Winter is coming, they say. We may get temperatures in the 30s after the weekend. Can’t happen soon enough. It’s going to be over 80 all weekend. No wonder I’m “bah humbug” when it comes to Christmas. It’s hard to get in the mood when it’s this warm. As it stands, I’ll be putting up the outdoor lights this weekend wearing shorts.
My author copies of Twenty-first Century King arrived a couple of days ago. Unlike most chapbooks, this one has a glossy, thick cover. A handsome booklet, I must say.
I thought I was going to get more of a break from The Dark Tower Companion, but my editor emailed yesterday to say that he was about to send the page proofs. Not sure if I’ll get them tomorrow or not, but I know what I’ll be doing for the next X days after I receive them: poring over the 560 pages for errors and glitches.
I received an electronic galley of Guilt, the next Alex Delaware novel by Jonathan Kellerman, so I put The Casual Vacancy aside for a few days. I’m sure it won’t take me more than that. I usually tear through his books. This one starts off with the discovery of a baby’s skeleton buried beneath the roots of an old tree that was recently damaged by a storm. The evidence indicates that it’s been there since 1950-52. So, a very cold case. Still, promising clues come along quickly (perhaps a tad too conveniently), but there aren’t going to be many living people left as witnesses—or suspects, for that matter.
The guy everyone kept forgetting was still on the beach got evicted from Survivor the other night. He made so little impression on the game that I’ll bet some of the players even forgot he was still there. Timid? I’ll say. Oddly enough, I now think Abi will make it to the final two or three. Who wouldn’t want the most despised player sitting next to them in front of the jury. And, unlike Russell, I doubt that she’ll be surprised or outraged when she doesn’t win. Right now my money’s on Malcolm. If he can survive to the end. He probably has a big target on him since he’s such a strong player.
This week’s episode of Law & Order: SVU qualifies as one of the worst ever. It was so-so up until the last six or seven minutes, which will go down among the annals of TV history as among the soppiest, most melodramatic scenes ever. Patricia Arquette starred as a woman who has been a prostitute for a quarter of a century or more who helps SVU catch a spree killer. Then SVU stages an intervention for her. Bleh. It was impossible to watch.
Brad Dourif (Deadwood) was the psycho of the week on Criminal Minds. He was turning people into marionettes to re-enact the scene where a robber killed his parents when he was a kid! Strange, strange, strange.
I am pleasantly surprised by Elemental. It’s more like The Mentalist than Sherlock. So long as they resist the temptation to pair up Sherlock and Watson, I’ll keep watching.
Quite a season finale for Sons of Anarchy. Nothing turned out the way I thought it would. Jax found a way to take Clay out of play more or less permanently. At the same time, he solved the Tig vs. Pope problem, although he took a lot of risks in doing so. He counted on Pope behaving a certain way and if he hadn’t, Tig wouldn’t have survived.
There was a neat scene at the beginning that cross-faded from Tara to Gemma to show how much they resemble each other. However, Tara can’t hold a candle to Gemma. When they tussle, Gemma wins. Win Tara tries to stand up, Gemma knocks her down. The jury’s still out on who’s responsible for Tara’s arrest. Sutter seems to imply it was Gemma, but I’m open to the possibility that it was the retired marshal whose sister was killed by Otto.
Another nice touch came in adjacent scenes when Clay reassured Juice in a paternal way and then Jax reassured him with the same gesture, except it seemed more like a king to one of his minions. And Otto…whoa. “Way to commit.” (I keep forgetting that it’s Sutter who plays Otto.)
Apparently Katey Segal sang the version of “To Sir, With Love” at the beginning. A cool rendition of a Stones song at the end, too. I was thinking that next season would be the last, but Sutter is contracted for two more, and he’s not sure that’s enough to tell everything he wants to tell. He’s trying to negotiate either one more season or else longer sixth and seventh seasons.
