You're moving forward in a figure eight
Happy autumn! After some last-minute, early-morning runaround, I finally got to see a physical therapist about my back. In the evening, I baked things with apples in the toaster oven and watched several episodes of Mr. Palfrey of Westminster (1984–85) with my mother who has nostalgic feelings about the Thames ident with the river-mirrored skyline. The night is suddenly Arctic, full of the sharp colors of stars. I am hoping to have access to a telescope in time for Jupiter's closest approach since 1963, but if not, there's always binoculars. Have a couple of links.
1. I had not heard the contretemps about the origins of Betty Boop, but I appreciate PBS acknowledging that its failure to fact-check generated now-popular misinformation, which is of course harder to recall than the more complicated reality. "We could have thus avoided this teachable moment."
2. Courtesy of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit: a gifset of Martin Jarvis in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), which I suspect I may end up watching just to have an opinion about what happens to him after the end of it, as the film apparently does not.
3. Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: a manuscript scourge, which is exactly what it sounds like, except it sounded like something different to me.
I watched a bunch of movies in the spring before we had to move and intended to write about several of them and did not manage it in time and it is true that I do not have a ready means of rewatching any of them at the moment, but they still feel oddly, mentally inaccessible to me and I am trying to sort out why. It frustrates me to feel so wiped out.
1. I had not heard the contretemps about the origins of Betty Boop, but I appreciate PBS acknowledging that its failure to fact-check generated now-popular misinformation, which is of course harder to recall than the more complicated reality. "We could have thus avoided this teachable moment."
2. Courtesy of
thisbluespirit: a gifset of Martin Jarvis in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), which I suspect I may end up watching just to have an opinion about what happens to him after the end of it, as the film apparently does not.3. Courtesy of a friend who is not on DW: a manuscript scourge, which is exactly what it sounds like, except it sounded like something different to me.
I watched a bunch of movies in the spring before we had to move and intended to write about several of them and did not manage it in time and it is true that I do not have a ready means of rewatching any of them at the moment, but they still feel oddly, mentally inaccessible to me and I am trying to sort out why. It frustrates me to feel so wiped out.
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That was very unfair of it!
I don't think I realized you had lost your original Tumblr; I think I was under the impression you had just changed its name along with your journal's. I'm glad you've at least been able to reconstruct so much.
BUT I kept a lot of the caps for the giffing for A Present (because of Cally and maybe using Martin Jarvis for Iron), so I remade it a little while ago.
That's lovely! And I agree with you about the showcase: it told me instantly that I would love the show.
And it means that I can rectify the whole thing where every time we talk about it, I'm, like, where did my Mr Palfrey icon go??? *points*
I've just seen the episode that image comes from, too.
Philip Broadley is a writer who can be really good or really tiresome & often rather sexist, or occasionally both together, and I am now deeply familiar with his works because he wrote a lot of Department S, Public Eye and Mr Palfrey, and he's a writer most likely to be simultaneously responsible for the worst episode of the series and some of the most enjoyable, so he's a name I always note!
What
I also cannot get over that A Present From Leipzig isn't his, because at this point, I assume if I'm watching an old TV episode of anything and it's about gayness and antiques, it was by Philip Broadley, so Present does not compute in my head. But it is probably better than if it it had been written by Mr Broadley!
It may be holding position as my favorite episode so far, not merely because of Martin Jarvis. Did its writer do anything else of note?
And, yes, absolutely - and why it bears rewatches, because the game of chicken is over after the first time, but the issues for the characters still stand each time around.
The question of people's limits—where they are, where they think they are, what they do when run up against or blown past them—turned out to be one of the central concerns that makes film noir so attractive to me, so I appreciate it showing up in other genres, too. You would think it would be a staple of spy fiction, but not in my experience; the fact that Mr. Palfrey cares consistently about the question is one of the reasons it reminds me of le Carré, who was all about the costs.
(Martin Jarvis's guest role that I mentioned is a perfect example - it is obviously important that a famous visiting neutral journalist sees the truth instead of the Nazi propaganda he's supposed to be writing, but the fallout of that in human terms - "The Education of Nils Borg" that proceeds over the fifty minutes - costs everybody involved on a very personal level)
My immediate reaction to that is "as it should," further research suggests I may be able to watch Enemy at the Door once I have the pseudo-TV up and running, I need about three times the time I have in my life, thank you.
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Changing my name was what I was supposed to be doing, but apparently it is really easy to press the wrong button and delete your whole tumblr instead when you decide in the process to delete a now-unwanted sideblog. tumblr does not do take-backs! Boom, gone. But, yeah, I did at least find a lot of the stuff via reblogs eventually.
Did its writer do anything else of note?
I hadn't recalled Anthony Skene's name from my watches but when I went to look, he did also do three eps of The Prisoner, an atypical Special Branch episode that I remembered particularly and also three eps of Upstairs Downstairs (I only recall one of those as such, but it was a show of a generally high standard), and this was at least the third time he'd worked with Michael Chapman, having done Haunted (a lost show I pine for!) and Frontier (another lost 60s show I want, with James Maxwell, though given that is the NW Frontier of India, it would not be comfortable viewing any more even if well done, to say the least.) "A Present from Leipzig" seems to have been his penultimate TV script.
You would think it would be a staple of spy fiction, but not in my experience; the fact that Mr. Palfrey cares consistently about the question is one of the reasons it reminds me of le Carré, who was all about the costs.
Well, as you know, I do love this odd little show very much. XD <3
It's very much early Spooks, too (my first and actually-21st C! spy show), although tbf, actually, whatever it turned into, it always was a giant tragedy about what the cost is to you and other people if you're good at your job, but equally there's also a terrible cost to being bad at it. And, heh, I will have to actually watch some Le Carre one day, but I've been wandering around spy shows that obviously owe him debts in some sort of stubborn refusal to watch the main thing. (I actually have the 80s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD, so I really will one day, but I'm just going to need to be in the right headspace.)
My immediate reaction to that is "as it should," further research suggests I may be able to watch Enemy at the Door once I have the pseudo-TV up and running, I need about three times the time I have in my life, thank you.
<3 I mean, I just can't help talking about both these shows together because I saw EatD first and I see a lot of lines between them two. I do understand that the very historically grounded and researched and necessarily bleak EatD is a different proposition entirely! I know lots of people who understandably don't want to do it. I was sent some dvds
It isn't perfect, but I do think in general it walks the knife-walk it's set itself very well by dint of thorough research, and being absolutely relentless about human beings still being human whatever else is happening and refusing to give any easy answers to the questions it continually asks of its main characters.
I once did a sort of trailer for it, if you want to have an idea of what you might be getting yourself into if it became possible for you at some point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSm4iXLZcdQ
ETA: That's lovely! And I agree with you about the showcase: it told me instantly that I would love the show.
Awww. <3 [<- v important edit, sorry. ;-)]
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Nice! Also it looks as though I remember all three of his episodes of The Prisoner, although it helps that Mary Morris was Number Two for one of them. (The internet tells me I would have briefly seen George Markstein as a casting in-joke in another.)
and this was at least the third time he'd worked with Michael Chapman, having done Haunted (a lost show I pine for!) and Frontier (another lost 60s show I want, with James Maxwell, though given that is the NW Frontier of India, it would not be comfortable viewing any more even if well done, to say the least.)
Gary Bond and Paul Eddington, though.
How much remains of either show in terms of pictures, reviews etc.?
And, heh, I will have to actually watch some Le Carre one day, but I've been wandering around spy shows that obviously owe him debts in some sort of stubborn refusal to watch the main thing.
Well, I still haven't seen Blake's 7.
(I actually have the 80s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD, so I really will one day, but I'm just going to need to be in the right headspace.)
I grew up on his books—I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) in my grandparents' house, in their slightly jacket-tattered first edition which I inherited. I actually dumped a bunch of recommendations on
It isn't perfect, but I do think in general it walks the knife-walk it's set itself very well by dint of thorough research, and being absolutely relentless about human beings still being human whatever else is happening and refusing to give any easy answers to the questions it continually asks of its main characters.
For the record, I'm not opposed to stories set during or about World War II! I just object to getting bitten by extra surprise antisemitism.
Awww. <3 [<- v important edit, sorry. ;-)]
Of course.
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I think there are three episode extant from Frontier? I don't know if there any from Haunted, which I'm sad about - the same team did a really fascinating little SF series called Undermind the year before, which does still exist. Haunted was supposedly a very similar format but with supernatural incidents instead of stealth alien invasion, and going by Undermind I'd dearly love to see it!
Well, I still haven't seen Blake's 7.
XD I helped divert you! lol.
And reading is still much, much harder than even modern telly. I am like the pickiest eater in the world, but with books. But I have confidence I can get my brain up to the BBC series one day! <3
For the record, I'm not opposed to stories set during or about World War II! I just object to getting bitten by extra surprise antisemitism.
Oh, I got that. I'm just not rational about EatD for multiple reasons already and then it got weirdly popular-ish about two years ago as well and it was not the zeitgeist and that got disturbing around the exchange scene. So, I just like to make sure people do understand what it is it's trying to do first - even though you probably don't need that. But still! It was made 40 years ago and deals with a lot of very difficult topics. Mostly, to its credits, genuinely well, but it's not perfect, either - and while I don't think you'll have a problem with the irony and ambiguity of these kinds of old school plays, that also doesn't help with some modern viewings, because we're less used to that style of TV storytelling now as a rule.
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I hope you can see them someday.
I don't know if there any from Haunted, which I'm sad about - the same team did a really fascinating little SF series called Undermind the year before, which does still exist. Haunted was supposedly a very similar format but with supernatural incidents instead of stealth alien invasion, and going by Undermind I'd dearly love to see it!
I've heard of Undermind! From someone other than you, even—
And reading is still much, much harder than even modern telly. I am like the pickiest eater in the world, but with books.
Understood. Good luck with one day feeling like watching John le Carré!
Mostly, to its credits, genuinely well, but it's not perfect, either - and while I don't think you'll have a problem with the irony and ambiguity of these kinds of old school plays, that also doesn't help with some modern viewings, because we're less used to that style of TV storytelling now as a rule.
Fortunately, I don't watch that much modern TV. If it doesn't click with me, it doesn't click, but I don't think I will feel bait-and-switched.
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And I mean, last year, Talking Pictures suddenly came up with four episodes of The Hidden Truth, which was even more unlikely than Haunted. Oh, I would love to see that one!
And, amazing, a person who knows Undermind! It was how I wound up getting into Department S, because I was a bit fed up with ITC serials which aren't my bag, but Rosemary Nicols really impressed me as one of the two leads in Undermind (and then also because