Milburn Stone

As a result of finishing Happy Valley, we went in search of other Sarah Lancashire shows, and found The Accident from 2019. A contemporary story involving a small Welsh town and, well, an accident. Four episodes, of which we've watched the first two. It's good.

Even though he provided Dalgliesh with the one bit of information that allowed him to solve the mystery?

Loved your whole post, Tara, and re Norton...Yesterday I flashed back to the scene of Tommy escaping from the dock, and an image came into my mind. That of an insect desperately escaping from a jar. He looked exactly like that. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the script actually contained that instruction: "Tommy escapes from dock, like an insect escaping for its life." Or if the director gave him that instruction. Or if that image was in James Norton's head as he prepared for the scene.

Hi @luv2lurk. I googled Laura Coates and Abby Phillip (from @annzeepark914's post) just to see what both of them look like. The 10 Eastern host I'm raving about is Abby Phillip. I hope it's a permanent gig for her. Here's a nice bio of her that I found.

Hi, @mledawn. I mean the sidekick in the very first story of the first season, the one that takes place in a hospital where a nurse-in-training is murdered. Since he had something of a "redemption arc" by the end of the episode, it seemed they might be grooming him to appear in future stories. Which does not seem to be the case.

I like the anchor of the 9 Central slot. (The one that goes up against Lawrence.) I don't know her name, I only know her as "the smart young black woman with great eyebrows and an appealing manner." But I like that I don't know her name. It makes her time segment not about her, but about the news, which is what CNN should be. The chyrons don't shout that what I'm watching is "The [Name of Personality] Show." And that makes her, ironically, a great host. Her questions are intelligent, to the point, and seldom long-winded. (I.e., not about proving to the audience anything about herself.) She seems genuinely interested in what her guests have to say, even when it might surprise her. I have no idea who's running CNN now, but I like what's happening if this show is an omen.

I think that's a great summation, @aghst. A great finale delivers the unexpected, and this one did. I never expected to see any form of redemption for Tommy, but Sally Wainwright gave him this, even if Catherine couldn't see it. Even his fingering Darius for Gary's murder felt like it went beyond mere vengeance for Darius's betrayal of him. And it wasn't only the photo albums that wrought this transformation. Even before he opened them, we could read his thoughts as he looked about Catherine's house: "This is a nice place to live. Orderly. Cared for. Cared about." The environment itself spoke to him of the nurturing Ryan received that he never did, and could never provide. Catherine not being able to see his redemption drove him mad in the end. I appreciated that the wrap-ups of the Hepworth and Darius cases were so quickly dispensed with. I didn't need to see Catherine collar these culprits herself. The episode used its 68 minutes wisely.

Watched the first story last night. I don't know, I kind of liked Dalgleish (the character)--he seems super-serious, super-smart, and competent, which in my view is a personality. The sidekick was loathsome at the beginning but began to prove himself worthy (a bit) by the end.

This is heartening! I'm going to allow myself to be optimistic. As for the link re the Warners music catalog that @Sarah 103 sent, I'm also OK with this. Warner, through its Rhino subsidiary, did an excellent job with classic film music in the nineties, with execs George Feltenstein and Marilee Bradford in charge. But Warners has been doing squat with their film music assets for some time now. Sony, on the other hand, has done better with the Columbia and RCA catalogs that it owns, in particular reissuing a box set of the Charles Gerhardt-conducted RCA Classic Film Scores series in 2020. So if Sony buys the Warners catalog, it could be a good thing. Here's a link to that recent Gerhardt reissue set, still in print from Sony: https://www.amazon.com/Gerhardt-Conducts-PHILHARMONIC-ORCHESTRA-AMBROSIAN/dp/B082BWZRCH/

I was struck by the super-abruptness of that ending also. I conjectured it as an omen that there will be a Season 10. I mean, if you know it's the series finale, not just the season finale, don't you give the audience a little bit of closure before you cut them loose to wander the rest of the television universe forever? As for Tabitha in the previous episode, I loathed her, of course. Thinking about it now, I'm realizing I loathed her because I've known people like her in real life that I also couldn't stand. And that, in its way, was a rare accomplishment for these writers--creating a character whose behavior resembled that of actual human beings. I don't wish there were other characters like her (God forbid), but I do wish the writers had been able to create other characters in whose reality I could believe for even a second. The show would have been better for it. Well, there's always Season 10.

I had to quote these excerpts because they speak for me. If it were an affidavit, I would sign it. I had the privilege of interviewing her in person once, at length, in her Central Park West apartment. The part of that interview that comes to mind now was her answer to my question, "Who, among other movie critics, do you read?" She answered: "In any time, there's only been one writer on the movies who mattered. In the thirties it was Otis Ferguson. In the forties it was James Agee. Now, it's me." You might think this to be evidence of an astounding egotism. Or you might call it a clear-headed statement of fact, innocent of the sin of false modesty. I say the latter.

Update on the story, in which the 3 directors express confidence coming out of their conversations with Zaslav. (Whether that confidence is warranted, we shall see.) https://deadline.com/2023/06/steven-spielberg-martin-scorsese-set-david-zaslav-meeting-regarding-tcm-layoffs-update-with-statement-1235422098/

There's no way to pretend this is anything but bad news. I wonder if TCM could become profitable as a streaming network. I don't mean the abysmal WatchTCM, which is tied to a cable subscription and maddeningly requires a new sign-in every week. I mean a real streamer that people had to pay for, and where most of the money went to TCM instead of the cable company. Don't even talk to me about the TCM "hub" on MAX. I mean a dedicated TCM network, run by TCM people. I'd pay for that. But the numbers may not work. The audience for TCM may be "aging out," and shrinking by attrition. Let's hope Spielberg & Co. can save us.

I sat on a jury for a federal trial. The defendant's attorney was so horrible, I began to wonder if that was the strategy. If found guilty, the defendant would be going to prison for a while, and you can't send someone to prison for having a bad lawyer! (Although, according to one of the jurors in this show, you can at least consider finding against a defendant for having bad hair.) I liked one thing about the final episode and hated another. I liked Ronald being recognized for his humanity. I hated the self-congratulatory tone of the episode: "Look how awesome we were to pull this off!" They could have acknowledged Ronald properly at the end of the previous episode, and let us be the judge of how awesome the creators were.

Totally. I loved her monologue. And I thought the actress was awesome. I should look up her name and find out what else she's been in.

Agree. One thing I've noticed about this show is that it is unafraid to give us long scenes. Sally Wainwright is so good, she can create a scene that has no action other than two people talking to each other, and keep that scene going far beyond what any other show would dare, and keep us riveted. Before S3, we rewatched S2 to refresh our memories, and enjoyed it all over again. One thing that didn't get much comment on this board--something that deserved more comment than it got, IMO--was the subplot involving John Wadsworth. Kevin Doyle was amazing in his ability to convey the feeling of walls closing in.

Chris Licht out.

I too thought of the parallel to the Blockbuster days, but I do think (in my case) the paralysis was not a function of all the good movies being gone, but of so much choice. I can guarantee that on any given visit, at least ten of the available movies would have been quite enjoyable to me, but with hundreds and hundreds of movies to choose from, I kept looking for something "better" than those. Which, conversely, made all those "good enough" movies not good enough. YMMV. Also, back to streaming, it's just plain annoying to be scrolling down and down and eventually discovering that there is no bottom. I didn't sign on for Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Last night when I logged on, the promo on the main screen wasn't the Property Brothers, but that reality show about the woman real estate agent selling 7-figure homes in Los Angeles. I share your chagrin. There's another problem with Max. It dovetails with the integration of Discovery, although it's not the same thing. Around the time HBO Max launched, the guy in charge at that time said something really smart. To paraphrase: "We're not going to be one of those platforms where you scroll and scroll forever through listings under different headings. We're going to offer a wide--but finite--selection. We have the content to offer infinite scrolling if we want to, but we don't want to. Why? Because when people have infinite choice, they never make a choice. They never land on anything." Welcome to Max.

Just curious. Do you have it as an app on Apple TV, like we do? Reason I ask is, this app at least once a week requires me to "activate" Watch TCM all over again, instead of remembering my credentials. It's the only app on all of Apple TV that does this. So annoying.

For me the delicious dramatic irony is that Shiv, who has always treated Tom as a piece of lint on her blouse, has now found herself in the role of obedient wife, breeder, and helpmeet.

I wish I felt as optimistic about Roman's future as you do. That smile...it was to a martini.

The kid was in the master as guns were going off and people were being maimed? I didn't even notice that!

My own usage--and I don't know if I'm right, it's just what I do--is that theater is the correct word for the building in which a movie or stage play or musical takes place, and theatre is the correct word for the art form. (E.g., "Sondheim was and remains a seminal figure in the world of musical theatre.")

I viewed it as John getting a resolution we would have wished for him. He can go forward now, believing the legend, and the damage inflicted on him can begin to heal. As dumbass as the movie was, I view John's reaction to it as analogous to the moment in Carousel when Billy's daughter can feel his presence at her high school graduation, and know that she'll never walk alone.