Is anyone going to watch Bonnie and Clyde on A&E?
Television
The Day of the Doctor
Oh my god.
Discuss.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you should probably expect the thread to be spoilerific.
Late Night Open Thread
Holy shit, Sons of Anarchy. I had to watch it twice to believe it.
Monday Morning Open Thread: Entertainment Suggestion
.
Per the NYTimes:
With her toothless grin, floppy hat and tell-it-like-it-is persona, Moms Mabley may be one of the most influential comedians you don’t know. She rose to fame in the early decades of the 20th century on the chitlins circuit — the collection of stages around the country that employed black entertainers during segregation — and she would go on to a career that spanned more than 50 years. In that time, she pushed beyond racial and gender barriers, but she drew mainstream attention only starting in the 196os (she died in 1975) and little of her work has survived on film or video. That hasn’t deterred Whoopi Goldberg.
In the documentary “Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley,” which will be shown on Monday on HBO, she traces the comic’s life and talks with performers who were influenced by Mabley, including Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy, Joan Rivers, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte….
In an interview at the festival and a follow-up this month, Ms. Goldberg spoke about how she discovered Mabley as a child and the influence Mabley had on her own comedy. “I knew there were records in the house that you weren’t supposed to touch,” because of the salty language, she said. “And then she would be on Ed Sullivan, and my mom would let us watch. And somehow she flew into my mouth. I don’t know how it worked, but she’s in there.” …
My dad had a couple of those ‘salty’ records, but my mother made him get rid of them as soon as us kids were big enough to figure out the record player (not that we’d have had any idea what those jokes meant). Giving Moms Mabley a forum on the public airwaves was one of the primary reasons Mom decided the Smothers Brothers weren’t really nice, much as it pained her earnest totebagger soul to admit that…
What’s on the agenda for the start of another week?
Monday Morning Open Thread: Entertainment SuggestionPost + Comments (44)
Saturday Night Open Thread: TV Geek Kulcha
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?
Saturday Night Open Thread: TV Geek KulchaPost + Comments (168)
Late to the Game
The Good Wife is a really solid show.
*** Update ***
Forgot my earworms for the day. Woke up to this and it had me until about 7pm:
Her voice just captures me, and she is pretty ok looking, as well. For some reason or another, this is the tune that got stuck in my head during the dinner hours:
Why Delbert McClinton is not a world renowned artist is up there in my mind with how Goodfellas lost to Dances with Jesus Christ Is This Movie Still Going On At Least His Accent is Better Than It Was In Thirteen Days Fuck Me Running There is Still An Hour And a Half to Go Wolves.
Sunday Night Open Thread
That’s the last watch I have ever worn, and I took it of after I got off active duty in June 1992. Other than National Guard weekends up until 1999, I have not worn a watch since. I don’t need one. There are clocks everywhere- on the computer in the car on the signs on your phone, etc.
And even though I am an Apple fanboi, this Samsung Galaxy watch has intrigued me and I can not wait until Mistermix reviews it. If I could put my iPhone on my wrist, and not have to wonder where it is or having it rattle around my shorts, I would be on the iWatch like stink on shit.
Also too, use this thread to discuss your shows.