stopeslite

(Heck, we still have our cat's ashes in a tin in the front room, since 2012, because we can't find a good way to part with them that we're ok with, so I can't imagine the trouble Chummy had)

I'll be surprised if the Turners realize what's going on with the thalidomide in the next season, unless it's near the end. I was just reading up on it and it seems that it still took a few years past 1960 for them to really make the connection with the drug, because most doctors didn't think that anything crossed the placental barrier. Trixie was heartbreaking, the way she kept smiling through her confession because she still couldn't turn it off. The shooting was gorgeous. The colors of Patsy's clothes and her flowers and the hospital room and the flat... stunning. I also thought "Marlene is so huge what is happening" when she was first at Fred's! Everything about the way they frame and film this show is fantastic.

OMG THIS SHOW. It's like they said "Oh, you thought last week was brutal? Last week was TEA AND CRUMPETS compared to what we're giving you for the finale!" I wasn't ready for any of it. This is one show where I don't try to predict what's going to happen, because I enjoy going along with it so much. Sometimes... that comes back to bite me in the butt. My husband had the misfortune to walk in about 30 seconds after Delia got hit, when I was still sitting with my mouth hanging open staring at the tv. I understand why Miranda's not on much, but what's the deal with her and Peter? Why do they keep passing like ships in the night? They're living together while she's at home visiting, right?

Maybe, but I think they would then really have to answer for the one baby suddenly growing a new birthmark and the other one suddenly disappearing without either mother noticing.

I got the feeling that they had decided to switch the babies back, but that they were going to resume their friendship. And that means a side effect is that they each get to continue to stay in the other baby's life in some capacity. I don't mean to sound heartless, but that was what, a week they were switched? Maybe two, max? I thought the amount of angst over it all seemed a little overblown. And I was a little surprised there was no yelling from one of the fathers at the mother "how could you not know it wasn't your baby?" but was glad it wasn't there. I took the advice given an episode or so ago and emailed my pbs station to thank them profusely for showing the unedited version.

My god, that entire episode was brutal. Applause for them not going the route I thought they would - as soon as it turned out they knew each other, I thought that one of them would go kind of hysterical and claim that the babies were switched, then when the fire happened I was sure of it, then when the hospital thing happened, I was absolutely positive that it would be a King Solomon kind of thing where the blond woman swore up and down that hers was the healthy baby and she had to get to take it back. The way they did it instead? A-maz-ing. I've always been quite fond of Pam Ferris in other roles and this one, and she killed it. I really liked the bit with Timothy in the darkroom, too. I've been thinking he's just a little too perfect, too "going with the flow", so it was nice to acknowledge that he still misses his mom, and has his own troubles, but is able to be comforted by how much Shelagh loves him. Took me a little bit to recognize Mrs. Hudson from Sherlock - I knew I knew her, but not from where. Sweetest story. And then with Fred and Vi? I was basically crying through this entire episode.

I really hope that if we see the other characters, it's only in small flashes of "what's going on over there", and not that Carol and Phil go back to them (or they go out and find Carol and Phil). I didn't think any of them were characters I'd mind losing, and it would be nice to see Carol and Phil start over somewhere else entirely, and find all new people.

Pants to the ground! Pants to the ground! Lookin' like a grown-up with your pants to the ground! (sorry, had to). I know fashion and all, but not letting boys wear full-length pants is one of those long-running old fashion rules that I simply cannot grok. I loved pretty much everything about this episode. I really like what they're doing with Nurse Crane - it's kind of predictable, but they're playing it out very well. Sister Winnifred, however, continues to be a nonentity. I laughed that they actually had Dr. Turner say "Helloooo, nurse!" to Shelagh.

That was AMAZING. Especially compared with how limp the episodes have been so far this season. Mr. stopeslite actually gave it a go and watched the first few, but then gave up right before this one. :( Dr. Turner did some marvelous acting, and how great that Shelagh got into a nurse's uniform. (and seriously, those people didn't remember that she was a nurse until A YEAR AGO?) Loved that look on Dr. Turner's face when he said called her nurse and she turned around and he realized who it was - it was like he suddenly realized what one of his fantasies was that he'd never thought of before. I think I liked it so much because it focused on characters we haven't seen so much of, and because it wasn't 100% focused on babies, and there was no lesson. Did we see Christian Science ground into the dirt? No. Did we see faith save everything? No. Just people, bumbling around, doing their best and screwing up sometimes. And the mom was lovely - I wanted them to ask her to stay for dinner when she dropped off the samosas. Think Fred is trying to get a date with the button saleslady? ;)

I'm getting a little tired with the social movement issue of the week feel it suddenly has. Maybe it had it before, but it's more prominent now. But wow, was Trixie ever devastated. This is the first time we've really seen her facade slip, and that shot of her at the end... that was something. I still don't know if she really loved Tom and that was the majority of it, or if it was following in her father's alcoholic footsteps was the main source of pain, but it was heartbreaking. So glad that there wasn't a worse outcome due to her being passed out drunk. I was just thinking how they haven't had even two or three births at once in forever, and then they said it was the most they'd had in years. :) I don't quite understand why Shelagh can't be a midwife now, or at least one of sorts. She's already working in her husband's office, why not as his nurse? Or as a part-time midwife? I don't see why it's ok to be a receptionist but not to work on the medical end.

But she's the one who forced him into it. She wasn't grinning and bearing it, she was trying to force him into the mold she had for what they ought to be.

Oh, that's why she looked familiar! It looked to me like a Madagascar hissing cockroach. Huge yes, found in random slums in London in the 1950s, no.

The painting was a huge fad in its day - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Girl . Hilariously, I read in another article that despite being the most-sold art reproduction almost ever, the owner of the original wasn't allowed to hang it up by her roommates who hated it, and her house was burglarized twice but the intruders left the painting. :) I'm not sure how historically accurate the sympathy that Tony got from the main characters was, but I'm glad they didn't sugarcoat it to the level that Downton Abbey did.

There is no clip fitting that description on youtube and I think that's the first time the internet has ever let me down. I really hope it works out between Trixie and Tom. They seem like an odd match, but not so much that it couldn't work out. And they're adorable together.

Thanks. So are there Anglican priests who are celibate, or is it just the nuns who are?

Me too. After the first scene with the sandwich - "Well, they're screwed. Somebody's dying." I also thought she looked like twins right away, so they must have done that to give a clue to the viewers. I loved the ceremony they had, but I still don't quite get the whole religious setup. The nuns are Catholic, but Tom is Anglican? Or they're Anglican nuns? Because he seems to be the go-to when they need a guy to do something religious ceremony-like. Hopefully the next time they have a baby die, they'll remember this and let the mom see the baby before they take it away. Sister Julienne's storyline was magnificent. She's pretty much my favorite character, and we almost never get to spend any time with her. I adored how she went to experienced cheater on the Lord Mrs. Turner (hee) for advice. And Mr. Newgarten - I thought he looked spot-on like an old Matt Smith. My Spouse finally wandered by and sat and watched most of the episode, and he thought so too (and I may have him converted to watching it now...) I amused myself by thinking that Sister Julienne had a fling with The Doctor, although I know Sister Evangelina got there first. I also hope that they keep Patsy firmly closeted. Not that I wouldn't want to see a gay character, but they've been so unflinching about depicting how life really was for people back then - older orphans didn't get adopted by loving families, babies died, mothers died, people in squalor continued to live in squalor, people with mental health problems didn't get the help they needed. It would be whitewashing to try and depict it as though people accepted you if you were gay, rather than facing up to how hard it really was.

On the water thing - there should have been a huge amount of water sitting in the pipes when everybody died. So, even if the water treatment plant is not operating, and the water isn't being forced into the system from the front end, there's still a lot there. We saw Phil using his own toilet, and then still using it refilling it with bottled water, for almost a year. So, Carol should be able to go use any toilet in town one time and get one flush out of it, sending everything on its way, without needing to refill. And the system in a city like Tuscon is big enough that one individual contribution wouldn't stop up the whole system or overflow it. That makes me think that, if she can get into the rooms (which are card-activated, so not sure how the lack of electricity would allow it unless she has an ax and is breaking into each), she can use each toilet once without wasting any bottled water. Any mid-sized hotel has at least a hundred rooms, so saying they each go once a day, there are an awful lot of toilets in town to enable all four of them to flush things away for a couple of years or so at least. And then if they exhausted all of the toilets in an area, they could just move on to the next part of town. Yes, I thought about this a lot. It took my mind off of the mysteriously long-lived single lactating cow in the desert where cow farms aren't exactly plentiful. ETA: Of course, I can't complain much about the bad reality of the cow, when the reality within the show is that they are all actually trying to live in Tuscon instead of packing up and moving to anywhere in the midwest where they'd have access to lots of rainwater, leftover farms still growing all kinds of food, seed banks, etc...

Damn, but that was a harsh ending. They don't usually stick the knife back in and twist it like that. I was not expecting that. I was kind of expecting that Sheilagh would say that she wanted to adopt the other three, not that she wanted to go back to work. Still, the rest of the episode was beautiful and I missed this show so much. There's just enough interest with the new characters that I didn't feel the loss of Jenny and Cynthia that much, although I didn't like that the new woman has the same hair as Cynthia. Made her seem like too much of a substitute. And we won't lose Trixie now, will we? Could a curate's wife be a midwife then? Please? Did I mention I was glad this show was back? I'm glad this show is back. I just wish we could get things on a synchronous broadcast schedule rather than waiting until months later.

And they also just tried to make us think Connor was dead by giving the shooting cliffhanger followed directly by a preview showing Lena saying "It hurts to lose a friend" to a crying Jude, when that was two episodes later and about something else entirely. I don't trust them and their death scares one bit.

It wasn't the competition though, it was just an internal dance-off to see which team would be representing the school. I think they could have used any means they wanted to decide which team went, including just a vote without having them actually dance, so there's no reason that all six had to actually be on stage then. Presumably Mariana's foot would be healed by the time they got to the actual competition (except now I assume her legs and pelvis are all broken or something).

I just can't see them killing off either of the kids. That would so overwhelm any other storylines, if they were at all realistic about it, that there wouldn't really be any show left. Ana, sure. Fakeout and it's the driver we've never met before, sure. But one of the kids? I hope they don't go there, because if they did, I don't see any way they could carry on all of the storylines in a believable way that still makes us want to watch it. I'm disappointed how the whole Callie/Jude relationship has been dropped. I know she'd back off some since she knows he's with good parents, but she was basically his mom for what, four years? That doesn't just go away. That should have been a bigger part of her conversations with Robert, that she couldn't handle being separated from him, and it would have been nice to see something of the two of them now and then.They've only had one good scene together all season, when they were camping.

I assume the fatality is the person in the other car. I just don't see them killing off a main character. Maybe Ana loses the baby. I liked how Callie's shirt blended right in with the cushions on Robert's couch. Subtle way of making it look like she fit into the location. Loved Jude snuggling with Connor in the hospital bed, but I don't buy that Connor's dad did a change of heart right then that quickly. I was just wondering a couple of weeks ago why Jude never paints his nails any more. Glad that Brandon came to his senses, although I wish we would have seen it. I hope that he realized that Lou was just pretending to like him so that he could get them the record contract, because that's sure what it looked like. Glad that things aren't messed up between Callie and Robert, too. I was afraid that he'd hate her after the emancipation thing. Hilarious that his dad was Bobby Ewing.

Gaaa! I didn't even realize there were two episodes until I logged in and saw the dual title, so I missed half of the second episode. The first episode was so boring. I don't think there was a single second of it that wasn't handed directly to us in the "next time" bit from the previous episode. Entirely predictable. Came into the second episode while Melissa and Todd were on their date.I like Todd. I hated Phil. I don't think he deserved to have Melissa take pity on him - the rest of them have been without people that long too, and didn't turn into raging assholes because of it. I liked how she flat-out shut him down, though.

I think it's totally Claire. She's turning out to be weirder and weirder. My guess is that the girls were flirting with Ashworth in that silly awkward way kids do (they were staring quite appreciatively in that flashback), and she got jealous and decided they had to be stopped. But I don't think he knows she did it. I don't know - this trial seems to be so incompetently run that it's ruining the show for me. I know that's what defense lawyers do, try to raise doubts everywhere they can, but Jocelyn's not even trying. I expect that when one attorney tries something like the affair bit that the other one will at least object to it. I don't know if you can't object in British courts, but this is excruciating.

Especially when she had JUST thrown out the confession becuase the jury couldn't be trusted to figure out whether it had been coerced or not. Which is it? Decide! I thought she looked like she was softening up, but then when the defense started throwing out that ridiculous affair stuff she looked like she was eating it up. Stupid, jerk Beth. It occurred to me that Beth was the one who forced Jocelyn to come out of retirement. So, if the trial goes entirely south for them, it's really Beth's fault. Of course, she'll still blame Ellie. The Ellie/Chloe scene was the only redeemable part of this episode. The rest was rubbish. Well, except for when Ellie finally yelled about not blaming everything on her, but only Hardy was around to hear it so it doesn't really count. So now we know that the defense lawyer was angry about Jocelyn not taking her son's case (or nephew or whatever).I assume that was the background to her "But she wouldn't... " sputter when she found out that Jocelyn was on the case. I could really use a few more shots of Becca being cheerfully obstructionist to those defense lawyers. I think it would be entirely appropriate for all of Broadchurch to make it completely clear that they hated the defense. I also noticed that it looked different. I've seen the same thing a few times with movies on tv - I assume it's some kind of mismatch between the way the film was made and how it's being broadcast.