krankydoodle

‘Smash’ Musical to Open on Broadway in 2025: "The long-in-the-works musical will begin performances on March 11, 2025, at the Imperial Theatre ahead of opening night on April 10." I rewatched some episodes last year and had a good time, but am surprised there's still so much interest in a show that was cancelled over 10 years ago.

I remember watching an interview with Newt Gingrich years ago where he claimed that violent crime was on the rise. The reporter pushed back saying that FBI data didn't support that and that violent crime across the country was actually down, but he countered that Americans didn't feel that was true so that's what he was going with. I mean what do you even do with that? It's vibes over facts, I guess.

I've turned to mysteries as a distraction. I gave up on The Author's Guide to Murder at about the 20% mark. The main characters were irritating and I didn't care enough about the story to continue. It's about 3 mystery authors who come together to write a book and stumble into a murder investigation where all become suspects. I haven't read any books by the authors (Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, Karen White) before but they're apparently pretty popular, so this was disappointing. I'm having better luck so far with Pony Confidential by Christina Lynch about a pony trying to find and get revenge on the owner he thinks abandoned him. When she's accused of a 25-year-old murder that occurred around the same time as their separation when she was just a child, he gets involved in the investigation somehow.

I'm so glad they released all of season 9 at once on BritBox instead of doling them out one at a time. This was another enjoyable set of episodes, though I don't think I'd count any of them as favorites. The final episode was a nice farewell, but I hope--as mentioned in that one--that they do come back with specials.

I watched the episode from the original series a while ago and if I remember right, the ending was different: The American episodes have maybe 5-10 minutes(?) shorter runtime than the originals, so I guess some stuff has to be cut out.

I don't understand why Gideon had to shoot Lucy. Couldn't he just kill himself to reset things and allow her to die whenever she was going to? Wouldn't she have been reborn in the next loop regardless with the same knowledge now that she's been woken up? For a supposedly successful detective in a former life, Lucy made a lot of poor decisions. It's going to be a long wait for season 3.

I wonder if Ravi 'waking up', Isaac slipping in and out of other loops, and him being able to bring Lucy's mother back to herself are all signs that Gideon's actions are causing reality to collapse. It's interesting that Gideon and Lucy's relationship is still kind of hostile. I would think he at least might be a bit relieved to have someone else to share his burden with.

I get her concerns, but Lucy kind of frustrated me by acting put out when asked to investigate to try to stop the bombing from happening. I also wondered why she gave her real name when posing as a cop. Something I wonder about is that if Gideon has changed things by saving people who would otherwise have died, isn't that changing their paths and potentially creating other anomalies like Isaac if they go on to have children? Isn't that why Isaac is the way that he is, because he was born when Gideon diverted Lucy from her 'true' trajectory so he was never supposed to exist? On that note, the people he saved don't seem to be faring too well. I wonder if the bomber is going to turn out to be the kid he took from his murderous parents and sent to Evelyn for safekeeping.

I ended up rewatching the first season since I had forgotten a lot of what happened and am glad I did because a few things that happened early on get paid off in this episode, like when Ravi mentions the fireworks and Lucy gets her tooth knocked out. I'm really impressed by how the writer has constructed this show. I was expecting both Lucy and Isaac to die in the fire and thought the next loop would be her focused on trying to get him back. I'm really interested to see where things go now that they're both still alive and she understands what's going on.

I was rewatching the 2005 Michael Bay movie The Island, which isn't great but still kind of a fun time, and was reminded how upsetting it is when Michael Clarke Duncan's character is killed. I remember it being a standout scene from my first watch but was still kind of surprised at quite how gut-wrenching it is in what's otherwise a flashy action movie. His anguish and fear are so visceral that I actually found it hard to sit through.

I didn't realize until that episode that Nikki had kept her own place since they only seem to show her at Jack's house. It's weird that they all work together and now live together. When she was at her place and on the phone with Jack in the last episode, for some reason I thought the person knocking at her door would be Harry.

Was it 3-2-1 Contact? I still remember the theme tune: ETA: I just realized from reading the Wikipedia link that The Bloodhound Gang was a segment on the show, so my guess is probably wrong. But it's still a catchy theme song!

I like The Bay but it's funny that I find the personal and professional conflicts more tense than the murder mystery. I also noticed that the first episode of season 5 was directed by Shaun Evans (Morse on Endeavour).

It's a shame the 2 team members from the first few seasons didn't stick around. Eddie is fine but doesn't really add much. I hope there isn't going to be a love triangle now that Van der Valk's ex is on the scene. Their bickering was irritating and I'm not interested in seeing Lena chase after him again.

I liked this. I haven't seen most of the actors in anything else but thought they were all great and worked really well together. However, as much as I enjoyed the main character, I might struggle with this show because she can be so frustrating. When she used the dead woman's credit card to buy the plane tickets, ugh. That kind of thing combined with Mel's tendency to self-sabotage might make it rough going for me.