The Week in Entertainment

DVD: A couple more Wycliffe episodes. He can be a condescending jerk, but at least they call him on it! The Robert Downey, Jr, Sherlock Holmes, which I kept meaning to see in theaters but never got around to. It was much better than I'd hoped, even with the good things I'd heard.

TV? Well, the fall season's here. I watched a few openers - House with a little trepidation; House starts off by doing mean things - Cuddy should never forgive him for not letting her know about the neurosurgeon problem. Lone Star didn't succeed in making me like the lead character, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be hoping he gets away with continuing to rip off his fiancee's family by robbing his wife's, with being a bigamist, or destroying that brother-in-law he's building up. I'm not even sure what his father meant by "she's not your real wife" - he's already a bigamist, or just she's a mark? The Middle, which add some humorous lines and moments, and Modern Family which made me laugh all the way through - especially Mitchell in the palace with the bird! That thing they put in between them (Better with You) was amusing in places, and I'll give it another chance, but it's no Ted! (waaa) Raising Hope (the first name they had, Keeping Hope Alive, would have been funnier) was also amusing in places and a bit sweet, but could very easily get broad and ridiculous; we'll see. The Mentalist's opener ("The new director? I told you about him last week, Jane. Your memory's going." "My memory is a mighty fortress from which no fact escapes once committed. When you tell me boring things, I sent them free at once. It saves overcrowding.") was good. I also watched Critic's Choice, an atypical but enjoyable (except for the Parker-is-drunk-at-the-theater scene) Bob Hope-Lucille Ball movie from 1963.

Read: The first three books in Shamini Flint's interesting Inspector Singh series. He's a Singapore cop, but the first two books are set elsewhere (Kuala Lampur and Bali) - the second is my favorite so far, when Singh investigates the murder of a man whose bullet-holed skull was found in the bombed-out remains of the Suri Club, blown up by terrorists. Singh's no good at the murder-writ-large of terrorism, but one very personal murder is where he shines. Also The Marriage Bureau for the Rich, a sweet and funny book set in India.