pedanther

1. The Christmas show opened this week. Everybody's enjoying it so far. The local newspaper gave it a terrible review -- not in the sense of not liking the show, but in the sense that it spelled everyone's name wrong and gave away all the best jokes. (And it's going to be a while before we stop ribbing our New York-born lead actor about how impressed the reviewer was by the authenticity of his American accent.) Still, they say there's no such thing as bad publicity, and I remember what it's like to get no review at all, so I'm not going to complain. Much.


2. I'm still playing Doctor Who: Legacy on and off. I'm getting gradually better at it, and although I'm still not really invested in the "story", it's designed like most smartphone games to be easy to pull out and play for a few minutes while you're waiting for something else.


3. glvalentine has done another list for TV Club 10, this one 10 notable TV adaptations of 19th-century English literature. Strikingly, neither the 1995 Pride and Prejudice nor the 2004 North and South made the top ten, although they're the first two honorable mentions; as with the last list, there's a rule enforcing variety in the top picks, and they were beaten out by 1995's Persuasion and 2009's Return to Cranford respectively.


4. Over the last few years, Sesame Street has been making a series of spoof movie trailers in which Cookie Monster learns lessons about self-regulation skills like patience, perseverance, and consideration of the feelings of others. My current favourite is Star S'Mores, in which our hero plays the role of Flan Solo, accompanied by his faithful sidekick Chewie the Cookiee... which goes about as well as you might expect, considering this is Cookie Monster we're talking about.


5. Man, I love Cookie Monster. One of my favourite parts of doing Yuletide last year was watching Cookie Monster videos and calling it research. Here's a classic from twenty years ago: Monsterpiece Theater present Little House on Prairie.

I originally got a Livejournal account only to make it more convenient to keep track of my friends and comment on their posts, never intending to make posts of my own.

My first post was about Cranford, because there was somebody on my friendslist I thought would be interested. (I later realised that I wasn't on her friendslist, so she probably never saw it anyway. C'est la vie.)

That was a year, five months, and a day ago, which is too awkward to be a proper anniversary, so I only mention it because the first episode of Return to Cranford aired here tonight.

(Return to Cranford. Hmm. "Conductor, I'll have a return to Cranford, please.")

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In other TV news, this week's episode of Collectors had a segment on Norman Hetherington's collection of bits from his classic TV show Mr Squiggle. It's on iView for the next week and a bit.

Sunday night television has become boring again: Cranford has come to an end, and Rob Kelly's Doctor Who-themed run on The Einstein Factor has fallen flat after two episodes.

( The Einstein Factor: Giants never strike the same house twice )
( Cranford: did I mention it has Philip Glenister in it? )

Next week in the same timeslot is the first episode of Lost in Austen. I think I'll pass, thanks.