Work has been absolutely flat out this week, what with Term starting tomorrow and everything. So my television watching has been a little random, a little distracted (although I think it’s Cubitt that argues this is typical TV viewer, i prefer to give it my full attention), and just basically a little of the usual stuff.
Sunday: The Einstein Factor
Some young fella had picked Doctor Who as his special subject. Only the new series though, so his fandom is questionable. However, as he did look about 12 he probably wasn’t around to watch the older series. And I’m not really qualified to ascertain degrees of Doctor Who fandom. I can’t remember who won. But I do know that I don’t like the changes to round two where the contestants only get to pick from the board once and then the Brains Trust get to pick one. This was the most interesting round, because you could join in. Just like trivia night in your own lounge room.
The Biggest Loser: Weigh -In Shock…the biggest one (purple lady with arm in sling and DVT) lost the littlest amount. If my memory serves me correctly (even though I am not the Iron Chef) it was .7 of a kilogram. The tension, the drama, the crying, the unbearable wait until Monday to see who got voted out. It’s just all so exciting. Wendy’s jumping up and down…in an ironic, mildly sarcastic mode of excitement.
Cranford: Poor Doctor Harrison…all these women thinking they were going to marry him and he only had eyes for the vicar’s daughter. What’s to do now that she’s been whisked away from him? I couldn’t stand to wait until tonight so very naughtily looked up the final episode on Wikipedia. Drama awaits us my friends with the coming of the evil railway. But a smidge of romance as well.
Tuesday: Biggest Loser return…WHAT?…they voted off Mr and Mrs Purple of the small weight loss and kept those whingey yellow sisters. I cannot believe it. Stupid!! And now it’s Nathan and Andrew the big, boofy brothers against the world (well the rest of the contestants anyway). And I may as well as continue with the rest of the week here because I watched it intermittently. That challenge with the beam across the pool and the balloons looked blinking difficult. And the warehouse with the choice of takeaway food or 5dollars a day was a doozy little twist as well. Weigh in tonight!!! Tune in at 7 everyone for all the crying and over-sized scales you can possibly wish for.
Wednesday: The New Inventors.
To be fair I was only half listening to it while I did some marking. but it sounded boring. I’m sure there were some worthy inventions. However, worthy does not always make for interesting television.
Spicks and Specks: Better guests thank you ABC. Soul singer lady was excellent.
Chandon Pictures: Actually I declined the ABC’s kind offer to watch Chandon Pictures and turned the television off. I know…it happens sometimes.
Thursday: Nothing doing on the actual TV so watched an old Doctor Who, Gridlock with Martha, the return of the big face and cat nun. As well as Ardal O’Hanlon for all Father Ted fans as a cat person stuck in the underground traffic. Very good.
Friday: Again, nothing on the TV, so borrowed a DVD. Burn After Reading. What the hell the fuss was about here I have no idea. Unlike Kerrie Murphy in yesterday’s review in The Australian, I though Brad Pitt’ gym junkie Chad was the most interesting character and he got killed off halfway through. I didn’t understand the point of George Clooney’s character. France McDormand grew on me. And John Malkovich did his usual schtick. I only kept watching to see if it got better. All in all, verdict, just a little bit dull.It reminded me of the time I was swayed by the glowing reviews for Get Shorty and went to the movies to see it. It’s not that it was boring. It was like it was nothing, not funny, not scary, not dramatic, just…stuff happening.
Saturday: New Tricks. Now I know I’m probably not in the prime demographic for this show about old coppers, but it’s amusing, smart and has some great actors. My favourite is Alun Armstrong’s slightly off-kilter Brian. It’s in repeats but still beats anything else on offer at this time.
Rockwiz: Some musical amusement before bed. Good.
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The Doctor Who contestant won, but only on the back of his first round score. He hardly answered any other questions (youth I think) Both MrsDrWho and I could answer most of the questions without any swotting, so not very hard at all. Totally agree about Round 2.
I like New Tricks but I can remember what happens too clearly, and so I don’t enjoy it as much. I do enjoy the facts that Brian’s TV wife is Jack’s real wife(When the boat comes in) and that Amanda Redman was once romantically linked with Dennis(feem tune) Waterman.
I have not watched all of Cranford as they played an UN advertised 2 episodes the first week and I missed a chunk in the middle I am hoping a friend has recorded. To mollify myself I am reading the book, which differs quite a lot from the TV adaptation.
Have a good new Term!!!
Am i right in saying the man with the big face is actually Capt Jack (or am i completely wrong)
yes 2paw…i also enjoy those background trivia facts about New Tricks. I also like the fact that Amanda Redman doesn’t try to hide that big burn down her arm.
I think Cranford is going to be my next read..just to see what the differences were if nothing else.
New Term….I already have my clothes planned for Day 1. I’m either sad, obsessive, or excited.
Andy, now I don’t want to make an idiot of myself but I know there are those that sometimes read this blog who are FAR more expert than me re Doctor Who but I think you are right. Because the whole time I was watching I had a nagging feeling that I now knew something about the face of bo that I didn’t know the first time I watched this episode..in order. Can anyone help a poor, forgetful, johnny-come-lately dr who watcher?
Or should I just go straight to wikipedia?
Captain Jack mentioned at the end of season four that when he was a young and pretty boy in Boshane Penisula, he became the “poster boy” for the area–I assume some sort of mascot or part of an advertising campaign–and his proud neighbours started calling him “The Face of Bo.”
That suggests he is The Face of Bo, and Bo’s intimate knowledge of the Doctor suggests the same thing, but it’s never stated outright.
And 2paw, don’t forget Cranford is based on three novellas/long short stories. The bits of the series that are based on Cranford itself do vary widely from the original novella, but I can’t speak to the other two.
A-Ha..I knew you would be able to fill in the blanks for us re Doctor Who/ Face of Bo…so “implied” as Captain Jack. I will like to think that’s true I think.
Wendy, Catriona and Andrew, Capt Jack is thought to be The Face of Boe but it is never stated emphatically, I think Russell T is prevaricating!!!
Yes, I have the 3 novellas all together in one book. I threw them over for the latest Shardlake mystery!!!
Oh and the clothes?? When I was still teaching I planned my clothes for the whole first week and had them all ready, so it would be one less thing to have to think about. I don’t think it’s sad or obsessive!!!
oh so the books aren’t that fascinating? should I bother?
jsut finished watching the final episode…everyone lived happily ever after…except poor mr carter i guess
2paw, that’s what I meant re. The Face of Bo–suggested but never stated outright.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it were deliberate prevarication with a view to opening up some other options later, though.
I haven’t read two of the three Gaskells, myself, but I’m very fond of Cranford itself. It is slow and gentle (and there aren’t any bodies), and Elizabeth Gaskell is often considered (somewhat) inferior to the first-tier Victorian novelists, but I like her work. Her Wives and Daughters is one of my favourites, though it is unfinished.
Then again, I’m biased.
why do you think she isn’t recognised as “first tier”?
i really like her biography of Charlotte Bronte actually…but then am more of a Bronte fan
I don’t know, really, Wendy. The Oxford Companion to English Literature notes that during her lifetime she was considered the equal of Eliot, but that critical esteem then dropped away (until, it is implied, the 1970s’ recovery of women writers)–of course, with the same breath, they say she was “at first rather uncertain in plot creation and given to melodramatic devices,” and we all know being melodramatic necessarily makes you populist, and being populist will have a devastating effect on the quality of your writing.
(I really shouldn’t be sarcastic on other people’s blogs.)
The Feminist Companion to Literature in English does note that almost all her novels are concerned with female experience, which might help explain it, when for so long the nineteenth century was considered not only to be the age of the novel (look at how long nineteenth-century drama and theatre were ignored by the academy) but also as the century in which we really saw that the novel was man’s work.
So the handful of writers who used to make up Victorian literature syllabi were almost all men, women who obscured their own identity when they wrote (like the Brontes), or women who permanently and publicly adopted male pseudonyms (like Eliot).
Of course, she’s also known for her professional network, and being the writer best known for the first major biography of the Brontes and for a long-running professional association with Dickens is enough to give anyone a reputation as a bit of a hanger-on.
you can be as sarcastic as you like! because god forbid anything popular or melodramatic be taken seriously ;)(I hear what you’re saying very clearly!)
Those explanations do clarify perhaps why she has been under-rated, and less likely to be given recognition similar to the brontes, dickens, eliot etc.
If only she’d given herself a male pseudonym she might have been set!
She was also happily married and–although she continued to write–there’s something about the happily married Victorian woman that sets people on edge.
So maybe if she’d adopted a male pseudonym and not been a willing tool of the patriarchy, she’d be better considered.
(Slightly sarcastic, subject to permission.)
permission granted…no need to request permission to use sarcasm round here 🙂
aah…patriachy…don’t you just luv it?