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shadowkat1.) Just finished watching the two episode season premiere of the new TNT series Will which airs at 9/10 pm on I think, Monday nights.
It's surprisingly good. If you enjoy Shakespeare, are interested in theater and how it is created, love poetry slams, and ahem, pretty men, not to mention a few pretty and strong women, this is the show for you. (It does, however, feel a bit like I'm watching Shakespeare in Love meets the Protestant Inquisition by way of Slings and Arrows. With a 1980s British Pop Rock soundtrack. The Clash's London Calling was playing in the background. Not that I mind, I happen to like the Clash.)
"Will" takes place in Elizabethan England, and follows the escapades of a young William Shakespeare who has journeyed to London to make his fortune as a playwright, against his family's wishes. He's married to Anne Hathaway, with three children, and is Catholic. With a job as a glove maker. His devout parents want him to take a message to his cousin, a Catholic rebel, Robert Sutcliff, placing his own life in danger in the process. So off he goes, and well the message doesn't get to Sutcliff because a young street kid, slashes his hand and steals it. The kid hopes to sell it to Tomkins, one of her Majesty's agents, to save olderhis sister from a brothel. Tompkins is a nasty piece of work, a Cromwellian Protestant, who tortures people for being Catholics, instead of the true Protestant faith.
Will is torn between two worlds, his duty as a Catholic and to his wife and family, and his art and dreams of being a successful playwright. His wife is less than enthusiastic regarding his artistic dreams, and wishes he'd settle down as a tailor and support the family. But in London he's found a tribe of like-minded spirits, and in Christopher Marlow, a tempting devil.
This sounds more hokey than it actually is. Because all of the above is sort of in the background. Front and center is the Burbidge theater troop's struggle to become successful and avoid bankruptcy.
It also serves as the conflict in Shakespeare, who is guilt-ridden for doing what he feels driven to do. At one he tells Marlow that what he most wants is freedom. Marlow's response is to gleefully kiss him.
I adore Marlow, who admittedly plays to a well-established trope. He's hot, sexy, and gay. And right now, I think I'm shipping Marlow and Shakespeare...mainly because they have amazing chemistry.
Shakespeare has many suitors, Marlow, Alice Burbidge and his wife...who isn't really present.
Alice dresses in men's attire, and acts in the plays. Her character's wonderful, as is her rather ditzy brother Richard, and her father played by Colm Meany of DS9 fame.
There's a lot of time spent on the theater, and the process of putting together the plays. Shakespeare's plays show bits of brilliance here and there, if he can just convince the dang players to follow the script and his direction. Marlow watches it and reads it, and sees brilliance off the bat.
Whoever is playing Marlow, is quite good.
The writing is also better than expected, whoever is writing it, is doing a good job of writing in Elizabethan prose and playing with iambic pentameter. Bawdy sonnets fly at a dueling poetry slam in a bar. And witty repartee between Marlow and Shakespeare with bits of iambic pentameter thrown in for good measure.
My only quibble with it -- is the sadistic villains. I feel like I'm watching Shakespeare in Love meets The Inquisition by way of the Protestants. I want more Shakespeare in Love, less Inquisition.
The soundtrack is British Pop Rock, 1970s and 80s, I think. Which isn't quite as jarring as one might expect, it actually works and lends an air of fun to the proceedings. Sort of similar to that Heath Ledger flick that did the same thing.
Definitely watching this one.
As an aside, TNT is producing some interesting television series all of a sudden. Time was it was just one police procedural after another. I wonder if they finally realized that in order to compete with streaming they'd have to up their game a bit?
The latest is apparently an adaptation of the best historical procedural mystery novel that I've read, Caleb Carr's The Alienist. Now, I just have to figure out when it will be on. Which is what I had to do with Will.
2. Update on my bathroom ceiling. After a difficult work day, in which various co-workers half convinced me that no work would get done on my ceiling this weekend and I should be hunting a way out of my lease...I came home to a pleasant surprise, my super had come in and completed his work on my ceiling patching it up and scraping away the peeling paint. He also patched up the living wall a bit and scraped away the bubbled and peeling paint. Readying it for a new paint job.
Silly co-workers.
Note to self - stop venting about things at work. It's hard, there's a limited amount of things I can discuss with various co-workers.
3. Reading this funky fantasy series, that's won all sorts of romantic fantasy awards, but has a rather juvenile writing style -- in that it reminds me a bit too much of stuff that I wrote when I was 17. Except my writing was a little less hyperbolic. However, the world building is excellent, and the detail is consistent and logical. It also builds plot. So...not sure what to make of it.
It's surprisingly good. If you enjoy Shakespeare, are interested in theater and how it is created, love poetry slams, and ahem, pretty men, not to mention a few pretty and strong women, this is the show for you. (It does, however, feel a bit like I'm watching Shakespeare in Love meets the Protestant Inquisition by way of Slings and Arrows. With a 1980s British Pop Rock soundtrack. The Clash's London Calling was playing in the background. Not that I mind, I happen to like the Clash.)
"Will" takes place in Elizabethan England, and follows the escapades of a young William Shakespeare who has journeyed to London to make his fortune as a playwright, against his family's wishes. He's married to Anne Hathaway, with three children, and is Catholic. With a job as a glove maker. His devout parents want him to take a message to his cousin, a Catholic rebel, Robert Sutcliff, placing his own life in danger in the process. So off he goes, and well the message doesn't get to Sutcliff because a young street kid, slashes his hand and steals it. The kid hopes to sell it to Tomkins, one of her Majesty's agents, to save olderhis sister from a brothel. Tompkins is a nasty piece of work, a Cromwellian Protestant, who tortures people for being Catholics, instead of the true Protestant faith.
Will is torn between two worlds, his duty as a Catholic and to his wife and family, and his art and dreams of being a successful playwright. His wife is less than enthusiastic regarding his artistic dreams, and wishes he'd settle down as a tailor and support the family. But in London he's found a tribe of like-minded spirits, and in Christopher Marlow, a tempting devil.
This sounds more hokey than it actually is. Because all of the above is sort of in the background. Front and center is the Burbidge theater troop's struggle to become successful and avoid bankruptcy.
It also serves as the conflict in Shakespeare, who is guilt-ridden for doing what he feels driven to do. At one he tells Marlow that what he most wants is freedom. Marlow's response is to gleefully kiss him.
I adore Marlow, who admittedly plays to a well-established trope. He's hot, sexy, and gay. And right now, I think I'm shipping Marlow and Shakespeare...mainly because they have amazing chemistry.
Shakespeare has many suitors, Marlow, Alice Burbidge and his wife...who isn't really present.
Alice dresses in men's attire, and acts in the plays. Her character's wonderful, as is her rather ditzy brother Richard, and her father played by Colm Meany of DS9 fame.
There's a lot of time spent on the theater, and the process of putting together the plays. Shakespeare's plays show bits of brilliance here and there, if he can just convince the dang players to follow the script and his direction. Marlow watches it and reads it, and sees brilliance off the bat.
Whoever is playing Marlow, is quite good.
The writing is also better than expected, whoever is writing it, is doing a good job of writing in Elizabethan prose and playing with iambic pentameter. Bawdy sonnets fly at a dueling poetry slam in a bar. And witty repartee between Marlow and Shakespeare with bits of iambic pentameter thrown in for good measure.
My only quibble with it -- is the sadistic villains. I feel like I'm watching Shakespeare in Love meets The Inquisition by way of the Protestants. I want more Shakespeare in Love, less Inquisition.
The soundtrack is British Pop Rock, 1970s and 80s, I think. Which isn't quite as jarring as one might expect, it actually works and lends an air of fun to the proceedings. Sort of similar to that Heath Ledger flick that did the same thing.
Definitely watching this one.
As an aside, TNT is producing some interesting television series all of a sudden. Time was it was just one police procedural after another. I wonder if they finally realized that in order to compete with streaming they'd have to up their game a bit?
The latest is apparently an adaptation of the best historical procedural mystery novel that I've read, Caleb Carr's The Alienist. Now, I just have to figure out when it will be on. Which is what I had to do with Will.
2. Update on my bathroom ceiling. After a difficult work day, in which various co-workers half convinced me that no work would get done on my ceiling this weekend and I should be hunting a way out of my lease...I came home to a pleasant surprise, my super had come in and completed his work on my ceiling patching it up and scraping away the peeling paint. He also patched up the living wall a bit and scraped away the bubbled and peeling paint. Readying it for a new paint job.
Silly co-workers.
Note to self - stop venting about things at work. It's hard, there's a limited amount of things I can discuss with various co-workers.
3. Reading this funky fantasy series, that's won all sorts of romantic fantasy awards, but has a rather juvenile writing style -- in that it reminds me a bit too much of stuff that I wrote when I was 17. Except my writing was a little less hyperbolic. However, the world building is excellent, and the detail is consistent and logical. It also builds plot. So...not sure what to make of it.