Country house/mean city
Oct. 21st, 2014 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessDownton 5.05
Rosamund continues to make excellent hat selections. Have we seen the Red Room before? Very striking. At least she’s on Edith’s case. She put it succinctly enough, but of course, she and her mother underestimated how desperate Edith is. (Still, Edith, in that day and age, a child out of wedlock in most strata of society would be a bit more of a big deal than a cocktail party.)
Yay!Isobel, yes, you should tell Merton first, not Violet. Yay!Clarkson for daring to point out to Violet why she’s meddling. (Has he got over Isobel?) Yay!Merton for being sweet and possibly worthy of Isobel.
I was worried Mrs Patmore’s good sense and trust in Mrs Hughes had deserted her. I am glad that she found them again and she didn’t listen to Carson’s inept insider information.
ELSIE HUGHES, YOU ARE THE BEST OF THEM.
Dear Downton Writers, there be gradients of socialists, then and now. Don’t listen to what Fellowes says on this.
But I thought Tom’s point about Sybil and especially Sybbie to Sarah was valid. OF COURSE Daisy did the emotional thing of trying to play Cupid for her own reasons (a regression if they're trying to sell Educated!Capable of reasoning!Daisy) but we've seen plenty of behaviour from Sarah that hasn't been kind.
I was amused by Robert claiming that the Bricker thing has gone on and on. Everything does on this show.
But on to something new: Oh, Rose’s part-Russian finds her broad-mindedness (ignorance of anti-Semitism, more like) sweet. Well, they should get on swimmingly.
Actually, maybe I was harsh, Rose has been shown to be exceedingly open-minded/naive in terms of skin colour and class. So long as a man is fun, she doens't care.
Rock on, Mabel. I hope you find someone who won’t give Mary the time of day all for yourself.
(Though you get the feeling that if Mary and Mabel teamed up on anything, they would be scarily good at it.)
And while Charles may try to be managing, he’s going to be fighting all the constructs and constraints of Downton.
I was glad that Molesley and Baxter had a little moment.
The most interesting thing about Anna and Bates came in the teaser for next week.
Surely Thomas is going to drop something frightfully valuable because he’s poisoning himself.
As for the whole Robert-Cora-Bricker thing, well, obviously she didn’t remember being Marguerite. The fight was almost hilarious, and there was the hint of a ‘what have I got myself into?’ vibe from Bricker. AND THEN Robert refused to listen to his wife and sulked and sulked and sulked. Still, Mary and Violet are going to be on the case.
Although I don’t think Cora’s going to be on Edith’s case. You’d have thought she’d have followed up her concern when she saw her in-laws in deep conversation with her daughter in the library.
Gotham 1.02 Selina Kyle
I saw signs of improvement in that I thought there was a better balance between the case of the week and the subplots developing from the pilot episode: Bruce and his post-traumatic, grieving issues; Fish and Falcone’s power struggle; and Oswald taking baby penguin steps towards supervillainy.
Carol Kane was perfect casting as his mother, and I would love to have an actual scene between them, although she did seem like the person who had wandered over from Burton’s depiction of Gotham City the most. It also occurred to me that in casting Selina ‘Cat’ Kyle, they’d been influenced more by Pfeiffer’s face (although the look is comics inspired, no). Once she started talking, I felt she was a little bit too actorly, although it came off as street smart brass, to an extent. And having praised the balance of the threads, I don’t know that the story itself supported the title, it felt more like fanservice or fanbait. (See also the use of the phrase ‘clown’ directed at Harvey Bullock.)
Further, on casting, it occurred to me this week to be amused that Jada Pinkett-Smith is (strutting around - I like her) on a show run by Bruno Heller, seeing as The Mentalist (his last show) has a cult that isn’t meant to remind us of Scientology at all to swipe at. I figured out too that the guy playing Butch, her new (?) SIC was on The Mentalist as a corrupt cop.
Jim’s uselessness at being convincingly in the programme isn’t very compelling, although I thought McKenzie had a few good scenes, and was amused at Bullock too. But that kid as Bruce is much more compelling – there was more nuance from him than most of the rest of the show. I am not loving Alfred so far (also, don’t hug the kid, find the nearest cold water tap and drag him to it. ).
As for the kiddie-stealing plot, although the childsnatchers/henchmen and the pharmaceutic man were effectively creepy (something to carry on with in future casting), my main response with the big deep hole in the basement was ‘At least this isn’t Buffy, kids.’)
Rosamund continues to make excellent hat selections. Have we seen the Red Room before? Very striking. At least she’s on Edith’s case. She put it succinctly enough, but of course, she and her mother underestimated how desperate Edith is. (Still, Edith, in that day and age, a child out of wedlock in most strata of society would be a bit more of a big deal than a cocktail party.)
Yay!Isobel, yes, you should tell Merton first, not Violet. Yay!Clarkson for daring to point out to Violet why she’s meddling. (Has he got over Isobel?) Yay!Merton for being sweet and possibly worthy of Isobel.
I was worried Mrs Patmore’s good sense and trust in Mrs Hughes had deserted her. I am glad that she found them again and she didn’t listen to Carson’s inept insider information.
ELSIE HUGHES, YOU ARE THE BEST OF THEM.
Dear Downton Writers, there be gradients of socialists, then and now. Don’t listen to what Fellowes says on this.
But I thought Tom’s point about Sybil and especially Sybbie to Sarah was valid. OF COURSE Daisy did the emotional thing of trying to play Cupid for her own reasons (a regression if they're trying to sell Educated!Capable of reasoning!Daisy) but we've seen plenty of behaviour from Sarah that hasn't been kind.
I was amused by Robert claiming that the Bricker thing has gone on and on. Everything does on this show.
But on to something new: Oh, Rose’s part-Russian finds her broad-mindedness (ignorance of anti-Semitism, more like) sweet. Well, they should get on swimmingly.
Actually, maybe I was harsh, Rose has been shown to be exceedingly open-minded/naive in terms of skin colour and class. So long as a man is fun, she doens't care.
Rock on, Mabel. I hope you find someone who won’t give Mary the time of day all for yourself.
(Though you get the feeling that if Mary and Mabel teamed up on anything, they would be scarily good at it.)
And while Charles may try to be managing, he’s going to be fighting all the constructs and constraints of Downton.
I was glad that Molesley and Baxter had a little moment.
The most interesting thing about Anna and Bates came in the teaser for next week.
Surely Thomas is going to drop something frightfully valuable because he’s poisoning himself.
As for the whole Robert-Cora-Bricker thing, well, obviously she didn’t remember being Marguerite. The fight was almost hilarious, and there was the hint of a ‘what have I got myself into?’ vibe from Bricker. AND THEN Robert refused to listen to his wife and sulked and sulked and sulked. Still, Mary and Violet are going to be on the case.
Although I don’t think Cora’s going to be on Edith’s case. You’d have thought she’d have followed up her concern when she saw her in-laws in deep conversation with her daughter in the library.
Gotham 1.02 Selina Kyle
I saw signs of improvement in that I thought there was a better balance between the case of the week and the subplots developing from the pilot episode: Bruce and his post-traumatic, grieving issues; Fish and Falcone’s power struggle; and Oswald taking baby penguin steps towards supervillainy.
Carol Kane was perfect casting as his mother, and I would love to have an actual scene between them, although she did seem like the person who had wandered over from Burton’s depiction of Gotham City the most. It also occurred to me that in casting Selina ‘Cat’ Kyle, they’d been influenced more by Pfeiffer’s face (although the look is comics inspired, no). Once she started talking, I felt she was a little bit too actorly, although it came off as street smart brass, to an extent. And having praised the balance of the threads, I don’t know that the story itself supported the title, it felt more like fanservice or fanbait. (See also the use of the phrase ‘clown’ directed at Harvey Bullock.)
Further, on casting, it occurred to me this week to be amused that Jada Pinkett-Smith is (strutting around - I like her) on a show run by Bruno Heller, seeing as The Mentalist (his last show) has a cult that isn’t meant to remind us of Scientology at all to swipe at. I figured out too that the guy playing Butch, her new (?) SIC was on The Mentalist as a corrupt cop.
Jim’s uselessness at being convincingly in the programme isn’t very compelling, although I thought McKenzie had a few good scenes, and was amused at Bullock too. But that kid as Bruce is much more compelling – there was more nuance from him than most of the rest of the show. I am not loving Alfred so far (also, don’t hug the kid, find the nearest cold water tap and drag him to it. ).
As for the kiddie-stealing plot, although the childsnatchers/henchmen and the pharmaceutic man were effectively creepy (something to carry on with in future casting), my main response with the big deep hole in the basement was ‘At least this isn’t Buffy, kids.’)
