That is the best thing that has ever.

Also, I'm pissed at myself for completely forgetting to bring up PAPRIKA as an example of a fascinating direction you could take a story about invading peoples' dreams. Like most anime, it goes batshit off the rails toward the end, but well worth a viewing.

Dude, get health insurance. I was the same way for a long time, and it was only by sheer happenstance that I finally got insured -- after four years without -- only a month before my gallbladder went haywire. When I had my surgery to remove it, they discovered it had ruptured and if I'd come in a week or two later it would have been life-threatening. And if I hadn't had insurance, I probably wouldn't have gone in at all because I would have been afraid to deal with the cost of care.

So yeah, I most likely would have died last year without insurance and it was basically just lucky coincidence that I had it when I did. Get it soon.

Holy shit, what happened?

I definitely agree. I thought even as we were watching, "if this were an anime, it would've been huge." I also agree that this is basically identical to PAN'S LABYRINTH, with many of the same problems (i.e. the fantasy sequences have no stakes or relation to the main plot), and it just didn't manage to fool as many people into thinking it's deep.

Personally, if I find a show to be interesting in its premise, I'm willing to give it a season to figure itself out. Season 2 is put up or shut up time, for me.

I think it's not very much different from the Terminator/Terminator 2 thing. Terminator 2 is awesome, but to get there and have it make much sense you need to see Terminator 1, which isn't that great but it'll be worth it. In a TV season, there may be awesome stuff coming later but it requires the laying of groundwork. "Give it a season" means, I think, give it the groundwork as a time investment, and ideally it'll pay off later. And also, of course, the show needs to proceed to get more interesting even within the season or it's not a good sign.

A lot of shows never make it past the pilot. If a show makes it to the stage that it was picked up for a full run AND multiple people are telling me that it's a worthwhile time investment, then that doesn't guarantee anything obviously but I feel like it's only fair to give it a shot even if the pilot is only meh.

And yeah, I can't think of any show I loved right out of the gate with the pilot.

That's what pretty much all film theory looks like to me.