Stephen Fry — writer, actor, all-around personality — has revealed that he will be making a series for BBC2 on language — Planet Word. I haven’t seen a good documentary about language, where it comes from, how we speak it, the variations of it, whether languages are dying, whether we are better at speaking thanContinue reading “On Stephen Fry’s New Television Series”
Category Archives: Television
On Sharpe’s Challenge
Something kept bothering me as I was watching Sharpe’s Challenge; I couldn’t figure out who was playing the General’s daughter. At first, I thought it was Billie Piper, but I knew that wasn’t right. But I knew it was someone I knew from British television. It was Lucy Brown from Primeval who, as a blond,Continue reading “On Sharpe’s Challenge”
On The Time Traveler’s Wife: The Television Series
Last year, some noise was made about a television series based on The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger’s novel about a couple, Henry and Claire, who live a very strange life — he travels through time at random, living his life out of sequence, while she lives on the slow path, moving into the futureContinue reading “On The Time Traveler’s Wife: The Television Series”
On an Epic Win
Dave Galanter posted on Facebook last night a link to a picture on FailBlog — a protester and his sign. I’m not sure what motivated me to take a look and see the picture, but I did. Judging from Dave’s comment, I had the impression that the protester’s sign was, perhaps, a bit vague. WhatContinue reading “On an Epic Win”
On the Return of Merlin
Last night, thanks to the magic of the internet faeries, I watched Merlin‘s second season premiere, “The Curse of Cornelius Sigan.” When last we left Camelot in “Le Morte d’Arthur,” Prince Arthur has been poisoned by the Questing Beast, Arthur made a deal with Nimeuh to save his life, and when the deal cost himContinue reading “On the Return of Merlin”
On Arthurian Musings
On a bulletin board I frequent there has recently been some discussion of Merlin, the BBC series of which NBC recently finished broadcasting its first season. In Merlin, the titular wizard is anything but a wizard. He’s teenaged. He has powers, but he’s untrained in them. The use of magic is forbidden in the landsContinue reading “On Arthurian Musings”
On the End of Merlin’s First Season
Tonight, NBC broadcast the two-hour finale of the first season of the BBC’s Merlin. Like last week, where NBC showed two episodes — “The Moment of Truth” and “The Labyrinth of Gedref” back-to-back — I preferred the first hour to the second. The first episode tonight, “To Kill the King,” was incredibly dark. I wasn’tContinue reading “On the End of Merlin’s First Season”
On Catching Up on Merlin
And now, I am caught up on Merlin. Sunday night, NBC broadcast two episodes. However, I had no idea that they were showing two episodes. I just assumed that Merlin was on in its regular slot at 8 o’clock, and so I settled in to watch “The Labyrinth of Gedref.” Then, I found out laterContinue reading “On Catching Up on Merlin”
On the Pernicious Evils of the FCC
Fuck the FCC. Fuck the cell phone companies. A year ago, I went out and dutifully bought a digital converter box for my television. Analog signals were going away, because the cell phone companies wanted the analog spectrum for who the fuck knows what reason. I set up the digital converter box, and I hadContinue reading “On the Pernicious Evils of the FCC”
On the 2006 BBC Dracula
The Sophia Myles film festival continues! In 2006 Myles appeared as Lucy Westenra in a new BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with a cast that included Marc Warren as the sanguinary count, Rafe Spall as Jonathan Harker, and David Suchet as Van Helsing. Oh my god, what a piece of shite! What the hellContinue reading “On the 2006 BBC Dracula”