Clarification: LCDs

[Mr. Pedantic]

I've been reading about LCDs. I find that a lot of websites tend to be kind of confusing in their explanations, so I wanted someone here who knows this field to clarify or confirm I've got the right picture, so to speak.

So liquid crystals have light-refractory properties. In a liquid crystal display the LC is sandwiched between two indium tin oxide electrodes, painted in such a way that the inner electrode encourages a crystal orientation perpendicular to that of the outer crystal. In other words, looking into the display the outer electrode orientation might be horizontal and the inner orientation might be vertical, or vice versa. In between the crystals form a more or less smooth transition between the two perpendicular axes (comparison would be the DNA double helix, I guess).

On either side of the LC-electrode combo there is a polarizing filter, oriented parallel to its respective electrode. This means that in this state the vertical components of any light would be eliminated by the outer electrode. Light passes through the liquid crystal, which twists the light 90 degrees, so that there is only (more or less) a vertical component, which passes through the second polarizer, bounces off a reflective surface, passes through the second polarizer, gets twisted by the liquid crystal, and passes through the first polarizer. The result is reflected light.

When a current is applied to the electrodes, the crystals shift so they are aligned perpendicular to the electrodes. In this orientation no twisting of light occurs so the cell appears black.

I'm guessing that this is called a twisted nematic because the crystals are twisted when there's no current and they form a nematic when there is. Or is it because it's a nematic even when there's no current, it just twists through the depth of the LC?

So when a TN is used for a monitor, I'm guessing that each cell corresponds to a colour component of a pixel. This means that light comes from the back of the display and has to get out when power is applied; I'm guessing that to do this all you need to do is make the orientation of the polarizing filters parallel to each other instead of perpendicular, right?

And in an IPS cell, the initial setup is like the TN cell, except when the power is applied the crystals untwist while staying in the plane of the electrode. I'm unsure about how this results in wider viewing angles though.

Thanks for the help