Beyond the Roundels

I fell out of posting and managing to keep up for a bit, for various reasons, but anyway, here are some things:

1. halfamoon is running again, with prompts every day - it's an annual two-week fannish celebration of female characters etc (1-14th Feb.)


2. fic_promptly has started up again, if people want regular commentfest type posts!


3. In Brit Cosy Crimes fandoms, what they give you with one hand, they take away with the other, which is to say that the BBC has brought Shakespeare & Hathaway back from the dead and Sebastian will get to wear more ridiculous costumes, but ITV countered by cancelling McDonald & Dodds, so there will alas be no more improbable crimes in Bath.


4. I don't want to keep linking to Sesskasays's reactions, but she made it unspoiled to Caves of Androzani, really appreciated it and was not ready for the ending, and it was probably the best first time reaction to that one I've seen. (Of course, this now means that she has to contend with The Twin Dilemma, but we all have to go through that sooner or later... ;-p)


5. In things I have been watching and listening to and should write about properly, because they were all good and interesting: - I listened to another J B Priestley Time Play adaptation, I Have Been Here Before.

In a charity shop (one of my reasons for not keeping up was my friend took me to town for the first time since November) I found one of those inexplicable 3 films in 1 DVDs that are usually random things you have never heard of, only this one was Tom Jones (1963), A Passage to India, and An Ideal Husband; and I'd wanted to see Tom Jones - I think I must have found it via Julian Glover being in it, but parts of it were filmed in my home town! But it was quite expensive online secondhand so I'm still impressed with this piece of serendipity. I enjoyed it and I recognised said home town quite clearly. XD (The street they used, Castle Street, is not only where I was born, but, if you have been around long enough to remember me talking about my family history, it was where one of my direct ancestors came to a tragic end in a cesspool. Yes, I am working class, lol.)

Also I have now finished The Jewel in the Crown! It was indeed very good and the last episode suddenly produced unexpected Peter Jeffrey, who wasn't even actually evil as such, for a wonder.

In which more is explained about this sinister AU 1970s Britain, although not why nothing has yet put off all the US tourists, who are still being regularly menaced by British character actors. (Only pausing to occasionally menace them back.)

( Satan stalks the land )

Or: I am all excited!

Somebody has put all of Shadow of the Tower up on YouTube! (I know, copyright etc., but I had to buy a Dutch edition, because there's no UK version, thanks 2Entertain for that. There is a Region 1 version). Also, because unlike some things also up there (the amazing Elizabeth R which everybody should watch unless they really hate old TV and Duchess of Duke Street, which features another 1970s actress being awesome all the way through. Glenda Jackson and Gemma Jones, both so amazing in different ways. ♥) Shadow of the Tower isn't something I could honestly recommend anyone buy. Because I think I liked it because I'm me. Other people probably wouldn't.

But, eeee, okay, if you want to see the only film/tv dramatisation of the life of Henry VII, a much-overlooked period of history, understand why I suddenly had a thing for James Maxwell (well, you may just wonder at my strangeness) and why the last episode went and made me ship Henry VII/Elizabeth of York (damn you 1970s BBC, how could you do that to me?) or, as some people on my flist who aren't me (honestly) would appreciate, you want to see David Collings be yet another deluded Tudor traitor who gets tortured in the Tower (it happened to him in Elizabeth R as well), here it is!

So, before someone takes them away:

1. Crown in Jeopardy & you can find the rest easily from here, or select from the user's uploads.

However, it's done in what really amounts to 13x 50 min one-act plays, so, here are some recs for individual eps:

3&4 (the Schooling of Apes/The Crowning of Apes are the two with David Collings in, but are also generally v good, covering Lambert Simnel and Lincoln's betrayal).
5. The Serpent and the Comforter. This was a really weird episode and I'm not quite sure they pulled it off, but I liked how they experimented and didn't just do a straight-forward BBC historical, so this one has Peter Jeffrey as a non-conformist about to be burned at the stake in a sort of battle with Henry for his soul. It's done as a morality play (everyone is just "The Prisoner", "The Guard" and "The King").
6. The White Hart (this one is Stanley's downfall, and one of the best episodes. Also the one where Margaret Beaufort tells Henry off because he can't go round executing all his in-laws. Ha.)
9. Do The Sheep Sin? (Perkin Warbeck/The Cornish Uprising. Cue shades of grey everywhere.)
11. The Strange Shapes of Reality. Another experimental one (although in this case, this means CSO everywhere; this is Not Good, although if you can see past that it's pretty clever). But if you didn't believe me about the 1972 gay kissing at the BBC, you can watch it here. I tell you the truth, honest.
13. The King Without A Face. (And then the BBC broke my heart and stamped on it. Thanks, BBC. It was a good episode, though. 12 is as well, but I'm getting to the point where I'm listing them all.)

Also, 7 & 8 are the really duff episoes, but 7 A Fly in the Ointment is the one where Peter Bowles is a Tudor spy-cum-assassin. It is a duff episode, though. Not enough Henry and I'm sure there's a whole scene where the guest cast are fighting hysteria. (I can't think of any other explanation for it).

You'll probably think I'm mad. You've all been watching shiny, pretty new TV that moves faster than the speed of mud. It spoils you for proper appreciation of stuff. ;-)

I should do a proper and sensible review of all my old TV watching at some point, instead of just flailing wildly and misleadingly about stuff, because there is a difference between things I liked for reasons and things that are really good and worth putting up with old TV limitations for. However, today I'm just flailing again, sorry. For some reason, I loved this one. Really, really, but I've no idea why.

Although not for everyone (justice_turtle, you would probably not be able to cope with all the 1970s/Tudor Bad Hair and Bad Wigs, sorry ;-p).