AD55

I agree. I have enjoyed shows where the acting wasn't awesome, but the quality was consistent so no one person stuck out as particularly good or bad. It's like shows about high school. Often the actors cast are in their twenties, but so long as everyone is of an age, I find it fairly easy to suspend my disbelief.

Just to clarify, and I think this is probably true of a lot of us, I don't have any feelings, positive or negative, about Sophie Skelton, whom I don't know and who may be perfectly lovely. I just think she's a terrible actress. That's a subjective opinion, and mmv.

Thanks for posting the quotations from DG, AheadofStraight. I often disagree with her, but I think her criticisms are spot on in these two cases. For me, the tragedy of Dougal's death in the book is that he doesn't realize that Claire and Jamie had decided not to kill CS. It gives the scene an added poignancy. I wasn't crazy about Claire's helping Jamie to plunge the knife in. It felt like an execution, whereas (and I could be misremembering), I thought that Dougal's death came during the course of the fight. Also, Jamie knows he has to kill Dougal because Claire is in danger. I don't believe Jamie would have hesitated, which doesn't mean he wouldn't feel horrid and guilty about killing his uncle. I also groaned at hearing that Brianna and Claire did not have a close relationship, since their almost mystical bond is one of the threads that runs throughout the books. It makes no sense psychologically or from anything we know about Claire. That Claire feels like a fish out of water in the twentieth century makes it even more likely that she would bond with the daughter who is her only connection to the past and to Jamie. Add me to those who are very concerned about the casting of Sophie Skelton as Brianna. I spent the first part of the episode trying to like her, but I gave up after her first couple of scenes. As DancingD said, she took me out of the story every time she showed up. I think this is the first casting choice Ron and company have made that I didn't think was spot on. It's a shame because she's such an important character. It would take a lot of guts, but I think they should bite the bullet and recast her right away. Better to own up to the mistake and suffer some awkward moments with the press than move forward for 2+ more seasons with this melted candle. Roger, on the other hand, was perfect. Rankin had such presence from his first appearance. I feel bad for him having to carry every scene he's in with Skelton for the next who knows how many more seasons. I didn't like the ending either, except for the sunrise. Ordinarily, I find such effects cheesy, but I liked the shout out to episode one when Claire and Frank are at the stones watching the witches and the sun comes up. I have to rewatch the episode again, but I recall a lot of echoes from the first season, especially episode one. And Duncan Lacroix just gets better and better.

The only other things I recall are a peanut butter sandwich and penicillin. I've just stupidly spoiled myself for the episode by reading all your comments. Just couldn't help myself since I can't watch it until tonight.

I have hope, in part on the basis of Battlestar Galatica, that Moore and company will be more alert to how race is handled. In general, I don't believe questions related to race, class, and even, weirdly, gender genuinely interest Gabaldon all that much. She made a comment on her twitter feed to the effect that you don't have to call yourself a feminist to be a strong woman, which is why she rejects the word. Well, yes, there have always been women who have overcome sexism to do remarkable things. As a scientist, Gabaldon herself is one of them. The problem with that attitude is that it ignores the fact that women and people of color shouldn't have to be twice or three times as smart, ambitious, and talented to be afforded the same opportunities. I am thinking of people who believe racism no longer exists because a black president was elected. Uh, no. Of course, writers don't have to be interested in everything, but as CatMack points out, "if you're only going to focus on your core group of characters and not flesh out anyone else, then maybe don't make one of your recurring locations a slave plantation. Because one of the unintended side effects of Gabaldon's refusal to spend any time or nuance fleshing out these non white characters is that people of color become props to her white characters." While I am not sure I agree that Diana was subversive with this character (or at least, not intentionally), I agree with you about POV and the right actor being able to introduce complexity to the portrayal of Willoughby, DittyDotDot. That's an advantage television has over a first-person book narrative.

I find this interesting (and exciting). You might think that the show would be taking up so much of her time that work on book 9 would be going slower, but I wonder if it is actually keeping her focused on the central series of books, especially on the main characters. She has said she is someone who needs to be working on multiple projects and therefore the novellas and short stories don't delay the big books. But now, her "other" project is adapting the big books and she is constantly immersed in the main narrative rather than going off on tangents that, however closely related to the other project, are not central to the main story. I seem to recall her saying that she's not influenced by Sam's and Cait's portrayals of Jamie and Claire, but I can't help thinking she must be at some level. Perhaps seeing the characters on the screen is inspiring. Bernard Cornwall has said that he started seeing Sean Bean when he was writing the Sharp novels and found himself writing with his portrayal in mind. Perhaps she's also thinking about George Martin. Though she already has 8 books compared to his 5 under her belt, time passes quickly and we're already coming up on book 3. I can't imagine Diana being content with having the show get ahead of the novels. And even though she apparently knows how the series ends, she doesn't necessarily know how all the characters get there. Part of her role as advisor is to make sure that Moore et al. include plot points that may seem minor but become important in subsequent novels. She can't advise on what she doesn't know.

This is an interesting take, Archery. Because this is OT, I just looked for a place to move the discussion and discovered there's a whole time travel thread that I need to read. I suspect my question has already been discussed at length!

dustoffmom, I have a mild passion for time travel novels & movies. Gabaldon has said a number of times that the time travel was introduced because she couldn't make Claire talk like an eighteenth-century woman. I think it was mainly a plot device for her and she didn't get interested in time travel conundrums until the later novels. I suspect Moore and company are, but they couldn't really introduce that element because Jamie and Claire's estrangement in DIA is crucial to the plot. I'm now OT, so I won't say more.

I'm more sympathetic to Frank than most, though I can't say I'm particularly fascinated by him. One thing that has bugged me, though, is that I can't recall anyone ever mentioning that if Frank isn't born, the possibility of Claire's passing through the stones is practically nil. You'd think that would reconcile Jamie to BJR's survival in the short term. If I had been Claire, I would have played that card, but unless I've forgotten something, which is entirely possible, it never seems to occur to anyone.

I liked this, too, especially because I think it's true to Jamie's character. He never gives up, ever--I loved that line, paraphrasing here, where he tells Claire it's not time to run up the white flag yet. Random thoughts: Until others mentioned it, I hadn't thought about Jamie and Claire having little screen time together. I was more conscious of how much they are always on the same page. Jamie's trying to prevent Cullodon, while Claire is in Inverness picking up medical supplies in the event, etc. I loved that Claire uses her power over BJR to get information for Jamie on troop movements. I think the scenes between Claire and BJR in this episode bookend their scenes in 106. We see how far Claire has come, from someone who kind of hopes BJR is redeemable to a woman who not only knows he isn't but doesn't give a damn about him. He has so little power over her that she doesn't think about using Alex to exact personal revenge. She cares only about how she can use him to help Jamie and the Jacobites. Of course, that doesn't mean she's averse to reminding him that he's going to be dead soon. She's capable of multitasking. I also don't know how I feel about the punching scene except that I'm glad BJR isn't redeemed. When Jamie tells Claire he hopes he never gets on her bad side, Sam uses the exact same intonation as in "Devil's Mark," when he tells Claire that it would have been a good deal simpler if she had only been a witch. I love these little scenes. #savemurtagh to infinity and beyond.

This. I had no idea that MLK intervened when NN wanted to leave Star Trek (actually, I didn't know she wanted to leave). Wow. That was a huge WTF moment for me. Incredibly offensive on multiple levels. Perhaps the worst thing is that, once again, the show runners had no clue about the implications of that scene. I mean, how do writers name check Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nina Simone in one episode and than insert that scene into the finale? Do they know anything about Coates and Simone or did they just go to the Dictionary of Famous Black Folks and then congratulate themselves on being hip? Whether or not the episodes had different writers doesn't matter. Maintaining some sort of cohesion is the show runner's job. The obliviousness is mind boggling. I visited Coates's twitter feed after the episode in question. A few people mentioned that he got a shout out. Coates tweeted something like "It didn't happen." I assumed he was kidding or being modest, but perhaps that was either wishful thinking or prescience on his part. I don't expect sophistication from a show like SH (it's Fox after all), but I wish the writers had at least resisted boldly going where they had never gone before.

Me, too! The thing about The Following is that it became kind of fun to hate-watch. But I really loved Abbie and Ichabod. I keep being tempted to rewatch the finale because there are some sweet scenes between Tom and Nicole (I don't mean the BS ones at the end), but I know I won't enjoy them. Right up to the conclusion, I kept thinking that Ichabod would find a way to bring her back. I knew I was being naive, but I couldn't help myself. I was sure there couldn't be that much shit absent a pony.

Good grief. What is wrong with those people? (Purely rhetorical.) Particularly ironic given how great Nicole's hair looked during/after the catacombs episodes. My first thought was, "wow, she should have worn her hair like that all along." Not to say that she didn't look beautiful before.

Let it be so! This is hilarious! Now that Abbie has been cast in the role of magical negro and we know her work is done, what's the point of her essence being transferred to someone else? I don't actually care since I won't be watching a season 4, should the Fox executives be so foolish as to order one. It just occurs to me that this is another thing the showrunners would have to retcon. I am sure they are up to the challenge. They no doubt have plenty of other things stored up the ass that skull was plucked from.

Correct, but right after (or maybe just before) that, he mentions his infertility.

This is probably a reach, but I'm now wondering about Tom's and Nicole's motivations in how they portrayed Abbie and Ichabod's interactions. A lot of us have pointed out that Tom played Ichabod as head over heels for Abbie, whereas Nicole played Abbie as though Ichabod was firmly in the friend zone. I'm now wondering if Tom's performance was a little meta. He was showing that Ichabod loved Abbie, at the same time that he was conveying that he believes their relationship is the heart of the show. In other words, it was a tiny act of resistance rather than being entirely because the writers were messing with us. For Nicole, on the other hand, it would be almost humiliating to show too much investment in the relationship if, as many of us believe, leaving wasn't entirely her choice and this is another instance of a WOC not being considered an acceptable romantic partner for the white dude. Actors have directors and don't get to make all their creative choices. Perhaps Tom was told to play it this way and I'm way overthinking this because I would like to believe that Mison disagreed with the decision. Clearly, I have hit the denial phase.

I bailed on season 2 after a couple of episodes, but decided to give it a try this year. It was much more like the first season (ie, fun) until it went off the rails in the last few episodes. Oh well.

I've spent way too much time in the past several hours hanging out in the Sleepy Hollow forums. For those who don't watch, the season, possibly series, finale was a travesty. I'm so grateful that Outlander's second season started this weekend. Thank goodness for Diana, Ron, and the huge crew and cast. Whatever quibbles I have this season, I feel pretty confident that I'm not going to be throwing crockery after episode 13. Not that there is any broken crockery in my kitchen right now. And when I say none, I mean some, to paraphrase Monty Python.

This. I think of Crane's speech to THO where he talks about what it means to be human. The people he named weren't/aren't interchangeable. Their essence isn't transferable. I have a wretched memory, but my recollection/assumption is that the witnesses had both been on a journey toward one another over the centuries, which wouldn't have been necessary if Crane's essence could have been popped into another body. Why am I looking for consistency in this show? The writers just compose random crap and then forget about it by the next episode.

This from the interview: It’s impossible to not see the love between these two. It’s palpable. The chemistry is there. We always felt it was much more in the vein of a level of intimacy that even goes beyond the physical. And that’s how they pretty much played it from the beginning. Tom and Nicole have been very articulate and instrumental in crafting their partnership and their relationship. They felt much more comfortable loving each other deeply the way we portrayed them than taking it one step further. What BS. Run like the wind, Nicole! And this: Having said that, there’s every reason to hold in your heart that their love is enduring and that the intimacy part really wouldn’t have made that stronger. The looks they give each other, the thoughtfulness and respect they show each other is greater than any love we could ever have conceived. They gave that to us, and we wanted to respect that right to the bitter end. Could Campbell be any more patronizing to the fans? "There, there, you go right ahead and spin whatever fantasies you want, boys and girls. We know you can't help it if you're too superficial to understand how deep we are." Maybe this is denial on my part, but I have a hard time believing that Nicole and Tom sat down with the show runner and said, "this is how we want the relationship to go. Enduring love, but without all that messy romantic stuff."

Is anyone else having Buffy flashbacks? When Abbie sacrificed herself and got all glowie, I kept thinking of Spike in the series finale. The if-one-dies-another-rises trope was also used by Whedon (and I'm sure others). If you're going to go off the rails, show, at least display some imagination.

I noticed how thin she was, too. In the book, doesn't Claire try to convince Jamie that the reason her periods have stopped is because she's malnourished? If so, and assuming they keep that, it's nice attention to detail. Well spotted re the continuity error. I will look for it when I rewatch the episode. I also liked the symmetry between the first episodes of seasons 1 and 2.

A thousand times this! I had such a bad feeling going into this episode, but I kept hoping I was wrong. This show can go to hell. I love Tom Mison, but I refuse to watch a recovered Crane happily eating donuts with the Abbie vessel. And I also think it's Sophie.

I quit drinking several years ago, but if Abbie declares her love for Crane on her deathbed, I am going to change out of my jammies and drive to the grocery store for a bottle of wine. And some ice cream. And maybe an entire chocolate cake.

I don't think this one has been posted: http://www.fox.com/watch/660996163903/7684159488 Now I'm worried about Abbie.