Last year’s premiere season of the All Creatures Great and Small rated in our borgTop 10 television series of the past decade as well as scoring as best drama, best new series, and best British series in our year-end review of 2021. The charming, funny, historical drama is back in the States with its second season, now airing weekly on PBS Masterpiece. After the lovely Helen called off her wedding to Hugh–following a night stranded with #2 town veterinarian James–in last year’s Christmas season finale, what direction will the series take viewers next? Luckily the show’s writers don’t miss a beat, settling right back in as James returns from a visit back home, back to plenty of work. For those that missed the first season, now is a good time to jump aboard. Don’t think this will be a short-lived series–it’s so good a third and fourth season are already locked in.
Fans of the 1978-1990 television series All Creatures Great and Small may think it’s… unthinkable… to remake such a solid adaptation of James Herriot’s landmark series of books. And yet here we are in 2020 with a brilliantly good, cleverly funny adaptation worthy of the source material and every bit as good as the earlier successful series. The first season is currently airing on PBS Masterpiece, and also available for streaming online. The autobiographical stories follow the exploits of a young veterinarian, James Herriot, in 1940s Yorkshire as he gets his footing in a rural office in a tiny town where the people are more difficult than his challenges treating the local animal life. This is one of the greatest examples of uplifting, heart-warming drama and British humor and–possibly a surprise to those outside of England–a study in a wide range of dialects and personalities in a single village. The small cast is perfect, and it features some actors you’re likely to be familiar with from other genre shows. Even better, the new All Creatures Great and Small, UK Channel 5’s highest-rated drama ever, has been confirmed for a second season.
Never been to a comic book or pop culture convention? Always wanted to go to San Diego Comic-Con but you don’t have the vacation time available or the funds? Planet Comicon is next weekend in Kansas City and it’s the sixth year of the show at downtown Kansas City’s giant convention center at Bartle Hall. Planet Comicon is a great way to get a complete three-day convention experience centrally located in the Midwest, ideal for a last-minute road trip for the family or a car full of friends. Kansas City is less than 8 hours by car from Dallas, less than 7 hours from Minneapolis, a little more than 7 hours from Indianapolis, and a little more than 8 hours from Denver. And you don’t need to buy advance tickets–you can purchase them at the door.
So why make the trip? How about meeting Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Firefly star Alan Tudyk? Also from Firefly, as well as Doctor Who, Supernatural, Chuck, Leverage, Star Trek Voyager (and one of borg.com‘s actors we can’t get enough of), Mark Sheppard? Want to get a photo with Michael Rooker (“I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!” Yondu) and Pom Klementieff (Mantis), stars of last year’s biggest superhero hit Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2? Are modern classics your thing? How about seeing the star of fan-favorite movies like Say Anything, High Fidelity, and Eight Men Out? Yep, John Cusack is returning to the Midwest for this year’s show (you can even bring your prized Rooker and Cusack Eight Men Out baseball cards for autographs).
Do you want to compare notes on The Walking Dead with stars Khary Payton, Rooker, and Sonequa Martin-Green (also star of Star Trek Discovery)? Maybe you’re a Game of Thrones fan. You can meet both Jerome Flynn and Jason Momoa (also Aquaman in the DC Universe movies). And speaking of fantasy, Planet Comicon is featuring a rare appearance by Harry Potter star Matthew Lewis, who played the beloved hero Neville Longbottom. Want to meet the actor who has played the toughest badass characters you’ve ever seen? Sling TV barista and Machete himself, Danny Trejo will be in the house.
BBC announced yesterday that Matt Smith’s last episode as the 11th Doctor on Doctor Who, the oldest series on television, will be this year’s Christmas episode to air on Christmas Eve. He’ll also appear in the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who episode this fall. For those of us who never would have given Doctor Who a try but for Matt Smith, he will be sorely missed. Without Matt Smith’s energetic and brilliant performances, we wouldn’t have seen how awesome David Tennant was as the 10th Doctor, met Christopher Eccleston’s 9th Doctor and his long-running companion Rose, or checked out the numerous audio books, or even peeked at those earlier “other” Doctors.
But just as we quickly have embraced his new companion with Jenna-Louise Coleman’s Clara (Amy Pond who?) after we thought we’d met the best companion ever, life goes on and so will the Doctor’s next incarnation as he takes the form of another actor… or actress?
So who should be the next Doctor? Matt Smith has given us some brilliant performances. If you aren’t a Doctor Who fan and wanted to sample some of the best of Matt Smith’s Doctor, try these:
The Eleventh Hour. We meet Matt Smith’s Doctor for the first time as he must save the world in 20 minutes with a wrecked TARDIS and broken sonic screwdriver and with the help of Amy Pond–the girl who waited.
The Beast Below. The Doctor and Amy travel to a future where residents live on a spaceship called Starship UK. We meet a future Queen and learn the terrible truth about what keeps the ship–and all its inhabitants–alive.
Harry Potter never had it easy. A kid with a dark destiny thrust into a world of muggles as a baby from a world of hidden magic and secrets. As his story progressed no matter how many people acted in support of him, in the last two of seven episodes we learn that maybe the cards were stacked against him from even before his birth. And only at the end do we learn the truth and his destiny is finally revealed.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, debuted in the UK last weekend and this weekend in the U.S. to record midnight screening and opening day box office sales of $92.1 million. Thankfully, our devotion to Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends over 13 years of our lives was rewarded with a satisfying conclusion. It’s not a perfect film, or even close to it, but it is a lot of fun and if your expectations after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, were as low as mine, you might just walk out as pleasantly surprised as I was, willing to go back for another screening.
Look forward to the best Harry Potter movie since Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. And it is much better than Deathly Hallows, Part 1.
Highlights of Deathly Hallows, Part 2, include:
Our favorite underdog, background character Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) finally gets his due screentime, and if there is any young actor we want to see more of post-Harry Potter, it is this actor as an adult.
We get to meet a new resident of Hogwarts, Helena Ravenclaw, played beautifully by Kelly MacDonald (Trainspotting, Elizabeth, Gosford Park, State of Play, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, No Country for Old Men).
We get to meet Albus Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth Dumbledore, played by the brilliant Ciaran Hinds (Excaliber, Sum of All Fears, Phantom of the Opera, Road to Perdition, Tomb Raider, Jane Eyre, Race to Witch Mountain).
Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, who will will not back down and demands to have her say, gives a performance that could very well have been the female lead in this movie.
A superb scene of a rescue from Gringotts of a white dragon, incredibly lifelike and a satisfying scene.
In the 3D version, we get to see Hogwarts like never before, with an introductory shot of the mysterious, ever-watching Dementors, seeming to bookend our flight as we soar into the dark journey ahead. In fact, this is the best 3D movie I have seen–nothing over the top or dazzling–but good enough that you feel like you are eavesdropping on a conversation between Harry, Hermione and Ron from under the stairsteps. Or that you could grab a prop, like the Sword of Gryffindor, or like one of those thousands of gold chalices under Gringotts, from the production set. I actually forgot it was a 3D movie.
My negatives are with the story, and the decision to break the novel into two films, more than the film itself. Although it was a fun read, I did not love the novel. I thought J.K. Rowling saved too much for the end, after three previous forgettable installments where not a lot happened. Too much crammed into the last book, and if better planned out, some of the revelations in this last installment could have been more subtlely peppered through the prior installments. And the jam-packed story was all too rushed.
As an example, (a spoiler for those who have not read the book or seen Deathly Hallows, Part 1): Rowling seemed to spend a lot of time with Harry’s sadness at the death of Dobby the Elf, yet snuffed out the life of Harry’s closest companion going back to day one at Hogwart’s–the only one at his side even while he had to live with the Dursley’s–his pet owl Hedwig. And she goes on to snuff out beloved characters almost willy-nilly in my mind without much reflection by our hero. Loyal readers probably will figure this occurs off-screen, but again I think the story presses forward like a freight train out of control at times–it must, because there are too many ends that need tied up.
Ultimately the tying up occurs, and we can walk out of the theater with our questions answered. Finally, there did not seem to be enough Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), and when we did see them, Hermione’s role was more of a watcher than the heroine we’ve come to love. There was not enough of Severus Snape’s (Alan Rickman) story, and I also am still not a fan of Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) make-up and don’t believe Voldemort will go down as one of the best cinema villains despite Fiennes top-notch acting.
The slow, almost boring, parts of Deathly Hallows, Part 1, after watching Part 2, tell me that there never was a need to break the book into two films. With the new Twilight installment following suit by splitting a book into two movies, to me this reflects greed of the franchise and nothing else. For the sake of moviegoers, hopefully this is not the wave of the future. Prices at my theater were at an all-time high. With returns of $92 million on the first day, and all the blockbusters this summer, Hollywood can’t be doing that bad.
All said, this final installment is great entertainment, a must for Harry Potter fans, and an excuse to play catch-up on any past Harry Potter episodes you may have missed (for the three people out there who haven’t already seen them all). The film offers a denouement that is a great wrap-up, thoughtful, and hopefully removes all possibility of any need of any future installments in the franchise.
Postscript for anyone who likes to see screen-used costumes and props–the Smithsonian Institution is arranging an exhibit of costumes from the Harry Potter franchise. More details to be announced.
