Xenon's Seventh Circle

Hello. I remembered how to post again, look. Mostly because festivids has unleashed its January joys upon the world, and SOMEBODY MADE A SIMON & SIMON VID!!11!1

Look look look look look: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/festivids2019/works/22148764

Actual Simons, being Simony to appropriate music. With hats and fluffy hair and falling over. It is very happying. (There are other videos, and I'm sure I shall get around to some of them eventually, but I haven't yet got past the novelty of Simons.)

Simon & Simon!! Huzzah!

Memed from liadt. I actually did this several days ago, and then forgot to make the post public, and now obviously several of the answers have changed! So I'll add the new ones in brackets.

( ... )

Which would be a fascinating crossover, but instead is just a post. One heck of an anticlimax, but there you go.

I am distinctly unFacebookian, so ordinarily I wouldn't link to anything there, but this has been doing the fandom rounds, and I love it. It may be the best Star Warsian thing ever created (except for anything involving Han, Chewie and Lando going very fast in a spaceship, obviously).

https://www.facebook.com/BANGBROSDISCIPLE/videos/134452133246064/?theater

Fans are brilliant. When they're not being ranty anyway.

Elsewhere, I have been feeling very ungrateful. The BBC has kindly made me much New Who, with proper SFX and an actual budget, but all that I really care about is the old stuff. I've been watching "Inferno"! Grumpy green werewolves from the centre of the Earth! Parallel UNIT! Benton with fangs! And they were all wearing eyepatches, the rotters! It's wonderful. I haven't finished it yet (one more episode to go), but I can't see it going bad before the end. And even if the story itself weren't fun enough on its own, HAVOC certainly are. I couldn't have chosen a better tribute to Derek Ware if I'd tried. Every five minutes, one of his gang seems to leap off something, or through something, or into something. Also fisticuffs. Hurrah! I do sort of wish we could have kept parallel Liz though. Not that I have anything against the regular flavour as such, but that blonde wig of hers is ridiulous, and the dark one suits her much better. Also I liked parallel Liz's sarky attitude, and her Brigadier-shooting. Also also, more telly should involve people called Olaf Pooley, just because - and especially if they're mugging at the camera whilst painted green.

So yes, that was fun. I've actually never seen "Inferno" before - there's a few of those very early Pertwees that I've still to see. He's one of my favourite Doctors, so it's nice to still have a few gaps to fill. They are running out though. (No fair). Even though Sean Pertwee is ageing into a splendid reconstruction of his father, he is so far failing to rush about in a cape and fight monsters. Except when he does. And they wouldn't make it right these days anyway.

Elsewhere, in a world sadly devoid of spaceships (although AJ Simon does spend chunks of the first season wearing the Third Doctor's jacket), my rewatch has turned up what must be one of the most hilariously fan-servicey episodes of Simon & Simon ever made. Rick gets AJ into a competition with a body-building nut. Watch AJ do push-ups! Watch AJ do chin-ups! Basically watch AJ flexing bits for a prolonged period. Then watch AJ get the stuffing beaten out of him, and Rick go on one of his over-protective rampages. It's like somebody back in 1986 hacked into fanfiction.net via a timewarp.

Oh, and I finished reading Once A Crooked Man, otherwise known as the first book by David McCallum. It's good, for the most part. Massive amount of brand names getting thrown about. As an habitual viewer of ye olde BBC, which had a terror of anything that might be seen as advertising, this tends to make me twitch. I did like the characters though, and the story was a good one, with at least one decent trope annihilation. He shouldn't be allowed to write sex scenes though. I say this not to be a prude (though I am, admittedly, the sort who rolls their eyes at such things, and waits for a return to the fisticuffs), but he really, really shouldn't be allowed to write sex scenes. At least without a lot more practice.

And that I think is that.

PS: Beneath the cut, AJ Simon, modelling a brilliantly Thirdish outfit. Only in the 1980s would a bookish introvert wear a conservative black three-piece that's bright red on the inside. Oh, 1980s. Stylistically you were bonkers, but your telly was good.

( ... )

Dear Simon & Simon producers. Please stop making Jameson Parker take his shirt off. I'll grant you that he's got the physique for it, but it's painfully obvious that he's not the shirtless type. He's approximately brown from the elbows down and the neck up, but everything in between is a quite hilarious shade of lily white. It makes him look like an off-kilter chessboard.

In other news, I have discovered season one of The Young Riders on YouTube! Probably only emeraldarrows knows what I'm talking about there, but it's good, honest. I think only season one ever aired in the UK. I remember looking it up when I first got online a hundred years ago, and being baffled by talk of the Kid and Lou getting married. Presumably he also got a real name then, or maybe she was Mrs Kid? Anyway. I have no knowledge of such things. Season one is brill, anyways. ITV aired it at about four o'clock in the morning in the mid '90s, back when I had forgotten what sleep was, or was trying to forget, so my memory was blurry to say the least. So far it's proving to be just as good as I thought it was though. It has cowboys and shooting. Huzzah.

Um... Yes. That is all, shutting up.

You know what the drawback of watching Simon & Simon is? No, it's not the thing about old TV being finite. I'm fairly upbeat about that with S&S, given that it managed to last for the entire 1980s. It's the fact that they've twice had Henry Darrow guesting as a bad guy. In the first season he did the right thing in the end, but in the seventh season episode that I just watched the other night, he was not only spectacularly evil, but he got blasted to death with a machine gun. They don't kill people all that often on the show, so this is doubly unfair! And yes, okay, it was pretty thoroughly deserved, but he's Henry Darrow. I am on his side, always. Even when he tries to kill AJ Simon. (Sorry, AJ).

I'm sure I've said this before, but play nice, television. When you're killing people, Manolito Montoya is off limits.*

Speaking of television (when do I ever speak of anything else?!), I keep meaning to mention The Scarlet Pimpernel. It was horribly dull though, so I never bothered while I was watching it; but liadt recently made me think of it again. Produced in the 1950s, this is a black and white show that co-stars Patrick Troughton (credited as Pat Troughton). It's roughly the same age as the likes of The Adventures Of Robin Hood (sometimes slow, but generally fun), and The Adventures Of Sir Lancelot (gloriously entertaining). Maybe the lack of "The Adventures" in the title should have been a warning?! It's bad. No, really. Given my frequent standards, if I'm saying it, then you know it's bad. The lead is a charisma-free zone, and although dear old Pat gives it his all in trying to jolly things along, it's a task comparable to trying to pep up wallpaper paste. I recommend avoiding this one. Although! The final episode does have a jolly good guest star. Sadly, it's one of the two episodes that the Trout isn't in, which is an example of Fate being a bitch. Because, bereft of his Beard of Evil, and in a rare outing as a hero, we have this fellow here:

( ... )

* Yes, apparently I did. It was when they killed him in an episode of Hart To Hart, the unfeeling sods.

So, I was watching Kojak, and who should turn up as a guest star but Henry Darrow. I knew he was in it somewhere, as I've seen it all before, but I can never remember which one he's in. And then suddenly there he was! This makes me happy. And he was very Manolito-like, except in modern clothes and without the suntan. So for those who are interested (ie: me), here is Manolito Montoya Henry Darrow being a jaunty jewel thief in New York, c. 1974. He's aged damned well, given that he's usually hanging around Arizona, c. 1870.



He's not quite as jaunty as usual here, as Kojak has just revealed a plan to use him as bait to catch a contract killer.



And here's Kojak, not looking at all impressed by the fact that he's standing right next to Manolito Montoya, damn it! You could at least smile, Theo.



A slightly happier jewel thief. The clothes look all wrong, even though I've seen him in modern things before. They killed him once in Hart To Hart, and that was in the seventies too. I was most unimpressed. And he was in Simon & Simon twice in the eighties. He just looks so very Mano here though. It was only just after The High Chaparral ended, which probably explains it. Mackadoo is clearly waiting just off camera for a quick getaway, as Buck lays down some covering fire.

*happy thoughts*

True Blood has announced its return date, although I think they actually did that several weeks ago, and I've only just noticed. Also there's a trailer! Well, more of a glimpse, but they call it a trailer. It'll be nice to have True Blood back. I've given up on The Mentalist now, Hawaii 5-0 decided that we weren't going to be friends anymore, and Ringer has gone away. Probably forever, as I was the only person who watched it. So True Blood could be the only television that I watch until Steven Moffat decides to give me Doctor Who back. There are Worries, however. Seasons one, two and three of True Blood were awesome in every way, except for how there was altogether too much Sookie. Season four was rubbish, though. And this will be season five, and I am suspicious of season fives by their very nature. Should that be seasons five? No, I don't think so. Consider the evidence, anyway:

( The rather-too-involved Universal Theory Of Season Five. Also True Blood trailerage in screencappery. )

I like James Darren. I don't know what it is about him and his Amazing Green Pullover Of Time, but they make a very engaging duo. He (and the green pullover as well, possibly) should be on TV more. Actually, come to think of it, he should be the next Doctor Who. He'd be awesome fighting Daleks, he really would.

( ... )

I keep meaning to post about My Two Dads, and be annoyingly enthusiastic about it, but I have been distracted. Thanks to iceandstars pointing out that there are now innumerable episodes of Simon & Simon on YouTube, my productivity has fallen even further than usual, and I've been shirking my bouncy eighties sitcom duties. So I'll just have to be annoyingly enthusiastic about Simon & Simon instead.

( Explosions! Car chases! Frequently inadvisable eighties hair! )