NCIS – Legend

Not sure what I think of spin-offs in general, and less sure what I thought of the new NCIS spin-off. Perhaps when it’s ‘spinning off’ from something you know and love, it’s harder to take in the new stuff, and to like it. Be interesting to know if they will blend with each other ever again.

Legend part 1 was OK. The NCIS aspect was fine, but it will take a while to grasp what the new gang in Los Angeles are up to. There is a female ‘Gibbs’ with a past, with Gibbs. There is a very tall psychologist, and various under-cover agents.

They have so many electronic toys to play with that poor McGee is mentally re-writing his list for Christmas. Daddy Gibbs looked a little impatient with him. Washington probably doesn’t have the budget. Well, who does? California, obviously.

As promised Tony has started digging into Ziva’s past, and it does not look good. Something bad and upsetting will happen. Question is what. The spoilers on Special Ops suggest bad, bad. Do we have another Ari situation, or not?

As it was part 1, we finished off hanging from a cliff, metaphorically speaking. Just getting used to that, I suspect, before the end of series six in a few weeks’ time. More cliffhanging on the way, to take care of summer for us.

(Photos  © CBS)

GCSE Art

Hayfever and GCSEs go together. Luckily, in our case, as the abundance of flowers has meant that Daughter had plenty to inspire for her art exam project. She has photographed around two million (slight overstatement) flowers as background research for her ‘Faux Marimekko” exam flower.

I haven’t seen it yet, as it’s still at school. I understand there will be an exhibition later this term, and at some point all the art work will return here, where we don’t have any more wall space than we had the last time I looked. It will be major panicking time, but not just yet.

Idle speculation

As one who doesn’t care to read too much speculation, I will now speculate a little. 

This week will see the first of two spin-off episodes of NCIS. The episodes are called Legend part 1 and part 2, and I don’t think anybody on the outside knows what the new series will be called. NCIS itself was a spin-off of JAGS, which I haven’t watched, apart from the two spin-off episodes.

Seeing how successful NCIS has been, CBS would be silly not to try and take advantage of this and creating something new. I don’t know too much about what’s planned, but here is someone who seems to.

I’ll keep an open mind, and see what I think. But I really do not need another television series to watch regularly…

(Photo © CBS)

The Mouse That Roared

We trawled through the old video collection last night, and found The Mouse That Roared, which I think was on television quite recently. So this 50-year-old film hadn’t been lying around waiting for too long. I was under the impression I’d already seen it, many years ago, but not even with my shocking memory would I have forgotten this film.

What it really was, was an early episode of  The Man From U.N.C.L.E. minus the secret agents. We had the miniature European state, the castle, the royal family, the German sounding scientist with a beautiful daughter, and some unlikely things happening.

For those who don’t know it, the mad people of Fenwick invade New York, hoping to lose. Only, they win, of course.

The Resident IT Consultant kept marvelling over how easy it was to make an entertaining film so cheaply. Maybe some of that was having Peter Sellers play several parts. Southampton did well as New York, but at least they appear to have had a real Frenchman play the real Frenchman.

More pizza

You’ll now be under the impression I do nothing but eat. And pizza at that. I hardly ever eat pizza, unless I’m in Sweden, but the Resident IT Consultant did whisk me off to Pizza Hut this week. Son came too, without being invited. Just joking, you were very welcome. Daughter was at school, so couldn’t gatecrash. 

When Offspring were tiny, we practically lived at the local Pizza Hut, because that’s what you do when you have small children. Treats, parties, everything happens there. But I went off them quite a bit, and Offspring matured and we have eaten elsewhere for years. The pizzas got boring and the service worsened, and I won’t mention the ice cream factory here. Too unhygienic even to think about.

But then at Christmas we had cause to visit a new branch near us, and it was surprisingly good. Nice looking, clean premises, pleasant staff and a revamped menu that offered several nice things to eat. I was even able to order the dessert with chocolate sauce without the chocolate sauce, and that can be harder than it sounds.

So this week it was no hardship to go back to the same branch for more pizza. It was still as good. The only change was that the infrared heaters had disappeared, and sunshine warmed us instead. The dessert with/without chocolate sauce was off, unfortunately, but I was able to order something else with strawberry sauce without strawberry sauce. So that was tasty, too.

and here is the song

Maybe I should have added the song itself, last week?

Here is Harplinge, but without any live footage of the boys.

If you want to sing along, the lyrics are on the screen.

And here is the map. Avoid the yellow road.

Was that a Botswana cliffhanger?

Certainly looked like it. I believe my rantings on Bookwitch about books with cliffhangers must have jinxed the last episode of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on BBC1. But the reassuring aspect of everything not having been neatly tied up, is that we surely have more to look forward to?

Note Mokoti was disarmed, and will hopefully not bother his ex-wife Mma Ramotswe again. However, his pal, the ghastly male detective has his comeuppance waiting, and it can’t come too soon for me. What the television script writers will do with the decrepit pump at the orphanage, the little girl with an interest in mechanics and JLB Matekoni remains to be seen.

We’ll be waiting.

NCIS repeats

There are NCIS repeats all over the place, and whereas the witch has bought her own DVD boxes for complete indulgence, it seems that the repeats on television get NCIS new fans in a big way. UK Channel Five has two episodes on Saturdays that are repeats, with new one on Fridays, but the pattern keeps changing. Still feel as if NCIS isn’t attracting enough British viewers, but that’s their loss. The repeats in the US have been very successful, by the sound of it. Lots of people watching, and lots of new fans. Seems some of them were only able to learn to appreciate the series properly when getting several hours of it all at once.

And, let’s face it, that’s the best way. I’ll ask for 28 hours in the day for my next birthday.

The UK is still on series five, whereas Sweden is getting series six, but several months behind the US. Still a few episodes left of series six, once the patience of fans has been tested with yet another break. I try to think of it as less of a break, but simply a necessity, so that they actually have time to film.

The end of series six promises to be darker than previous endings, so that is a cheerful thought.

(Photo © CBS)

The singers we deserve

I read on another blog this week about how you need to go around half naked if you’re beautiful. And it goes without saying that ugly people can’t sing. Or so it seems.

Me, I get tired of seeing yet another look-alike with bare midriff singing on television. I like my singers to be good singers. But it must be the bare midriff syndrome that makes people pity me for liking Roger Whittaker, and he’s not ugly or fat. Just not twenty any longer, and he performs fully dressed.

To jump on the Susan Boyle and Paul Potts bandwagon this week seems a little opportune, but it has to be done. I read about Susan in the paper the other day, but never got round to investigating her on YouTube (because I don’t watch these ‘I want to be famous’ programmes). Then the Guardian did a double spread on the phenomenon of singing on television despite being neither young nor beautiful, and I joined the millions of people who had already heard Susan sing.

Lovely. I particularly liked the fact that she talked and moved as she wanted. She was herself. Then I showed Daughter the Paul Potts video, which only brought home that those three ‘judges’ sit there saying the same thing every time. And they are smug. I gather the job is well paid, so it’s something I wouldn’t mind doing in their place. I could do my bit to stop the midriffs. (I notice the judges have their names displayed in big letters above the stage, which is handy in case they forget.)

Daughter will dispute this, but I firmly believe Susan wasn’t a complete surprise on the show, which makes any mock surprise reactions even worse. Still doesn’t mean that her looks and background, genuine or not, should have much to do with whether she makes it as a singer.

I remember the Eurovision song contest, years ago, where even the lovely Terry Wogan made a comment along the lines of ‘she’s fat, but she can sing’. This was about the Maltese singer, and yes, she really could sing. Didn’t win, of course.

It must surely be a bonus if a singer looks good, not a necessity. How many wonderful voices are we missing because of this obsession with bare midriffs?

I hope Susan does well, hopefully without being ruined by well meaning idiots in show business. And I know the Guardian wanted to come across as better than the rest, but I think they were just as aghast, really. It’s the same in the book business. Authors, who you don’t even see as you read their words, need to look good. Never mind publishing the best book.

Tennant is 38!

Happy Birthday to David Tennant! The sun is shining here, and I hope it is wherever David is, too. Hope he has less of a cold than we do.

And the kitten is cute.