1. I'm traveling today, and can't get the story from Sunday's A&E section about Channel 9's new high-definition digs onto TV Barn quite yet. Coming later today. In the meantime, here's how it appeared at kansascity.com.
2. If you missed out on your chance to Watch the Pilots with me — we gave out a few hundred passes at the web site and on KCMO-FM — there will be one last chance for you on Tuesday. Keep it here for details.
3. A couple of things to set your DVR to this week, on the jump.
Kenneth Branagh enjoys making films about Shakespeare, but apparently Hollywood studios don't enjoy paying for them anymore. So the man who dazzled us with “Henry V” and “Much Ado About Nothing” turned to pay cable, and the result is “As You Like It,” an enchanting if not exactly knee-slapping adaptation set in 19th-century Japan. Airing 8 p.m. CT Tuesday on HBO, it reflects Branagh's usual unorthodox casting tastes, with veteran Brian Blessed in two roles, Branagh's “Wild Wild West” co-star Kevin Kline as Jaques and newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard as Rosalind.
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You're still not watching “Mad Men”? What, you're catching up on “Boston Legal” reruns? The great thing about summer's best new show is you can jump in anytime. The action doesn't move too quickly -- that would distract from the stunningly authentic re-creation of 1950s New York -- and each hour is pretty well enclosed, though as you might guess, there are rewards to not missing a single week. In this week's episode (9 p.m. CT Thursday on AMC), adman Don Draper (Jon Hamm) finds himself juggling three women: his depressive wife who's stuck at home all day, Don's girlfriend in the Village and the department-store heiress whose Jewishness suddenly interests Don (but then, he's trying to close the Israeli tourism account).
I expect any viewer of Channel 9 *or* channel 29 will see a LOT of this set at any opportunity.
It might even be worse than 25 years ago when Cheryl Jones had a "deal' with a local grocery store...
Break into WEATHER at ANY opportunity.
A cloud?
Here's Brian in our NEW SET
Posted by: Dave | August 20, 2007 at 10:57 AM
The story is that Branagh made "As You Like It" as a theatrical film, with HBO to release it through their TW-sister-New Line co-owned Picturehouse, but they decided that not even Shakespeare sells in arthouses, so it went direct-to-HBO.
If Branagh had only cast Anne Hathaway as Rosalind instead of Opie Cunningham's daughter... :)
Posted by: Mark Jeffries | August 20, 2007 at 01:13 PM
We need more reminders about Mad Men. I haven't watched AMC regularly since about 1990. And ever since summer began, I am in the mindset that there is nothing on Thursday nights.
Posted by: del | August 20, 2007 at 02:54 PM
Ditto the recommendation for Mad Men - it's fun on one level (the 1960 setting, including the sexism, racism, constant smoking and drinking at work) and intriguing at another (what is the deal with Don's past?). There's been some fun discussion of the show over on televisionwithoutpity.com, but they're not recapping it.
Posted by: Dave H | August 21, 2007 at 09:10 AM