop soft-focus for the moment). He mostly chooses a deep-ish cut from E*MO*TION, maybe “Boy Problems” (the chorus to which he sings as “Paa-jamas”), or, like, “L.A. Hallucinations.” The day that “Cut to the Feeling” was released, a dear friend told me that in the midst of his own pop-induced euphoria over the new song, he thought of my CRJ-loving son. Imagine that! This little person, barely four years on this earth, already so present to others. This is the electrifying circuitry of pop music: people scattered across the world, listening to the same few minutes of music, treasuring one another.
After I had children, the pop love songs that had always been important to me easily expanded to incorporate my new feeling of love for these small beings. The lyrics that used to bring me back to late-night parties and romantic embraces were also strangely perfect, it seemed, for capturing something like the intense feeling of late nights up feeding babies: “You’re everything I need and more” etc. At first, I found myself sort of lame for this, wasn’t this the height of motherly narcissism, seeing her kids in everything? Nobody cares, lady! Tell it to the other randos at the playground! Once, talking about Neko Case’s “This Tornado Loves You” with a friend, she described what she heard as the song’s frightening romantic brutality, while I was secretly feeling kind of weird inside realizing that I now heard the song as about the brutality of loving and being loved by little children.
But it’s exactly this brutality that pop is so good at, and that’s why it’s so surprisingly good at capturing the affective landscape of little kids and their caretakers, all of them together learning the brutal ways of the loving world. The other night, my older son sort of reached out and caressed my face a bit right before bed. He started toying with some bit of my facial hair — you know the sort that I’m supposed to, as a woman in the world, manage, to remove or somehow mask. But he didn’t care, he doesn’t yet know what women or men are. He doesn’t know what he is. He doesn’t know whether or not he finds facial hair socially acceptable or attractive. He was just in the idle and mindless throes of love. The brutal, tornado part, is, of course, that he’ll figure it all out someday — I want him to figure it out! I want him to survive — and that part of figuring it out will be withdrawing that (kind of) love from me. He’ll retract his hand, and he’ll be over there, and I’ll be over here.
Carly Rae Jepsen, a lot of the best writing on her suggests, is particularly good at suspension: at lengthening and staying inside the state of longing that stretches between want and have. Her newest single — with the chorus “Take me to emotion, I want to go all the way” — is almost entirely a taffy pull of that suspension. And yet, despite the incredibly flexible quality of it, the main story we like to tell about Carly Rae Jepsen’s music still usually pins it to familiar romantic terms: boy or girl problems, as it were. You know, “going all the way.” This feels reductive to me. After all, there are so many different kinds of love problems one can have in a life!
The beauty of pop music, I’ve discovered especially since having children, is how expansive a container it is. Listening to Carly Rae with my boys, it’s easy to see how her pop music captures the life of reproduction itself, by which I mean the life of love (many different kinds!) multiplying your sense of yourself in the world. Carly Rae sings songs about breakups and flirtations, but she also gives voice to how it can feel to have an expanding body, an expanding idea, a family made larger or smaller by any number of ways. It’s a chemical reaction, it’s devotion. It’s rejection and a painful, quick slice. It’s a child’s body growing relentlessly, just going, going, going, all the way.
Alison Chandra never expected to go viral for tweeting about her son’s medical bills — in fact, she never expected to be the mother of a child who needed so much medical care in the first place. But, with one viral tweetstorm she made it clear just how important the Affordable Care Act is to so many families. Read more (6/26/17)
the happy gilmore and STNG mashup we didn't know we needed
Now, you might be thinking, “haven’t you all done this one already?” And you would be right, TECHNICALLY we have “done” this one. But that post is from SEVEN YEARS AGO and it is QUITE UNDERWHELMING. It’s literally like the second post we ever did. So upon the recommendation of Friend of the Blog Grace M., I’m revisiting this one.
It starts with a charming scene between Guinan and Worf in which Guinan is wearing one of her signature “teardrop” hats:
What’s the likelihood that there is a nail polish called Aubergine-ius out there somewhere
This is par for the Guinan course - a soft, drapey fabric in a jewel tone, a hat that looks like a knit cap with a shape in the top of it, a sensible neutral lip. Comforting and familiar, like your grandma’s noodles or the fact that the second guest star introduced in a Law and Order: SVU is almost certainly the culprit.
Guinan introduces Worf to prune juice, which he calls “a warrior’s drink,” which is hilarious because it makes you poop. She then tells him that he might want to seek some “companionship” with the human females, some of whom, she says, might find him “meek.” His reaction is like me when someone tells me I might want to stop wearing bold prints:
LOL FOREVER
Worf’s reasoning is that the human females are “too fragile” for “companionship,” but I think there are more than a few humans who would be DOWN to CLOWN with a KLINGOWN.
Their delightful repartee ends when some sort of anomaly is discovered near the Enterprise. Guinan, of course, senses something:
Enterprise, you in danger, girl
This shadowy shot will turn out to be a favorite in this episode. Anyway, here’s what the anomaly looks like, which is basically just a blue space cloud:
“THIS SPACE CLOUD HAS NO HONOR” - Worf
For a moment, the bridge is just normal, giving us a glimpse of Deanna’s asymmetrical turquoise dress and leggings combo (which was the only outfit Charlie addressed in our first take on this ep):
Regular degular bridge
BUT THEN something WEIRD happens!!!!
This is the camera they used for Sex and the City 2
There is a…flickering…or something, and SUDDENLY everything is ALL DIFFERENT:
Who approved this lighting? It makes my pores look huge
“That’s just Picard on the bridge,” you might be thinking. But in case it wasn’t clear that something weeeEEEEEeeeiiiirrRrddd is going on:
What the fuuuuuuuck
TASHA?!?!??! GIRL YOU DIED. Also where did you get that cute belt??
Just to reinforce that SOMETHING IS WRONG, we cut to Guinan, who is wearing both a different outfit and a very concerned face:
The blue symbolizes how sad I am right now
Another Classic Guinan look, with some super interesting detail at the top there. I love this asymmetrical seam that keeps the collar area smooth and then billows out into a beautiful blue box-pleated curtain. This would look HILARIOUSLY BAD on me but if anyone would like me to attempt to make this top for you, please send me your measurements.
So it turns out that what is wrong is that the Enterprise-C - the previous iteration of the Enterprise - came through the space cloud, which was apparently a time rift. Obviously. However, no one in THIS timeline KNOWS that the timeline is “wrong” except Guinan, who spends a lot of the episode with this face:
Props to Whoopi for that excellent brow furrow when she doesn’t even have any brows
When the Enterprise-C came through the rift, they were in the middle of a firefight with some Romulans, trying to defend a Klingon outpost. In the “real” timeline, they were successful and the Federation gained the trust of the Klingon Empire. In this “fake” timeline, the Enterprise-C failed to protect the outpost and the war has been going on for like 20 years. Which is why the Federation folks all have weapon belts, I guess? And apparently everyone gets to wear their weapon belts HOWEVER THEY WANT:
It’s how I express myself
If you were wondering what a crossing guard vest as designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier would look like, WONDER NO LONGER.
The crew of OUR Enterprise boards the OLD Enterprise and collects their captain, who’s been injured. She and her crew are all dressed in the old Federation uniforms, i.e., the ones from the TOS movies, which is fun!
Even though I’m injured, my hair looks GREAT
For comparison purposes, here’s Kirk et al in the old unis:
Yep, pretty good
I actually really love these uniforms because I ALWAYS love an asymmetrical front opening.
Also on board from the Old Enterprise is Lieutenant Shooter McGavin:
He eats pieces of shit for breakfast
He’s also clad in the old uniform, and if I’m not mistaken, they tried to give him a slightly “old-fashioned” hair look here to really hammer home the idea that he’s from “20 years ago.” His captain’s hair, however, is having a volume-off with Dr. Crusher:
I’m the goddamn captain and my hair looks great
You step to this wig, you best not miss
You’ll notice here that Crusher’s blue coat is not at all different in the alternate timeline because it is the platonic ideal of medical personnel wear.
Some more fighting happens and eventually Guinan convinces Captain Picard that in order to restore the “real” timeline, the crew of the Old Enterprise must go back and sacrifice themselves to save the Klingon outpost. They take it…really well? The captain is like “mmmm…okay cool.”
Tasha Yar has really been hitting it off with Shooter McGavin, so as he prepares to return to the Old Enterprise, we get this look:
Romance means boring a hole in each others’ faces with your eyes
Her hair looks really good and slick in this episode. Also note that Shooter has the Federation-standard pointy sideburns.
Aw jeez, just kiss!!
It’s fine if you’re straight but why do you have to throw it in my face like that
Remember when I said earlier that the SHADOW SHOT was real popular in this ep? Now we get a scene between Yar and Picard that is like THE MOST DRAMATICALLY LIT SCENE OF ALL TIME:
Chiaroscuro in the house
MY TORTURED MIND
Tasha’s mind is a little bit tortured, though, because Guinan told her SHE WAS DEAD IN REAL LIFE. Like she just straight up told her that they were never supposed to meet and that Tasha died a meaningless death. Way harsh, Guinan!!!
We also get a taste of an old timey non-officer look when Shooter returns to the Old Enterprise:
Why does this look like a photo from a community theater production of The Wrath of Khan
It’s a flipsy-flopsy of what we have going on with the TNG uniforms, with the shoulder panel a horrible beige and the rest of the uniform in red. I know you all come here for the incisive costume analysis, so: I hate it. That beige looks stupid.
Meanwhile, shit is going wrong everywhere because the Klingons are attacking both Enterprises. Geordi gets stuck in a weird rave:
New York’s hottest club is: Warp Core
And then RIKER DIES:
Some excellent wound makeup work here
But don’t worry, because Old Enterprise goes into the rift and restores history to normal:
Byeeeeeeeeeee
Back in regular Enterprise land, Guinan and Geordi enjoy a drink in Ten-Forward, served by one of the waitstaff because I guess Guinan is on a break??
I call this look The Poodle
And because Guinan met Yar for the first time in the alternate timeline, she asks Geordi to tell her about her. Aw.
Here’s the flyer Geordi made to publicize his club:
Only Data showed up
And here, since you never know when you might need it:
as soon as i attempted to do so i immediately forgot how to draw a circle.
Analysis suggests that the way you draw a simple circle is linked to geography and cultural upbringing, deep-rooted in hundreds of years of written language, and significant in developmental psychology and trends in education today. Fascinating article!
It’s probably when Paul F. Tompkins (as Dean Rosedragon) sits in a dimly lit office room, backed by blaring thrash metal, that Season 3 of Seeso’s “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” officially transcends parody.
Like a frog that doesn’t realize it’s being boiled as the water gets warmer, “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” started as a simple skewering of Bravo and HGTV reality shows but gradually become its own beast, just by stepping up the absurdity. The result is a show that’s learned enough about its main characters to know when to throw everything out of the window.
Platinum Realty is home to some of the unluckiest and barely-qualified Realtors in the greater Los Angeles area and this season those employees wander even further out into the weird zone. While Season 1 focused on who would be made partner, and Season 2 was about their quest for a “Diamond Dealmaker Award” (culminating in a ceremony that weirdly predicted the ending of this year’s Oscars ceremony five months before it happened), the primary objective of Season 3 — ostensibly a group contest to write part of Dean’s memoirs — shuffles the deck even more than usual.
Baxter and Andrew, attached-at-the-hip besties who ended last season at odds with each other, spend most of this season tackling their own real estate showings. (But not before one insane faux-brawl that lets Ryan Gaul and Drew Tarver really flex their physical comedy muscles.) Pure-intentioned and mostly oblivious Glenn opens the season in a condition slightly different than usual, something the season delights in returning to even as he’s back to normal.
Every time the show returns to the Platinum Realty offices, the show really finds its center. Breaking out from the conference room, the workplace antics that pepper this season — chaotic fire drills and upstart southern rock bands are just the beginning — show that “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” doesn’t need to riff on real estate deals to be funny.
When the show does venture out into a seemingly endless list of multimillion dollar L.A. mansions, it meets a murderer’s row of comedy guest stars in the foyer. (One particular highlight from this season is a nameless, tracksuit-clad group of potential buyers, led by Lauren Lapkus and Mary Holland.) The idea that this string of clients show up to buy a house and are never seen or heard from again really lets “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” give these one-off guests free rein. It’s a consequence-free cycle that lets the show keep its framework while churning on toward the next in the line of filthy-rich eccentrics.
And it’s still having fun with toying with the TV reality show basics: the obvious, recorded-after-the-fact confessional recaps, the neverending cymbal-scrape sound effects and the EDM-adjacent theme song that still continues to be a chair-dancing earworm. But the commission numbers that used to be a main motivation is now essentially a button to each sale, letting these characters’ quirks take center stage.
After 18 episodes and a largely unchanged central cast, the comedians at the heart of the show have a firm grasp on what makes these bumbling real estate agents tick. Mandell Maughan has fully tapped into Victoria’s simmering ruthless ambition. Chelsea Leight-Leigh (the best name-based joke in a show that thrives on them) has become the office’s conscience, giving Tawny Newsome a chance to play her with an extra level of incredulousness. Eugene Cordero as Dean’s biological son DJ brings a nice offsetting wrinkle to the endless chaos around the Platinum offices.
As the figurative (and occasionally literal) heart of this show, Paul F. Tompkins continues to mold Dean Rosedragon into the craziest boss on the internet, fleshing out his impossibly wild backstory with the confidence of someone who may or may not have been the inspiration for “Eyes Wide Shut.” And even though this season features the Platinum head honcho out in Beverly Hills more often than usual, Dean at the office, with his giant ego and enormous cash reserve, has been the show’s true north. (Tompkins and Cordero manage to turn the process of recording an outgoing voicemail message into an instant-classic improv moment that might be the best thing the show has ever done.)
“Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” has always succeeded in taking the unrestrained id of reality show ridiculousness and paring it down into a recognizable package. When the third season ends on a surprisingly poignant note, it’s another example of the show continuing to test what it can get away with. After this eight-episode batch, there’s still a clear path for “Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” to continue outbidding itself. With Seeso downsizing its business model, let’s hope this show can find a new home.
Grade: B+
“Bajillion Dollar Propertie$” Season 3 is now available on Seeso.
In the latest episode of Bon Appétit Magazine's "Kids Try" series, a panel of kid taste testers share their thoughts on popular party snacks from the 1920s to today, including clams casino, dates stuffed with cream cheese, baked bean quickies, swedish meatballs, cocktail franks, cheese fondue, Jell-O pudding pops, hummus, and more.
1. NYC
2. LA
3. Chicago
4. Houston
5. Phoenix
6. Philadelphia
7. San Antonio
8. San Diego
9. Dallas
10. San Jose
I dunno, San Antonio at #7 really threw me for a loop. Bigger than Dallas? Bigger than San Francisco (by more than 600,000 people)? Of course, when metropolitan areas are taken into account, the picture changes. The San Antonio area drops to #30 while the Bay Area hits #5.
When I was a kid, the list looked a little different…LA had not yet passed Chicago for #2 and Texas had only two cities in the top 10 (and no Austin creepin’ in 11th place):
1. New York
2. Chicago
3. Los Angeles
4. Philadelphia
5. Houston
6. Detroit
7. Dallas
8. San Diego
9. Phoenix
10. Baltimore
That list still carries more weight in my brain than the current ranking. The facts you learn in school influence how you view your country. And some of those facts, dubbed mesofacts by Sam Arbesman, change slowly, so slowly that you’re tricked into thinking they haven’t changed at all. The average age of the US Senate right now is 62. The version of the population list that many Senators learned in school was probably from the 1950 census (or perhaps the 1960 one) and our current President, at 70 years of age, was possibly taught the list from the 1940 census. The entries on those older lists look much more like the industrial America celebrated by truck and beer commercials and represented by classic baseball and football teams — the America that is to be made great again: Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh.
A lot of women have taken major workwear inspiration from Robin Wright’s character in Netflix’s series, House of Cards — so today we thought we’d take a deep dive on how to get Claire Underwood’s style.
(Psst: curious for more workwear inspiration from TV, film, and beyond? Check out our look at Selina Meyer’s style secrets (from Veep).)
To me, the scene that says everything about Claire Underwood is in Season 4, when she comes home from her trip abroad to find her husband recovering from surgery — instead of putting on something comfortable and climbing into a bed to sleep, she doesn’t unbutton or unfasten a single thing, sits down at the settee at the end of the bed, and falls asleep, 4″ heels still on. Girlfriend is BUTTONED UP, and comfortable that way. She is extraordinarily disciplined, as evidenced also by her fit physique (she runs through graveyards, of course) and extremely tailored clothes. I’ve always found her sideswept short hair hard to believe for her character — it would drive me batty to have hair in my face all day — but perhaps the costumer wanted to get as far away as possible from Princess Buttercup waves.
How to Get Claire Underwood Style: Wear Black & White
Claire sticks to the basics and wears a lot of black and white.
Workwear Inspiration from Claire Underwood: Pick Classic Skirt Suits
Claire favors classic skirt suits in colors like gray and black. While many of her dresses are crew necks, you see more V-neck looks with the suits.
Claire in House of Cards Style: Choose Interesting Seaming Instead of Jewelry
In general, she wears almost NO jewelry, instead going for interesting seaming or buttons (so many shiny gold buttons in the latest season!) for effect. The three images above show her preference for crewnecks — but note that diamond-effect made by the first and third dresses; it’s a very flattering thing the costume designers choose for Robin Wright’s body type.
Claire Underwood Style Trick: Go Military
Now, full disclosure: I haven’t watched all of Season 5 yet, but I zoomed through Netflix to take some screenshots of this season’s outfits. Without giving away too much plot, let’s just say that a lot of her outfits, to me, look like they’ve got a military look — shiny buttons, epaulets, olive/khaki colors, and more. (I think that blue dress with the buttons is hideous (first picture above), but that’s me.) (Ha, and I wrote this before the NYT had similar thoughts this weekend.)
Dress Like Claire: Go Wild With a Wide Neckline
The most skin we really see from Claire Underwood is when she opts for a wide neckline, such as in some of the looks above. Again, her lack of jewelry is interesting — I think the pearls in the first picture are the most I’ve seen her wear.
Claire Underwood’s Style Secret: The Cropped Jacket
I was… intrigued to notice that Claire has worn a LOT of cropped jackets over the years. I suspect this is the costume designer trying to either a) accent how fit Robin Wright is or b) give her a bit more of a waist, since her body type seems to be more “straight” — but it’s interesting to note since I feel like cropped jackets are a bit uncommon elsewhere. (For those of you who hate shrugs for work: What are your thoughts on the cropped jacket look?)
Ladies, what workwear inspiration do you draw from Claire Underwood in House of Cards? Have you been inspired to try to get Claire Underwood style? Which of these style tricks do you already do?
How to Get Claire Underwood’s Wardrobe
It really isn’t very hard to get Claire Underwood’s wardrobe look — but these few dresses and blazers out on the market now seemed particularly Claire-like.
– This Twitter account keeps making me laugh. I want to hug the person that is the Photoshop wizzard behind it all.
– Change may be inevitable. But our relationship to change can be better or worse. We can use change well or we can be baffled and distressed by change. We can grow or diminish. This essay explores the four key problems that can occur around change – and what we can do about them.
– Here’s your chance to give a 7 minute talk at the August CreativeMornings in NYC. Apply by June 20th.
I’m in management for a Fortune 1000 company. I have been a manager for just over a year, and I am hoping to get some advice on a situation I am having with one of my employees. Michelle (not her real name) has worked here for almost a year. This is her first job after college and her second job ever. There are no issues with the quality of her work, but there is something that I think is an issue — but I am not sure if I should bring it up with her or not.
Michelle makes drastic changes to her appearance, and these changes always happen during the work day. Due to the nature of the work, most employees in my section (including Michelle) are exempt and lunches are generally longer than an hour. Over her lunch, she will drastically change her hair, clothing, and makeup.
For example: On a given day, she has long blonde hair, almost no makeup, and is wearing a gray suit. After lunch, she returns with black hair that’s ear-length on one side and chin-length on the other, with noticeable makeup and a black suit. Or she has shoulder-length curly hair that she is wearing down and she comes back with straight hair that is a different color, in an up-do and with an undercut. Since she started working here, at least once a month she comes back from her lunch wearing drastically different clothes, shoes, makeup, and nails and she has radically changed her hair (color and length) over her lunch half a dozen times.
I don’t know if I should say anything because as her older, male boss I don’t want to seem like I am appearance policing, and also because she is always within the norm for the dress code/appearance within our office and industry (professional clothes, hair only dyed natural colors). However, I feel like her doing this in the middle of the work day is hurting her professional credibility. There was one time when we gave a presentation for both internal and external people and Michelle was present because she had assisted with the preparation. After we broke for lunch, she returned with darker hair, bangs, and completely different clothes. Many people at the presentation thought she was a different person at first. Another time she returned to a meeting with shorter hair, longer nails, and different clothes, and it was the same thing.
Michelle does not have a car and take public transit. There is a large mall right by our office. I haven’t said anything to her directly, but I have heard her telling others she prefers to get her hair and nails done on her breaks because the mall is so convenient and she doesn’t have to do it after work or on weekends. She doesn’t carry a purse or backpack, so when she shows up with different clothes and without her old ones, people do notice. She says she puts her old clothes in a donation bin at the mall and has told people she will buy things at the thrift store near her home for the purpose of wearing to work on days when she is going to buy new stuff at the mall. Sometimes she goes to the mall or surfs the internet just to scope out clothes so she knows what she is going to buy when she actually goes shopping.
Is this something I should be speaking to her about? If so, how do I do it so as to not to make it about her appearance but rather how it affects her professionalism and how people perceive her, even there are no problems with her work and she is making all these changes on her lunch and not when she is expected to be working?
Michelle sounds kind of awesome.
I can see why it feels a little off to you though — I suspect it’s rooted in feeling like part of professionalism is presenting yourself in a way where the attention is on your work rather than on your clothes, hair, nails, or so forth. And it must be hard not to focus on those things when she’s coming in with one set of clothes/hair/nails and then dramatically changing them halfway through the day.
That said … is it really impacting the way she’s perceived? There are some offices where this would come across as being overly focused on appearance in a way that would read as not-serious. But those are probably a minority of offices rather than a majority. If yours is one of them, it would be a kindness to let her know that, so that she can decide if she wants to alter what she’s doing. Hell, there are even some offices where it would be considered enough of a distraction that you could feasibly ask her to rein it in somewhat.
But for the majority of offices, I tend to think it’s not that big of a deal. At most, I’d worry that it will become the thing Michelle is known for rather than her work — but if her work is excellent and people know that, it’s more likely to be seen as an interesting quirk rather than her defining quality.
That said, I do think it’s reasonable to ask her to avoid drastic mid-day appearance changes when she’s helping with a presentation — since that’s more likely to be a distraction. When you’re helping with a presentation, it’s generally best to fade into the background, not to do things that will call attention to your appearance. So in the same way that you might ask her to dress particularly professionally on those days, it would be fine to ask her not to make major mid-day appearance shifts on those days too.
But beyond that? Unless you see real evidence that it’s impacting how seriously people take her — or unless you know your office culture well enough to know that it’s going to — I’d let it go. It’s okay for people to have unusual traits or eccentricities or so forth — and giving people room for that can make you a more interesting and appealing workplace.
so glad I found this site - one of my favorite places on the web.
Ask a Manager turned 10 yesterday.
(Side note: This is crazy to me. I started the column on a whim — literally, just thought it would be something fun to do while my then-boyfriend was out and I was bored — and assumed it would attract three readers and one of them would be me.)
I have no idea how one commemorates a 10th anniversary of something that has brought me as much joy and satisfaction as this site has, so I won’t even try.
Instead, I present to you the Ask a Manager Hall of Fame, in no particular order.
A lot of women have taken major workwear inspiration from Robin Wright’s character in Netflix’s series, House of Cards — so today we thought we’d take a deep dive on how to get Claire Underwood’s style.
