Since it’ll be a while before Cole’s got new Game of Throne episodes to anticipate, NYMag‘s Vulture.com offers a ninety-minute video clip of a “very Australian interview with George R.R. Martin, Lena Heady, and Michelle Fairley… packed with incest jokes and Martin making fun of how vast the book’s universe is…”
And the Washington Post‘s TV critic, Hank ‘IDOANGEDDIT’ Stuever, links to the celebrations planned for another beloved scientifantastical series:
… Even if you’ve never seen the show or long since concluded that it’s not your cup of tea, BBC America has several specials and retrospectives scheduled this week, offering ample opportunities for the casually curious to share in the anniversary mirth. It all leads up to a much-anticipated special episode of the current “Doctor Who” saga that will be globally simulcast on Saturday, Nov. 23…
“An Adventure in Space and Time” is set in the BBC’s “Mad Men” era, when a hyperbolic and creative network executive, Sydney Newman (Brian Cox), gropes around for a quick fix to an empty half-hour on his programming grid…
Newman promotes his ambitious assistant Verity Lambert (“Call the Midwife’s” Jessica Raine) to helm the series; it’s her first crack at running a show.
But Lambert and her ethnically Indian director, Waris Hussein (Sacha Dhawan), run up against the Beeb’s prevailingly chauvinistic and mildly racist culture. Their production budget is deplorably low and their deadlines impossibly tight; their soundstage is cramped and outdated; the scripts are dreadfully wordy; the art department sloppily throws together a mod look for the extra-dimensional interior of the Doctor’s police box, which writers christen the TARDIS (“Time and Relative Dimension in Space”)…
The Doctor himself provides a sobering (though not exactly teetotaling) presence, as Lambert and Hussein coax an aging stage and TV actor named William Hartnell (David Bradley) to star in their weird little show. “He’s C.S. Lewis meets H.G. Wells meets Father Christmas — that’s the Doctor,” Lambert tells the actor…
Bradley (you may know him as Red Wedding host Lord Walder Frey on HBO’s “Game of Thrones”) plays Hartnell as a lovably sour and embittered grump who signs on mainly for the paycheck. A rough cut of the pilot episode flops in the front office; Newman orders Lambert and her crew to rewrite it and reshoot it. Rushed to the airwaves, “Doctor Who” premiered disastrously — steamrolled by news from the United States of John F. Kennedy’s assassination the day before….
The BBC orders a full season and then another; Hartnell brightens and accepts that this part — not Shakespeare — will probably be his permanent legacy. His health fails and he forgets his lines and before we know it, the makers of “Doctor Who” come up with one of the show’s smartest innovations: The Doctor, being an immortal Time Lord, can regenerate his body when faced with death (or contract renewal). Thus, by 1966, another actor took over the part — as would 10 more Doctors, and counting….
Which fans here got their tickets for the global simulcast next weekend?
What other tv, sf or otherwise, are you all watching this weekend?
Redshirt
Are you M_C? Cuz, lolwut?
Anne Laurie
@Redshirt: Saturday night, open thread — you don’t like the topic on offer, write your own, dude.
Redshirt
@Anne Laurie: OK. How do I get to the dashboard?
Cassidy
@Redshirt: Dr. Who. People are obsessed with it. They’ve got some sort of anniversary or something happening. Don’t much care for it myself.
Belafon
Have the Doctor Who fans caught the Night of the Doctor yet?
Roxy
Not exactly scifi Supernatural
Belafon
@Redshirt: Since they restarted the show in 2005, the series has become such a hit that the 50th anniversary special will be simultaneously broadcast in 25 countries. In England and in the US the episode is being shown in 3D at a number of (thought not enough) movie theaters. So, while it’s being shown at 8pm in England, here in Texas we will see it at 2pm.
Redshirt
@Cassidy: Is it some kind of Irish thing or something?
Chris
Skyfall, now that it’s on Netflix. I saw it once in theaters and loved it mostly because, well, Bond was FINALLY back (they take their sweet time between movies nowadays), then saw it again a few weeks later and remember being distinctly underwhelmed. Going for a tiebreaker.
Saw Thor yesterday; that was aight too. (Mostly for Loki’s performance, easily the most fun villain of the MCU. They knew what they were doing casting him in the Avengers).
catclub
so “An Adventure in Space and Time” is kind of a re-worked creation myth of the series?
I guess I am slow. How about a “This is Spinal Tap” documentary on the origins?
Roxy
I watch Dr. Who every so often. I do watch Once Upon a Time and Grimm. Gawd I miss Battlestar Galactica and Deep Space Nine
Little Boots
it’s late, so, fun people?
Roxy
A TV show that was ahead of its time for steam punk was the Wild, Wild West
Little Boots
@Roxy:
love Grimm, but yeah, the new battlestar gallactica was amazing.
nothing amazing in the past few years.
Cassidy
@Redshirt: It’s a British show. Like I said, I don’t watch, but I have plenty of friends who do.
Redshirt
@Chris: Have you read “Sandman”?
Loki’s in it. The real Loki.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Gophers 6, Fighting Whioux 1. No matter what else happens, any day you beat North Dakota by five goals is a damned good day.
That’s 62 wins in a row. What has your team done lately?
Gravenstone
@Belafon: I’ll admit I came exceedingly late to Who with the 11th Doctor (and only because BBCA flogged it mercilessly enough that I figured there was no harm in checking it out). But even a relative neophyte such as myself can appreciate the twist put on in “Night”.
Gravenstone
@Roxy: Who had more fun chewing the scenery, Conrad or Martin?
some guy
@Little Boots:
game of Thrones
and Elementary has been good for us AC Doyle freaks
James E. Powell
I have never seen a single episode. I assume it’s all available on DVD. Should one simply start from the beginning?
Mr Stagger Lee
So has Raven recovered from the Auburn game? That Hail Mary is one for the ages.
Little Boots
@some guy:
okay, I do love game of thrones. it’s not amazing, but damn, I do love it.
SiubhanDuinne
Interesting in light of the JFK-assassination-nonstop-TV-coverage thread one floor down. I never really gave that much thought to how Kennedy’s death was covered in other countries, but if the BBC launched Doctor Who the very next day, they clearly weren’t doing anything close to the round-the-clock (or at least, sign-on to sign-off) broadcasting that the U.S. networks were doing.
What other newsworthy things go essentially ignored if a massive national or international story breaks at the same time? I do recall that Aldous Huxley died on November 22, 1963. That would normally have generated some comment and literary/philosophical reflection at the time, but of course that didn’t happen because we were all caught up in the JFK events (I was 21).
MikeJ
@Belafon:
Every minute they wait another 10,000 people have fired up a bittorrent client. PBS got smart and decided to show Sherlock same day too.
Cassidy
@some guy: When you’re cable goes out is it just like being tortured by the KGB?
Little Boots
@SiubhanDuinne:
not a big fan of conspiracies, necessarily, but damn, what kind of doofus thinks the warren commission wasn’t a complete fraud?
Roxy
@Gravenstone:
Have to say Ross Martin. I also loved the actor Michael Dunn who played Dr. Loveless on the show
some guy
@Cassidy:
you just can’t get over the fact that you were schooled by a lowly graduate student, can you? what is it with you conservatives and your antipathy to analogies?
Cassidy
@some guy: Schooled? You really are a shut in. Get out more, son. Masturbatory self-importance is bad for the complexion.
Roxy
@some guy:
I also like Elementary
Belafon
@James E. Powell: If you have never seen it before, i would recommend starting with the reboot in 2005. I think everything up through this season is on Netflix. Once you get up to this season, there are sites like http://www.combom.co.uk that carry the episodes.
ETA: After that, start wondering into the older series.
Little Boots
@Roxy:
cassidy,who killed kennedy?
hildebrand
@James E. Powell: Best to start with the latest iteration. The first show of the latest Doctor is called ‘The Eleventh Hour’. Once you get a sense the Matt Smith Doctor, then work your way through from the start of the new series when it started in 2005 (Christopher Eccleston, then David Tennant). After that, then you can start rummaging about in the classic series – many a Tom Baker episodes are very good.
some guy
@Roxy:
the Thursday episode was a little too droll, but I love the actor who plays Mycroft
Cassidy
@Little Boots: Only Nick Cage and Sean Connery can answer that.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Little Boots:
The last few seasons of Fringe were great, imo. It took that show a while to go from weird procedural to what it became (still weird, but definitely not a procedural), but once it found its stride…
hildebrand
@Belafon: That was outstanding. Great from start to finish.
some guy
@Little Boots:
after all, it was you and me.
what part of Cheeseheadland are you from, Little Boots?
Little Boots
@some guy:
madison.
Little Boots
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I KNEW I should’ve watched that show.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Little Boots: It was you and me.
Little Boots
@Cassidy:
but what do you say, really? you can’t believe the official story.
some guy
thought so. best ice cream in America at that student union
some guy
thought so. best ice cream in America at that student union
some guy
thought so. best ice cream in America at that student union
Roxy
@some guy:
I have to agree, the actor who plays Mycroft is great.
Little Boots
that’s, um, great ice cream.
some guy
Rhys Ifans. looked it up, the guy from Spiderman. did you know the actor playing Mycroft on Sherlock is one of the series creators?
SectionH
I could never get into the old Dr Who stuff, but when I finally watched the DVDs of the 1st season of the new series, I got hooked. And then I watched the Tenth Doctor, and well, yes. (Eleven is ok, but Ten is My Doctor, as they say.)
Yes, I have tickets to the simulcast. Driving up to Huntington Beach for it. Mr S is coming with me. He isn’t really a fan of the show, although he is fond of telling the story of going to see a Doctor Who live Christmas show in London in the ’70s. By himself. 1 adult. He says he got a srsly funny look from the box office – at least he was American – and discovered that the entire theater was full of schoolchildren and a few brave parents…
Little Boots
oh come on, cassidy, this is not a left-right thing, it’s just a thing. who do you think killed kennedy?
it’s out american right to speculate.
Cassidy
@Little Boots: Honestly? I don’t know. There were lots of competing interests at the time who would have benefited from his death ranging from foreign interests to domestic terrorism. Typically, I think the simplest answer is usually the most likely in anything. I also think Americans tend to have an overblown, television like view of what our domestic security agencies do and can do. Personally, I of all the theories, I don’t think the CIA was involved. They were a very sloppy organization at the time and tended to bollocks everything up that they touched. The same can be said for organized crime.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Little Boots: It was you and me.
Little Boots
@Mr Stagger Lee:
there’s a song in that.
Little Boots
@Cassidy:
I think it was the mob.
they seemed to have the most immediate bitterness.
rikyrah
Never got into Doctor Who.
Enjoyed the reboot of Sherlock.
I do like Elementary.
Glad I stuck with Grimm, and I admit to loving this new Dracula.
Love Arrow.
Watching American Horror Story because of Angela Bassett – totally freaking me out.
Anyone going to try out Amazon’s first attempt at an original series?
YellowJournalism
@Cassidy: Bay’s best movie. And only one of two I can tolerate.
Little Boots
@rikyrah:
love grimm.
American horror story is not the best year, but you know, it has jessica lange and kathy bates, so who cares about anything else. seeing those two together is just so fun.
Cassidy
@Little Boots: Possible and plausible. I just have a hard time believing a large element of any kind can keep a secret for very long.
Omnes Omnibus
@YellowJournalism: What is the other one?
@rikyrah:
Same here. Haven’t really watched any of the other shows you mentioned.
Chris
@YellowJournalism:
By far. I agree.
Belafon
@SectionH: We weren’t about to get tickets for the 23rd. They only have one theater showing it for the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (6.5Million people, you know there are a few fans). So we’re going to the reshowing on the 25th, which for some reason they are opening a lot more theaters.
I’m sure we’ll see it more than twice. I feel sorry for that new show, Atlantis, coming on after Doctor Who on BBCA. It may have worked a few years ago starting a new show after a big event, but now, we’ll just all rewind and watch Doctor Who again.
BillinGlendaleCA
This is true. It was true for the large corporation(aka Satan) that I worked for and when my dad worked for DOD.
Cassidy
@YellowJournalism: I like the Transformer movies. They’re not perfect, but I have fun watching them.
Little Boots
@Cassidy:
I get that, but I think the mob can keep a secret. the biggest thing for me is what the hell was jack ruby doing in that whole mess if the mob weren’t involved?
workworkwork
I introduced my wife to Doctor Who with the 2005 reboot, though I’ve been a fan since I watched Tom Baker’s Doctor on PBS back in Chicago in the ’80s.
We’re both hooked now and since we have to go to a wedding on the 23rd, we got tickets to the 3D showing at our local theater for Monday night.
Omnes Omnibus
SNL’s opening sequence just took a pretty sharp jab at Lara Logan and 60 Minutes.
SectionH
@Belafon: Oh yes! Also the Day of the Doctor Children in Need preview:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-watch-day-doctor-2797107
And finally, this one from New Zealand. It’s terrible quality, but with moar squee-ness, or spoilers depending on your PO .
Redshirt
Oh, I get it now. It’s “culture” in the thread title, spelled out ethnically. I thought it was some kind of new Korean Anime or something.
workworkwork
@Gravenstone:
Martin definitely. He was my favorite. Conrad mostly busted up the scenery.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
good, that was pathetic.
MorningtonCrescent
Here’s a video of the last three innings of Jim Maloney’s 1965 no-hitter at Wrigley Field for the Cincinnati Reds. In color, complete with commercials. He threw a complete game, 10 innings, 186 pitches.
Leo Cardenas, Vada Pinson, Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams. Those great old Reds uniforms, Pete Rose batting without a helmet. What’s not to like.
They didn’t have graphics, the score was given by putting the camera on the Wrigley Field scoreboard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRCLrJOP2zM
Redshirt
Also, my new band name is “Hostage Font”.
Chris
@Little Boots:
One of the 20th century skeletons in the government’s closet I’m keenest to find out about (much more than the JFK assassination actually); exactly what was going on between them and J. Edgar Hoover. The guy who was the foremost man in American law enforcement for forty years, and spent half of that time insisting that they didn’t even exist.
I bring this up because the idea of the mob keeping a secret that big on their own is hard for me to believe too, but if you imagine Hoover helping them out, suddenly it’s not so implausible.
Bill E Pilgrim
Okay so it’s Sunday night, you’re watching TV, and Doctor Who’s on first.
That’s what I want to find out. And stop calling me Doctor.
CaseyL
Not going to the global simulcast. Oddly, the only venue in the Seattle area isn’t in Seattle proper, but over on the Eastside. I’m perfectly happy to watch on TV. Strange that Paul Allen didn’t grab a chance to show it at the SciFi museum, or the Cinerama.
@MikeJ: Mike – You, Yatsuno, and I were talking about getting together to watch. Is that still on?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: I don’t know. Third base!
Little Boots
@Chris:
yup, hoover would not even admit there was a mob for the longest time. for a combination of reasons, they seem like the most likely to have gotten away with it.
James E. Powell
@BillinGlendaleCA:
hard time believing a large element of any kind can keep a secret for very long.
I feel this way, too, but every time I raise this point to my conspiracy loving brother, he asks, “Who killed Hoffa? Where’s his body?”
Little Boots
@James E. Powell: @James E. Powell:
forget hoffa. jack ruby? what the hell is that about?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Little Boots:
You can always stream it (I know it’s up on Amazon Prime, and I’m guessing you can watch it on Netflix).
I didn’t get into it right away, so I went back and watched the earlier seasons later. Like I said, it became something different over its run. I don’t know if it’s such a bad thing to come in cold, start by watching seasons 4 and 5, then go back to the beginning. I don’t think there’s anything so essential in the first three seasons that it matters to do it that way. The whole thing can be such a mind fuck anyway…
some guy
@Little Boots:
Jada the stripper Ruby brought from New Orleans to Dallas is the secret key
Cassidy
@Chris: @Little Boots: At the same time, mafia people love to talk.
BillinGlendaleCA
@James E. Powell: That’s easy, Hoffa probably pissed one person off enough that he killed him himself. One person, easy to keep a secret.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E. Powell: Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year. It’s just not really widely reported.
Redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: “Dust for vomit” would be an album name.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Omnes Omnibus: If you’re a drummer for a certain rock band the chances go way up.
BillinGlendaleCA
Cause the gobm’t keeps it outa da news. It’s a conspiracy I tell ya.
Little Boots
@Cassidy:
I think some did, at least according to thom hartmann.
Little Boots
@BillinGlendaleCA:
it is.
I know everyone thinks it’s silly, but it really is a conspiracy. and you can see why.
SectionH
@Belafon: There aren’t any showings in San Diego on the day, either hence the drive to OC. I don’t watch much TV (have cancelled cable until we move next spring, didn’t have BBCA here anyway) nor see many movies in theaters, but there are exceptions. This is definitely one.
piratedan
I dunno, when it comes to cheesy British Science Fiction, I still am old school and dig The Avengers, The Prisoner, UFO and Space 1999, naturally ymmv
Bill E Pilgrim
@piratedan: I never got into Dr Who at all (ducks). I don’t know why, but I lurved Red Dwarf to an inordinate degree.
The books are actually great, brilliantly funny writing.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
those are all pretty awesome. it’s true.
but you have to admit, the NEW battlestar galactica took things to a whole new level.
Little Boots
help me out here, omnes, everyone listens to you.
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: The Avengers (especially the Emma Peel years) and The Prisoner are awesome.
SectionH
@SectionH: dunno what happened to the 2nd link (from NZ). Here:
http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/the-day-of-the-doctor-nz-trailer-55493.htm
Belafon
@SectionH: Congrats. And I think it’ll be a lot of fun being around a whole lot of Whovians, kind of like a Con but without the weird questions at the Q&A. That’s why we went ahead and bought tickets for the 25th even though we will have seen it at least twice on TV before then.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: I think Oswald did it. I have no idea who may have helped him along the way.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
oh, you’re no fun at all.
Little Boots
and it was the mob.
Belafon
@SectionH: Thanks. I think I might have actually seen something before my wife now, even though I introduced her to Doctor Who.
piratedan
@Bill E Pilgrim: yeah, we moved away from the metro DC area when Red Dwarf started being broadcast (ty WTTG) so I never got into that because I was starting to geek on things like eye contact from femmes and the eternal debate regarding cleavage and its usage as a personal motivator.
@Little Boots: nope, I prefer the old BG, at the time, cheesy was better because it was from those halcyonic days when Buck Rogers, Quantum Leap and Quark were also on…
By the time when I wanted to take my Science Fiction seriously again, it was Farscape, X-Files, ST-TNG and The Lone Gunman for me….
Cassidy
@Little Boots: I don’t think it’s implausible. I just don’t have enough faith in a large group to keep secrets. It defies the odds.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
loved farscape and x-files, but come on? hot as the guys were in old battlestar, the new one was so much infinitely better. come on.
Little Boots
@Cassidy:
jack ruby. Jack Ruby. there was no other reason for jack ruby. none.
Bill E Pilgrim
@piratedan: Did you move to France?
Little Boots
and I have to admit, even as a gay man, there is nothing hotter than emma peel.
piratedan
@Bill E Pilgrim: close… North Carolina, might as well have been another country after leaving DC Metro.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill E Pilgrim: Nah, he’s a Gordon Gano fan.
piratedan
@Little Boots: is what it is… it’s America, where I’m allowed to embrace whatever cultural tropes and themes that may appeal, true?
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: In Soviet Russia, cultural tropes and themes embrace you.
Little Boots
@piratedan: @piratedan:
as an American you are entitled to embrace the hottest englishwoman ever.
Anne Laurie
@Chris: Yeah, my personal best guess is that Oswald was an accident — the archetypical patsy being groomed for something, by someone, who got loose & got lucky . And all the mysteries since then are rooted in the various Dark Forces’ scrambling efforts to figure out who was to blame, but more important, which soft spots in their own defenses needed reinforcement. The original secret tragedy of “It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup” with Watergate as the trailing farce…. especially since Tricky Dick himself would have been just on the edge of “official” gossip about the frantic Warren Commission rewrites and all the related letter-agency/organized crime hustling.
Little Boots
@Anne Laurie:
mob. annie, mob, right?
Bargal20
@Belafon: It’s screening in 3D in cinemas in Australia too.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
why everyone loves you.
but I’m right, admit it.
Belafon
@Anne Laurie: Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife, Marina, is the mom of one of my dad’s friends.
Little Boots
@Belafon:
oh damn, have you met her?
Belafon
@Bargal20: Cool. I had only heard of the US and England, though I haven’t really done a lot of searching on where it’s being broadcast and how.
piratedan
@Little Boots: well Ms. Rigg certainly embodies that, or at least was a title holder for quite some time…. would make a good comment thread but would find it to be a tad sexist and would suggest that the ladies have a chance to sponsor their favorite gender equivalents…although I could also suggest that Ms. Rigg did ascend to the title after Ms. Blackmon reign was finishing… although I think who followed Ms. Rigg is open for debate and will gladly entertain discussion.
burnspbesq
@Little Boots:
Does it matter? He’s been dead for 50 muthafucking years.
Seriously, the shit that some people find to obsess over …
Belafon
@Little Boots: Briefly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Rachel Weisz, Kate Beckinsale, Audrey Hepburn, and Helen Mirren among others would like to have a word with you.
Little Boots
@burnspbesq:
cause it still matters. what happened? it matters. who killed a president? it matters. if it was the mob, and it was, it matters.
Anne Laurie
@Cassidy: Yeah, and those “mafia people” spent twenty years saying Whitey Bulger was being protected — but who listens to those goombas?
Don’t think any one of the several “security” agencies, or competing crime bosses, could’ve kept a real assassination plot secret for fifty years. But when you have at least half a dozen powerful groups mostly interested in their particular secrets not being exposed, the ensuing chaos breeds its own storm. “Nothing can be known” because a thousand specific facts can’t be entered into the record…
Little Boots
@piratedan:
would you stop being a women’s studies course description and just say yes, you like a show?
Belafon
@piratedan: To tie this into Doctor Who, one of the episodes this season had Diana Rigg and her daughter, Rachael Stirling, playing mother and daughter. It was the first time the two of them acted together.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
and don’t YOU start.
Little Boots
@Anne Laurie:
and this.
piratedan
@Little Boots: for fuck’s sake, haven’t I already done that upthread, sheesh… some people’s kids.
Little Boots
@piratedan:
wait. starting to get it.
never mind.
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus: Jacqueline Bisset
Omnes Omnibus
Since everyone has been talking Kennedy assassination, this should be noted.
piratedan
@Hill Dweller: I was also quite fond of Judy Geeson for a while
Omnes Omnibus
@Hill Dweller: That’s why I went with “among others.” Otherwise things would get ugly.
Little Boots
games without frontiers?
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: No.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
not good enough. someone opened a can of worms. (it might have been me.)
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
solsbury hill?
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Listen to it, ffs.
ETA: Solsbury Hill wasn’t even on the “Melt” album.
Amir Khalid
I’ve only read one book about the Kennedy assassination, but it has an intriguing take on the matter: Stephen King’s 11:22:63* went into some detail on the political consequences, in the US and around the world, of Kennedy not dying that day. As I recall, they were mostly not good, since Kennedy was a little too enthusiastic about American intervention.
King also has a lot to say about Oswald, whom his hero stalks for five years ahead of the fateful day, but not that much about Jack Ruby.
* You Americans and your strange date format …
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jacqueline Bisset came to mind because Sundance Channel aired Bullitt a couple of nights ago.
Little Boots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fF8wU4Nl9Y
like this better.
Anne Laurie
@Little Boots: Nah, if I hadda guess, whatever-they-called-the-NSA trying to impress the CIA/FBI with some kewl double-triple-secret-mind-control blather, until their least important chess piece got loose at the wrong moment. After Oswald got improbably lucky, that’s when someone from the “legal” end of the Secrets Spectrum would’ve called in “the Mob” to make the nightmare go away. Unfortunately the Ruby ‘solution’ raised even more questions, but then, any crime buff can tell you there’s nothing like bringing in a circus full of sweaty randoms to obscure the crime scene!
Omnes Omnibus
@Hill Dweller: Bisset and Keira Knightley were in the slightly longer list that I cut down before hitting the submit button.
Little Boots
@Anne Laurie:
ruby was mob. no question. now, the people who cannot keep a secret is the NSA/CIA/FBI. the mob can keep a secret, cause … death.
Little Boots
now on the other had, omnes, no music? really?
Omnes Omnibus
@Little Boots: Be that as it may, Solsbury Hill isn’t about an assassin (or photographer) waiting for the moment to take his shot.
Little Boots
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWVL4B-4pI
Anne Laurie
@burnspbesq:
But it does leave more openings for people who enjoy taxation law to flourish.
Little Boots
@Omnes Omnibus:
fine, just post already.
Little Boots
sheets, or whatever you people do here. new stuff.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: Best short summary, for true. But Gabriel’s English, and I don’t think he meant to go beyond that ‘snapshot’ of one player’s actions on that one afternoon.
James E. Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
Be that as it may, Solsbury Hill isn’t about an assassin (or photographer) waiting for the moment to take his shot.
Well, then how about this?
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I don’t have a dog in the conspiracy fight, but I thought the song was apropos.
Redshirt
So, no one’s read “Sandman”, then, is that it?
Cassidy
@Anne Laurie: No I don’t. There is always someone who wants to talk, someone who wants to feel important.
handsmile
First of all, I have no business being on this thread. I have never seen a single entire episode of Doctor Who in my life.
Of course, that will change now that Peter Capaldi is the Doctor. He is an actor of astonishing and protean gifts: a transvestite prostitute in Prime Suspect, a suspected Communist agitator in Foyle’s War, the unforgettable spin doctor Malcolm Tucker from The Thick of It and In the Loop. Frankly, I can’t wait to see what he does with this legendary role.
But as to other thread topics:
The one work of fiction on the Kennedy assassination I would recommend to everyone is Libra by Don DeLillo. A speculative novel, weaving fact and fiction, DeLillo writes a “biography” of Lee Harvey Oswald from childhood to death. Along with White Noise, Libra is generally regarded as DeLillo’s masterpieces; DeLillo himself is one of the most important contemporary American writers. This is a great book that you should read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libra_(novel)
But perhaps of even greater consequence is Little Boots’ question above (#113)!
The correct and obvious answer of course is Helen Mirren. (OO was just being polite in his #124 reply.) All other contestants should be thanked for playing and presented with lovely parting gifts.
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: If Helen were a brunette, then yes. But then, my real thing is French brunettes.
Radio One
George RR Martin has said he always intended ASOIAF as a trilogy, and after reading A Storm of Swords a couple of years ago, I’ve always felt that that novel”s ending was an appropriate conclusion to the whole story..
handsmile
@Omnes Omnibus:
Good sir, I understood the topic to be “hottest Englishwoman.” Should however you wish to change the subject to “French brunettes,” why then, here’s the answer to that:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/emmanuelle_beart/
ooh la la, as the philosophes say.
(and should there be any debate on the matter, let me suggest you Youtube La Belle Noiseuse. Derived from a Balzac novella, it’s high kulcha aussi!)
Omnes Omnibus
@handsmile: The topic was hottest Englishwoman, but I was confessing that the topic was not my actual area of expertise. And, of course, the answer is Mlle Beart. I mean, damn. Or as Sam on Cheers said when he first saw Rebecca Howe, “Abbuah!”
James E. Powell
Hottest Englishwoman of all time? Are we just talking looks? Kate Moss maybe? Elizabeth Hurley? Or going back a ways, Jean Shrimpton?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Liz Taylor? Julie Christie? Catherine Zeta-Jones (or don’t the Welsh count in this discussion?)?
Draylon Hogg
@Belafon: Very much sir, nearly did a sex wee sir. Physician heal thyself.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: I’m thinking the 50th anniversary episode can’t possibly live up to that six-minute squib. Of course, part of what made it remarkable (aside from good acting all around, especially from the Sister of Karn) was the deep, deep continuity porn, working in references to the Tom Baker era, the awful 1996 TV movie, and the Big Finish audio series that was actually McGann’s main experience acting as the Doctor, as well as recent TV stuff… and that kind of thing would probably be death if continued for an hour or more.
fergie
I am going on the 23rd. I love the Doctor, all of them.
I also am happy my favorite blog talks about my very favorite show of all wibbly wobbly! Every time I see a Who post, I am happy the rest of the day! Thanks
fergie