Art and shiny things…
Absolutely kickass episode delivered by Gatiss tonight – this is what happens when Moffat steps back and lets someone else have a go at it
It was fun, it was funny, it was the kind of loopy, rambunctious, light-hearted fun that Doctor Who used to be more frequently before they kept Moffat on too long and all his worst tendencies came out.
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The Washington Post has a great update on America’s tea consumption –
“The U.S. market for tea has more than quadrupled during the past twenty-plus years—from just under $2 billion in 1990 to just over $10 billion last year—according to the U.S. Tea Association. Demand for the herbal beverage has now been growing at a healthy clip for decades. By weight, Americans now drink almost 20 percent more of the herbal beverage than they did back in 2000, according to market research firm Euromonitor.” RT
The Scots are considering independence (and all I can think about is this).
“The people of Scotland are to be offered a historic opportunity to devise a federal future for their country before next year’s general election, it emerged on Saturday night, as a shock new poll gave the campaign for independence a narrow lead for the first time.” RT
Guardians of the Galaxy has now exceeded Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger is global gross total. You keep sashayin’, Baby Groot. RT
Darren Franich at EW on a study of the effect of watching Michael bay movies – “Technically, the study doesn’t specifically state that watching a Michael Bay movie is the equivalent of stuffing your mouth with M&Ms™ and then filling your overstuffed mouth with Coca-Cola™ while driving a 2013 Chevrolet™ Venture™ with Mark Wahlberg in the backseat screaming “I’M AN INVENTOR!!!” while he shotguns a Bud Light™ and plays Xbox™. But the study also doesn’t not say that.” RT
Fiona McCrae, publisher of Graywolf Press, had some great things to say about publishing in the age of the Internet. “There are dozens of obstacles to any given book succeeding. If a book succeeds it always does so against the odds. The odds in one generation might relate to the fact that people would rather be watching television than reading your book. The odds in the next generation might be that they’d rather be on their computer than reading your book. Once it was that people would rather be riding a bicycle than reading your book. It doesn’t do any good to be talking, as an author or publisher, about the obstacles. There are better uses of energy, I think. Yes, we can all feel helpless and wary in this industry sometimes, but it’s better, as a publisher, to look at the ways in which e-books and Twitter and so on can help us reach new readers, rather than treating social media as an enemy to literature.” RT
I’ve been on a huge crime/murder kick lately, so have been trying quite a few murder series. CBS’ Unforgettable is the latest, and while it’s quite middling, it’s an easy, undemanding watch, competently written, and I’m enjoying it. Carrie Wells (Poppy Mongtomgery) has a photographic memory, and joined the force after he rolder sister is killed in front of her when they’re children. She can’t remember the murderer’s face, and while looking for him and trying to remember she hunts down other killers and defends victims. After leaving the force for a while she returns and pairs up with ex-boyfriend Al Burns (Dylan Walsh). The two solve murders for the NYPD.
I mostly like it because of Poppy Montgomery, because this woman…can we talk about her hair? I’ve always rather wanted red hair and hers is the most gorgeous I’ve seen apart from Julia Roberts.
Al has a girlfriend. Gorgeous, smart…and she’ll never be able to displace Carrie in Al’s heart. 
Not when he looks at her like this. 
More Outlander pretty
I’m a little late posting these, but I wanted to do a screencapture post of the premiere episode of season 8, because it did have some lovely visuals. The above shot especially is a favorite, as it looks like something out of Firefly or every other space story, and sometimes I lose the sheer wonder of the TARDIS being not just a time-traveling machine but also a spaceship.
Also, favorite line from the episode?
“You’ve redecorated….I don’t like it.”
I liked the episode, but thought it was underwhelming, and agree with Christopher Campbell’s review at Film School Rejects. Capaldi’s faces, though, are aces.
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Webseries have rapidly become my go-to for romance in the desert valley of television that is summer, and I’m in love yet again…this time with a series I initially rejected. Classic Alice starts out slow, and I recommend skipping around a little bit in the first two episodes, but by episode three it really kicks into gear and rapidly becomes charming and wonderful.
Alice is a university student who agrees to help out a friend by filming a documentary in which she reads and attempts to live out some aspect of a series of classic novels. The first two she does are Crime and Punishment (she commits a crime) and Pygmalion (she undertakes to makeover an engineering student to surprising results). Also, one of the characters is in love with Alice…and then two are. Delicious. You guys, have I ever steered you wrong? For your reference, I love The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy, and am not particularly fond of either Emma Approved or Frankenstein, MD, which I found to be underwhelming. The first ten episodes of Classic Alice have aired (you will want to make it to episode 10, trust me), and new ones come out every Tuesday.
“The man who strode into the Sunset Marquis this month was funny, warm, sensitive and a bit manic, which he said was a symptom of jet lag….While a lot of actors are rather one dimensional off screen, he is refreshingly the opposite. His broad interests (he also likes fast cars, sometimes participating in celebrity races) make it hard to squeeze his personality into a prefabricated narrative, a specialty of the celebrity news media. Suddenly, the career frustration is entirely understandable: Hollywood wants to keep Mr. Brody in the serious box, but he keeps banging on the walls and insisting he is more than that — and he is right.” – Wonderful if slightly bemusing New York Times interview with Adrien Brody
The stunning Caitriona Balfe in Saturday’s Outlander, a show which is rather wonderful
Karen Gillan’s new pilot came out on ABC last night, and I reviewed it for Sound on Sight!
Were the leads of this limited but endearing sitcom anyone but the entirely charming, gifted pair of John Cho and Karen Gillan, it would fall flat. Yet, because of them, and a few hints of surprising writing nuance, it ultimately rather works.
Eliza Doolittle (Karen Gillan) is a social media guru with hundreds of thousands of online followers and (as she finds out in the pilot) no real friends. When she gets food poisoning on a flight full of her co-workers and lands herself in a completely humiliating situation, she winds up recruiting her firm’s top representation manager, Henry (John Cho), to overhaul her image. It is (very) loosely based onPygmalion or as it’s more famously known, My Fair Lady.
Coffee and Irony 