Pilot Season

Well, TV networks are now developing shows for next season, and they're casting actors for pilots. I hope NBC officially cancels Up All Night soon, so that the actors can be released for new shows. There's just no point in retooling it anymore. I will certainly check out Will Arnett's new show if it gets past pilot stage with him in it.

Anyway, TV Line has a guide to the pilots, broken down by networks.

I'm currently interested in ABC's Murder in Manhattan, both for the premise and because they cast Bridget Regan as the daughter. I hope, because the mother and daughter are "amateur sleuths," that they won't work with the police all the time, and will do private cases too. I want more variety in TV mysteries, and less gore and serial killers.

I will probably check out the Marvel S.H.I.E.L.D show just to see if it's any good, and if any characters as awesome as Black Widow appear. As I said before, I'll look for the new NCIS spinoff with Kim Raver. I might check out Doubt because the "low-rent lawyer" premise reminds me of the short lived The Defenders, which I liked. I would have tried Second Sight except that I'm annoyed that the main character is only having hallucinations, and isn't actually going blind, like in the original British show. Well, anyway, we'll see which pilots actually get picked up in May.

Holmes in public domain?

There was an interesting post on the Holmesslash group about a lawsuit seeking to declare the characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in the public domain. The link was on Boing Boing, but I found a fuller post on the suit on the Baker Street Blog.

Sherlockian Les Klinger is suing the Conan Doyle Estate because they demand license fees for any new story featuring the characters, and tried to have his publisher drop his next anthology of stories. His press release explains that he respects the copyrights which still remain on the Casebook stories in the US, but that the characters are established in all the other public domain stories.

I do hope this succeeds, because between the Conan Doyle Estate and Andrea Plunket, it's getting ridiculous all the stories that will be squashed. Sherlock Holmes should not simply be a "franchise" for profit, now that he's in vogue again. He and Watson are part of the great legacy of English literature, and the classic pastiches are what's kept the fandom alive for so long.

Goodbye Person of Interest

I finally got around to watching my recording of "Dead Reckoning" and then I removed my season pass for the show. So I didn't see this past episode which supposedly has Nathan flashbacks. It's too little, too late. I only stuck around for Kara Stanton, and "Dead Reckoning" was a fitting end to her character.

So goodbye Kara Stanton. You were so more compelling than Root, and you gave Reese his name. She and Mark Snow were great antagonists for a while, but now they're gone. There was a moment on the roof of the building where Reese and Finch had a lovely exchange; you know, the one that feels so much like "I could kiss you." They tried to have one of those during the laughable "cliffhanger" with four men in suits, but it rang hollow and cheap because no one was even hurt. However the rooftop moment had some of the old intoxicating magic. But I won't settle for that anymore. Season 2 has been too awful to overcome, with the bad dialogue, the nonsensical Root, the obnoxious numbers, Bear being overhyped only to become a fluffy pet, and Fusco still getting no respect. I should have quit at the beginning of this season when Reese rescued Finch from Root.

Following Actors

I've heard that Kim Raver is cast as the lead on an NCIS:LA spinoff. I never watched 24, and I didn't stick with Revolution long enough to see her character, but I liked her as Kathryn Hale in The Nine. I will probably follow her to this new show since it's not a soap opera. (I couldn't follow Tim Daly to his medical soap either.) I don't watch NCIS because the few times I tried, I was basically befuddled by the male characters' obnoxiousness and the stupidly dressed goth girl. I remember watching an episode of NCIS: LA once, and thought it was quirky and silly, but inoffensive. If I just treat it like I treated Psych, as something not to take seriously, it might be fine. If they do a backdoor pilot for the spinoff, I'll have to remember to check it out.

I wish The Following wasn't about gory serial killings, because then I'd watch it for actors I like such as Natalie Zea and Annie Parisse. There's just something so soul-killing about watching serial killers in show after show. Every crime drama seems to feel the need to do an episode or more about these monsters, and it's always the same. (Even Psych, a goofy comedy, felt the need to do some "serious" dark episodes with a serial killer.) I want old-fashioned cozy mysteries of the Agatha Christie or Murder She Wrote type. Why can't there just be clever mysteries anymore? They don't even have to be murders.

Holmes, Sweet Holmes

I was very disappointed in the post-Superbowl episode of Elementary, and thought, "this was so not worth the hype and promotion." Like I give a crap about gruesome serial killers or obsessions with FBI profilers! It seriously scared me about the state of the writing on this show. But now I am very pleased and relieved that the next episode was wonderful, and that Holmes was back to being charming and likeable. Now that's the show I fell in love with.

Sherlock's Veiled Secret

This isn't actually a book so much as an actor's script for a play. Sherlock's Veiled Secret is by K. C. Brown, and I found it for sale on Barnes & Noble. The premise is that Violet Sheridan, a sculptress in 1920, finds out that Sherlock Holmes is her father, and then searches for her mother's identity. He also involves her in solving a mystery with him. Watson is absent because he's supposedly on a honeymoon cruise with yet another wife. So no slash is to be found; it's hetero love interests for all the characters.