On Liaison, when one of the characters starts speaking French, the English subtitle will very often say, “[Speaking English]” which is surprisingly distracting.

Netflix does a much better job with subtitles IMO.

Doesn’t help with Apple shows, but for Netflix, there is a browser extension you can use to get two subtitle languages at once. I wish this was a built-in feature on all the streaming services.

I’m curious what leads you to the conclusion that things used to be different. I don’t remember a time when cancellations were rare.

Here’s one analysis that squares with how I remember things. This is from over 10 years ago: TV Success Rate: 65% Of New Shows Will Be Canceled (& Why It Matters)

Tokyo Vice isn't really a cop show, if that helps. The protagonist does interact with cops sometimes but it's not the main focus.

Not sure if this counts, but Stargate SG-1 retconned a bunch of elements from the original movie to good effect.

> people did not VERIFY the different contracts to make sure the were doing the CORRECT thing. It needs code review.

Professional programmers often suck at code review and miss glaring bugs even when they're reviewing actual code. What were the chances of this ever leading to bug-free contracts?

> You can study animal intelligence, but it’s complicated.

I’ve read that a recurring problem with research into reptile intelligence has been that the experiments are often based on experiments on mammal intelligence and don’t take into account biological differences that cause reptiles to respond differently. The example I’ve seen mentioned is that ambient temperature affects reptile behavior more (and differently) than it affects mammal behavior, meaning an intelligence test given in a cool air-conditioned room might underestimate a lizard’s intelligence level.