I'm also still enjoying the show very much, but I agree about the procedural aspect and hope that this won't end up being a "baddie of the week" kind of thing.  Some of that may be fine but I want to see a longer term story, too.  Buffy, Angel, and Fringe, to name a few, were able to strike a good balance, so I'm hoping this can, too.  So far I'm liking this show the best of the 3 new shows I'm watching (The Blacklist: promising but I may grow tired of the format, though I am adoring James Spader, The Hostages: a hot mess but I'm sticking it out for now).

I've been watching it on Fox.com via their full episode streaming.  Aspects of it still seem a little clunky (the subject of the most recent episode, I won't spoil it but the "secret" between the sisters that I thought was very obvious, and also very understandable, seemed a little forced, though well executed).  I really like both of the leads, and I think their charisma will help to keep us interested.

I loved the "What did they call you for short, Icky?" joke 

I wonder if Ichabod is ever going to get a new jacket

Oh, congrats to Lucy!  And it's great that she (and the show, to even be nominated) is a hit among teens, since that seems to be such an important demographic for movies and TV shows these days (us old fuddy-duddies and our tastes are less important  )  As for Jonny, there's always next year!  Elementary is probably my favorite broadcast TV show right now, and I hope it has a long and successful run!

Hope you're having a wonderful day, Midnite!

Gerard, you bring up many great points!  The Lone Ranger was a Disney movie, so I think they were trying to appeal to families with kids- I think they wanted to do for westerns what they had been able to do with pirates- take a theme that had not been successful recently and make it appealing again.  But they didn't succeed this time.  I saw TLR 3 times in theaters, and the audiences, small though they were, seemed to enjoy it very much... but the audiences were way older than what I think they wanted the target audience to be.  Lots of folks my age (50's) and lots of folks post-retirement age.  Also, while the film has a lot of comedy in it, and you can see that from the trailer, what the trailer doesn't show you is that there are some dark and violent parts, as well.  That's fine for someone like me, an adult who's not too squeamish, but did they show a little too much violence for kids?  (The movie was rated PG-13, as were all the Pirates films).  Finally, the film is long (2.5 hr.) and that was my personal biggest fault with it- it's probably hard to sit through for a younger kid.  So in essence- maybe they were targeting the wrong audience?  Younger kids may just not "get" the western, and they have no knowledge of the history of westerns or of The Lone Ranger.  Whereas older folks will like it because they remember The Lone Ranger or because they grew up with a lot of westerns in the 60's and 70's (just like targeting an older audience might've worked better for DS).

As for Depp playing "the same character", that, to me, is a lazy statement (no offense to your bro-in-law, dom   It's very easy and simplistic to say "oh, he's putting on makeup again, it must be the same character" but Tonto couldn't have been more different than Jack Sparrow, IMHO.  Here I blame the trailer, which showed more of the slapstick moments and made the characters seem more similar than they really are.  But even if they did have some similar characteristics, nobody says that George Clooney or Tom Cruise are "playing the same character", and they really ARE, most of the time!

But Tonto was a very troubled and sad character, and his makeup and the crow on his head were all quite serious and important to his backstory. His character was also much quieter and contemplative than Jack Sparrow. That wasn't really conveyed very well in the trailer, nor did most of the critics mention that in their slams- everyone was focused on the makeup and the "silly" crow.  And this is why I totally get Johnny's statement that the reviews were written 8 months in advance- people saw that first production still of Johnny in his makeup, and they made their mind up.  I also think a very similar thing happened when people saw the first photo of Barnabas- even DS fans were horrified by the makeup.  While as a longtime fan of Burton/Depp even I have started getting a little tired of Johnny looking pale in every Burton film, I thought that DS was the one film in which being pale made sense!   But people have become fatigued of that look, and I think the reaction against it has become knee-jerk, which is kind of sad.  I do think that what you said, dom, about Johnny returning to his previous box-office poison status, is a good point.  As a fan I never cared about his films making billions of dollars or breaking box office records, but I do want people to keep an open mind about him and I hope that in the future he can get out of this current sentiment against him.

Gerard, about the issue of horror films not doing well at the box office, I think that was me more than MB- he just agreed with me   I did hear good things about The Conjuring but had no idea it was doing THAT well, but I'm thrilled to hear it!  I did not see it yet, but I am always happy when a film like this does well.  But I do think that horror films in general don't usually do that well, and examples like The Conjuring and The Cabin In The Woods (I think that one did very well??) always make me happy because they make me hope that folks will give the genre more of a chance.

Yayyy, congrats, dom!!   

There is a Huffington Post piece (actually, it's dated yesterday but it was only just posted to one of the Depp forums I visit), talking about a topic that we've discussed many, many times- the fact that the media is often too quick to call a film a "bomb" when it actually made a decent amount at the box office! 

Happily, DS is listed as #3, and Depp's other often maligned film, The Tourist, comes in at #1 on their list 

Box Office 'Bombs' That Grossed More Money Than You Realized

Well, apparently Depp has one less film in his pipeline -

Johnny Depp Exits Whitey Bulger Biopic Over Salary Dispute

- which could mean that Phibes might move up. Well, if it is indeed a real project in his pipeline...

This was quite a shock!  Just a couple of days ago, the director or someone with Black Mass confirmed that filming was starting on Aug. 5.  Guess they're going to have to scramble now to get someone else if they want to start that soon!  I guess I shouldn't have sounded so sure of myself when I posted here the other day

But there is no way they could start Phibes by August, at least not with Burton.  He's about to start his movie Big Eyes (edited to add- Big Eyes will apparently start filming in July).  And just before the Black Mass news was news that the directors for Pirates 5 had signed on, and that they expect filming of that to start by January.  So Phibes would have to be behind that, unless someone pulls some miracle