I have two suggestions, though I don’t know how viable they are: one is to require commenters to register and log in, and another is to moderate comments before publishing for the older articles. To my knowledge it won’t take a lot of time to sift the actual posts from the spam, and while discussion may be slower-moving, it has to be better than nothing. =]

As for the topics of the site itself, this may sound a little odd but I’ll take learning in any form I can get it, and so even with the humor mixed into everything, I actually attempt to learns t3h smarts from what is written. I read everything (that wouldn’t spoil me for not having seen it yet anyhow) on the site. I’ve actually gone back and read the old posts to I THINK nearly the beginning, though it’s a bit hard to do that. (An archives section, perhaps by month/catagory/etc would be nice. Hitting the older button over and over gets a bit tedious.)
Uhm,… damnit getting distracted,…. OH, yes, I’d say my favorite articles are those which through popular culture actually if not teach me much, inspire me to look into things I didn’t know about before, or had forgotten to try to internet learn about. (One day I’ll figure out that college thing and will be happy as pixie stix covered weasels on a whiskey binge.)
… I hope that made sense, my brain is doing it’s fuzzy, hyper, easily distracted thing today and,…
wait,.. I was totally watching Heroes and got distracted from that to do this,….

::cough:: In summary, give the t-shirts/site itself an icon of some sort to identify with, archives for the backlogs, continue to inspire me to stuff my brain with information I have yet to get from schooling, and just plain keep doing what you’re already doing. You guys make my day all the time.
OH and, maybe a forum would be nice. Every conversation I’ve had through the threads has been great, but have awkwardly long response times and then disappear as the topics are updated and the thread I’m on sinks farther and farther down the page. Also it would be nice to be able to communicate with you guys outside of just commenting on your threads, so a forum would be a yes. (though trolls,… god trolls,… why are there trolls? WHY?)

…. GAH I’m really going back to Heroes now. Watch.
::whoosh::

Think of X-Files. Everyone remembers the smoking man, right? But how many of the monster-of-the-week episodes really stick out for you? (OK, there was this one where an evil computer started killing people. That was fun. But not particularly supernatural.)

One of the problems with Dollhouse is that it didn’t solve this problem. It seemed like the Dushku-of-the-week episodes had very, very little to do with the larger mythology.

Burn Notice, IMO, nails it. There’s enough serialized drama to keep you interested—I’m often annoyed that it’s only a touch here and there, usu. at the beginning and end of episodes, but I concede that they do leave me wanting more, which is probably good for keeping me hooked—and the mission of the week, though it doesn’t bear on the mythology plot-wise, seems at least to take place in the same universe and is often clever and entertaining.

This is, I think, the right balance, and as more and more shows move into dozen-episode seasons (as opposed to the 22-25 that used to be the norm) with longer story arcs on the model of The Sopranos, is an object lesson at least for people interested in the narratology of prime time television.

Also, Dan the Ostrimu should guest post. Overthinking Craigslist! :D

Thank you for giving me someplace SMART to come.

There will never be enough overthinking in the world. Thanks for contributing your time and brainpower to the cause.

As a Sociology student, I really enjoyed the articles on feminism and Marxism, they were a really fun companion to an occasionally dry subject.

I also enjoyed the BTTF theme week – in fact that’s how I originally got to OTI. It’d be cool to have another one of those theme weeks on a major franchise that probably doesn’t deserve the scrutiny…. for example Star Wars probably has tons of potential to be overthought.

Anyway, I watched the Coco Goodbye Show, and I was struck by how, at the very end, Conan had to put aside his differences with the network whose name will never be mentioned again (unless it’s the Thursday night comedy block) and admit that his was a glorious unpredictable ride, one that might be ending under less-than-stellar circumstances but which was worth all of it (the pain and the bullshit, plus the hilarious moments). In the end, it’s not that Leno is the bad guy here, it’s the network; they mismanaged the situation by not being able to choose between the two (the seeds for this were sown five years ago, when this Faustian agreement to give Conan the Tonight Show but somehow keep Jay on the air was struck). Nothing but cunts indeed, Mr. Sandler…

It’s like you read our minds. :) Stay logged on; we’ll be with you very soon.