The Week in Entertainment

Live: Cirque Dreams: Illumination, at the Hippodrome, and it was excellent. We might need our our "State School of Contortion" - some of those acts were unbelievable!

DVD: Some more of Wycliffe - most of the stories are still good, but the characters are beginning to annoy me slightly... They probably wore better with longer time periods between them. Also, the last of the Dalziel & Pascoes. The original eps were good, but quite different in flavor from the ones based on Hill's work.

TV: No Ordinary Family - I do wish this wasn't developing that Heroes-ish vibe. There's all these "special" people with nefarious plans and nobody knows anything about how they got their powers - it could easily drown in its own mythology before we actually get to know and care about any of the characters. The Middle - I love that Axl saved Sue from her silly love poem. Sean's skeptical question "You dot your Is with hearts?!" was priceless. As was Axl's response: "Those are butts!" Better with You - How come they can't figure out that it's because they're not married so he's not "family"? It had to be spelled out for them? How stupid are they? As stupid as this show, that's how stupid. I'm about ready to turn off the TV for that half hour rather than sit through this again next week. (btw - Lisa deMoraes nailed it in her chat this week when seh said "'Better With You' makes 'The Middle' look brilliant and 'Modern Family' look historic..." Modern Family - "First Annual Oscar Wilde and Crazy Brunch" - priceless, "Studio 54th of July picnic". "I got scared because the cabinet didn't fall!" "If you're done with church, just say so." "I'm done with church." "Don' say that!" I love this show. Love it. The Mentalist - I do love Cho. "The thing is, they all seem so happy. I mean, really happy." "Yeah. It's creepy."

Read: Buddha's Orphans by Samrat Upadhyay, a novel set in Nepal. It's a good book, interesting on lots of levels, though he does indulge in massive time-jumps that are a bit disconcerting at first. Nilu is a fascinating character.