staveDarsky

I watched the two "dinner with the Millers" scenes side by side online. The odd line was dropped here and there between BC and GP and the allowed reaction times were shorter. Those niggly edits lowered the impact of scenes in GP.

Hardy needed a ride to the Church quickly and not being medically cleared to drive, he had to get her to take him. But he did tell Ellie to drop him off and drive off. She decided to tag along, not knowing what was up. I wonder about Tom too because on rewatch of series 1, I noticed how he eavesdropped on the dinner with Hardy. Creepy to see him hanging out with Mark Latimer now. That's a really good question about why the Latimers would be in charge of hiring the attorney for the prosecution when Ellie mentioned the case was "The Crown versus Miller".

Recently become a David Tennant fan and in catching up with his work, I've run across the following Downton people: Jim Carter played the surgeon who treated Tennant's character in the TV movie, Recovery. Hugh Bonneville's BBC series, Twenty Twelve and W1A are/were both narrated by Tennant. They also costarred in Glorious 39. Kevin Doyle was in Blackpool, playing the prospective son in law of the lead couple. Maggie Smith was in The Last September and rejected Tennant's character as a suitor for her niece. Joanne Froggett played his wife in the first episode of True Love.

Amusing. LOVED Molseley. Since Broadchurch 2 is about to debut on ITV as well, I'd have loved if Hardy and Miller had dropped by too. Maybe another Christmas.

It's sad they had litle choice due to Dick York's worsening back injury. He missed more and more episodes each year until he took very ill on set and had to go to hospital. It was during the episode where Samantha's father changed him into a horse. If you look at the end, you'll notice they reversed the film to bring him back because he never came back to the set to finish the episode. It was 18 months before he was somewhat recovered and then he rarely acted again, losing almost all of his money on bad investments. But I digress... What made the Darrin change even more confusing to me as a young kid was that a few episodes later Sam announced she was pregnant but by the time Adam was born, Darrin #2 was around. To my child mind, it was like he was a fake daddy in place of the real daddy (York). I don't remember a proper announcement of the change and for years, the story behind York's departure was untold. Having recently gotten into watching Dr Who and seeing how they've handled actor replacement with regenerations, I wish Bewitched had explained the change in Darrins with a spell that went wrong. It's interesting that both shows about otherworldly beings who could travel in time and area in a snap were on at the same time and faced replacing the lead male due to health issues. I'd had loved it if they'd brought back York as soon as he was recovered, but it was probably too much of a risk that the back injury would relapse. In Dick Sargent's defence, it couldn't have been too easy. As much as Elizabeth Montgomery seemed fond of him, Agnes Moorhead was not accepting of him. She was quite pious and reportedly disapproved of Sargent's homosexuality.

Tennant didn't announce his departure publicly till the end of October 2008. This aired the May before that.

Been catching up on a bunch of David Tennant's back catalogue. Last week I found the episode of the Mrs Bradley Mysteries he did (January 2000 broadcast), which happened to feature Peter Davison (5th doctor and his future father in law) as the police inspector. Of course, the great one involving him is his one scene in the movie Jude from 1996 where he, as a drunk undergraduate, challenges the ninth doctor to recite the Creed in Latin. And Christopher Eccleston promptly stands up and does just that! Omg! He looks like Monty Python's Graham Chapman in the photo. Great!

I was able to watch some key scenes from the Gracepoint finale simultaneously with the same ones in Broadchurch. In the Gracepoint scenes, while the same words were often delivered, the pacing was different and the American characters didn't have as much reaction time as the Brits did. That is, the Brits were able to delve a little more emotionally into their parts with almost every line. It was really noticeable with Anna Gunn versus Olivia Colman. They also cut a BC scene where Mark (Latimer) went to the beach and yelled out to sea -- spewing out his anger and hurt -- before heading to the jail to confront Joe. It was little cuts like these that made me disconnect from the Solanos where I'd been emotionally gutted for the Latimers. It's hard to know if it was the actors' choices in how they delivered the scene or if the writing, direction and editing did the trimming, but overall this is why Gracepoint didn't draw me in to the extent Broadchurch did. In the end, I took to the novelty of comparing the two as the draw for staying with Gracepoint throughout.

I'm wondering if they shot two or more endings to Gracepoint so that the broadcast ending could be switched in this last week based on how the show did and whether it was going to be brought back for a second season. If it has been cancelled, the big difference in the ending for Gracepoint could then be killing off Carver by massive coronary in the last scene.

On BC, it was Joe who confirmed Danny died in the hut/cottage, after he'd been arrested. The police couldn't confirm more than finding Danny's blood and strong evidence of the place being cleaned afterward. GP is at the same point, with the evidence only showing Danny bled there and the hut was cleaned. I found the last couple of BC episodes online and managed to find all the parallel scenes to those on this week's GP. Aside from a few line reassignments between characters and different angles on the shots, GP episode 9 was taken from BC episodes 7 and 8. I'm beginning to think that what we heard from the powers behind Gracepoint as a promise that "the killer's different" was actually worded as "the ending will be different" and that could be almost anything.

You're right. Since Fox is not averse to time-shifting the broadcast of other shows like Glee, putting Gracepoint on when other shows are on hiatus is very sensible. It's the reason PBS keeps giving for not simulcasting Downton Abbey with ITV in the fall. Scandal's now off till at least the end of January (according to FutonCritic.com). There are your 10 weeks of lower competition right there. Frustrating thing too that when David Tennant finally got to the talk shows, he was second guest on each of them, meaning less air time. What also could have helped immensely is if Fox had managed to get him a guest spot on Glee last spring, where he could show off his lighter, comedic and singing ability for a couple of episodes and enticed some of that audience to give the guy a look on Gracepoint.

David Tennant's appearance on Letterman is being repeated this coming Monday night, December 1.

Thank you for pointing out that the town is missing its chemistry on Gracepoint. Great way to describe it. I too find the show overall unengaging where Broadchurch was. I've been catching up with a lot of David Tennant's previous work and my biggest criticism is that we're missing the emotion he normally puts into his portrayals. Makes it hard for the audience who don't know his work to appreciate him. I wonder why they focused on Carver being from California over another US region where the accent is more pronounced, which would have given Tennant a better chance of adopting it. Or, how hard would it have been to say Carver was Canadian born? That could have backed up the "fish out of water" aspect of Carver. But I also think they should have really changed up the look between Hardy and Carver. Tennant can look strikingly different between his roles, and a change in look might have also helped him focus more on having a spark in Carver and not worrying about the accent. As for Ellie, Olivia Colman was not only an everywoman, but also lacking some confidence. The audience rooted for Colman's Ellie because of that. Anna Gunn's Ellie, is tall and blond. If her marriage does break up, it's easy to imagine the American Ellie going right out and landing another guy immediately. I don't feel sympathy for her or protective of her as I do of Colman's Ellie.

I read that Minnie Driver's story was switched in to the US season 5 set because the celebrity who they originally touted as being the 8th bowed out. I've worked on my family tree and realized pretty quickly that some stories need to stay private to the family. Perhaps the celebrities force the show to scale back on what they broadcast regarding a certain family line because it would create a lot of discord in the family if it was broadcast. Also, I have to think for security reasons, it's a little dangerous to be publicizing information that could be used in identity theft.

Well I tried. Made it to the 1/2 hour mark and then gave up. I'm tired of the focus on one character over all others. The most interesting to me are the long-time characters, especially Nick and Sara. Yet what do we get? The Fin show. I used to be a fan of Elisabeth Shue. The CSI writers have wrecked that with sticking her in our faces so much.

Shortly after I watched this via the BBC, I had to give my mum's nails a clean up. The manicure scene played through my head. It is something that my mum enjoys -- especially when I buff her nails smooth. And when Mum's sister was dying, I gave her some shiatsu massage on her forearms. It was very helpful to me in my grief to be able to do something tactile and relaxing for my aunt. With regard to the smoking and lung cancer, they likely won't address it. The Surgeon General's report in the USA linking smoking to lung cancer didn't come out until 1964 and we're only going into 1960 with series 4 next year.

I wanted to pick up that standing baby too. The manicure broke me as well. I also loved how Sister Monica Joan recovered from her troubles to be there with Chummy and her mum at the end. I understand Judy and Miranda often get cases of the giggles when they work together, so it was lovely to see them pull everything together and give us such a wonderful set of scenes. Jennifer Worth did actually move on to working in a hospice I think. So that story is true. She wasn't with the nuns for all that long.