#this came up in an episode of miss Marple

[leupagus]

Guys I Might Have Three Nickels

I've been watching "Agatha Christie's Marple" for the past few days and it's pretty good! Marple adaptations all tend to have a better caliber of actors than a lot of bog-standard mystery shows (looking at you, "Madame Blanc"), and while Joan Hickson's Marple is right up there with David Suchet's Poirot and Jeremy Brett's Holmes as "literally can never be beaten, these are the best anyone's done it," both Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie do a fantastic job as Miss Marple.

Then I got to "The Secret of Chimneys," Season 5 episode 2

and guys

Guys

So there's a murder of a viscount, like there is, and this detective Finch rolls up and immediately spots Miss Marple (in her NIGHTIE! standing at the window like some kind of hussy, honestly Jane) and doffs his cap to her with that little smile that makes you go, "huh."

At this point I've watched a couple dozen Miss Marple episodes where she goes through detectives like wildfire and this guy's supposed to be a "*guru*" so I'm expecting some battle of the egos or something and like, Stephen Dillane is great! But bleh, I might have to skip this one.

Then my dude asks Miss Marple to SHOW HIM THE BODY, with a pleased little smile at her as she goes "uhhhhhhhh but my knitting?" (He even does that thing where you use someone's honorific and wait for them to give you their name, and that's when I was like "ohhh this bitch knows exactly who she is.") What follows is what I can only describe as a meet-cute in the secret passageway where the viscount was shot (and in fact the body is STILL THERE) and where Miss Marple literally asks the police equivalent of "is there a Mrs Finch" and he looks at her like this:

At which point I'm like "ohhh my dude not only knows who she is, he deliberately came here without a sergeant so he could draft her," and sure enough he just starts...handing her pieces of evidence like "hey babe can you decipher this note for me thanks love you" while Miss Marple is like, "this approval and camaraderie coming from a cop... not sure if want."

Next is a series of romantic strolls through the gardens while they discuss murder, during which Finch reveals his undying love I mean his research into Miss Marple and the "dozen case files" of her previous exploits that he's collected like some deranged fanboy. Miss Marple responds to this by BLUSHING LIKE A SCHOOLGIRL and stammering about how pish tosh it's nothing really, and I couldn't find a gif of it but he's staring at her like this:

Yeah I bet u r tempted

He also makes a half-hearted attempt at negging her "amateur sleuth" status, only to then immediately assure her that he makes like, so much money being a big fancy detective and can keep her in all the yarn and garden seed she could ever desire.

There's also a late-night tryst at the compost pile right after Finch has been (mildly) poisoned and Miss Marple is like "men are so weak" as she roots through the garbage for clues.

Not how he wanted their first date to go D:

The next morning there's another murder which: bummer, but also allows the two of them to read love letters together and for Finch to give Miss Marple the following look as she explains how secret assignations among lovers can "quicken the ardor":

Miss Marple then goes onto solve the murders and btw hands over the priceless diamond that's been literally missing for two literal decades that she found in her spare time. The entire scene features Finch looking at her like this:

After the dust settles, Finch and Miss Marple have a lovely moment where he calls himself "another one of your casualties," then super casually mentions that he's probably going to have to go on assignment to use the diamond in a daring international espionage case and I can't decide if he's asking Miss Marple to go with him or simply trying to show her that he is cool and smart and would make an excellent wife, but either way the episode ends with her turning him down and Jane, we need to talk about your priorities.

Anyway I've already written 2K about the subsequent 10-year epistolary romance these two have following this episode because I make poor choices.

[itsawritblr]

Birthday Week Random Shit Queue.

SPOILER for Columbo: Negative Reaction, season 4, episode 2.

I'm a murder mystery/detective series addict, so I've seen a lot of "clever" endings that weren't really.

This is one of the very best ways I've ever seen the detective catch the murderer. It incorporates Columbo manipulating the murderer into believing he's incompetent, which makes the murderer so cocky he has to prove his superior intelligence.

The trap uses a specific technology, which required specialized knowledge, which van Dyke's character of course has, and which Columbo knows he has.

It also shows just how fucking brilliant Columbo is. He uses knowledge of the tech which he only recently gained -- flipping negatives -- and does it incorrectly, so van Dyke will hang himself to prove Columbo's "mistake."

And I love how it shows the men with him, who've been a part of the set-up, respect him. I'm particularly annoyed with a series when the person who's solved uncountable murders is held in contempt by the police. "Well, yes, Father Brown has solved 103 murders. But he's still a busy-body, interfering Bible-thumper!" "So what if Miss Jane Marple is why we've caught 200 murderers? She's an old woman!" They've even done it in Columbo, with his superiors and others making derogatory snips about him.

The best part of this scene is the very end, when, with his back to us, Columbo starts pulling on his coat. He pauses, evidently looking at the blown-up photo. He slumps onto the table. We don't know what he's feeling or thinking. Exhaustion after a long, difficult case? Allowing himself to fully realize just how close he came to not proving van Dyke is the killer? Sadness at the death of the woman in the photo? We're left to draw our own conclusion. I love that instead of Columbo proudly walking off, satisfied with a job well done, we see this reaction.

[aporeticelenchus]

I know this is like so annoying but just wanted to pop on and say that I used to listen to the Bibliovore podcast BIBLICALLY, listen and relisten to episodes in high school, when they provided a much-welcome distraction from the gym. I feel like y’all really helped inspire a love of discussing books and having fun with that in me, and now I get to do that every day at my job, working in publishing. Thank you, hope you’re doing well <3

Oh my gosh, this message is SO SWEET and I just realized that I

a. got it in February

b. Thought to myself "I should sit down and write a reply about how moved I am"

c. Immediately came down with an incredibly nasty bout of the flu for several weeks and FORGOT I HADN'T RESPONDED.

Anon, this is so so lovely and I'm delighted that you're still enjoying books and, I hope, living your best life. I also hope that you get this response! I'm going to forward your message to Kate and I'll update if she responds (I simply cannot risk leaving posting for later and having my brain delete the message responding task. again.).

To answer your question, I'm doing great. There's never enough time for all the books I want to read, but that's just the human condition. Last year I read all of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Miss Marple books, and in hopes of a similar period mystery hit I just picked up the first Lord Peter Wimsey book. Wish me luck!

[teachingmycattoread]

Things We've Yelled About This Episode #3.14

The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (any page references are to the Reader's Digest edition, which is the only physical copy we have in the house)

Does the dog die (website)

Scooby Doo

The Hound of the Baskervilles wikipedia article

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)

Basil Rathbone (imdb)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Doctor Who (1963-1989, 2005-?)

Stranger Things (2016-?)

"Dr Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered:

'Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!'" p. 153, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Looking into the camera like you're on The Office (meme)

The Locked Tomb series, Tamsyn Muir

Sherlock (2010-2017)

Sherlock is Garbage and Here's Why, hbomberguy (youtube)

Moon's haunted (meme)

"One of Sherlock Holmes’s defects—if, indeed, one may call it a defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances. The result, however, was very trying for those who were acting as his agents and assistants. " p. 273, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Conan Doyle's belief in fairies (wiki)

Grimspound, Dartmoor (wiki)

Beowulf (our episode here)

Yeth-hound (wiki)

Buckfastleigh (wiki)

Bond Boys/Girls (wiki)

Piers Morgan

"I would have got away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids" (wiki)

a surprise tool that will help us later (meme)

Spiritualism (wiki)

Harry Houdini is an actual wizard (this post, wiki)

A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (our episode here)

Miss Marple; Agatha Christie

Miss Marple parlour scene (this trope)

Found footage (wiki)

Dracula, Bram Stoker (our episodes here and here)

As far as I can tell, the G. K. Chesterton Afterword for the Reader's Digest edition of A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles is an amalgamation of the essay "A Defence of Detective Stories" from his book The Defendant, and an essay simply called "Sherlock Holmes" that can be found in G. K. Chesterton: An Anthology, ed. D. B. Wyndham Lewis.

Steven Moffat (imdb)

Mark Gatiss (imdb)

Jeremy Brett (imdb)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988)

Ian Richardson (imdb)

Donald Churchill (imdb)

Brian Blessed (imdb)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1981) (youtube)

Elementary (2012-2019)

Elementary Season 2 Episode 18, "The Hound of the Cancer Cells"; Season 4 Episode 16, "Hounded"

Buzzfeed Unsolved (youtube)

Hamlet, William Shakespeare (our episode here)

Benoit Blanc; Knives Out (2019), The Glass Onion (2022)

Eugenics (wiki)

Phrenology (wiki)

" 'It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.' " p. 142, The Hound of the Baskervilles

Knives Out (2019)

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, William Shakespeare; Act I Scene 5

Benny Hill theme tune (youtube)

Benoit Blanc in the no-smoking zone (youtube)

Rian Johnson (imdb)

Leverage (2008-2012)

This moment from Leverage Season 5 Episode 10, "The Frame Up Job"

" 'Funny weather we're having, isn't it?' he said, lamely.

'Is it?' said Crowley. 'I honestly hadn't noticed.' And he reversed back down the country lane in his burning car.'

'That's probably because your car is on fire," said R. P. Tyler, sharply." p.338, Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (2006 paperback)

Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (our episode here)

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (our episode here)

Cat Rating: 7/10

What Else Are We Reading?

The Locked Tomb series, Tamsyn Muir

Wheel of Time (2021-?)

Bernadette Banner on Wheel of Time (youtube)

Anno Dracula, Kim Newman (our episode here)

Next Time on Teaching My Cat To Read

Q&A

[aturinfortheworse]

I've been thinking about how, when you're little, you're surrounded by adults who adore you, who you're never going to remember.

I don't mean like your parents and stuff, but like — I work in after school care, and I'm forever meeting five and six year olds who seem like the most incredible people on earth. Kids who painstakingly explain the rules of handball, kids who ask me to help them colour in, kids who feel really deeply wounded by a classmate's behaviour, just an endless stream of them.

Or like my friends' kids who I've babysat once or twice. A kid who played with me in a creek, a kid whose mannerisms are etched in my mind. Cousins' babies who I held for a while. Even just stranger's babies in shops who stare at me the way babies do.

One of my best friends has an online friend who's recently had a baby, and he tells me - someone who doesn't know the friend's name even - about that baby having their first bath. Because that's the kind of love and excitement that little children inspire.

None of these children will remember me.

I literally don't have a greater point here, it's just blowing my mind to think about how much love is directed towards people who can't remember any of us. They can maybe, I guess, if everything goes well, remember the feeling of safety that ought to go with that love.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

so, I've noticed that some Discourse™ posts about adult content (and I am including my own in this) tend to have a kind of misery poker element to them. like, "well, when I was your age, I watched videos of people being literally set on fire, and I'm fine, so stop complaining about zutara!" or whatever, which just isn't really a good argument, considering that the response is going to be "no, you're not fine, you think it's okay to have porn of teenage characters on AO3!"

so, I want to tell a story about the opposite of that.

I think I've talked about this before on here, but my parents were extremely careful about the kind of media my siblings and I watched as kids. not for religious reasons; it was for the entirely secular reason of "screentime in general, but especially violent or sexual media of any kind, is bad for children's brains." I exclusively watched PBS (except for the news and Saturday morning cartoons on ABC) until I was eleven or twelve, because stuff like Power Rangers and The Power Puff Girls was too violent.

I started being allowed to branch out into "adult" media because I was considered old enough to self-screen for inappropriate content, and also pre-screen stuff for my younger siblings and, at least one time I remember, someone else's kids. this is why I started being allowed to watch police procedurals: I watched the first ten minutes or so of an episode of Numb3rs (it was Soft Target, I remember the imagery extremely clearly) and was able to convince my mom to let me watch it because a) it wasn't any more violent than Mystery, b) it had math in it and was therefore educational, and c) it came on at 9 PM on Fridays so it wouldn't keep me up too late on a school night.

the problem wasn't that I was incapable of filtering my own media. I was excellent at filtering my own media. the problem was that I was twelve years old and the most graphic thing I'd seen up to that point was Miss Marple, so my filter was wildly miscalibrated.

some things that I considered "inappropriate for children":

The Will Of The Empress by Tamora Pierce, both then and now my favorite author, not because of the two seconds of implied sexual content that flew directly over my head, but because one of the characters discovered she was a lesbian and kissed a girl onscreen a couple of times, and of course gay content meant something was automatically adult.

Eldest by Christopher Paolini, where I somehow completely missed all the nudity except for one scene where a pair of twin elves are described as dancing while naked, which to me made it basically porn.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, because of the scene where the Sheriff of Nottingham speeds through his wedding ceremony as quickly as possible so he can have sex with Maid Marian right there on the floor, not because it's a weirdly graphic almost-rape scene that's played for laughs for some reason, but because it had sex in it!

I think when someone talks about how X Show Is Problematic or Y Ship Is Morally Wrong, the response tends to sound like, "Suck it up and ignore any potential implications or problems it has, you big whiny baby!", which is not my point here.

my point is that when you haven't been exposed to a wide variety of content and/or life experiences, your Media Immune System is going to overreact to stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, is probably not that bad, because it's the first time you are experiencing it. it's also going to underreact to things that are so beyond your frame of reference that you can't even identify them as potential problems. your filter is going to be badly calibrated because you don't know what to calibrate it to.

I don't think being an adult is being able to handle The Most Viscerally Uncomfortable Movie or anything like that. I do think being an adult is, basically, microdosing on Problematic Content™ to expand your boundaries enough to even know what your boundaries are.

but if your response to anything potentially problematic is to completely avoid it because consuming it – or, horror of horrors, enjoying it – somehow taints you as a person, I can guarantee you that your filter is already wildly miscalibrated and you're doing your level best to keep it that way.

[rose-edith]

Again not a prompt Just wondering what have you seen Hugo Speer in outside of Father Brown? And what did you think of his roles/characters? ( I hope this ok just seems rare to find another Hugo Speer fan in the wild 😂 )

He’s a very diverse actor in terms of the roles he portrays!

As you say I’ve seen him in Father Brown and I absolutely adore Inspector Valentine! (But I think that’s fairly obvious by this point!)

I saw him in Midsomer Murders, it’s actually a very good episode! However his character does die a rather…unusual death (it’s the only way to describe it really! It’s well worth a watch!)…I enjoyed the episode very much overall, even if I did find the character death unusual and somewhat gruesome and gnarly to contemplate and consider.

In BBC The Musketeers he played Captain Treville and I LOVE his portrayal of the good Captain! He very much comes across as a man fulfilling a Fatherly type role and he’s just exasperated by the antics of the men under his command. Plus it has to be said Hugo Speer looks absolutely dashing with facial hair and a nice hat! (To be honest I’d love to write some Treville headcanons and I might one day do that!) Hugo’s portrayal of Treville holds a very very special place in my heart, watching The Musketeers for me through some tough times in my life. So I always go back to watch it again and again.

The 1997 (I think it came out in ‘97) film The Full Monty is another absolutely smashing example of his work! It was a long time ago now, but young Hugo Speer is absolutely dashing! I love how in this film he plays a gay character, in Yorkshire, in the 90s, compared to other films of the time it’s actually somewhat of a trailblazer! Obviously in some ways it’s problematic with some change in attitudes that we have today, but in others it’s actually a very progressive film…plus you get to see Hugo and his costars do a stripping routine/wear very little, so it’s well worth a watch!

A much more recent series that I love is London Kills- I’m fairly new to the series but I do love it so far! Definitely worth a watch!

When you’re looking out for Hugo you actually find that he pops up in rather a lot! He’s a very versatile, incredibly good actor! I saw an episode of Miss Marple the other day and I was very pleasantly surprised to see Hugo in it! It’s always like a treat to inadvertently stumble upon his work!

Those are some of my favourite shows and films that I’ve seen Hugo in- of course there are lots more that he’s done, but those are my especial favourites! I do need to catch up on some of his latest works and I absolutely can’t wait for that!

But what about you? What are your favourite works of his?

[toughbookie]

7 Books in 7 Days

I Stumbled across a few YouTube videos about this “7 Books in 7 Days” challenge going on on the internet.

I got curious and after absolutely no research or further preparation, I decided to do that as well; I would have read seven books in a week.

Aaaaand here’s pretty much how it went.

DAY 1: The book I couldn’t find in English

Title: Storia di una balena bianca raccontata da lei stessa

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 107

Rate: 5/5

Having started in the early evening, I had to pick a book that was short enough for me to finish on the same day. The choice fell on this tiny masterpiece by Sepúlveda, whose literature I wasn’t familiar with (boy, will that change during this reading challenge) aside from The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly, read years and years and year and years ago.

What I thought I was going forward was a nice, cute little novel.

I.

Was.

Wrong.

This actually kind of broke me.

Based on the story of Moby Dick - which in turn is based on the true story of the Essex, a whaler that left the island of Nantucket in 1819 only to be destroyed by the giant sperm whale the crew was after to acquire the oil to power lamps… Look, life sucked before we got electricity - this book is narrated by the giant white whale in the flesh. As you might have guessed by now, we’re not talking about the happiest story ever.

What starts as an observation from the young whale’s eyes of the resourcefulness and curiosity of mankind, quickly transforms into a condemnation of its cruelty and disrespect for nature.

Beautifully written, I definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves angst and can speak Italian or Spanish (I couldn’t find an English version).

I really had a good time with it. And also a good cry. I’m fragile.

DAY 2: The book about a murder

Title: The body in the library

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 215

Rate: 4/5

For the second day of this challenge, I’ve decided to throw myself into a novel featuring Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

In this crime novel, the body of a young woman is found in the library of Mr. and Mrs. Bantry’s house. The problem: nobody knows this girl or how she got in there. It’s going to be up to the police and, naturally, to Miss Marple, to find the truth.

I have discovered Agatha Christie only recently but it’s undeniable that she deserves all my love. It’s been fun to read this book and develop theories to find out who the murderer was and how and why they acted. It was like piecing a puzzle together. This is my first reading featuring Miss Marple, and I found her quite impressive. Unlike her “colleague”, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple is not a detective, she’s just people smart, and it’s delightful to follow her around on her adventures.

Unfortunately the finale didn’t satisfy me that much, but it was still pretty good. Definitely recommended.

DAY 3: The long one

Title: The temptation to be happy

Author: Lorenzo Marone

Pages: 268

Rate: 3.5/5

Note: The more I think about this book, the more I feel like it doesn’t fully deserve its 3.5 rating. Consider it as an “almost 4”, please and thank you.

On the third day, I faced the longest book of the ones I had chosen. And, since life happened and I had other things to do around, I risked not finishing it on time (no worries, I managed).

The story is one of a cynical 77 years old widow: Cesare Annunziata. He doesn’t really care much about the people around him, except his daughter and son whom he loves even though of course he doesn’t know how to show it. Up until here, it’s honestly pretty standard and it has its cliches.

Everything changes when Cesare realizes that his new neighbor, Emma, is a victim of domestic abuse and lives in fear of her husband. The old man and the woman form an improbable friendship aaaaand I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, even tho the story is actually quite simple and sometimes predictable.

The best part about this, however, is not the story. The characters are what really brings the book to life, with a perfect balance of goofy and more serious personalities. It’s people we could meet every day, and that’s what really makes it good. Not full of plot twist, but it’s not meant to be.

Reading Lorenzo Marone was a pretty nice way to spend the day.

DAY 4: The other book about the murder

Title: A Caribbean mystery

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 230

Rate: 4/5 

Another day, another Agatha Christie’s novel. In this sunny and colorful environment, new murders have happened and new assassins have to be found.

Miss Marple, on holidays in the Caribbean, is having quite a good time, except not much is going on around here. Lucky for her - and honestly, only for her… I mean, good for you that you have a hobby but you should really not enjoy dead people so much - old Major Palgrave is found dead in his room. What looks like a natural death to most is actually a deeper mystery, and it’s up to Miss Marple to dig up the truth and save the day before the assassin strikes again.

Again, making up theories and analyzing the characters is a lot of fun, and I actually found out who the assassin was, which is pretty rare because I’m dumb at mysteries.

At the end of this book I started to feel a bit tired and I got a bit of a headache. I loved reading it, but with work I never really have the time for long, intensive sessions that go on for multiple days in a row.

Still, the pleasure of reading this book made everything more bearable.

 DAY 5: The big fail

Title: Loving sabotage

Author: Amélie Nothomb

Pages: 62 out of 124

Rate: 1/5

God, I hated this book. Pretentious, boring, just bad. It didn’t even seem like there was a plot or the author was talking about anything in particular, just words put down one after the other without any true purpose.

Really felt like a waste of time. It was awful to get though. So I didn’t. Which, given my holiday was over and I had to go back to work, gave me a bit of a time problem.

DAY 5: Sepúlveda strikes back

Title: Patagonia Express

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 127

Rate: 5/5

To save the day at the last minute, came Luis Sepúlveda with this short account of his travels in Patagonia.

Starting in Spain and exploring the very edge of the world, this collection is filled with wild characters and hilarious episodes that made me enjoy every single page. 

That is, after getting past that one chapter about lamb castration.

That was a weird one.

I’ve never liked this particular literary genre much, but Luis Sepúlveda gives an incredible description of the places he visited, the people he met and their own stories, which are particularly bizarre and told with incredible talent. It’s a pretty short book, so I don’t want to spoil anything, but you get the drill.

Possibly my favorite book out of this challenge, Patagonia Express is a delightful quick escape from the ordinary.

 DAY 6: Guess who’s back

Title: The old man who read love stories

Author: Luis Sepúlveda

Pages: 135

Rate: 3/5

So, Sepúlveda wasn’t originally supposed to stick around for so long, but here we go again.

As for The old man who read love stories, it’s possibly the book I liked the least from Sepúlveda. Which isn’t saying much, I still like his work a lot.

The story is one of old Antonio José Bolívar Proaño, and guess what: he likes to read love stories. 

That makes two of us, buddy.

He’s also an expert of the forest nearby the small town of El Idilio, and forced to hunt down a female of ocelot, along with a group of men from the town.

Through some flashbacks we also find out the story of his life and how he became to know the forest so well. That’s my favorite part of the novel, by the way.

While the book started well, it felt like it got lost somewhere around the second half, which was supposed to be the important, life-lessons-packed part. You know, the part you don’t want to get lost at.

By the last pages I was almost falling asleep, and thinking back a couple of days later I don’t really remember much of the story as a whole.

In total honesty, a lot of it might have been because it was the sixth book in as many days, and my three brain cells had been up to a lot more than they can usually stand. Plus, long work hours got in the way.

DAY 7: Because it’s Christmas

Title: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Author: Agatha Christie

Pages: 209

Rate: 3.5/5

A millionaire asshole. His children and their wives. A nephew and a family friend. A murder on Christmas night.

It would have been offensive to read so much Agatha Christie without any Hercule Poirot, and so here comes my dear detective, ready for the grand finale.

Also, it’s Christmas!! Christmas book!! Christmas spirit!! Quite literally I mean someone got killed -

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is an interesting novel, full of well done characters and mystery. I had a good time reading it, as I always do with this kind of novels.

But I do have to say - it’s probably just me and other readers liked it fine - the finale really ruined it for me. It feels pulled out of nowhere at the last minute, and even though it was certainly a big surprise, it felt added like a second thought just to make an even bigger plot twist than what could have been.

Aside from that, it’s a good book and given the settings I dare say it’s the perfect reading for when it’s cold outside, maybe snowing, and you’re cuddling under a blanket with a nice warm cup of tea.

Or hot chocolate.

Pick your favorite, I won’t judge.

Conclusions:

So finally we’re at the end of this 7 Books in 7 days Challenge. It was very enjoyable, but also towards the end it got pretty draining and sometimes stressful to keep up with the reading schedule while squeezing into the day everything else life throws at you.

Doing that on a week of holidays instead three days, when I could have focused only on the books, it would have probably gone differently, maybe even attempting to tackle longer novels. But you know, we’re talking about reading 1139 pages in a week, which is not something I thought I was capable of doing.

So overall I’m proud of how I did.

Not sure if I’ll repeat this but I’m glad I’ve done it, at least this once, and I honestly recommend it.

Also I don’t want to read anything else until 2022.

Bookie, signing out.

[regressionanxiety]

Dr. No (1964)

I am watching all of the James Bond movies, they are very bad and I love them. These are some of my thoughts as I watch, it’s basically a recap so you know, spoilers...

It starts with some murdering. James Bond is called into work, goes through the waiting room and meets with M.  He gets a new gun because M insists, he’s very proud that under his leadership 00-deaths have gone down. Moneypenny is the best as always.

James Bond arrives in Jamaica and is instantly spotted, of course he is, he is after all, the worst spy. He is looking for a Taxi, but there is a driver waiting for him. Not at all suspicious. Bond makes a phone call. Is being spied on. Then goes to the car, and tells the driver to “just take me for a ride.” I know he’s just stalling, but I will use this line as support for my argument that James Bond is a chaotic bisexual. 

Now Bond points his gun at his driver, questioning him, as he well should. The driver kills himself with cyanide hidden in a cigarette. Bond takes the car and drives to wherever he’s going, dead guy in the back seat. Tells a person when he arrives: “'sergeant, make sure he doesn’t get away.”

He  drinks and puts out snooper traps in his room before he goes out to investigate his case futher. Chatting with some men, being his very best Miss Marple her, non threathening, pleasant conversationalist, even when the topic is grim. He’s directed to a man with a boat, Quarrel, who doesn’t want to talk to Bond and gives him some sass (everyone should give Bond sass) and turns him away. Bond, of course, isn’t deterred and approaches the man just as he’s having a bear. Now he wants to talk, because it’s private. They go into a storage room of some kind. The man has a knife and the guy at the bar (I think), grabs bond from behind. Bond easily throws them both into some neatly stacked (and empty) Red Stripe cartons, product placement or just an attempt to convince us that we’re really in Jamaica right now?

Bond thinks he has the upper hand now, but no! The man from the airport (not the dead driver - this isn’t that kind of movie) with his sunglasses is there, and he has a gun! 

“gently, gently, let’s not get exited” the man says. With those sunglasses it’s hard not to mister. They are talking suits, like real gents. The other guy is CIA, and his name is Felix Leiter. They’re friends now, with drinks (and i’m sure fucking - those sunglasses can only mean one thing). Underneath the mango tree plays.

A woman takes their picture, now they need to get her. They question her a bit, Bond destroys her film, but gives her the camera back, they send her off. She calls them rats and says they’ll be sorry. 

Bond learns about an island Crab Key (?) owned by a Chinese guy, apparently Quarrel and missing guy Strangways went there to collect geological samples. Locals won’t go near it, some have and never came back. They know very little of the man, except that his name is the titular Dr. No.

Bond is exiting a taxi, and the men who dealt with Strangways earlier are back, sneaking around with a gun pointed at Bond, but a car roars by and they miss their chance at an easy assassination.  

Bond is talking to a professor Dent (one of the men he chattet with about Strangways before) about the geological samples from Strangways, he claims to have thrown them away because they weren’t anything. Bond is batting his eyelashes and being his best Miss Marple again. He knows the man is a liar!

Prof. Dent goes straight to a boat to get to Crab Key. These bad guys are really dumb. Anyway; crab key is guarded by men with big guns. 

Very dramatic room. The professor is being berated by a disembodied voice for coming during daylight hours, stricktly forbidden. This still isn’t that kind of movie, but Dr. No is clearly a vampire. There’s a spider in a cage on a table. If guns don’t work on Bond, try spider bites?

Bond is back in his room. Checks his intruder revealers and as expected they have been disturbed. He wants some vodka, throws ice in a glass, opens the bottle, thinks twice, sniffs it, then puts it back down and opens a drawer and pulls out another bottle. Uses this instead. I’m not sure why that bottle would be safer, unopened and sealed somehow?

Ruh roh! Someone feels a little spidey! Bond killed it, his first murder in this film! 

Bond gest a package, finds that the files on Crab Key are missing, sets up a date with a secretary (the stunning miss Taro) he caught eavesdropping. Business as usual. His package was a geiger counter? He checks some samples with his pals Leiter and Quarrel, and yes, they are radioactive. The professor is a liar! Gasp! Who knew! Now they must go to Crab Key, but in the night, after his date. But wait! there’s a note for him at the hotel reception. He calls miss Taro, she wants him to come to her and gives him some directions, a car starts following him, trying to drive him off the road? Oh noe, a crane or something is in the road, what will Bond do? His little car goes under, the bigger car that follows? Not so much, goes over and burns up. 

“How did it happen?” The man who has the crane thing asks. “I think they were on their way to a funeral,” Bond replies.

He finally arrives at Miss Taro’s, shes just out of the shower, drying her hair, while wearing a tight toweldress???? Clearly not expecting him. He kisses her, and she protests. 

The phone rings. She promises to try to keep him there. He really does seem to be a terrible kisser. They fuck. He pretends to want italian food so he calls a taxi, despite getting there by car. She is confused, he kisses her again to distract. Then the car comes, and she’s arrested. She spits in his face, which he deserves. He goes into her house again, creates a scene: pours some drinks, leaves his jacket, puts on a song (underneath the mango tree, again), goes into the bedroom and uses a pillow to make it look like someone is in it. Then he waits.

The professor walks through the door and shoots up the pillow. They have a chat. Bond shoots him. Then meets up with Quarrel to go on to the island. Makes a quip about it being a break from being a clay pigeon, but I somehow I doubt it. Leister is worried offers to go instead, but Bond refuses him. 

Wait, why is bond asleep on the beach? Was that the plan? Did I miss something?

Ah, the bikini. It isn’t a very good one is it? They’re hiding from guards with guns now. Bond promises he’s no threat to this woman, Honey Ryder, but we all know that’s a lie. They must hide, they’ve been spotted on radar. They get shot at, the woman’s boat is ruined so she has to tag along. They sneak up some kind of river I think. Almost get caught, but don’t, hiding under water using reeds as breathing tubes. Honey claims Dr. No killed her father, a marine biologist, who came to Crab Key to never be seen again.

Now she’s telling Bond about how she killed her landlord (who raped her) via spiderbite. It took him a week to die. Bond just pouts at her, probably knows he might have deserved that spiderbite earlier...

The rumored dragon is nearby, and Bond, who knows it isn’t actually a dragon, wants to see it. 

they’re captured, Quarrel is dead, and claimed to be contaminated. Geiger counters going wild! They need to be hosed down. Then they’re put in very nice quater and treated as guests. because why not. They have some coffee, it’s drugged and they pass out. Bond breaks a perfeclty good cup in the process - that brute. A mysterious figure, with shiny latexy gloves takes a look at Bond in bed. Dr. No presumably, he lifts the cover a little before we cut to the next scene. Sean Connery really isn’t that attractive Dr. just kill him already!

I’ve always wanted an evil lair. Finally the elusive Dr. No is revealed. Are you a good Bond villain if you don’t have a physical disability? It appears that he doesn’t have hands, because of errors in his work or something. He finds Bond a worthy adversary or some such. Bond has Honey sent away from the dinner table - ostensibly to save her. Dr. No quickly realizes that Bond is in fact just a policeman, not smart enough to join his criminal gang after all, SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) has no need for the likes of Bond, though if they did he’d prefer the revenge department. He is apparently being tortured, we don’t get to see that, but his clothes are ruined when we next see him in a cell he quickly escapes from by going into the pipes that keep this underwater facility with air. He falls down one of them and gets to take his shirt off. Oh no! Water rushes in and Bond must hold on! 

He gets out, finds his way into a radiation suit (stylish, with a very square hood, he looks like a Doctor Who villain in an episode where they ran out of budget) and infiltrates a control room! They’re talking about a vehicle and say the word radiation a lot. Bondis trying to figure out how to sabotage their sabotage (of a rocket launch). Big science words! No time to think for Bond, just punch everyone! Chaos! Alarms blaring, abort abort! 

Bond vs Dr. No. Bond wins and Dr. No goes down in what may be boiling radioactive water? Doesn’t seem like a delicious way to go. Everyone is fleeing the facility, Bond somehow finds Honey and frees her (she’s tied up on some ramp with water coming in, were they going to let the tide drown her? This is not how you kill people effectively). 

Lots of footage of people fleeing, flinging themselves into the ocean etc. Bond and Honey get a boat, the facility goes boooooooooooom! 

The boat runs out of fuel, and Bond and Honey settle in to wait for rescue, Leiter show up and start to give them a tow, but Bond lets the rope go so he and Honey can fuck. Leiter shakes his head and smiles at them in an overbearing manner. 

THE END

[socialdistance]

Lily, Day Seven

This morning I was sitting in the semidark in our kitchen, waiting to get on a Zoom call for which I'd specifically woken up hours earlier than usual ("usual"), and which had gotten pushed back at the literal last minute, when that Peter Bjorn and John song "Young Folks" came on the playlist I was shuffling through. Even if you think you don't know that song, you probably do know that song. It starts with whistling and it was everywhere around 2007, most specifically, and where I remember it from, is the pilot episode of Gossip Girl. And the whistling started in my headphones while I was still bleary from staying up too late watching Miss Marple and worrying and the morning light was filtering pale lavender through the front curtains and it suddenly hit me, like an almost physical blow of sorrow and bewilderment, how long ago and how far away that was. My mind can't wrap around this, any of this, I don't think anyone's can, I don't think it's what our brains were designed to do. The software wasn't programmed for changes this rapid, this dramatic, this apocalyptic. Or rather, as the strangling stunned feeling this morning when realization snuck through showed, the inability to really process this new reality is maybe not a bug but a feature, an airbag, an emergency brake mechanism. It's a new world and I'll mix all the metaphors I want. 2007! Or, I should say, it's 2008 that I'm thinking of because I was a late-adapter of Gossip Girl culture. 2008! Barack Obama was running for president! I had just started film school and was taking as few film-related classes as I could get away with! Matt and I were sending emails back and forth almost every day and sometimes we would include videos and in one of them he edited in Young Folks. I had an eating disorder! I didn't follow politics! I was about to be assigned a James Baldwin essay in a class I'd signed up for by accident and realize I was white! I could run a 5:20ish mile! I don't really know what else was happening in the world because that's! how! self-centered! I was! allowed to be! Last week, when we were still stuck in the horrible grinding sound a car makes when you take too long to shift gears and restaurants were open, I walked home across the Williamsburg Bridge. I didn't want to, I'd already run 15 miles, but I was avoiding the subway. The sun was setting. There were other people on the bridge, but not many because most people who can afford to live within walking distance of the bridge on either side were already working from home. It was 60 degrees and windy and the sun was yellow on the dirty East River and behind the bridges and I looked back over my shoulder at the bridges and the city and the Statue and the river and the sky and the light and I swear to you started crying and also laughing. It was just so beautiful, and so blatantly fleeting, and for one little instant real perception snuck through and I both understood the provisionalty of everything and for once could let that make it bigger and more vivid. James again: “Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”

[thereismoretomylifethenice]

Rules: Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. Don’t cheat. Tag some people. I was tagged by @throughtimeillbethere

1. Magnificent Seven (1998)

2. Midsomer Murders (Series 1-6 at least)

3. Miss Marple 

4. Agatha Christie’s Poirot

5. Frozen

Who is your favourite character in 2? Gavin Troy (Hence why he’s over on “ANoseForRottenApples”). I just get a kick out of him because he’s young, he’s learning as he goes and he has really decent instincts but he often talks himself out of following them. He’s also a little rough around the edges sometimes but he really is trying. Sometimes you’re like “Troy, you’re an idiot” but he’s also trying to hard that I find it endearing and his character grows quite decently over the years he was on the show.

Who is your least favourite character in 1? M7 is one of those rare shows were all the characters are pretty solid and I like them all (or dislike them in the best way possible if they’re a baddie). If I had to pick one, I’d say it was probably Will Richmond from “Wagon Train Pt. 1 & 2”. Namely put, he’s just kind of an idiot. Treats his wife bad and then gets bent out of shape when she starts flirting with Vin. He’s busy telling Josiah how much he loves his wife and what she means to him but it never occurs to him to actually tell her that. Spends a lot of time being somewhat needlessly antagonistic with the guys (Vin is understandable given that Vin tried to run off with Will’s wife but the rest of the guys are just doing a job and Will’s pointlessly making everyone’s lives harder).  He’s just kind of an ‘ehhh” character for me.

What is your favorite episode of 4? All of these episodes are works of art but “The Lost Mine” from Series 2 is one that I find myself watching particularly often.  There are just so many little bits in it that I love—Inspector Japp still has his sergeant backing him up, the on-going Monopoly game that Hasting and Poirot have going and the conclusion is just really well done. Also the complete face-palm moment of Japp, while investigating the murder of a Chinese man, finds a notebook in the man’s suitcase and declares that the fact it’s all written in Chinese is “very suspicious”.

What is your favourite season of 5? There are no Seasons in Frozen, given that it’s a set of movies. My favorite movie is the first one though—Frozen 2 is good but I feel like Frozen 1 just had better pacing and didn’t feel quite as rushed as the second one. The second movie was better on re-watches but the first time through it was just like “This plot is moving at a breakneck pace! What is happening???” (Or I’ve just been spoiled by watching too many British murder mystery series that tend to be slower in pace and build things up carefully.”

Who is your favourite couple in 3? There are no long-running couples in this series but I ship the daylights out of Louisa Oxley and Alfred Pollock in “Greenshaw’s Folly”. They’re only in one episode (which are all movie length) and they’re so freaking adorable!

Who is your favourite couple in 2? Again…shipping was not the main focus of this show but I do like Inspector Tom Barnaby and his wife Joyce. In American shows, if cops are married, they’re usually getting divorced or having constant fights with them. It’s nice to see a cop who’s in a stable, happy relationship for a change. Also I feel like there could have been some fun things done with Troy and Barnaby’s daughter Cully. They hinted at it off and on for the time he was on the show but nothing ever really came of it, sadly.

What is your favourite episode of 1? At this point I’ve seen all of them and love all of them but, hands-down, “The Collector” is really just a fun episode and the hijinks among the guys is top-notch. “The Witness” is also a fabulous episode in a much sadder and darker way. “Sins of the Past” kind of marries both of these concepts—Vin and Chris’s storyline is very dark and serious while Ezra and the other guys (and his mother) are up to their eyebrows in hijinks. But really, all the episodes are very, very good.

What is your favourite episode of 5? Again, no episodes so I refer to my comments on Frozen 1 and Frozen 2.

What is your favourite season of 2? Don’t really have a favorite but Series 3 and 4 were pretty solid. Series 5 had some really good episodes and some really weird ones so it’s hit-and-miss. Series 6 (what I’ve seen of it) is pretty solid too.

How long have you watched 1? Hmm….a few years now. I think I first saw M7 in….2014? 2015? I found a page of Geology notes from my first degree with volcanoes, the chemical formula for ozone and Vin Tanner doodled on it so I know I started watching the show before I finished my AA. Just can’t remember exactly when I started watching it.

How did you become interested in 3? I’ve watched and read Agatha Christie shows and books since I was 7 or 8. While I watched Poirot from that time, I watched Miss Marple off and on whenever I could find episodes on TV or at the library.

Who is your favourite actor in 4?  Tie between David Suchet (Poirot) and Philip Jackson (Inspector Japp).

Which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5? 5. M7, Midsomer Murders, or Frozen? Sorry, my pair of valiant Inspectors and my Ice Queen but the Cowboys’ win this round. I adore the dynamics of this show, I adore that it’s got great adventure and can go super dark without ever getting gory, pornographic or vulgar. All of the characters are great, the stories are great and it’s just a really wild ride in a very good way. It can be a bit cheesy but in the absolute best ways possible. Besides, I will always pick 1860s westerns over modern stories or Disney princesses if I have to choose one.

Which show have you seen more episodes of - 1 or 3? Probably the same in both of them. M7 only had two seasons but there were more episodes per season. Miss Marple had six series but only three or four episodes per season—plus I didn’t watch all of them. The first three seasons weren’t nearly as good as the last three, mostly because the woman playing Miss Marple in the first three series wasn’t that good in my opinion. So I think I’ve seen an even number of both.

If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?! I don’t want to be any of them—they’re all good the way they are and I wouldn’t want any of their jobs! I’m content being some poor person who realizes too late that Poirot is vacationing at their hotel and now dead bodies are going to start turning up XD

Would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? Most likely, seeing as they were both created by the same woman. Interestingly enough though, even with Miss Marple series and Poirot series being made at the same time, no one ever wanted to have the two detectives officially meet in canon. I heard a rumor though that there was an anime somewhere that had them meet? I haven’t been able to conform that though, yet.

Pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple? (I have thought about this a lot) Captain Francis Riley (Ghosts of the Confederacy) and Terri Greer (Safecracker). They would be such a cute couple and Francis would probably be a good dad for little Olivia Greer.

Overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? Sorry Disney—I’m going to have to say Miss Marple. I’ve been a fan of murder mysteries before I was a fan of Frozen.

Which has better theme music, 2 or 4? I’m going to say 4 (Poirot) because the theme from that show just….a huge amount of nostalgia is held in that intro for me because I’ve been watching it since I was about 8. Plus, the fantastic art deco style of the introduction and the titles is just so smooth and I love it.

Tagging: @princelyrogue @shadowyavuz

[doctorwhonews]

David Collings 1940-2020

Latest from the news site: Actor David Collings has died at the age of 79. David Collings had a number of memorable appearances in Doctor Who appearing in eleven episodes of the Classic series between 1975 and 1983. His first appearance was in the Fourth Doctor story Revenge of the Cybermen. Collins played Vorus, leader of the guardians on Voga. His performance as the proud renegade, trying to assert his races sovereignty but nearly bringing about their destruction was a tour de force. He returned to the series in 1977 playing Poul in the story The Robots of Death. A very different role Poul was an undercover agent for the Kaldor City Company, eventually succumbing to Grimwade's Syndrome, the fear of Robots. His final appearance came in the fifth Doctor story Mawdryn Undead, playing the title character Mawdryn, desperate to get the Doctor to give up his remaining regenerations. David Collings was born in Brighton in East Sussex in 1940. His first television appearance came in 1964, playing Raskolnikov in a live production of Crime & Punishment. Over the next thirty years, he was a regular of the British screen appearing in such programmes as Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Point Counter Point, The Possessed, Canterbury Tales, Elizabeth R, By the Sword Divided, Miss Marple: A Murder Is Announced, Sapphire & Steel and The Shadow of the Tower. He played William Wilberforce in The Fight Against Slavery and Blind Pew in Treasure Island. In 1981 he appeared in the final episode of Blake's 7 playing Deva. Film roles included Bob Cratchit in the classic 1970 film musical, Scrooge, as well as roles in The Thirty Nine Steps and The Outsider, while Radio listeners heard him as Legolas in the acclaimed BBC dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings. In recent years Collins had worked for Big Finish appearing in several Doctor Who related productions. David Collings died suddenly earlier today. He is survived by three children and his wife, Karen Archer, who announced the death on Twitter. I don’t if this is the right time, maybe no such thing anymore, but I feel I should share the news, for those who knew him, that our dear David Collings, actor, husband, father, died suddenly in the early hours of this morning. Perhaps we can celebrate him properly next year ... Doctor Who News http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2020/03/david-collings-1940-2020.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[iamanathemadevice]

Tom Burke

Tom Burke and his fellow cast members from The Musketeers are about to head to the Czech Republic to film a second series of the BBC's swords-and-pistols romp – but first they've been at bootcamp, reacquainting themselves with their weapons, as well as the bromantic chemistry that makes the show such fun. "We had a fencing competition the other day," Burke says, adding proudly: "I'm not going to say who came first… but I came second."

Athos is a break-out role for him, and he thanks Abi Morgan for that: last year she cast him in The Hour as Bill Kendall, which gave him a chance to be suavely charming ("up to then I had a solid career as people who were slightly sinister, or oblivious husbands"). But he's perfectly cast as the musketeers' troubled leader. Is he as brooding in real life? "People who know me think I'm quite silly," he says. "But I have a face that appears on occasion which a friend calls my 'I'm going to kill you' face…"

Guilty pleasure "Sexy Beasts, which is the dating show that involves prosthetics." Earliest TV memory "I am of that generation who saw the episode of Byker Grovewith the paintball accident [in which Ant from Ant and Dec is blinded]. It was horrific." TV show you'd bring back "I used to like Catdog. It was bizarre. It used to make me laugh an awful lot and not just when I was a child." Favourite comedy "Black Books." Favourite newsreader "Peter Sissons." Best TV detective "Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. She was a genius. She had a weird look in her eye when she said who the killer was, as if she suddenly became an avenging angel."

From this article in 2014

[Who else loves his “'I'm going to kill you' face”? :)]

[odanurr87]

My thoughts on... Altered Carbon

Apologies for not posting this review earlier but a few things happened during the week, one of which was the Farewell episode of Life is Strange: Before the Storm and I simply couldn’t not play it right away. Also, as you may have noticed by now, I hadn’t written up this review yet. I’ll try to keep this brief.

Overall, Altered Carbon is a series I enjoyed a great deal due to several factors, the first of which is its length. Much like British TV shows, Altered Carbon’s first season is short, comprised only of ten episodes, what’s good because it doesn’t dilute the narrative and keeps the momentum going. I’ve lost count of how many filler episodes there are in any given American TV show and I’ve often pondered how much better something like, say, The Flash would be if it were given half the number of episodes to tell a story. Not to mention there are only so many times I can be invested in Barry having to defeat yet another evil speedster. Altered Carbon is given 10 hours to make this work and I believe it succeeds.

The second factor that immediately appealed to me was the blend between sci-fi and crime thriller ala Blade Runner (probably leaning more towards 2049 than the original). The main protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is introduced to us as a mercenary on the run who is later hired as a private eye to look into a murder given his... colourful background. The investigation is certainly eventful and well-paced although it doesn’t do as good of a job as other murder mysteries, such as Poirot, or Miss Marple, in involving the audience and trying to get them to play detective themselves. By the time Kovacs decided to gather everyone in the traditional “room scene” I had few concrete reasons to suspect any of them for the murder but Takeshi managed to paint a colourful picture as was, indeed, the intention. 

Perhaps this is compounded by the fact that, in Altered Carbon’s universe, the body is just a shell (wink wink), a sleeve, a skin that can be worn by anyone, what makes it difficult to guess who may be using a person’s sleeve at any given time, a fact that Altered Carbon takes advantage of throughout the series. This leads to a number of plot threads that introduce new characters and potential allies of Takeshi, such as Kristin Ortega (played by Martha Higareda), a police officer who’s aware of Takeshi’s colourful past and decides to keep tabs on him; and Vernon Elliot (played by Ato Essandoh), a former medic in the Tac Marines who initially becomes a prime suspect in Takeshi’s investigation. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Poe (played by Chris Conner), the Raven hotel’s Artificial Intelligence who takes on the appearance of, you guessed it, Edgar Allan Poe and sees himself as Takeshi’s partner in crime. If only. Poe’s introduction in episode 1 is probably the best in the series (certainly the funniest and a tad creepy as well) and I hope he returns in an eventual sequel.

Poe, one of the best supporting characters.

Since we’re talking cast I should mention a few other names that are tied to Takeshi’s past but for that I need to paint you a picture of the setting. As I mentioned earlier, in this alternate future, humanity has unlocked the means to live forever by storing their consciousness in a chip called a “stack.” In so doing however, humanity has paved the way for further differentiation of the classes, where the rich and powerful can practically live forever in the best and most alluring sleeves while the lower classes either die or often get placed in the cheapest bodies they can afford. At one point, a group of rebels called Envoys decided to rise against this system and tried to put an end to immortality. Needless to say, it did not go well for them and the series explores the events that led to their downfall alongside the murder mystery. In fact, Takeshi was the sole surviving member of their group and he was put on ice for a couple hundred of years. You can imagine he was none too thrilled about being brought back to solve the murder of an immortal, as he embodies everything Takeshi fought against.

Takeshi Kovacs, meet the new Takeshi Kovacs.

This segways nicely into an interesting discussion point as Altered Carbon’s main protagonist is played by two actors (three actually, as he’s briefly played by Byron Mann in the beginning as the above picture shows): Will Yun Lee, during his Envoy days; and Joel Kinnaman (whom you may recognize from Suicide Squad), during the murder investigation. Personally, I liked both their performances and I even felt, at times, that I could see Lee’s Takeshi in Kinnaman’s performance, what is no mean feat. Connecting the two is Quellcrist Falconer (played by Renée Elise Goldsberry), the smart and fearless leader of the Envoys and, incidentally, Takeshi’s love interest. I absolutely loved her interactions with Takeshi, be them past or present. Indeed, Altered Carbon successfully weaves and balances the Envoy storyline with the murder mystery in a way reminiscent of how Arrow used to balance Oliver’s past in the island and his day-to-day as a vigilante in Star City. Some, if not all, of the best moments in the series involve these two in some form or another. Quell is always present in Takeshi’s thoughts, even in death, and her wisdom helps him out of many a tight spot. It’s a rather beautiful, if tragic, love story and I’m a sucker for those. The ending of the series perfectly sets up the sequel playing to Quellcrist’s theme, undoubtedly the most emotional of the music tracks in the series and my personal favourite (sadly, it’s not a part of the OST). Since I mentioned music, I must admit Altered Carbon has some badass scenes that are perfectly enhanced by tracks like PJ Harvey’s “The Wicked Tongue.” Is the soundtrack worth listening to on its own? My first answer would be “no” but let me get back to you on that.

Quell is my favourite supporting character and I hope we see more of her in a sequel.

There are a few other positives and negatives I could mention about the show but I’ll do so in the spoilers section of this post. In general lines, the murder mystery is relegated to a second place after a certain point in the series as it switches to the heist genre once the criminal mastermind has been identified (perhaps somewhat sooner than I would’ve liked in retrospect). The reveal came as a bit of a surprise, even when it really shouldn’t have. Personally, I found the conclusion to the investigation more disappointing than the culprit’s identity as a few things line up rather too conveniently. 

The series has also been, to an extent, criticized for its somewhat gratuitous depictions of gore and nudity but, to be fair, it’s nothing we haven’t seen in Game of Thrones before, a series that, if I remember correctly, was praised for that very same fact not too long ago (even though I always felt this was done for the shock value and to attract viewers). However, at least the nudity doesn’t seem too out of place in Altered Carbon when you consider most of the universe’s richer denizens see their bodies, their sleeves, as a sign of their power and would probably waste no opportunity to show off (indeed, one such scene transpires between Takeshi and Miriam Bancroft). Still, I believe the series would work just as well if there was less of it.

Overall, Altered Carbon is a series I would heartily recommend to any fan of science fiction and murder mysteries, not to mention it has a solid romance story between Takeshi and Quell (and maybe between Takeshi and the beautiful Kristin Ortega, you’ll just have to see!). I’m a bit puzzled by the critics’ tepid, if not outright dismissive, reception of this series, but for a while now I’ve had the feeling that critics have become increasingly out of touch with what people look for in entertainment. Their professionalism in analyzing or critiquing a film or a series has, sadly, become more and more influenced by their biases and agendas (be those political or otherwise), as recent releases like Ghostbusters or The Last Jedi would suggest (or the different reception to The Orville vs. Star Trek Discovery insofar TV shows are concerned). In fact, James Raney over at YouTube makes an interesting comparison between reviews for Netflix’s Bright and Disney’s The Last Jedi, highlighting the lack of consistency when reviewing one of the other (you can watch his video here). Erik Kain from Forbes also wrote an article about a month ago arguing some critics didn’t do their due diligence when reviewing Altered Carbon (you can read his article here). Is the takeaway here that I should start watching everything the critics review badly? I should hope not.

With that said, let’s dive into spoiler territory.

I didn’t like the character of Lizzie, Vernon’s daughter. I thought Poe’s therapy took way too long and was meant entirely to have her show up in the last episode to save her parents through Kovacs’ levels of badassery in an outfit that felt out of place, if not out of character. Not to mention she hints at being able to see the future, something that comes entirely out of the left field and certainly adds nothing to this series but perhaps it’s setup for the sequel. It’s also rather convenient that she has the single, most damning, piece of evidence for Takeshi to round up his investigation, something you will probably guess early on and that the show will do its utmost to make you forget (or you will have solved at least half of the puzzle).

Much criticism has also been directed at the character of Reileen Kawahara (played by Dichen Lachman; did I mention the women in this show are all absolutely gorgeous?), Takeshi’s sister. As you can undoubtedly guess, she’s the evil mastermind behind everything that’s going on to the point she even has her version of Oddjob (that’s from James Bond’s Goldfinger in case you didn’t know) to run interference and murder everyone that gets in her way. I personally liked how Lachman played the character as I felt she was very attached to her brother (maybe too much so), to the point I truly believed she was sincere about wanting him back at her side, the two of them against the world, even if it was also crystal clear everyone else was utterly expendable to her. In hindsight, perhaps the flashbacks don’t accurately convey this bond as Takeshi and Reileen have little time to reconnect, after being separated since childhood, before they’re recruited into the Envoys, but Reileen certainly comes across as (overly) protective of her big brother from that point onwards. Props to Joel Kinnaman also as Reileen’s and Takeshi’s last scene aboard the “Head in the Clouds,” is especially poignant as you can see how neither truly wants to harm the other and it tears Takeshi (and the viewer) apart when he finally pulls the trigger and end his sister’s life. As the resort plunges from the skies to its inevitable doom, Takeshi ignores Ortega’s pleas to escape with her and resolves to stay with his little sister to the very end.

Please find a way to reunite brother and sister in a sequel! It’s so sad we spent so little time with her before she was outed as the villain.

I think that about covers it. As you may have noticed, I’ve taken a liking to several of the supporting characters in the show. Sadly, all of these end up dead but I’ve learned not to take death for granted in a sci-fi show, especially one where there a technology exists that can backup a person’s consciousness. Let me add here that I also liked Ortega’s busybody character but I feel her arc was well-rounded at the end of the series so I don’t think it’s necessary for us to see her again in the sequel, but maybe Takeshi will run into Elias Ryker one day? That would be fun to watch.

What did you make of Altered Carbon? Who was your favourite character? Who would you bring back? Also, with the introduction of sleeves, this show could potentially go on for as long as it wants (or has enough material), similarly to Doctor Who. Will Yun Lee could certainly reprise his role as Takeshi Kovacs or perhaps he could be played by someone else. The ending takes every precaution not give away any hint as to his ethnicity, to the point his new sleeve is even wearing gloves. Who would you like to see play Takeshi Kovacs in a sequel?

[laurajanesessions-ad714]

Murder Most Horrid

From the launch of the assignment we knew that we wanted to create a scene from a murder-mystery and ideally one which would envoke a sense of nostalgia.

Initially we considered a crime scene complete with a chalk outline of a body. A Chalk outline is a temporary outline drawn onto the ground which outlines evidence found at the scene of a crime. Although not used in contemporary investigations (for fear of contaminating a scene of crime), they are synonymous with screen crime scenes within the murder mystery genre in literature and film.

Fig. 1 (Christie, 1942)

The first mystery series to feature chalk or tape outlines to mark the spots where bodies were found (Unknown) was in a 1958 episode of Perry Mason "The Case of the Perjured Parrot" (Russell, 1958).

In most cases of chalk outlines, the body isn't actually seen, consequently this put pay to our initial idea!

Keeping with the murder mystery theme, we came up with the idea of creating a scene along the lines of "The Body In The Library" (1942), the Agatha Christie novel in which the body of a young woman is discovered in the library of a stately home. Miss Marple elderly spinster and amateur consulting detective is called in to investigate...

Developing this theme further we hit upon the idea of devising a scene from the board game Cluedo.

Fig. 2 (Pratt, 1943)

Cluedo is a murder mystery game devised in Birmingham in 1943 by Anthony E. Pratt.

A body (Mr Black) has been found and the object of the game is to determine three things: who murdered the game's victim, where the crime took place and which weapon was used. Players assume the role of one of six characters (each of whom are suspects) and work their way strategically around the board which is laid out to represent rooms in a mansion. Each collecting clues about the murder.

Fig. 3 (Pratt, 1943)

The characters/suspects in the game are:

Miss Scarlett - red

Rev. Green - green

Colonel Mustard - yellow

Professor Plum - purple

Mrs. Peacock - blue

Mrs. White - white

In 2016 Hasbro launched the current standard version of the game with the first new original character in over 67 years: Dr. Orchid, replacing Mrs White.

As with the suspects, there are a number of murder weapons which could have been used to kill Mr Black.

Candlestick

Dagger

Lead Pipe

Revolver

Rope

Wrench

As a group we decided to create a crime scene using one of the characters and one of the weapons from the board game.

Below is a film still from Clue (Lynn) the 1985 film adaptation of the game.

Fig. 4 (Lynn, 1985)

References

Fig. 1 Christie, A. (1942). The Body In The Library, Glasgow, Collins.

Fig. 2 Pratt, A, E. Cluedo. Birmingham. 1943, United States, Hasbro [Board Game]

Fig. 3 Pratt, A, E. Cluedo. Birmingham. 1943, United States, Hasbro [picture cards

Fig. 4 Lynn, J. (1995), Clue. [film] United States, Paramount Pictures

Perry Mason: The Case of the Perjured Parrot. (1958), CBS Television Network, 20 Dec 1958, Unknown. The TVDB. [online] Available at: https://www.thetvdb.com/series/perry-mason: [Accessed Date: 4 March 202]

[mygangtome]

Where They've Been, Where They Are Now - Jonas Armstrong

He was the man in the hood with the bow, with a cheeky grin and stirring speeches.  Now it’s time to find out what Jonas Armstrong has been doing since Robin Hood ended. 

This is a long post! 

Book of Blood (2009) – Simon McNeal

Summary: A paranormal expert discovers a house that is at the intersection of so-called “highways” transporting souls in the afterlife.

Character Bio: Simon declares he is a clairvoyant, though the reluctantly agrees to work with Mary and her partner Reg to investigate the paranormal events leading to the violent death of teen girl.  He winds up further tangled in the events and the supernatural powers at work than he could have ever thought.

Fan comments: This was one of the first projects that came out after RHBBC ended, and I had been really eager to see it. However, despite being touted as a physiological thriller, it was a more violent, bloody and intense than I expected.  I haven’t rewatched it since, but it was certainly a change of pace to seen Jonas in this role after Robin Hood.  

The Street (2009) – Nick Calshaw

Nick Calshaw returns from fighting in Afghanistan, wounded and disfigured due to the blast of a suicide bomb.  He struggled to adjust to normal life again, as his family and girlfriend try to help and balance their own horror at what happened.

Character Bio: Nick is an ordinary guy who has to deal with the stress and trauma of coming back to war, with the added pain of having been wounded and disfigured.  He lashes out, is depressed, and tries and fails to be ordinary but can’t figure out how to get past his disfigurement and reactions of those around him.  

Fan comments: This was difficult watch, as it is obviously a very loaded and emotional topic. Jonas does an extraordinary job handling the roller coaster of emotions that Nick struggles with.  The script is sometimes a bit obvious and a little on the nose, but the characters hold it together.  And this is the second time post RH that he had to deal with and act with some intense prosthetics and make up, and he does it well.  

Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Secret of Chimneys (2010) – Cade

A lavish weekend party sees Miss Marple accompany Lady Virginia Revel to her family home of Chimneys - a house which was once prized for its diplomatic gatherings until a rare diamond was stolen from the premises over twenty years ago. The tenacious career politician, George Lomax, has persuaded Virginia’s father, Lord Caterham, to host an evening for an important Austrian Count, Ludwig Von Stainach. Virginia, the daughter of Miss Marple’s late cousin, must decide by the end of the weekend whether to accept a marriage proposal from George Lomax or to follow her heart and the courtship of another more adventurous suitor, Anthony Cade. Dismayed by the odd array of guests, including socialist spinster Miss Blenkinsopp, Caterham’s formidable eldest daughter Bundle and the quietly inscrutable maidservant Treadwell, Lomax castigates his affable assistant Bill Eversleigh, who also has a soft spot for Virginia. It becomes apparent that Count Ludwig has taken a personal interest in Chimneys …

Character Bio: Suitor of Virginia. 

Fan comments: I have not seen this, and the information about it is rather sparse, hence the lack of character bio. The only information I could find was that Cade was the adventurous sort (and that his character was rather pared down compared to the character in the book.)

The Field of Blood (2011) – Terry Hewitt (2 episodes)  

Set in Glasgow in 1982, Paddy Meehan is a young girl in a world of men; a feisty copy boy in the sexist, hard-boozing, cutthroat world of journalism. Paddy dreams of being an investigative reporter, and she grabs the opportunity when a young boy, Brian Wilcox, is kidnapped and found murdered. Paddy sees connections to a year-old crime that nobody else sees and she is determined to make it her story. But when Paddy crosses the line, she becomes outcast from her devoutly Catholic family and puts the lives of her colleagues, as well as her own, at risk. The closer she gets to the murderer, the closer she gets to murder; and the price of achieving her dream will prove greater than she can ever imagine.

Character bio: Terry is bright, resourceful and together. What he needs is the story that will make his name. After an initial misstep he becomes one of the few people in the newsroom who believes in Paddy. Terry is prepared to back Paddy’s instincts as they break the rules to prove that the police are wrong about a recent child murder. (bio from BBC One).

Fan comments: This was one I started watching, but then lost the ability to do so, and never tracked it down again, so I cannot offer much insight.  

The Body Farm (2011) – Nick Warner (1 episode)

A British police procedural, which follows the team from a forensic pathology facility that conducts scientific research to help solve crimes.

Character Bio: Nick Warner is the son of the episode’s victim.

Fan comments: Again, another one that I never have seen, so no comments available.

Rage of the Yeti (2011) – Bill

A quest for riches becomes a fight for survival after treasure hunters find snow monsters on a mountain in the Arctic.

Character Bio: Bill is part of the rescue team that goes in to help the treasure hunters deal with the yeti, and he may also be a turn coat.

Fan comments: Also have not seen this one, but have heard it is basically a terrible B movie that is nearly unwatchable. Unless you want to make fun of bad movies, then apparently, it is good for that.

Prisoner’s Wives (2012) – Steve (6 episodes)

Gemma’s perfect life comes crashing down when her husband is arrested for murder. As Gemma learns to navigate the prison system, she starts to think the unthinkable of her husband.

Character bio: Steve is serving time after being arrested for murder. He declares his complete innocence to his wife, Gemma, but he is not being entirely truthful.

Fan comments: Another one that I started to watch but never finished, so I don’t have many impressions to pass along. (There is a distinct connection between my ability / time to find places to watch these BBC productions and my senior year in college and then graduation.)

Hit and Miss (2012) – Ben (6 episodes)

Follows the life of transgender contract killer Mia, who travels to West Yorkshire to seek out her ex girlfriend.

Character bio: Ben is a romantic interest of Mia, who struggles to figure out his feelings and their relationship when she comes out to him.

Fan comment: Have not seen this one, but the premise sounds very intriguing, but possibly too violent.  

Twenty8k – (2012) – Clint O’Connor

A teenage boy is gunned down outside a nightclub and a young girl dies in a hit and run in two seemingly unrelated deaths. Deeva Jani, returns home to clear her brother Vipon of the shooting and soon discovers a much deeper conspiracy.

Character bio: Clint is a former gangster who became a youth counselor, who helps Deeva work to prove her brother’s innocence.

Fan comments: I have not seen, but from reviews it says the cast is strong, but the writing is not, and is rather predictable.

Walking With The Enemy – (2013) – Elek Cohen

A young man, separated from his family in WWII, disguises himself as a Nazi SS Officer and uncovers more than just his family whereabouts.

Character bio: Elek starts out as a typical college guy, flirting with girls and getting into fights.  However, as Nazi occupation sweeps across Europe, he and his family and friends find that lives are forever changed along with the millions of other Jewish people who faced genocide.  In efforts to save his family and friends, he gets his hands on an SS uniform, and begins a crusade to help as much as he can, as the uniform and confidence does a lot to keep his identity hidden.

Fan comments: I saw this one!  I managed to catch it in theaters at the tail end of its run, and now cannot find it on DVD for love or money.  Which is a pity because I did enjoy it, though there are times you can tell that the production was a bit low.  There are a lot of moments that just made me think “Oh, this is a WWII RH AU!” - there is a connection between Robin Hood and Elek’s work to save people.  Not robbing the rich to feed the poor, but lying to Nazis to save people.  Also, there is a scene where he and some of the other men in his resistance circle were unloading sacks of flour, and his mannerisms and cadence just screamed Robin. If anyone has any info on finding this to stream or on DVD, let me know!

The Whale (2013) – Owen Chase

A whaling ship called called the Essex becomes shipwrecked and those on board struggle for survival.

Character Bio: First mate on the Essex.

Fan comments: Have not seen this one, either, but it has Jonas and John Boyega in it, so I might have to track it down.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Skinner

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Character bio: Skinner is a member of J-Squad, and is confrontational with the main character Cage (played by Tom Cruise).  However, his fighting ability means he plays an integral part of the main battle in this action movie.

Fan comments: One that I missed again, partly due to the fact that I would have had to sit through a movie with Tom Cruise, and I am not the biggest fan.  By all accounts, the movie is a pretty standard summer type action film.

The Dove Keepers (2015) – Yoav

Based in Alice Hoffman’s historical novel about the Siege of Masada, the miniseries focuses on four extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.

Character Bio: Yoav is a scholarly young man who develops a romantic relationship with one of the female leads of the story.  He is also tasked with a grim duty at the end of the siege of Masada.

Fan comments: By all accounts, this adaptation of the book was terrible.  I never heard much about this and am reluctant to watch it, because of the terrible reviews and tragic story line.

Line of Duty (2016) – Joe Nash (3 episodes)

DS Steve Arnott is transferred to the police anti-corruption unit after the death of a man in a mistaken shooting during a counter-terrorist operation.

Character bio: Joe is a former resident of a boy’s home, where he suffered sexual abuse.  He works with the police force to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Fan comment: Jonas lands a spot in three episodes in this series, and it obviously sounds like an intense storyline.  Have not seen.

Dark Angel (2016) – Joe Nattrass

A two-part drama about the Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton.

Character bio: Joe one of Mary Ann Cotton’s lovers, who had the misfortune of dating a serial killer.

Fan comments: Hey, Jonas and Joanne Froggatt meet again!  And by all accounts, it didn’t end much better than it did for Robin and Kate… I might track this one down, because of the two for one RH cast reunion, and because I’d never heard of Mary Ann Cotton, and would be intrigued to supplement my own research on her with this mini series.  

Ripper Street (2016) – Nathaniel (12 episodes)

The streets of Whitechapel are the haunt of Detective Inspector Edmund Reid and his team of officers, who aim to maintain law and order in a place once terrorized by Jack the Ripper.

Character bio: Assistant to Abel Croker, and Augustus Dove’s long-lost brother. Known as the ‘Whitechapel Golem’.

Fan comments: Jonas does not play a good guy, though it must be a slow reveal as he is credited in 12 episodes of seasons 4 and 5.

Now, I have a long list of shows and movies I should maybe catch up, and I can’t wait to see what else Jonas goes onto do with his career!