My Darling B and I have watched more television in the past two weeks than we have all summer. Here’s just a sample of what’s been flashing across our retinas:
Well, this is fun. Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson and Inspector Lestrade in modern-day London. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Holmes with a hyperkinetic glee that makes Robert Downey Jr’s Holmes look as staid and old-fashioned as Basil Rathbone’s.
We started by watching the first episode of the second season, because that’s what was available at the video store, but in this case that wasn’t a bad thing. We liked it so much that B put the first season on reserve at the library and the first two disks came in this week. Turn out to be as good, if not better, than the second season.
We were trolling the aisles of the only video store left in Madison for rainy-day movies when My Darling B appeared from around a corner with the boxed set of the HBO series From The Earth To The Moon and said, “Look what I found! It’s got ‘Moon’ in the title, which sounds like it’s about the space race, so I thought you might be interested…”
I might be interested. What a wonderful, perfect girl she is for me.
A doubleyou-doubleyou-two movie starring Clark Gable as the submarine captain haunted by his past, and Burt Lancaster as the second in command who’s miffed at Gable for swooping in to take command when it should’ve been mine, dammit, mine! Not enough? You need more? Okay, we’ve also god Jack Warden as Clark Gable’s trusty sidekick, and Don Rickles as the plucky comic relief. Still not enough? How about this: Ken Lynch as the Star Trek connection, playing “Frank (uncredited)” who appears in one or two scenes, usually with a cig dangling from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t smoke in Star Trek, but a lot of the miners who worked for him turned into smoking puddles of oil when The Devil In The Dark got hold of them.
This Is Drivel 