The Week in Entertainment

DVD: I forgot to mention this last week - The Mind Robber is the one that had the substitute Jamie - when Frazer Hines came down with chickenpox the shooting schedule was so tight that they couldn't wait a week, so Hamish Wilson was brought in and the script altered to explain Jamie's new face. On the commentary Frazer talked about worrying that Wilson would be so good the producers would decide to keep him... a good story and the DVD has nice extras. This week I watched Secret Ballot, a funny and moving Iranian film about voting (of all things), and also Королевство кривых зеркал (The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors), which is a very strange Soviet children's movie - ending with the heroines magically vanquishing all their enemies by singing the Young Pioneers marching song! Корона российской импеии (Crown of the Russian Empire), the third in the Неуловимые мстители (Elusive Avengers) series. The latter tells me Russian trains in the 20s were slow: Aksanka by herself on a handcar could catch one, and then they could jump horses off and race away. Also, I can't stand it, it's so typical: our heroes are now Chekists!

TV: Well, my cable/DVR box blew up. Okay, shorted out. Anyway, I lost all my recordings, plus two days of having a TV, though it was in the middle of the week which is okay. Now I don't have all those episodes of Heroes waiting for me to decide to watch them (yes, since way back before the writers' strike). But I also don't have this season of Torchwood in case I want to watch any of them! I also lost John Adams but that's not a problem. It's HBO - not only is it on On Demand, but they rerun it a lot. So I've already made up the first two episodes, which were absolutely excellent. Torchwood: Gwen and Rhys did get married. Rhys's mate Bananaboat was priceless... And they could have been married in the amount of time it took Jack to argue with Gwen. Sheesh, they were already underway. And this exchange was great:

Owen: Listen you two, you'd better start trusting me, okay? I've been working with it, and I reckon I've got it sussed. Besides, with that nostravite around we don't have too many options.
Ianto: He's got a point.
Jack: What is it with you? Ever since Owen died all you ever do is agree with him.
Ianto: I was brought up never to speak ill of the dead. Even if they are still doing most of the talking for themselves.

And so was this:

Jack: Enjoy the honeymoon.
Gwen: I will. What will you do while I'm gone?
Jack: Ohhh, the usual ... pizza. Ianto. Save the world a couple of times.

Ianto ... He and Jack dancing together at the wedding, sweet and a little melancholy.

Read: On jury duty this week so I got a lot of reading. Margaret Atwood's Negotiating with the Dead which was brilliant - engaging, well-written, full of great quotes and ideas: a book to ruminate over. Also Trap Door by Sarah Graves. It was good in itself, but it made me run out and order the new one, The Book of Old Houses, even though it's in hardback and I usually don't spend that kind of money on these light-weight mystery novels. But start talking about Miskatonic University, ancient books with dark secrets, and mysterious deaths - Well, how can I resist? Also about half of John McWhorter's Power of Babel.