krankydoodle

Dalgliesh could benefit from longer episodes. When they revealed the murderer at the end of episode 2, I had to struggle to remember who the person was since I think they'd only had 3-4 lines of dialogue until then. The story in episodes 3 & 4 was messy. They dropped a significant plot point from the book that would've explained some of the victim's actions. I don't know about digital smoothing and I've liked Bertie Carvel in other things, but I agree with others that the character doesn't come across as very interesting. My memory of the books is that we spend a lot of time in characters' heads and there aren't a lot of big emotional moments or exchanges, which probably makes them challenging to adapt.

That's fair. I think it plays out differently for me when the characters are played by actors I recognize. It bothered me in Cat Among the Pigeons when he floated an accusation against a character played by Claire Skinner who'd almost just been murdered herself and then hinted at the recent miscarriage she'd been trying to keep secret. I still love Poirot and the show, but those kinds of jabs stood out to me more than when I first watched these episodes.

I've been rewatching some episodes and it really struck me this time how awful Poirot could be to some of the suspects when he gathers everyone together for the final reveal. In Mrs. McGinty's Dead, one of my favorite episodes, he points the finger pretty strongly at two different people before naming the real killer. One was kind of a jerk, but still. I know it's to heighten the tension and draw out the reveal, but the amount of time he spent painting each as the potential killer seemed excessive. Speaking of that episode, I was delighted to find out that there's a Swedish crime-comedy tv show titled Agatha Christie's Hjerson based on Ariadne Oliver's fictional detective. Has anyone watched it? Or listened to Audible's dramatization of The Mysterious Affair at Styles with Peter Dinklage as Poirot? As on Game of Thrones, his accent can be a bit shaky and Rob Delaney gets over the top for me as Alfred Inglethorp, but I thought it was solid overall. It's been a long time since I read the book or watched the tv episode, but I think this makes some minor plot changes and leans darker by spending more time on Hastings's trauma from the war.

I didn't like that Pip was willing to stay quiet about the hit and run accident to protect her friend's sister. Maybe that stuck out to me more because I just watched another mystery series (Whitstable Pearl) where one of the leads has spent years haunted by the unsolved hit and run that killed his wife, but I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more discussion about Pip's decision. I'm in the camp that found Pip and Ravi lacking. Emma Myers is appealing but her accent was shaky and I thought Zain Iqbal was kind of flat. I didn't like a lot of the changes from the book, but I still thought the show was decent enough that I'll probably watch the next season.

If you have Disney+, you should also cancel more than a month before the Black Friday deal. That's how I was deemed ineligible for the Hulu deal this year.

Prime Video has their deals up, but I didn't see an offer for Max. Most of the prices are a little higher than they've been in previous years if I'm remembering right, so like $2.50/month instead of $.99/month. Amazon doesn't seem to be promoting them as much either.

‘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.