Vee

Tennant and Piper (and Camille Coduri) reunite for Big Finish.

Well.

It's official, folks - she's off the market:

SNL talks Trump. I think they excuse themselves too much, but I love Kate McKinnon and it is a compelling oral history.

Meanwhile, in media: MSNBC's Andrew Lack, patron of Brian Williams, is working to unseat Lawrence O'Donnell and reinstall Williams center seat while trying to lean the network center-right. The talent is fighting back. While I think Williams is actually fine in a limited anchor role, I think Lack's been terrible for the network and is horribly misjudging the mood of the country at the moment. The network and parent Comcast have been getting heavy calls/web traffic from viewers over this in the last few days.

The media blitz continues. Of all the times to have moved out of NYC: And one more part:

Wow:

Vintage shoot from the September 1990 issue of Movieline. Right-click to see the larger pages.

I take any excuse to post about Jane Campion's Top of the Lake anywhere I can. This is the first trailer for the second series, which features Gwendoline Christie and stars Elisabeth Moss and Nicole Kidman. I think the first series is still on streaming in America, either Netflix or Amazon, featuring Moss and Holly Hunter. It's a great show.

Angelo Badalamenti talks to Vulture about the music of Twin Peaks.

I'm paid too little as is!

Oh, my.

Been binging (binge-ing? bingeing?) through to episode 11 and I have to say the show still steadily improves, despite the usual superficial/tryhard CW soap trappings. I think I saw whatever is coming with Betty from the second or third episode with the unfortunate quarterback/roofie incident, but they have wisely split the focus more and more between the kids (who are mostly great, especially Camila Mendes as Veronica) and the adults, namely Perry, Mädchen Amick, Marisol Nichols, the ever more prominent and appealing Skeet Ulrich (who has excellent chemistry with Amick, whose character appears to be a fellow "South Sider" made good) and now, apparently, Molly Ringwald. I'm always happy to see her turn up in something for a hit of nostalgia but I gotta say Ringwald is a lot frumpier here than I remember her being in other recent work and interviews. The Blossoms are still way too much for me, especially Cheryl, but they are starting to dig into them a bit as the reveal starts coming. It's very surreal for me watching this show as its Twin Peaks roots grow much more evident and obvious and the story gets darker, and as Mädchen Amick's character grows more and more important when the return of the actual TP is a week ago - while Archie, Veronica, etc. play at being the same kind of teen detectives as we saw on that show with Lara Flynn Boyle, James Marshall, etc. There are issues - the gay kids are still too shrill and typed, the tryhard moments with the Blossoms or certain dialogue still pop up off and on, and I saw the super-swift dismissal of Archie's relationship with one of the more wooden Pussycats coming a mile away as the characters of color (sans Veronica) are now relegated to support players again. But the show's enjoyable and diverting enough with its cast - and the plotlines are getting richer and more nuanced - that I am going to stick with it unless the finale seriously [!@#$%^&*] up. It helps that the adult characters are so prominent and that these '80s/'90s teen stars have gained such gravitas in their age, especially Luke Perry and Skeet Ulrich. And it helps most of all that in the main teen leads, the boys (Archie, Jughead) are the sensitive ingenues in the story - the girls are the prime movers.

Are they doing Mick and Whitney or not? She looks like she's getting some sort of bonkers bipolar arc.

God, it's like an ad for assisted suicide. I love the actress playing Denise but it's all so dour and bleak. And I'm not sure why people are supposed to be invested in newly-str8, still psycho Steven.

And if you enjoy watching even arrogant Joe Scarborough melt down, as I do, here is his morning rant:

It's Mädchen!