llywela | (no subject)

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!

Threaded | Flat

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?!

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!

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)

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