Small talk with Bill Ellis has evolved over the pre-Rivera days. Its purpose seems to revolve around pointless chatter. Why does Rivera find this at all interesting? Is it only for a lame attempt at humor?  

While we ponder that psychological dead end, we should probably expect to see the rest of the week filled by Mark, Ellis, and maybe Cherry, discussing Mark’s next assignment. Curiously, we have seen very little of those various magazine editors that Ellis once told Mark he would be working with from now on. Did Rivera lose interest in continuing this feature? Frankly, I thought that they would provide new approaches to Mark’s assignments, due to different needs of the various magazines.

Sometimes it just seems as if every innovation and feature that helped make Rivera’s take on Mark Trail at all interesting and different has been, or is being, abandoned.