ombelico

Emma Stone's dress was not well-suited to the venue, and seemed to lead her to position herself almost entirely with her back towards Graham, which was awkward.

Mia's art being rather mediocre helps reinforce that her professor's interest in her was unprofessional and predatory, and not about Mia's artistic talent.

The actress they got to play Young Princess Elizabeth has such a striking resemblance to Claire Foy I kept being taken aback and thinking it was her. Amazing casting. Lesley Manville was exceptional here. I have absolutely no problem with Margaret getting her own episode particularly since she's been central to the show since season 1, and truly was the only person besides the Queen Mother who was with Elizabeth through everything.

Nastia has commentated at Classic in the past (I attended in person one year and she was definitely there in the commentary booth), but NBC appears to be increasing its pool of commentators, particularly bringing in those with experience commentating on NCAA. IMO this is a good thing - overall I don't think Nastia's a very good commentator, and I've always felt there's an awkward conflict of interest with her father still being a prominent coach of active athletes. Sam Peszek has potential (you can see the media training she got in her studies at UCLA), but she also has a strong tendency to talk too much during the routines and inject herself and her experience into the commentary. I also think John Roethlisberger (or Bart Conner) should replace Tim Daggett. Tim's schtick ("Gymnastics 101" etc.) has worn thin and after 30+ years it's time for someone else to take over. The main thing, though, is NBC needs to get over their obsession with showing gymnasts on the sidelines, chalking up, getting drinks of water, talking to the coaches, instead of showing actual gymnastics. It creates these interminable lulls in the action, when there's exciting stuff going on in the background that the audience doesn't see. I'm not a huge golf fan but I watched the coverage of the British Open a few weeks ago, and I was struck by how they immediately moved from one golfer to another so there was no break in the action - it was almost addictive since they kept showing shot after shot. They didn't just follow Rory McIlroy around while he was walking from hole to hole, getting drinks of water, and talking with his caddy, but if he were a gymnast that's exactly the type of coverage NBC would do.

I don't think this is the end for Claire and Carmy. Of course she was hurt by what he said while in the freezer but given that she also works in a high-pressure field that requires long days and periods of intense focus, I think with a bit of time she would realize that Carmy was working out the pressure of one of the most intense evenings of his career, and dealing with issues that aren't really about her. Agreed - when he first showed up my brain went, "Where is this guy from before? Oh yeah, SNL..." which took me out of the show and in the end he didn't even have any real dialogue beyond saying how crack/meth makes him focus or whatever. I wonder if Donna's decision not to go into the restaurant shows that she's done some changing and growing since Mikey died.

Even better, it wasn't "eldest son," but "eldest boy." Further reiterating how he's still that 7-year-old on his dad's lap being told he will get the keys to the kingdom.

I have found Sr Monica Joan tiresome for a long time, and when she interrupted the wedding service (after arriving late) to announce how she was still going to do her reading or whatever, I just rolled my eyes so hard. I don't care how much affection Trixie has for her and the other nuns at Nonnatus, if that were my wedding I'd not have been best pleased. That said, MJ's line about "rallying" right before entering the church was pretty amusing.

Peacock is leaving the replays of Worlds up for 48 hours after each session, but a week would be even better. There are many, many reasons why someone might not be able to watch something within a specific 48-hour window. Really, NBC and their copyright lawyers need to get some spine and not back down in the face of frivolous music lawsuits.

I enjoy this show but I find some of the challenges to be uneven and smacking of producer manipulation. For example, in the S2 episode with the old recipes that the bakers had to remake, some sounded not that bad and others sounded revolting. But then what made it worse was that each team was specifically assigned a particular recipe, so it wasn't random. It would have been more fair to have the teams pick the recipes out of a hat, or better yet, have them all remake the same old recipe.

One aspect I found disappointing about the ending of the episode, which stops with Elizabeth in the carriage, is that there's no acknowledgement that in the end, the Silver Jubilee was a success. We got the discussion with Margaret where she talked about how apprehensive she was to be having a Jubilee, but then we don't get to see her receive the celebratory reassurance that the public appreciated her. I appreciate the attention to detail and ability of the costumers to provide clothes that are extremely close to what the Queen and others wore IRL, but sometimes, as with this hat, I think it backfired and emphasized why Olivia Colman (amazing as she is) was a bit miscast in the role (and/or was misdirected in her portrayal). OC has one of those faces that easily appears much older, particularly with certain hair and makeup. Even though by the time of the end of the season (in 1977) Elizabeth was a few years older than OC was at the time of filming this season, OC's appearance this season has consistently appeared older than Elizabeth did in the same time frame. Therefore, when we see OC wearing this cute, whimsical hat, it just doesn't appear like something that Elizabeth-as-portrayed-by-OC would choose.

Rewatched recently and my favorite part of the episode (in terms of comedy value) is when Charles is meeting with the professor and when trying to phonetically pronounce what the professor is saying, the professor says, "you have to glide into it" and Charles immediately says, "I'm trying to glide into it" with a little arm wave. Something about that just tickles my funny bone.

Given the way the family tree shaped up, Elizabeth would have eventually become queen anyway. Edward married Wallis when she was 41 and nothing in his or her history indicates a desire to have children (and of course, they didn't in the end). With Edward having no children, even if he hadn't abdicated the crown would have eventually passed to Bertie and then to Elizabeth, no matter what, it just would have ended up happening in the 1970s when Edward died instead of the 1950s. One of the things I think the show has really missed throughout is Elizabeth's natural sense of humor. I never met her personally of course but there are ample descriptions from many different people, and video evidence, of her having a dry sense of humor and quick wit, with a twinkle in her eye. Yes, this is another aspect where I think the characterization of Elizabeth in the show fails. No, she didn't get a traditional schooling and university education, but there's ample evidence out there that she had a natural intelligence and was well abreast of the issues of the day, and carefully read all of the documents in her red boxes. Perhaps her chosen hobbies of horses and dogs didn't seem all that intellectual, but everyone needs hobbies and activities that are just for fun and not for smarts. It's perfectly fair for her to not be all that interested in science and technology, and it doesn't make her any less intelligent than Philip just because he finds those topics interesting.

It's unfortunate for Elizabeth Debicki because there's not much she can do about it, but being a 6'3" woman just lends a general air of awkwardness. Diana was tall but not as unusually tall as Debicki. Having an intimate private phone conversation leaked for the whole world to read is bad enough, but I appreciated that the show largely kept the conversation as it was in real life since it actually makes it clear that Charles didn't "wish to be Camilla's tampon" as is often the mischaracterization that continues to spread even today. Overall I think Dominic West did a decent job portraying Charles. Perhaps he has a bit too much natural confidence and swagger but I think it works in portraying the contradiction of how Charles at this point in his life was a man in full, and in many other professions would have been at or approaching his peak time of productivity and authority. However, because of the nature of his role of Prince of Wales, he was continually waiting in the wings, which would naturally be frustrating. It's to his credit that he came up with the Prince's Trust as something that he could actively be involved with rather than just sitting around waiting for his mother to die so that his "real job" could begin.

The thing that I found the most surprising about this episode was that Sydney Johnson worked for both the Duke of Windsor and Mohamed Al-Fayed. I had no idea about that before watching, and had to go check online to see whether it was actually true since it just seemed like such an amazing coincidence. I also had no idea that the Fayeds were involved with Chariots of Fire so that was an interesting surprise too. On its own I thought it was a good piece of television, but on the other I was a little peeved that it took up 10% of the season. IMO Al-Fayed is extremely peripheral to the overall story of the royal family, which should be the focus of The Crown. If this had been an extra 11th episode, then fine, but I came away feeling that time that could have been spent on more relevant familial/political issues of the early '90s was used on this very minor character.

I think the issue regarding knowledge of bulimia and eating disorders is not so much about whether the general public understood what they were in the '80s and early '90s (I agree with the posters upthread that eating disorders were commonly talked about at this time, especially in the wake of Karen Carpenter's death), but rather whether the Royal Family itself (importantly the Queen, Philip, and Charles) did. Diana's lament in the Morton book was that the RF didn't see the bulimia as a sign that things were wrong with the marriage, but rather thought that the marriage was failing because of Diana's bulimia and other mental health issues.

Kuliak has the most smackable face. Smug childish jackass.

Thanks for that info Rootbeer, especially the tidbit that this band has done the same thing in other venues. What a swell group of guys.

Somehow I doubt that NBC taking down the figure skating content from Peacock is only about music rights. For one thing, is there even any evidence that Knierim/Frazier didn't get the proper approval to use the music? They're both veterans, and so are their coaches - there's no way they don't know the procedures for getting music approval. Second, this lawsuit is going to be laughed right out of court. It's a freaking COVER of a song that's been around for decades, and the exposure of being used for a figure skating program is a net benefit to the band. It wasn't being used in a derogatory or negative fashion in any way. It was also used by this team prior to the Olympics, but oh look, the group only sues while the Olympics are on? This is just clearly a publicity stunt by this band who I bet most people only heard of for the first time because of Knierim/Frazier's program! Of course I don't really know what shenanigans are going on to explain why NBC pulled the skating content from Peacock so soon after the Olympics finished, but I don't think it's just about this music lawsuit.

I know - but on the flip side, there were athletes who suddenly became age-eligible with the delay, like Konnor McClain, and none of them came close to making the team. Also if the games had been held in 2020 there's a good chance Morgan Hurd would have been on the team at 19 years old. The youngest alternate was Kayla DiCello, at 17. The point is just that gymnastics no longer has the "expiration date" at 15 or 16 years old that it used to, and IMO a lot of that has to do with the change in scoring that now gave value to having muscular power that prepubescent girls don't have.

With the move to open-ended scoring in gymnastics, the increased importance of the difficulty level of elements meant that there was now more value in being a muscular, powerful gymnast (Simone Biles being the primary example). The U.S. women's gymnastics team at last year's Olympics had no one under 18. In 2016, Laurie Hernandez was the only member of the team who was not yet 18. In figure skating, however, the difficulty level in the scoring is primarily derived from how many revolutions you can do in the air - this is an aspect that favors someone to be as small and narrow as possible. Unless the ISU wants to keep seeing 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old girls run through the wringer and discarded when they start growing boobs and hips, they need to adjust the scoring to give more weight to other aspects besides how many times someone can spin around in the air before touching the ice again. Also, puberty blockers should be added to the WADA code and tested for to discourage their harmful use.

Watching that Michelle Kwan Tosca program linked above has reminded me of something that's different now that really detracts from the viewing experience - the scorebox in the upper left corner of the screen. I get that the ISU is trying to go for more transparency in the scoring, but it's distracting to see the score and the evaluations, which items are under review and so on during the skate rather than just being able to focus on the performance itself. For transparency, the list of elements and how they were scored can be provided when the skaters are in the Kiss and Cry getting their final scores (and this would also remove the confusion about the on-the-fly scores being provisional until all the reviews are completed). Also, I think the focus on jumps being under-rotated also is a turn-off for the average viewer, who typically can't tell that a jump is underrotated unless it's very obvious. If a skater has a minor underrotation on the jump but handles it well and anyone but an expert wouldn't have known that there was a problem, it just causes confusion to the general public to see that the jump doesn't score well. If the ISU wants there to continue to be a penalty for under-rotation, then they'd better start penalizing pre-rotation as well (which is arguably worse since it's apparently more prone to causing long term injury).

This is now a Kaori Sakamoto stan account. Also, I'm outraged at the PCS scores for Trusova (70.97) and Valieva (70.62) in comparison to Higuchi (69.26). Utter bullshit. If one of the ROC women had to win then I suppose I'm glad it was Shcherbakova since she at least has a balance of technical and artistic content, and seems like a nice person. I also felt bad for her that she was left all alone after winning - perhaps she and Zagitova can commiserate about that. That said, I think all 3 ROC women have been on something at one time or another given the system at Eteri's rink. Kaori is my Olympic gold medalist.

The problem with having age restrictions on a sport-by-sport basis is that the anti-doping code applies to all sports the same. If WADA is essentially saying that someone 15 and under is too immature to be held to the anti-doping regulations, then it stands to reason that they are also too immature to be competing on the world stage, no matter which sport it is. The issue with asking people like Tara Lipinski, Sarah Hughes, and Dominique Moceanu what they think about age restrictions is that they're (understandably) going to have the bias that their Olympic glory occurred at such a young age, and there's of course the chance the same outcome wouldn't have happened for them at a later age. They were lucky - it worked out for them (I mean only in terms of winning Olympic gold; I'm well aware of the abuses that Moceanu suffered at the hands of the Karolyis). However, that misses the countless number of young anonymous athletes who were pushed too far, too early, and either burned out or couldn't keep up as their bodies broke down. If their coaches had known that they needed to wait until 17 or 18 to compete at that level then perhaps their training schedule would have been approached very differently (and hopefully, more healthfully).

Thank you! When Tara said that I immediately thought, "Does she though? Does she?" There's no guarantee that raising the minimum age to compete would change training practices, but if, for example, a coach knows that a skater won't be eligible for senior competition until they are 17, then hopefully there would be less incentive for them to be training quads when they are 13. It would also remove this "protected persons" nonsense where someone is not held to the same anti-doping standards as the rest of the field. I got into following skating with the '92 Olympics and have watched every Olympics since then, but the Russian dominance the last 10 years has just left me cold. I was already feeling checked out from women's figure skating after the ridiculous decision to award gold to Sotnikova over Kim in Sochi, which reflected simply that the Olympics were being held in Russia, and nothing to do with the actual skating. Follow that up with Zagitova's back-loaded program that clearly exploited the loophole in the rules without a care for actually being a cohesive program. And now, this doping stuff. It's been a slow death, but Russia (and the complicit ISU) is murdering women's figure skating.

There's no chance the U.S. would try to prosecute Valieva but going after Team Eteri and other adults involved? Fair game. Also there are American athletes impacted right now as they haven't been able to get the medals that they earned, and at the rate this is going there's a chance the medal ceremony might not even be able to happen during the Olympics. They are being robbed of their podium moment, even if the color of the medal doesn't change.