The Week in Entertainment

DVD: A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen, a movie that spends way too much time on Bob Cratchitt and not nearly enough on Scrooge - and don't look for grimness here! Also Laurel & Hardy's Babes in Toyland, full of semi-familiar faces, absolutely none of which get a credit... It also had a very peculiar Jackie Cooper Christmas short, and an even odder cartoon from 1939 called Peace on Earth, in which an old squirrel tells his grandchildren how "men" killed themselves off in endless wars and animals inherited the earth - interesting topic for the time it was made.

TV: The Mentalist - wow. We've certainly been told that Jane was a jerk before - sociopath even. But we've never seen it quite so clearly. Cho is right, he's a better person now (though the captain's right, too; he's still a damaged man). Psych - I have to admit that I agree with Shawn: I don't want to share my vacation with strangers, either. But waaaaaah: fall finale! Once Upon A Time - well, okay. Now we know who the sheriff was. I did not expect him to die. Leverage, two eps (a pair - they take place during the same time frame, which is a cool conceit well executed). I like Hurley a lot better than Tara, by the way.

Read: Books one and two of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, which are engaging and fun.