Changes For Three TV Dads: Dexter Morgan, Don Draper, & Ted Mosby

There’s major changes this season for three TV dads: Dexter Morgan, Donald Draper, and Ted Mosby. Some hints as to how Rita’s murder has affected Dexter can be seen in the trailer above which was first released at San Diego Comic Con. Warning, the trailer and this post contain spoilers.

The upcoming season takes place immediately after the events of the last season. Rita’s murder is bound to affect how Dexter takes action against other murderers and there are reports that Julie Benz  will be appearing next season. I don’t know if this will be in flash backs, scenes of a dead Rita talking with Dexter as Dexter speaks with his dead father, or if she will be used in some other way.

Dexter Rita's Funeral

There are reports that there will not be a new romantic interest for Dexter so soon after Rita’s death. There will also not be a single major villain for Dexter to cope with and instead there will be a number of story lines. Nobody could compete with John Lithgow’s portrayal of Trinity, and it might be best to not even try to compete with that this soon.

As can be seen in the trailer, Quinn is suspicious of Dexter, and he gets Deb to look at him differently. In the books Deb found out about Dexter’s secret hobby. Dexter seems to confess to Rita’s murder in the trailer, but from the rest of the information available this is clearly misleading. Rumor also has it that the police have another suspect in mind–Kyle Butler!

Don Draper Mad Men

The new season of Mad Men has already begun (full episode on line here), and the story has jumped ahead one year after Don has both lost Betty and is involved in starting up a new advertising company. Personally Don is doing far worse than I’d have predicted. Instead of having lots of girl friends a year later, he is resorting to  hiring a prostitute. Perhaps Don is capable of easily getting involved in purely sexual affairs while married, but is having difficulty getting involved in a true relationship now that he is single. It probably has not helped Don’s ego that he lost Betty after she found out about his unimpressive background.

In some ways the prostitute seemed more normal than Don as she spoke of having to leave early to spend Thanksgiving with her family. Even stranger, Don was paying her to hit him. Maybe he’d be happier with Madeline Zima’s character on Californication who is into such things.

Instead of renting a fancy bachelor pad in midtown, Don has moved to an apartment Greenwich Village which does not appear to be of the quality that would be expected from a successful advertising executive. Perhaps it is where Don thinks that Dick Whitman belongs. Professionally Don seemed down at the start but has made a come back by the end of the episode, as seen with the differences between his two interviews.

Beyond the changes to Don, the episode had Peggy and Joey repeatedly referring to John and Marsha. I previously discussed the meaning of these scenes here.

Rachel Bilson with Ted Mosley on How I Met Your Mother

Ted Mosley will be moving towards the eventual conclusion of series on How I Met Your Mother. Rachel Bilson, who we know is the room mate of the eventual mother of Ted’s children, will be returning but I suspect we will not actually see the room mate until a later date. We should be moving towards finding out her eventual identity, and reportedly next season puts an end to the game of having every female Ted meets be a suspect for his eventual wife.

Things might also not be entirely over for Ted and Robin. I even wonder at times if they are playing an elaborate game with the viewers. The first episode was written to give the impression that Robin was Ted’s eventual wife, but the episode concluded with Ted telling his children that it was the story of how he met “Aunt Robin.” Since then to recurring question is whether every girl he meets is the actual one with Robin supposedly not being fated to be Ted’s wife.

How I Met Your Mother

Ted did date Robin for a while and the two eventually broke up. I’ve wondered, however, if Robin doesn’t eventually become Ted’s wife in that future we’ve seen very limited scenes of. There are several ways, such as death or divorce, in which Ted could have been married to someone else, have the children, and still wind up married to Robin at the time Ted is talking to  his kids. An even more bizarre situation would be if Robin is the mother but some reason is developed to have them claim that someone else is the mother.

A recurring story line will involve having Ted working on a project involving the Goliath National Bank building. A new character will be opposing the development. Is there any doubt that if a new female character is brought in to be Ted’s new nemesis he will also try to date her?

In other developments during the season, Barney meets his father–and it is not Bob Barker. Marshall and Lily proceed with plans to have a child, but there will be complications along the way.

Senate Votes To Double Fines On Marijuana Brownies

Congress has been near paralyzed by the manner in which the Republicans have made 60 the new 50 and have filibustered virtually everything proposed by Democrats. There’s still one thing which was able to pass by unanimous consent–a bill to double the penalties for marijuana brownies. Talking Points Memo reports:

If you thought that the Republican filibuster of the tax-cutting small business bill meant that the Senate didn’t have a particularly productive day Thusday, you’d be wrong. In fact, the Senate authorized the issuance of a conservation stamp, created Polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Week, gave a little money to the Patent and Trademark office and, oh yeah, doubled the penalties for making pot brownies. Yes, the same week that Congress significantly reduced the racially-charged crack-powder sentencing disparity, they also voted to create one between pot brownies and dime bags.

The Senate voted to pass by unanimous consent (that it, without a roll call vote) S. 258, known colloquially as the Saving Kids From Dangerous Drugs Act of 2010, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and co-sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Charles Grassley (R-IA). While the bill is intended to keep drug dealers from cutting their product with sweets in order to make them more marketable to children, it applies to any drug mixed with with something that modifies its flavor — as making pot brownies does — if the person making the brownies “intends” to give it to someone under 18. At that point, the person making the pot brownies would be subject to twice the normal penalty of any person caught distributing weed.

Michael Whitney of Firedoglake believes that Diane Feinstein’s real goal is to stop medical marijuana. Jacob Sullum at Reason thinks this is giving Feinstein too much credit, not believing that Feinstein put that much thought into the bill she sponsored.

Opposition To Health Care Reform Drops

The good news in the July Kaiser Health Tracking poll is that fewer people oppose health care reform. This declined fro 41 percent to 35 percent. The bad news is that support only increased from 48 percent to 50 percent. Even worse, a sizable number of seniors still believe that the plan includes death panels:

“A year after the town meeting wars of last summer, a striking 36% of seniors said that the law ‘allowed a government panel to make decisions about end of life care for people on Medicare’, and another 17% said they didn’t know,” Kaiser Family Foundation chief executive Drew Altman wrote.

It is amazing how much damage a crazy lady in Alaska writing on Facebook can do.

Just Get The Damn Warrant

Unfortunately people in the executive branch, regardless of party, will always tend to try to grab more power and make things easier for them. A White House proposal is a bad idea, both in terms of showing respect for civil liberties and in trying to show a significant difference between themselves and their predecessors. We already saw far too much of compromising on civil liberties under the guise of fighting terrorism during the Bush years.  The Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.

The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user’s browser history. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.

But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.

Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau’s authority. “It’ll be faster and easier to get the data,” said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. “And for some Internet providers, it’ll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL.”

Many Internet service providers have resisted the government’s demands to turn over electronic records, arguing that surveillance law as written does not allow them to do so, industry lawyers say. One senior administration government official, who would discuss the proposed change only on condition of anonymity, countered that “most” Internet or e-mail providers do turn over such data.

To critics, the move is another example of an administration retreating from campaign pledges to enhance civil liberties in relation to national security. The proposal is “incredibly bold, given the amount of electronic data the government is already getting,” said Michelle Richardson, American Civil Liberties Union legislative counsel.

The critics say its effect would be to greatly expand the amount and type of personal data the government can obtain without a court order. “You’re bringing a big category of data — records reflecting who someone is communicating with in the digital world, Web browsing history and potentially location information — outside of judicial review,” said Michael Sussmann, a Justice Department lawyer under President Bill Clinton who now represents Internet and other firms.

Health Care Reform Benefits Medicare Patients, Despite Right Wing Distortions

During the health care debate we saw a strange phenomenon–Republicans who would destroy Medicare if given a chance were attacking the Democratic health care plan for allegedly cutting Medicare. It certainly was amusing to see the Republicans position themselves as the great defender against Medicare cuts. We’ll be sure to remind of this should they get back into office and try to cut Medicare.

Actually the cuts weren’t to benefits received by Medicare beneficiaries. The cuts were to reduce extra payments to Medicare Advantage plans. These are private plans which provide the same health care to the same types of people as in Medicare, except that it costs around 13 percent more to care for them in the private plans than the government plans. The major difference is that the private plans pocket a huge chunk of this money to increase profits.

January Angeles, a Policy Analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, explains this again, pointing out how the Democratic changes to Medicare will actually strengthen Medicare and are a good thing for Medicare patients:

As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, some seniors who receive Medicare coverage through private “Medicare Advantage” insurance companies rather than traditional Medicare are concerned about the health reform law’s impact on their benefits.  They shouldn’t be worried: health reform will strengthen Medicare while protecting all beneficiaries.

Contrary to critics’ claims, the new law won’t cut the benefits that Medicare Advantage plans are required to cover.  The plans will still have to provide overall coverage that’s at least as good as traditional Medicare.  And they’ll no longer be able to charge more than traditional Medicare for certain critical services, like chemotherapy.

Instead, health reform will take strong steps to eliminate waste in Medicare Advantage.  While private insurers were supposedly brought into Medicare to reduce costs, they receive 9 to 13 percent more per enrollee than traditional fee-for-service Medicare.  These overpayments cost taxpayers $44 billion between 2004 and 2009.

A large share of the overpayments goes to padding insurers’ profits rather than providing additional benefits to enrollees.  Among one type of Medicare Advantage plan — private fee-for-service plans — less than a fourth of overpayments go toward additional benefits on average, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Congress’ expert advisory body on Medicare payment policy.

In fact, these plans are so overpaid that there’s no pressure on them to be more efficient and find better ways of providing care. The health reform law will phase down these overpayments starting in 2012 and use some of the savings to provide bonus payments to plans that provide higher-quality care.

Reducing the overpayments will also help enrollees by making Medicare’s long-term finances more stable.  Along with other Medicare changes in the new law, it will extend the life of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund by 12 years and keep beneficiary premiums lower.

Medicare Advantage plans need to start competing based on quality and efficiency, and that’s exactly what the health reform law encourages them to do.

This act to make Medicare more stable isn’t the only benefit to Medicare beneficiaries. Another key benefit is phasing out the donut hole which requires them to pay for their prescriptions after benefits have received a certain level for the year.

Not surprisingly when dealing with real world legislation, any legislation is going to have both good and bad aspects. One feature I do not like is the way the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) was set up in the final legislation. While there is some benefit to partially taking health care funding decisions out of the political process, the Senate bill gave the IPAB more power than I think was wise. Senate Republicans are now proposing legislation to repeal the board. Of course if they ever object to spending cuts recommended by the IPAB they could vote against them (with far more than a majority vote needed to override their recommendations). It will be interesting to see if Republicans actually vote against recommended spending cuts.

David Brooks Almost Becomes A Democrat

David Brooks says he was a liberal Democrat when he was younger, and I think that deep down he wants to be one now but something is holding him back. In today’s column he briefly pretends to be a Democrat again and likes some of what he sees:

I feel beleaguered because the political winds are blowing so ferociously against “my” party. But I feel satisfied because the Democrats have overseen a bunch of programs that, while unappreciated now, are probably going to do a lot of good in the long run.

For example, everybody now hates the bank bailouts and the stress tests. But, the fact is, these are some of the most successful programs in recent memory. They stabilized the financial system without costing much money. The auto bailout was criticized at the time, but it’s looking pretty good now that General Motors is recovering.

He found more to like about how Barack Obama is governing:

What can my party do to avoid the big government tag that always leads to catastrophe? Then I remember President Obama’s vow to move us beyond the stale old debates. Maybe he couldn’t really do that in the first phase of his presidency when he was busy responding to the economic crisis, but perhaps he can do it now in the second phase.

It occurs to me that the Obama administration has done a number of (widely neglected) things that scramble the conventional categories and that are good policy besides. The administration has championed some potentially revolutionary education reforms. It has significantly increased investments in basic research. It has promoted energy innovation and helped entrepreneurs find new battery technologies. It has invested in infrastructure — not only roads and bridges, but also information-age infrastructure like the broadband spectrum.

These accomplishments aren’t big government versus small government; they’re using government to help set a context for private sector risk-taking and community initiative. They cut through the culture war that is now brewing between the Obama administration and the business community. They also address the core anxiety now afflicting the public. It’s not only short-term unemployment that bothers people. What really scares people is the sense that we’re frittering away our wealth. Americans fear we’re a nation in decline

Brooks unfortunately took what could have been one of his best columns in a long time and ruined it by thinking in terms of right wing talking points. His fear when acting as if he was a Democrat became: “What can my party do to avoid the big government tag that always leads to catastrophe?” His hope:

Eventually, I see a party breaking out of old stereotypes, appealing to entrepreneurs and suburbanites again, and I start feeling good about the future. Then I take off the magic green jacket and return to my old center-right self. A chill sweeps over me: Gosh, what if the Democrats really did change in that way?

Brooks managed in the same column to show the benefits of Obama’s economic plans while also fearing they will tagged as big government. He worried about having “the same old tax debate” while ignoring the fact that Obama included some of the biggest tax cuts in history in his stimulus package.

The difference between the parties is that the Democrats are trying to solve today’s problems, even if not always in the right way, while Republicans have taken an extremist and inflexible position. They say no to virtually everything, and would never think of joining Brooks in finding things to praise in some of Obama’s policies.

Republicans certainly would not echo Brooks and admit that the differences generally are not big government versus small government. It was clear to most people, even if not David Brooks, that in 2008 the Democrats were the party which was “breaking out of old stereotypes, appealing to entrepreneurs and suburbanites again.”

Republicans will label the Democrats as the big government party, regardless of whether it is true. Never mind how much government grew under the Republicans, or that it is Republican policies which wind up infringing upon the rights of individuals far more than those of Democrats. Even the major “big government” program passed by the Democrats, health care reform, is made up of ideas initially proposed by Republicans.

If David Brooks wants to move beyond stereotypes and really wants to pursue pragmatic solutions to today’s problems there really is only one choice among the major political parties. If he could overcome his biases he would even realize that even for someone who calls himself center-right, at present the positions of the  Democrats are far closer to the views of any sane people than the extremism which now dominates the Republican Party.

Independents Prefer Obama’s Economic Policies over Bush’s & Turned Off By Palin and Other Conservatives

Despite the conventional wisdom coming from the supposedly “liberal media” that Obama and the Democrats are in huge trouble, there is more scattered good news. First a survey from The National Journal found that Americans prefer Obama’s economic policies over those of George Bush:

Despite a tough year for President Obama, the public believes his administration’s policies offer a better chance at improving the economy over the policies of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. According to the latest Society for Human Resource Management/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll, conducted with the Pew Research Center, 46 percent said Obama’s path would do more to improve economic conditions in the next few years, compared to 29 percent who said policies put in place by Bush would.

And regarding the most significant domestic policy of Bush’s time in office, his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the public is offering a split verdict on what course lawmakers should take as they all expire at the end of the year.

Needless to say, there was considerable partisan bias in the findings, but independents did show a strong preference for Obama’s policies over Bush’s:

The number of independents who said neither administration’s policies would help was higher than the overall sample, 27 percent. Forty-three percent of independents favored Obama’s policies, while 20 percent favored Bush’s.

The preference of many independents for Democrats when it boils down to a clear choice between Democrats and Republicans is being seen in California. Public Policy Polling is finding that independents are turning against Carly Fiorina. As a result, Barbara Boxer has extended her lead to 49-40 in a race which previously appeared competitive.

In New Hampshire, an endorsement from Sarah Palin has turned out to harm a Republican candidate. Public Policy Polling found:

Kelly Ayotte’s seen her appeal to moderate voters crumble in the wake of her endorsement by Sarah Palin and her lead over Paul Hodes has shrunk to its lowest level of any public polling in 2010- she has a 45-42 advantage over him, down from 47-40 in an April PPP poll…

The Palin endorsement may well be playing a role in this. 51% of voters in the state say they’re less likely to back a Palin endorsed candidate to only 26% who say that support would make them more inclined to vote for someone. Among moderates that widens to 65% who say a Palin endorsement would turn them off to 14% who it would make more supportive.

WikiLeaks Reports on Afghanistan Might Not Be The Pentagon Papers, But They Might Influence Policy

So far it appears that the release of reports on Afghanistan by WikiLeaks has no smoking guns and contains nothing which will harm U.S. national security or harm the troops. A comparison to the Pentagon Papers was inevitable, even if there are major differences here. The leaked papers do not demonstrate dishonesty on the part of either George Bush or Barack Obama regarding Afghanistan comparable to what was revealed about American leaders regarding Vietnam. The Obama administration might complain about the leaks (as we would expect any administration to) but we are not going to see the type of battle to suppress them which Richard Nixon engaged in over the Pentagon Papers.

This does not mean that the leaks will not have an effect. The publicity might still revive the debate over why we are in Afghanistan and whether it serves U.S. interests to remain. John Kerry, a leading critic of the Vietnam war (as well as an opponent of the Iraq war before it began, despite the attempt of 2004 primary opponents to distort his record), had this comment:

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) released the following statement this evening in response to the New York Times story on the leak of classified documents concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.”

I doubt we will see open battle between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Obama administration as there was been Democrats and the Nixon administration in the later days of the Vietnam war, although the committee might raise some uncomfortable questions for the administration. I suspect it is more likely that if Kerry turns against this war he might have some success in making Obama reconsider.

John and Marsha

For those wondering about Peggy and Joey repeatedly referring to John and Marsha on the season premiere of Mad Men, the audio of Stan Freberg’s 1951 recording is above. The reason for this is still not clear. Literature professor Toril Moi offered some ideas:

I’m also interested in why Peggy and her assistant Joey keep enacting Stan Freberg’s 1951 satirical novelty hit “John and Marsha” (widely available on YouTube.) Why do the characters obsess about a 1951 hit in the 1960s? Is it a sly hint that Freberg may be one of the models for Don Draper’s character? For Freberg wasn’t just a radio personality, he is also considered to be one of the fathers of really creative advertising. In the late 1950s, Freberg introduced humor and satire in advertising, creating famous TV campaigns for Heinz soups and Sunsweet pitted prunes, among others. There are parallels here to Don Draper’s success with the cinematic plot-like structure of his floor cleaner campaign which he watches alone in his gloomy apartment.

To get back to Peggy and her male assistant. Playing at “John and Marsha” with her underling is surely not a particularly bossy move. It may be another indication that she doesn’t actually fear losing authority: she is confident that she has earned her place. But how many career women in the 1960s had male assistants?

Update: More on the season premiere of Mad Men has been posted here.

SciFi Weekend: The Big Bang–Doctor Who Reboots The Entire Universe

Amy in the Pandorica, Doctor Who: The Big Bang

It feels like we have learned all the secrets of the universe in the last year or so. We know all about the Cylon final five. We saw how the scenario from the Epitaph One episode of Dollhouse played out in Epitaph Two. We know why the passengers of Oceanic 815 were brought to the island and what the sideways stories meant. We know a little more about FlashForward is about, but might never get a full explanation unless someone else picks up the show. Now we know who was in the Pandorica, and how The Doctor got out. This contains major spoilers in case anyone who plans to has not done so yet.

Like The Pandorica Opens, The Big Bang began with a spectacular introductory segment. The Pandorica was opened in modern times (in an alternative time line where the stars had gone out) but we were surprised to find Amy Pond, and not the Doctor inside. Amy was released by a younger version of herself from the time line without stars (although Amy believed in them as she believed in the Doctor in the original time line). Then things really got complicated.

The Doctor had long ago been released from The Pandorica by Rory and placed a dying Amy inside to help her recover. The manner in which the Doctor escaped is rather controversial, even without consideration of whether or not fez hats are cool. The Doctor simply went back in time to ask Rory to let him out. Since Rory had let him out, he was free in the future to go back in time to ask Rory to let him out. Fortunately for the Doctor the universe has been greatly condensed, allowing the Vortex Manipulator to work much better than in the full universe.

Sure, this is cheating. Time travel stories often cheat. The question is whether the viewer comes out feeling cheated or intrigued by such solutions. When Steven Moffat used a similar device in Blink there were no complaints. A big difference here is that we didn’t know until late in Blink that the timey wimey stuf was a device being used by The Doctor to get out of a predicament. It is a different matter when the season-ending two parter uses a cliff hanger with the Doctor being locked in an inescapable prison and then uses such a trick to get out so easily.

Moffat handled selling this to the audience in a different way than in Blink. A series of quick and amusing moves through time, along with the fez hat, made the sequence so much fun that it is easy to allow Moffat to get away with this. The problem remains that repeated use of such plot devices means that the Doctor is never really in danger as a future version can always come to save him. Making matters worse, that sonic screwdriver is turning into a magic wand which can do almost everything. It might become necessary to retire the sonic screwdriver, similar to how it became necessary to remove K-9 from the original series after he became too powerful.

Escaping from The Pandorica was a trivial manner compared to the real dilemma. The universe was coming to and end. Fortunately, due to proximity to the crack throughout her life, Amy’s subconscious was filled with all the information about the universe, allowing the universe to be recreated after the Tardis created a second big bang. Sure it is hard to believe, but is this really any worse than having the Tardis tow the earth through like in a Russel T. Davies season finale?

Along the way we saw the Doctor’s life be rewound. This included returning to the events of Flesh and Stone, showing that the scene with the Doctor dressed differently was intentional as opposed to a continuity error. Actually Moffat has largely saved himself from being accused of any continuity errors with previous shows by rebooting the entire universe in this manner. If Amy could bring back Rory and her parents in the new universe, other changes could also be present. I am assuming here that the Rory who Amy married is a recreation of the human Rory and not the plastic one.

Amy and Rory Pond Wedding

Amy ultimately was able to bring back the Doctor as the Tardis turned out to be something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue at her wedding. Despite all the implausible aspects of the episode I have accepted, I cannot resist one nitpick on the wedding scene. If, in this recreated universe, Amy had no memory of the Doctor, she wouldn’t have spent her life speaking of what others thought was her imaginary friend. Therefore when she first mentioned wanting him at the wedding, others would not have responded by questioning Amy bringing him up again as presumably she had no reason to do so yet in this time line.

Many questions remain. River Song remains as big a mystery as she was going into the season, with warnings that the relationship between her and the Doctor might change for the worse in their next meeting. Could this be because she kills the Doctor (or gives the appearance of doing so), leading to her imprisonment? We don’t know who was behind the events of the season finale, including the explosion of the Tardis, the destruction of all the stars, and the warning that “silence will fall.” I suspect that the story of who was behind all of this, along with River Song’s story, is being continued into next season.

Amy Pond Rory Wedding Doctor Who The Big Bang

One change from the episode which definitely will carry into the Christmas special and next season is that for the first time ever the Doctor will have a married couple as his companions. The BBC has posted this wedding album, with some examples on this page. The Christmas special is rumored to include their honeymoon, monsters, and a new take on A Christmas Carol, and guest stars including Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) and Katherine Jenkins. Steven Moffat had these comments on the special:

Oh, we’re going for broke with this one. It’s all your favorite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And … oh, you’ll see. I’ve honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbors loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I’m fairly sure they did it ironically!”

Between the other news which got squeezed out from Doctor Who dominating SciFi Weekend and all the reports out of San Diego Comic-Con, I will post more science fiction news without waiting for next weekend’s installment. This includes updates on the upcoming season of Torchwood.