I'll admit that laptops can be helpful…I'm using one right now to use some mobile Internet while I'm waiting for the Comcast guy to show up with my connection. But for actual work, a desktop is better, and something like an iPad or a Kindle Fire is better for mobile use. I don't know anyone with a laptop who didn't have it come up with some crippling problem within 18 months of purchase. Meanwhile, desktops last for years, let you easily expand to bigger monitors when you feel like, are easily upgradable, and, especially if you use a Mac, have great resale value. I sold my last Mini for 75% of my purchase price, a year after I bought it.

87,000 views and counting.

I think you guys might have something here.

That should be *whom* I would not have met.

English major.

Yeah, I think those videos basically speak for themselves.

…which sounds like pretty much every scene from Terra Nova that doesn't take place in the colony, and there's only a couple of those per episode.

People seem to be dancing around my main premise: if quality TV can be made on lower budgets, why aren't the networks doing it? Why are they continuing to throw massive amounts of cash at shows that don't grab enough eyeballs to make it worth it and end up canceling them after a season?

Films I understand. You're trying to convince someone to leave their house, go to a theater, and spend hard-earned cash on a ticket. You want to put as much money on-screen as physically possible. And in most cases, it pays off. But I don't see that sort of connection on TV. The most expensive shows are not typically the 'best' or even the most popular ones—especially when you take star salary out of the equation. How much did Seinfeld actually cost to shoot? Would everyone have done the show for half the salary if the budgets weren't there?

This is what doesn't make much sense to me. Is Terra Nova really that much more expensive to produce than Game of Thrones? Is Playboy Club more expensive than Walking Dead?

And if so, why don't the networks just slash budgets across the board, since it's obviously a simple thing to produce quality shows on a budget only supported by a couple million people.

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2011/ … e-2012.ars

Areola, Teague. An areola.

This is the part where I feel sorry for Cloe.

Don't try to out-pedant me, Stokes. My point was that saying 'down another' was misleading. As you state, the story behind Terra Nova's ratings is too complex for your original statement to be considered truth.

A more correct statement might be 'Terra Nova is down from the high ratings of last week's meteor episode, showing that it may have been a fluke, and not presage a bright future'.

At least audience members should have the decency to assume that there's some things they missed and not ask rhetorical questions.

It's like walking into the theater halfway into Star Wars and asking loudly "why's Luke so mad at the Empire? It's not like they killed his family!"

Yeah, this is possibly my favorite commentary you guys have ever done.