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icons: The Hollow Crown
Aug. 24th, 2012 09:04 pm133 x The Hollow Crown
icons @ my LJ
Continuum 1.5-1.7: This show is really kind of not good at all, but whatever, I love it despite it's tendenc to be kinda of faily at anything but women with agency shooting things.
( spoilers )
Covert Affairs 3.1-3.2:
( spoilers )
The Hollow Crown: BBC miniseries (clocking in at around hours total) adapting Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. I've read plays but recall little about them, so I can't really comment on how faithful they are or aren't. It took me about 40 minutes in part 1 to stop just going "oooooooooooooo" over the costumes and settings, and I think I mostly enjoyed it (well, the first 3 parts, I haven't watched Henry V yet as it just aired in the UK todays) for the performances and visuals. I'd be interested in seeing what others those more familiar with the plays think. I think there will be more adaptations of Shakespeare plays airing on BBC 2 over the next couple months, but am not certain which.
Also, I first saw Michelle Dockery and Tom Hiddleston in Return to Cranford (and mostly associate him with that, despite being prone to refer to him as "Loki," though I associate Dockery more with Downton Abbey) where they were basically BFF who grew up like siblings and she got her jollies through trolling him and was trying to marry him off to Jodie Whittaker, so their being enemies here was just odd.
Political Animals 1.1: (I think this is actually a miniseries, but we can hold out hope for it being popular enough to get a sequel.) PA is basically an AU version of Hilary Clinton that may have actually started life as a Hillary Clinton/Murphy Brown fanfic. Sigourney Weaver stars as Elaine Barrish, the secretary of state (working for the president she lsot to in the primaries)and ex-wife of a former philandering president, and Carla Gugino stars as Susan Berg, a journalist who has been critical of Elaine in the past (to the point where she got banned from the White House for several years) but who has developed a certain appreciation for Elaine and is suppressing a scandal of the parrish family's in exchange for an exclusive week with Elaine. There are a bunch of other charcters floating around (Perhaps most notably Ciaran Hinds as Elaine's ex-husband and Ellen Burstyn as her mother, who appears to have a very adventurous sexual past. Sebastian Stan is also hanging around as one of Elaine's sons. I know he's popular in these parts.) but the main focus in the pilot was on Elaine and Susan's professional lives and balancing them with personal drama. It's a bit soapy but not detrimentally so, and it's amusingly devoted to making sure we realize that it intends to be a feminist show. Not that it isn't, but I kind of wanted to pat the writers on the head every time Elaine or Susan had a "we will now call society on it's sexism and/or double standards now" oneliner. (I mean, it actually does this well, but fairly obviously.) I have a few issues with the portrayal of homosexuality (or rather, with the plotline they seem to be going with with the one canon gay character, realistic as it may be) and how the POC characters seem to be heading (and I wonder if Adrian Pasdar being of Iranian descent had any affect on one plotline), but both of those could end up being done well by the end of the season.
Sinbad 1.1-1.2: A very fun show in which a Sinbad adaptation actually has a cast with more POC than not. (Kind of sad that the latter part is surprising.) In this version, 20-ish Sinbad messes up on an amazing enough level that not only is the Emir's brother (Sayid from Lost) sending every soldier in the country looking for him, but his own grandmother curses him so that a golden collar will strangle him if he spends more than a day and night on land (though, it seems you could get around some of that if you could manage to keep a small boat anchored just off shore...). But basically, you know you messed up if your granny who clearly loves you very much puts a deadly curse on you. (His granny is kinda really badass.) There are a lot mor female characters than I was expecting. Granny, of course, but also a fabulous evil sorceress, a thief, an African lady with A Mysterious Secret, possibly Sinbad's mother, a pirate cannibal queen with the potential to be a recurring character, and i think I've spotted what looks to be a female hunter in a promotional image or two. Sinbad's crew also includes an amusingly (for now, I can see it getting old) naive doctor, a drill sergeant for a cook, andthe show's token white dude, who has the potential to be fairly interesting. It's hard not to compare it to the 90s show (Which it clearly does better than in some areas, but also lacks the giddy cheese and crack of the 90s show. And, well, this Sinbad just isn't as blithely coky. Though he is a very pretty boy, and well cast.) but it's exceptionally fun and I hope it remains so.
White Collar 4.1-4.2: Oh look, after being in every episode for 3 seasons, Jones finally got moved from the guest stars list to the regulars list.
( spoilers )
( spoilers )
Covert Affairs 3.1-3.2:
( spoilers )
The Hollow Crown: BBC miniseries (clocking in at around hours total) adapting Shakespeare's Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V. I've read plays but recall little about them, so I can't really comment on how faithful they are or aren't. It took me about 40 minutes in part 1 to stop just going "oooooooooooooo" over the costumes and settings, and I think I mostly enjoyed it (well, the first 3 parts, I haven't watched Henry V yet as it just aired in the UK todays) for the performances and visuals. I'd be interested in seeing what others those more familiar with the plays think. I think there will be more adaptations of Shakespeare plays airing on BBC 2 over the next couple months, but am not certain which.
Also, I first saw Michelle Dockery and Tom Hiddleston in Return to Cranford (and mostly associate him with that, despite being prone to refer to him as "Loki," though I associate Dockery more with Downton Abbey) where they were basically BFF who grew up like siblings and she got her jollies through trolling him and was trying to marry him off to Jodie Whittaker, so their being enemies here was just odd.
Political Animals 1.1: (I think this is actually a miniseries, but we can hold out hope for it being popular enough to get a sequel.) PA is basically an AU version of Hilary Clinton that may have actually started life as a Hillary Clinton/Murphy Brown fanfic. Sigourney Weaver stars as Elaine Barrish, the secretary of state (working for the president she lsot to in the primaries)and ex-wife of a former philandering president, and Carla Gugino stars as Susan Berg, a journalist who has been critical of Elaine in the past (to the point where she got banned from the White House for several years) but who has developed a certain appreciation for Elaine and is suppressing a scandal of the parrish family's in exchange for an exclusive week with Elaine. There are a bunch of other charcters floating around (Perhaps most notably Ciaran Hinds as Elaine's ex-husband and Ellen Burstyn as her mother, who appears to have a very adventurous sexual past. Sebastian Stan is also hanging around as one of Elaine's sons. I know he's popular in these parts.) but the main focus in the pilot was on Elaine and Susan's professional lives and balancing them with personal drama. It's a bit soapy but not detrimentally so, and it's amusingly devoted to making sure we realize that it intends to be a feminist show. Not that it isn't, but I kind of wanted to pat the writers on the head every time Elaine or Susan had a "we will now call society on it's sexism and/or double standards now" oneliner. (I mean, it actually does this well, but fairly obviously.) I have a few issues with the portrayal of homosexuality (or rather, with the plotline they seem to be going with with the one canon gay character, realistic as it may be) and how the POC characters seem to be heading (and I wonder if Adrian Pasdar being of Iranian descent had any affect on one plotline), but both of those could end up being done well by the end of the season.
Sinbad 1.1-1.2: A very fun show in which a Sinbad adaptation actually has a cast with more POC than not. (Kind of sad that the latter part is surprising.) In this version, 20-ish Sinbad messes up on an amazing enough level that not only is the Emir's brother (Sayid from Lost) sending every soldier in the country looking for him, but his own grandmother curses him so that a golden collar will strangle him if he spends more than a day and night on land (though, it seems you could get around some of that if you could manage to keep a small boat anchored just off shore...). But basically, you know you messed up if your granny who clearly loves you very much puts a deadly curse on you. (His granny is kinda really badass.) There are a lot mor female characters than I was expecting. Granny, of course, but also a fabulous evil sorceress, a thief, an African lady with A Mysterious Secret, possibly Sinbad's mother, a pirate cannibal queen with the potential to be a recurring character, and i think I've spotted what looks to be a female hunter in a promotional image or two. Sinbad's crew also includes an amusingly (for now, I can see it getting old) naive doctor, a drill sergeant for a cook, andthe show's token white dude, who has the potential to be fairly interesting. It's hard not to compare it to the 90s show (Which it clearly does better than in some areas, but also lacks the giddy cheese and crack of the 90s show. And, well, this Sinbad just isn't as blithely coky. Though he is a very pretty boy, and well cast.) but it's exceptionally fun and I hope it remains so.
White Collar 4.1-4.2: Oh look, after being in every episode for 3 seasons, Jones finally got moved from the guest stars list to the regulars list.
( spoilers )
