shallowness

I succumbed to this. Succumbed? Well, I was a bit of a hold-out, I haven’t read the book it’s based on. I have a somewhat less than straightforward relationship with Austen derivative works, and I say that as someone who’s written fanfic. I might be prejudiced, but I did think the best lines in the first two episodes were lifted from Austen. I also think you’ll get maximum enjoyment from this if you are familiar with P&P and Austen’s oeuvre.

But eh, every episode is half an hour long, and as I found with Cardiac Arrest, a darker comedy drama, that’s refreshing, and makes it easy for episodes to slip down. What follows was watched in one sitting, more or less, which counts as bingeing for me.

1.1

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1.2 and 1.3

I’m grouping these two episodes together, because I can’t remember what happened when.

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Making Mary the endearingly awkward heroine (Ella Bruccoleri’s face shows all the feelings) is working, and the meta is interesting, even if it sometimes rubs against the purist in me. The purist that would probably be fine with modern day AUs. And yes, there’s a part of me that worries that being a purist about Austen makes me a Mary.

I’d only watched a handful of the movies up for nominations, so I wasn’t that invested, but watched it because it’s the most easy-to-watch film award ceremony, as always. [Edited later after catching up on the news.]( Read more... )

As with last year, I won’t be doing the writing meme separately, because once again the only fanfiction that I posted in 2025 were three-sentence ficathon fills, all ten of them coming to a total of 1,108 words (which would make a respectable-for-me word count for one fic once upon a time.) Four were original works, two were from Mansfield Park, one the 2007 Persuasion adaptation, one Harry Potter, one St. Trinian’s and one for Wicked – Part 1. They can be found here. I don’t think I really wrote much else fictionwise over the year, perhaps some other drafts for the three-sentence ficathon, and some editing. Let’s hope 3SF inspires something and, ideally, something I watch or read sparks a fic.

I reposted seven fics (all ficlets), five of which are in the same collection, and there are still fics that need to be reposted here and at AO3.

My version of the fandom meme

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The Night Manager 2.1

I reread my posts about the show from when it aired in spring 2016 (I was very nitpicky!) in lieu of rewatching it, and then watched the show live. I’m probably not going to follow the schedule, but rather catch up with it in rotation with the other drama shows I’m watching. It was gripping enough, even though there’s a strong whiff of it not being based on a book, and so basically televised fanfiction.

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Watched on catch up. ( A Charleston, theatre jazz, jive with lifts, street commercial, Viennese waltz with lifts, cha cha. Two of those are not Latin or ballr-it's CHRISTMAS. )

( And the final results show of the year )

The couples’ picks for the final were revealed on ITT Monday. ( Read more... )

I learned last week that It Takes Two’s Tuesday episode is ‘always’ a pre-record (or is that under this presenting arrangement?) It was also announced that Chris/La Voix wouldn’t be dancing at Blackpool because of injury, and then in the build-up to the live show there was a not great news story.

Strictly Blackpool started later than advertised, presumably because of that injury.

Watched live: ( Read more... )

Watched on catch-up: ( Read more... )

Not the results show: ( Read more... ) And then the news came out that Shirley had nearly choked twenty minutes before the live show started. Yikes!

Outrageous 1.5 - Oysters and Champagne

Covered 1935-36. ( Read more... )

On the future of Strictly, post TessnClaud, Richard Osman was interesting on this week’s The Rest is Entertainment (occasional viewer), pointing to the Dancing With the Stars revival and ability to attract under 35s to watch network TV live by harnessing social media as a model. They also broke down the presenting skills required to do TessnClaud’s jobs, suggested some names, and reminded that you should take what you read in anti-BBC biased newspapers with a pinch of salt.

Week 7 (watched live)

( cha cha, Charleston, paso doble, foxtrot, couples choice, Viennese waltz, salsa, tango and samba )