The Week in Entertainment

DVD: Lewis series six. Yes, I have no self control, I watched it all this week. Of course, this is non-US-fanbased British tv, so there are only four episodes in a season. Laurence Fox does some especially nice, subtle work as Hathaway, and of course Kevin Whately is excellent as Robbie. Nice guest turns by Juliet Stevenson and Douglas Henshall, among others.

TV: The Middle - sorry, Frankie, it's not their fault you screwed up Mother's Day. Too bad you couldn't recreate the perfect, but again, you never can... Not to be interpreted as meaning I didn't like the episode, which had some very funny bits in it. Modern Family - Claire, the kids had a point: why did you take them hiking? You should have left them home. And Cam, jeeze: you don't have a job and you take Lily to all the play dates; of course you're an "honorary mom". But as a friend of mine pointed out, basically all we see are Cam and Mitch getting on each other's nerves with very little of the love that Phil and Claire get to show. IMO, the network's still a bit afraid of that... The Mentalist was good; nothing out of the ordinary for it, just good. The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole which was an intensely beautiful film but one which I couldn't manage to suspend my disbelief in. Owl blacksmiths? No, can't stretch that far. And owls flying while wearing iron helmets, greaves, spurs, and swords? Sorry. Doctor Who, a rather nice spooky episode, I thought. Interesting "monster", fair with the clues, and good Rory/Amy character stuff. Another short-lived hat. And a weird clue to the over-arching seasonal arc, much too early to do anything with it, though.

Read: Two light early 1940s mysteries by Lucy Cores, Painted for the Kill and Corpse de Ballet, both of which feature a young woman as the amateur sleuth - well, the same young woman, Toni Ney - and both of which were a lot of fun to read. Also, Michael Palin's first diary (The Python Years), very interesting for all the bits of daily life in Britain at the time as well as the creative process that made Python. Started Anudhra Roy's An Atlas of Impossible Longings, which is very good so far, though I'm not very far along.