South Riding trailer!

I was thrilled to see this trailer in my Facebook news feed this morning. South Riding is coming to Masterpiece in May, starring Anna Maxwell Martin, Douglas Henshall, and David Morrissey, with a script by Andrew Davies.

Matt Bomer sings!

So, if you're friends with me on Facebook it is probably hard to avoid the fact that I'm a little obsessed with the TV show White Collar. In case you missed last night's status update gushing, last night's episode was a whole lotta awesome, topped off by a fantastic moment where Neal (a.k.a. Matt Bomer) sings "One for My Baby" with June (a.k.a. Diahann Carroll). Unfortunately I can't find that clip on YouTube, but when you search for things like "Matt Bomer singing" you come across little gems like this (just ignore Matt's momentary swearing at the very end of the clip when he realizes he's been recorded). I just love the fact that Matt knows the lyrics to "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing." :) I'm gonna go swoon, again...



WHEN IS THE MAN GONNA RECORD AN ALBUM?!

Monsterpiece Theater

Well, I didn't watch The Unseen Alistair Cooke on Masterpiece Classic Sunday night, and at this point there's no telling when or if that will even happen. C'est la vie! But in my previous post about the program, in the comments section Deborah reminded me of Monsterpiece Theater! Anyone besides me & Deborah remember these skits? In the spirit of all things Masterpiece, I decided to share a few YouTube clips here...

The 39 Stairs:



Upstairs, Downstairs:



Dr. No:



If you have a favorite segment, feel free to leave the link in the comments!

Winner of Fatal Judgment!

Thanks to everyone who entered my drawing for a copy of Fatal Judgment by Irene Hannon! The winner, with the help of Random.org, was:

Carol N Wong

Congratulations, Carol! An e-mail is on its way to you so I can get an address! And to those of you who didn't win this time around, stay tuned as I have several more book giveaways planned! Happy Monday! :)

Review: Stars Collide by Janice Thompson

Stars Collide (Backstage Pass #1)
By: Janice Thompson
Publisher: Revell
ISBN: 978-0-8007-3345-2

About the book:

Kat Jennings and Scott Murphy don't just play two people who are secretly in love on a television sitcom - they are actually head over heels for each other in real life. When the lines between reality and TV land blur, they hope they can keep their relationship under wraps. But when Kat's grandmother, an eccentric star from Hollywood's golden age, mistakes their on-screen wedding proposal for the real deal, things begin to spiral out of control. Will their secret be front-page news in the tabloids? And can their budding romance survive the onslaught of paparazzi, wedding preparations, and misinformed family members?

From the soundstage to a Beverly Hills mansion to the gleaming Pacific Ocean, Stars Collide takes you on a roller-coaster tour of Hollywood, packing both comedic punch and tender emotion.

Review:

Kat Jennings and Scott Murphy play rival talent scouts on the top-rated sitcom Stars Collide. Life imitates art on and off the set as Kat and Scott finally confess their feelings for each other both on and off-screen. But keeping a budding real-life romance under wraps is nearly impossible when the press and paparazzi stalk your every move, hoping for their next big story. When Kat's grandmother, the eccentric and colorful classic Hollywood star Lenora Worth, mistakes the on-screen fictional proposal for the real deal, Kat's life is thrown wildly off script. Can her personal life survive the intrusive glare of the press and comical, well-intentioned family meddling, or will worries over her grandmother's deteriorating mental health and her best shot at true love be the sacrifice she must pay for fame and professional success?

I've always been fascinated by the behind-the-scenes work it takes to create my favorite films and TV shows. Some of my favorite classic films revel in the backstage drama it takes to create a glittering film fiction, like Singin' In the Rain, Kiss Me Kate, or The Band Wagon. The premise of Stars Collide and the entire Backstage Pass series promises plenty of opportunities for drama among the actors, writers, and crew members who work together to make the fictional sitcom a reality. I loved seeing Kat and Scott's real-life romance jump from the pages of a Stars Collide script to real life. Scott's a great hero, very reminscent of DJ from Thompson's Weddings Bb Bella series - both are grounded believers and gentlemen in every sense of the word. But unlike Bella, Kat comes across as much, much needier. Her constant second-guessing and angst over her budding relationship with Scott or her grandmother's health wore a little thin after a while. It was frustrating to see Kat constantly enable her grandmother's memory issues by fabricating or allowing stress-inducing fictions to exist and multiply rather than facing the issue head-on. I would've liked to have seen less of Kat's personal life and more of the Stars Collide crew interaction. Despite the fact that it seems a little contrived that most of the cast and crew are Christians and the show is so family friendly and top-rated, the on-stage scenes were among the strongest in the novel and really showcase the author's background insider knowledge as a screenwriter.

My favorite aspect of the storyline is Kat's colorful grandmother, one-time Hollywood A-lister Lenora. Since I'm a huge fan of Hollywood's golden age, I loved Lenora's constant references to real Hollywood stars she either worked with or knew of their own off-screen drama. And her predilection for dressing in elaborate gowns as everyone from Bette Davis to Grace Kelly added to her eccentric charm. The movie quotes game she constantly plays with Kat is also a fun touch - yes, most of the quotes are pretty well-known, but the steady stream of classic movie references was a nice touch. Honestly, I would've preferred to read an entire novel devoted to Lenora's story - I thought her personal drama of love lost and found years later was extremely compelling and sweet, a drama worthy of a big screen treatment.

While Stars Collide is very reminscent in tone and style to Thompson's previous Weddings by Bella series, this story just didn't click with me overall as well as Bella's whacky family drama did. Kat was a more frustrating than quirky and endearing heroine, but her well-meaning grandmother's shenanigans and the charm of her real-life leading man with a heart of gold kept me turning pages. I hope that the next volume of the Backstage Pass series - focusing on scriptwriter Athena - gives readers even more backstage Hollywood drama to enjoy. For readers craving a little Hollywood glitz, Stars Collide delivers a light and frothy romantic comedy - the promising start to Thompson's Backstage Pass series.

Book Giveaway Reminder: Fatal Judgment by Irene Hannon

Just a reminder that you have through Sunday to enter the drawing for a chance to win a copy of Fatal Judgment by Irene Hannon. You just have to leave a comment on THIS POST. Good luck! :)

Primeval 4.4

Well, unfortunately I'm two weeks behind on my Primeval blogging (blame Downton Abbey, haha!), but I hope to remedy that situation this weekend. This episode, while entertaining, felt like a bit of a let down after last week's wildy entertaining anomaly in a theatre storyline, and the introduction of Emily (Ruth Bradley) and the evil Ethan (Jonathan Byrne). The Ethan/Emily storyline was almost completely sidelined for this episode. The scriptwriters appear to be teasing with the idea of an Emily and Matt (Ciarán McMenamin) romance - not sure how that is going to work out but it is at least serving to make Matt a marginally more interesting character IMO. Abby (Hannah Spearitt) and Connor (Andrew Lee Potts) are also headed for a bit of a rough patch in their relationship, thanks to Connor's geeked out hero worship of Philip (Alexander Siddig). Turns out Philip's near-death experience in the previous episode left him more than a little freaked out by the ARC's on-site menagerie. He wants to put all the creatures down, including Rex, and of course there is no way Abby is going to stand for that. As much as I LOVE Abby and Connor, I'm glad the writers decided to throw a little bit of tension into their relationship - and when Philip, Connor's professional idol, attacks Abby's beloved animals and Connor doesn't immediately support her - well, it's an entirely believable couple issue within the context of the show.

This week's anomaly opens up in a school. If you set aside the fact that this school holds Saturday detention for three students (seriously, three? that's it?!), the chase throughout the school corridors turns out to be pretty entertaining. This mission finally sees Jess (Ruth Kearney) involved in a mission in a meaningful way, even though she's back at the ARC base directing operations remotely via the school's security cameras. I'm still not overly fond of her character, but the scriptwriters handed Jess a major reality check with this episode that was long overdue and finally showed us the type of computer skills she brings to the table. Abby initially tries to get Jess to help her smuggle the creatures out of the ARC, but when Jess witnesses one of the therocephalians kill a student, she's dealt a major reality check about the dangers involved in the ARC's work.

The therocephalians were fierce and creepy, and oddly seemed to multiply like crazy - which, given their venomous bite and flesh-eating preferences made them extraordinarily creepy. I really enjoyed seeing Connor in the field for a change instead of Abby - he's always been more of a tech guy, but he gets to show how adept he is in the field in this episode, with the added bonus that he gets to save the day and impress the two dorks who actually survive the detention/creature debacle. Which brings me to this whole mission. Inspite of the detention contrivance, it was actually kind of refreshing to see the show recognize that the ARC doesn't operate in a vacuum - and it's highly realistic that innocent bystanders would fall victim to creature incursions occasionally (way more often than they do on this show anyway, haha!).

The dangers of the ARC's job hit closer to home than usual when Becker (Ben Mansfield) is overwhelmed by the therocephalians. I really do love Becker in all of his stoic, upstanding goodness, but his...how can I say this...his strictness this season has been a bit over-the-top. I get that he was emotioanlly scarred by losing Danny, Connor, and Abby at the end of Series 3, but if anyone should be scarred it should be Connor and Abby - and they've re-acclimated to life in modern times remarkably well. Becker by comparison seems to view anything less than by-the-book, break no rules success a personal failure. Hopefully, it will do his character a bit of good to have had a close brush with death. And since it seems like a Becker/Jess romantic pairing is inevitable, I was glad to see Jess remind him that lives saved were just as important to remember as lives lost. The man needs to dwell on the positive a bit more. LOL!

It's no secret that I absolutely adore Lester (Ben Miller), and he was hilarious in this episode. He has not responded well to Philip's new role as ARC boss - and the beauty of Lester is that he's utterly incapable of turning off the sarcasm and snarky comments. I loved it when he threatens what might happen to Philip's reputation if the ARC's secret operations became public knowledge, and it's leaked that he's a dinosaur killer. As Lester reminds Abby, the mammoth did save his life once - but that doesn't mean that he's actually a nice person. :) Oh Lester, I adore you in all of your snarky glory and highly repressed niceness.

Looking foward, I really hope that the Emily/Ethan mystery lives up to the hype. I don't think I'd really like it if Ethan turns out to be a male version of Helen, but who knows?! Maybe it could work. And the show really needs to make sense of Philip's involvement with the ARC and the "new dawn" operation, and Matt and Gideon's (Anton Lesser) relationship and their secret plans for the anomalies. Given Matt's nearly empty apartment, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps he came through an anomaly at one point - hence his reluctance to talk about his past. That would be an interesting plot twist, hmm? :)

Masterpiece Special: The Unseen Alistair Cooke

Coming Sunday to Masterpiece Classic is an encore presentation of The Unseen Alistair Cooke, a special celebrating the life of the renowned Masterpiece Theatre host. Here's a bit about the special:

Armed with a video camera and ambition, Alistair Cooke came to America in the 1930s. He crisscrossed the country, recording his encounters with the American scene and celebrities. On Sunday, February 6, 2011, MASTERPIECE re-airs The Unseen Alistair Cooke, which tells Cooke's story with his own footage and words, offering an admiring look at the celebrated observer of America.

I'm really looking forward to this program. I can vaguely remember some Cooke introductions to Masterpiece Theatre productions when I was a kid, and I can remember my mom talking about how she just loved his introductions. The man was an institution in the very best sense of that term.