Fifth Gear, now in its tenth season, is a television show aired in the UK about cars. As a distant cousin and direct competitor to Top Gear, Fifth Gear has always had a bit of difficulty scurrying out from underneath the shadow of the BBC goliath. Presenters Tiff Needell and Vicki Butler-Henderson were exiles from Top Gear’s previous incarnation, and though it doesn’t have the same boys-in-the-bar feel and outrageous road tests of the new Top Gear, Fifth Gear has always managed to set itself somewhat apart by taking the best aspects of the old Top Gear. The show’s more serious streak and racing pedigree meant it could put together more authoritative road tests without giving in to the faster-bigger-more mentality of Top Gear.

In recent years, the show seemed to be getting better; though the move to a full-hour format two years ago had some stumbles, Fifth Gear’s ninth season was one of its best yet. The magic formula of entertaining presenters and informative car reviews was finally coming together. Compared to the most recent season of Top Gear, which had indulged a bit too much in painfully scripted “wacky hijinks,” it even seemed that Fifth Gear might be able to compete on its own terms if it just continued to hammer away and continue to work on the formula: stop trying to get the presenters to enter race series, stop forcing the presenters to engage in witty banter around the conference table, and keep putting Tom Ford in as many cars as you can.

Well, the tenth season of Fifth Gear started last week. The verdict: it’s all gone horribly, dismally wrong.

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Fans unhappy with the new demo for Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X have found a bizarre—and totally awesome—way of expressing their disappointment and rage.

In this corner, from 1998, the ludicrously dressed Smashing Pumpkins:

And in this corner, from 2005, the ludicrously dressed Ladytron:

Completely random find on an internet forum I frequent: an FTP site with screencaps from Clarissa Explains It All, better known as “that show Melissa Joan Hart had before Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.” Why am I bringing up teen situation comedies from the early 90s? Because one of the screencaps is a bit weird:

Yes, she’s lying on a box that says “baby prison.” This is perhaps not so strange; it’s probably some sort of in-joke or set design prank. The weird thing, though, is if you actually try to search for clarissa “baby prison” on Google, all you get is the aforementioned FTP site and someone’s blog, completely unrelated.

Let’s run the tape back, shall we? There appear to be no sites on the internet that mention the baby prison thing except for that one FTP site with the Clarissa caps. This is the internet, where every possible subculture has ample representation. There are sites devoted to the possibly fake fetish of women crushing small pests with high-heeled shoes. How is there not a Clarissa fan site that has wondered about the “baby prison” thing? There are only two answers:

1. The “baby prison” picture is a fake. But all the other screencaps seem legit and don’t seem to feature any other weird details.
2. There simply isn’t enough of a fanbase on the internet. For whatever reason, early and mid-90s phenomena are poorly covered by the all-consuming force that is rabid internet fandom. In other words, anything that came just prior to and during the early stages of widespread internet use is basically lost in the ether.

Everyone loves a mystery. Even ones about early-90s after-school teen comedies on Nickelodeon.

WHY. THE. FUCK. WOULD. YOU. FORCE. VIEWERS. TO. WATCH. THREE. TRAILERS. EVERY. TIME. THEY. PLAY. A. DVD.

You can’t skip the trailers, you can’t fast-forward through them, and if you try either it kicks you all the way back to the first trailer so you can watch them all AGAIN. Fuck you, Alliance Atlantis. I can’t believe I got suckered into the 2/$30 deal at HMV so I could take home this piece of shit.