Wednesday What's on tonight: unoffical UK freeview edition
Home Grown: The Culture Show at Edinburgh (10pm BBC2).   Show about the female stand-ups at the festival.
Films: Death Becomes Her (8pm ITV3).   Back when Bruce Willis wasn't so miserable about everything.
or Clueless (8pm E4) Jane Austen 1
or Sense and…

Boiled???   Throw them away!!!

No but you were thinking it.

It won't stricttly explode but it'll go through an intermediate red giant phase during which it will almost engulf (and hence cook) planet Earth.

I read the first paragraph again in case it was weird and confusing on purpose.   I don't think so.

I watch it and it makes me laugh.   I also think they're doing better than most with bringing in guest stars that people actually want to watch before they inevitably pair Mindy off with whatsisface her grouchy colleague.

The thing about the C4 family is their trailers are often inspired but their announcers are often dreadful.

This seems as good a place as any to say I don't understand The Cabin In The Woods.

Tuesday What's on tonight: unofficial UK freeview version:

Well part of the reason for doing these daily notes is to get a conversation going about the programmes we have in common.   I come here partly to get a heads up about interesting US TV before it makes it across the Atlantic, and it would nice to be able to do the same for UK TV going the other way, sometimes.

Oops.   Then I misread the schedule.   Must try harder.

I remember the UK miniseries for its bleakness (until I read the re-cap here, I couldn't remember the plot).    It was grimy and horrible to a degree that, say, Breaking Bad is not.   Does the re-make have that feel?

It's ok, it's a little… uninvolving.

Monday What's On Tonight: low stakes British version
Home grown: Dreaming the Impossible: Unbuilt Britain S1 Ep2 (BBC4 9:00)  I like this show, it's like the hardest of hard SF.   This week; how various earlier attempts to build the channel tunnel never quite got going, and the scheme to build a canal cut right through…

Ah, yes, it's a remake of the 2006 series but with Mark Strong in it again.  

Wot's on this weekend: unofficial UK freeview version:
Home Grown:   Southcliffe ep4 (Sun 9pm C4).   Seems like the final ep might be developing a plot?
The White Queen ep 10 (Sun 9pm BBC1).   Last ep, where all the foreshadowings and prophecies and whatnot come back to bite.
Big School ep1 (9pm BBC1 fri).   David…

Mark Twain still seems totally modern, to me.   I wonder what he'd write about the 21st Century.

This reminds me of how movies used to do that split screen thing when people talk on the phone (they still do it sometimes, but it feels retro).   When people start communicating in a new way new standards have to be developed for how to present it.

These days I'm relieved to see any story, any at all, that isn't a remake or a sequel.   Roll on the tendentious biopics.

I have a bit of a problem that I don't really know what Dowd likes (it doesn't seem to be what other people like), and I keep coming across stuff like, 'this movie is just a bad as District 9!' a movie which I throughly enjoyed.   So will I like the new film or not?   Even if I don't like it, is it at least a success…