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1. It was a good night for actor Mark Lewis Jones last night – on BBC1 he was an upright, hard-working pillar-of-the-community in Baker Boys (which I haven’t seen yet – that’ll be an iPlayer job) and at exactly the same time he could also be found over on BBC3 as a depraved, evil vampire on Being Human! Not bad going.

2. The location-spotting in the new season of Being Human is awesome. I love that they’ve moved to South Wales. *G*

3. I have somehow managed to volunteer to do some transcribing for the FreeCEN online census project and am now learning how to navigate the systems in place for that (and how to decipher illegible 19th century handwriting!)

4. Finally got around to watching the Dirk Gently adaptation that aired on one of the BBC’s digital channels a couple of months back. I was in two minds before I watched it, and I remain in two minds now! On the one hand, taken at face value, it was a fun, light-hearted hour’s entertainment, with a suitably convoluted, brain-twister of a plot. But on the other hand…it bore little or no resemblance whatsoever to the book on which it is based and therefore it just felt wrong. The names of the characters were pretty much the only thing the show had in common with the book – and even their personalities and/or back stories had been changed. They hadn’t just modernised the plot, they re-wrote the entire story and gave it a completely different plot. And Dirk Gently himself was hopelessly miscast. So I remain in two minds. Half of me thinks it was a decent, fun hour of bubblegum entertainment, which is clearly all it was intended to be, but the other half of me resents it deeply for not being faithful to Douglas Adams' original vision. Ah, TV adaptations of much-loved books are always so contentious!

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For some reason, from the last post you made about it, I presumed Baker Boys was just on BBC Wales. If it's on iPlayer I might try it. :)

I loved Dirk Gently - I thought it was such fun - but then I haven't read the books. I haven't seen the film of the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy because I was worried it wouldn't be true to the story, but as I haven't read this I could (as you said) take it at face value. I loved the character of Dirk. I'm hoping they might make a series of it.

Shame it was nothing like the book for those who have read it though.

I've never seen Being Human but I thought it was set in Bristol?!

Baker Boys is on iPlayer, yes - that's how I managed to see last week's installment, having missed it when it was on. I caught a few scenes at my mum's, which got me interested, so found it on iPlayer later. Episode one should still be available online and maybe on series catch up, even if it has now disappeared from On Demand. It is worth watching!

Being Human was set in Bristol for the first two seasons, yes, but they have moved to Barry for season three - both for plot reasons (the characters were no longer able to remain where they had been living, after various crises blew up in their faces) and, presumably, for production reasons. BBC Wales seem to be building themselves up as The Place for shows to be filmed these days.

TV adaptations of books are always so difficult - when you read a book, you always get such a clear image of the characters, and the TV version rarely if ever manages to match that. The Dirk on the show was personable enough, and he had the eccentricity (although not the quirky dress sense), but he had nothing like the presence of the Dirk in the books.

I watched Part 1 on iPlayer (part 2 isn't there yet for some reason). It was a bit slow, I thought, but has potential and I guess they're building up the characters/plot in the first one.

Owain Jones - and before you ask, no, he doesn't! ;)

(If you don't watch Gavin and Stacey then that probably won't mean much to you!).

Oh great - according to the BBC page on this, they're not showing episode 2 (or presumably 3...) on iPlayer so I won't be able to watch any more!

Crap, 'cause I've been waiting for it to come up on iPlayer so I could watch - as far as I can see, though, ep 2 is still listed as 'coming soon' on iPlayer, so it may yet appear. And luckily I do have other means of acquiring stuff (and can share, if need be...)

Thanks Jo. :) I might take you up on that offer if you can acquire the episodes, but fingers crossed they might yet show up on iPlayer. :)

I've just realised that in my earlier post I typed Owain Jones - he's a friend of mine! I meant to type Owain Hughes - d'oh!!

Okay, we'll play it by ear, then, but if it doesn't show up, let me know and we'll see what we can do. It's nice to be able to follow a story through to the end, once you've started it!

I watched part two tonight (yay - iPlayer came up trumps!) and enjoyed it so much more than part 1.

Who is Eve Myles (who Gaynor doesn't like?)

I like Rob - I thought he'd come good. I have a sneaking suspicion that something might go wrong there though...

iPlayer comes through at last!

Eve Myles is Gwen in Torchwood. She's kinda been a bit over-exposed in these parts since Torchwood took off, which probably contributes to Gaynor's ambivalence toward her.

I'm interested to see where they take the Rob-Sarah-Owen triangle in the third instalment, especially since they've allowed it to be a genuinely complex situation rather than going down the Hollywood road of making one guy the hero and the other the villain so that the ending is obvious. Not to mention raising the stakes by having Rob invest in the bakery - not just because of all the jobs involved but because it was such a huge gesture of love and commitment to Sarah. And means so much more coming from a man to whom such gestures don't come easy. And yet Owen is the hero of the show, if it has one at all, so...anything could happen in the final episode!

Thanks - I've never seen Torchwood so I don't actually know which one she is, but I'm guessing Sarah?

I like Rob, but I can't see this going well for him.

Luke and Abi watched some of this one with me - Abi recognised the daughter (Emma?) from Tracey Beaker! Good to see her get this role. :)

I liked that it didn't rush - they've got 3 episodes to tell the story and that gives them space to take their time. So I liked that the first episode did just that: took its time establishing the characters and how they all fit together in that community, and then took its time exploring the impact on each of them when the factory closed. Also, I suppose, being set locally it just felt relevant to me in a way that not many shows do, being so deeply rooted in the South Wales location as it is.

I transcribe for FreeBMD.It's fun and worthwhile to be able to make the indexes free to view. They are doing well as I'm uploading marriages from 1951 at the moment!

I'm hoping I'll get the hang of it quickly and retain the enthusiasm and motivation to keep it up - Mum and I have benefitted so much from the hours other people have put into providing this resource, it would be good to give a bit back. :)

Lol, was that big red building in the last epp posing as the hospital a place we saw? :s Do you know what that building is?

Not just great location-spotting though, it seems to be shaping up to be a really great season as well, so far much better than last season, IMO! And lol, I thought that actor was Ray Winstone at first...he's def. familiar in any case, need to imdb him!

EDIT: NM I figured it out, no wonder this guy seemed ridiculously familiar, he's been in so much that I've seen! He was Uther in The Mists of Avalon TV miniseries, also had guest roles in Torchwood and Merlin, he's been in the big screen movies Troy, The Other Boleyn Girl, Robin Hood, and Master and Commander...he sure gets around!

Edited 2011-01-31 21:56 (UTC)

We only caught a quick glimpse of the hospital exterior - I'd need to see it again and probably pause to place it properly. The interior hospital scenes would have been filmed at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary - possibly a few in the tunnels up at the Heath, but mostly at the CRI because it is closed and therefore fully available for use as a set. The red building wasn't the frontage for the CRI, though - might have been a side angle (it's a huge sprawling building), or poss one of the smaller hospitals in the Vale like Llandough. I'd need to get a proper look though.

Annie taking Mitchell out for a walk from their house in Barry all the way to the Cardiff Bay barrage was highly amusing...

Well I've heard that the red exterior was the same as the one used for Leadworth hospital in s5 DW, so maybe that's why it looked familiar to me...and lol, the M/A scene was Cardiff Bay then? But much further out than we went, right? B/c someone asked if that was the same pier where Tosh and Tommy walk on TW (aka by the Norwegian Church) and I didn't think so...

Where Mitchell and Annie were in that scene was out on the barrage itself, right out at the Penarth end on the spur that juts out into the Bristol Channel and shelters the sea locks (which would have been behind M/A where they were standing). If we'd had time for the boat ride across (or the walk around), I'd have taken you there as I love going over to the barrage to watch the sea locks in operation! The Norwegian Church is in Cardiff Bay proper, near the old dry docks (also near where the Beeb's new production studios are being built), but you can walk from the Norwegian Church to where M/A were, through the docks and along the barrage to Penarth. So it isn't the same place, no, but is near it.

Being Human is still terrific - we really enjoy it.

Sue & I had that conversation about Dirk Gently - she's read the books, I haven't. I liked it for what it was, while thinking there was probably more to it.

Carol

LOL not just me then!

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