At Cal's party, Max is presenting his new "project" to a rapt audience -- it looks like each and every guest has gathered to listen attentively, which I'm sure is exactly what happens all the time at producer parties when some first-timer starts ranting about his latest idea. "An alien, stranded on Earth, tries to find his way back home," says Max, as the camera pans past a table littered with Emmys. Points for subliminal suggestiveness -- I'm sure Emmy voters will awake tomorrow with a strange compulsion to bestow awards on a scrappy little show called Roswell. "Like ET?" breathes Blonde Boobies. Sort of, except this one sucks. "Yes," replies Max, "but think Tom Cruise." Okay, this is about the twentieth reference to Tom Cruise since I started watching last week. What gives? If being in-the-know is the goal, why are the writers being so lame and obvious? Oh, I forgot. Because they're lame and obvious. Brian opines that it would be more like Starman, demonstrating his familiarity with the classics, and Cal says that Starman didn't open, leaning over to light a cigar in a candle. While doing this, he sticks his pinky finger into the flame (he's holding it out like some British matron drinking tea) and doesn't flinch or burn. Max stops pitching to watch Cal, which should inspire the other people in the room to follow his gaze toward Cal's miraculous finger. Even if Max knows why Cal isn't burning, you'd think someone else might point out the fact that a very powerful producer is risking injury by sticking his hand into the fire. But they don't, of course. Maybe Cal is such an asshole that everyone secretly hopes he'll burst into flames.

Max insists that the story gets better, and barrels ahead. Seems that our alien hero hunts down another alien, also trapped on Earth, who's the only one who can help our hero on his quest. "How?" asks a fellow named Scott; Max answers that there's a ship (Max flashes a big Tom Cruise smile here, and Cal giggles), and this alien might know where to find it. This other alien is a "big Hollywood producer," and suddenly everyone's eyes light up, because now Max is talking about them! Cal loves it but, heating up this polite, subtext-laden war of words, says he doesn't like "feel-good science fiction flicks" -- they're only interesting if somebody dies. Max makes a stymied face, and shuts up.