Another post about Lucy Liemann

Did you watch Reggie Perrin this weekend?

Well, I know a bunch of you did because I noticed a jump in my visitors over the weekend. I had a look at the keyword analysis on my stat counter and this is what I saw:

39.68% Lucy Liemann
5.29% lucy liemann wiki
3.70% lucy liemann Reggie Perrin
3.17% lucie liemann
3.17% Lucy Liemann pics
2.65% lucy leimann in reggie perrin

(Plus a few mentions of Lara Pulver in Robin Hood.)

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one quite taken by Lucy.

So what did I think of the show? It was as funny as I thought it would be, i.e. not really that funny. The laughter track would go into overdrive at largely laugh-free intervals. Here and there there were a few amusing moments. Lucy shined as Jasmine Strauss, the object of Reggie's yearning. I will continue to watch it and hope it improves.

Oh, by the way, I see that BBC1 repeats it on Saturday night so I have no excuse to miss it.

Now, for those of you who were searching for "lucy liemann pics" here is one of the few photos I can find:



That's Lucy as Sam in Moving Wallpaper. Sorry, no photos as Jasmine from Reggie Perrin so far. If you find any please let me know!

Lucy Brown leaves Primeval shock!

I've been watching Primeval since the show started in 2007. Right away I was smitten by the lovely Claudia Brown, played by the equally lovely Lucy Brown. My jaw dropped at the end of episode six when it appeared that Claudia had been wiped from history. I cheered (metaphorically) when Lucy returned in the second series, this time as new character Jenny Lewis.

In last night's episode (the one with the fungus man - there's something I don't get to type very often) Lucy/Jenny gave me a big shock when she announced she was leaving the team.

"New recruit Jason Flemyng will surely convince her to stay", I thought. Alas, his powers of persuasion were not up to the task.

On the bright side it will hopefully mean we get to see Lucy appearing in other projects. I think she's making a pilot for US TV for example.

But Primeval just won't be the same without her...

Here's a picture of series 3 Lucy from Shootastic. You can see it plus other photos in higher quality at http://musearchives.net/shootastic/


By the way, the new series got off to a ropey start but has really hit it's stride. Last week's "G-Rex at the airport" episode was particularly strong and the "fungus man" episode was very fast moving and tense.

Lara Pulver as Isabella in Robin Hood

As of tonight I have a new entry on my list of favourite actresses. Lara Pulver has joined the cast of the BBC's Robin Hood.

Now, I've managed to get through the last couple of years without watching a single episode of this show but when I saw a photo of Lara earlier today in a TV listings mag I shallowly decided to check it out. (She's exactly my type and has a "young Dr Weir from Stargate Atlantis" thing going on.)

It turned out to be a fun episode. Nothing too earth shattering. Lots of running around the forrest and a bit of sword fighting.

Lara plays Isabella, the sister of the villainous Guy of Gisborne, played by ladies favourite Richard Armitage. We discover that he sold her for marrage at the age of 13. Now years later she has escaped and is looking for protection from her husband.

I've not seen Lara in anything else and according to the IMDB Robin Hood appears to be her first television appearance, although she's appeared on the stage.

My decision for tonight: I shall watch Robin Hood for as long as she appears in it! As an added bonus we get Toby Stephens chewing the scenery as prince John from next week.

Here's a couple of photos of Lara from Shootastic. You can see them (plus other photos) in higher quality at http://musearchives.net/shootastic/index.php.

Terminator: TSSC Episode 2.21

Holy crap!

The episode opens with the gang at a potter's field where there are a lot of headstones reading simply 1984. Kyle Reese must be buried here. Sarah tells Derek that she doesn't trust him.

John produces a mobile phone he took from one of the coverall guys last week and on it is a photo of Weaver's daughter. John recognises her from the child psychologist's office.

A terminator arrives at Weaver's house to either abduct or kill the girl. (Is he part of the coverall guy conspiracy, or are they rivals?) Cromartie sees the whole thing on CCTV and gives instructions over the phone to keep the girl away from the terminator.

Sarah and the gang turn up to rescue the girl. Derek gets shot in the head.

Just like that.

Derek's dead.

No big heroic death scene. No goodbyes. Shot in the head by a terminator.

Holy crap! Not many TV shows would do that.

The gang escape and hide out. Cromartie tells Ellison that Sarah Connor took the girl. Ellison phones Sarah and arranges a meet. Sarah wants to talk to Weaver.

Meanwhile John talks to the girl. She describes her friend John Henry who lives in the basement and has a cable in his head. John realises it's a terminator and confirms it's Cromartie by showing the girl a photo of the actor Lazlo. Sara still wants to meet Weaver.

Cameron tells John that Sarah wanted Charley to look after him. She makes a remark that Sarah is loosing weight.

They arrange a meet in a cinema. Ellison takes the girl but as Sarah leaves the cops show up and capture her. Sarah fights to the end. John and Cameron leave from another exit.

So then there are two.

Spare a thought for John. Riley is killed. Charley is killed. Derek is terminated. And now his mother is captured.

The closing shot is the potter's field with a new headstone simply marked 2009.

One episode to go.

Terminator: TSCC Episode 2.20

OK, we're really getting near the end of the season now, and perhaps the end of the series as I've read the show may not be getting a third season.

This one is a pretty character driven episode until near the end when STUFF STARTS HAPPENING!

The gang pack up their belongings and hit the road. Sarah and John end up in a sort of funky lighthouse place. Someone already lives here because there's a friendly dog. Who could it be? Charley Dixon walks in, you know, Sarah's old boyfriend from1999. Turns out he's the one living there. It is implied that Sarah set this up but they've not seen each other since Penny from Lost got assassinated by Cromartie.

Speaking of Cromartie/John Henry... He's playing a game with weaver's daughter. the kid wants her ducks to be part of the game but Cromartie tells her the ducks aren't covered by the rules of the game. The girl suggests he changes the rules. This causes him to do some sort of reboot and for a while it loks like he's going into terminator emulation mode.

A scientist guy runs in and hits the power off button. Scientist guy tells Weaver and Ellison that malware was downloaded into Cromartie and according to the comments in the file it was written by Myles Dyson of Terminator 2 fame.

When Cromartie is turned on again he claims that there is another computer like him on the Internet - his "brother".

Back at the funky lighthouse place Sarah tells Charley that she wants him to look after John. In a wordless scene she takes his hand and puts in on her breast. Charley is confuses and then realises he feels a lump. She tells him that she was supposed to die in 2005 and maybe that will still happen, albeit delayed because she skipped forward eight years.

Sarah goes to a doctor to check the lump. The doctor says a cyst has formed around a metal implant. Sarah immediately assumes its a transmitter put there by three dot warehouse dream guy and uses a defibrillator to zap it.

Then STUFF STARTS HAPPENING!

Men in coveralls converge on three locations: Sarah at the doctor's, John and Charley at the funky lighthouse place and Cameron and Derek in a SUV.

Cameron and Derek have a tire blowout and Derek investigates a mysterious van following them. He gets captured but not before Cameron sees that the van belongs to the port authority. She follows them to the port and walks in to a big dark corridor that has "trap" written all over it. She gets doused in water and then zapped by electricity. The coverall guy is on the phone getting instructions (from Cromartie's brother?) on how to remove her chip. Cameron wakes up and stops coverall guy and then rescues Derek.

John and Charley are attacked by more coverall men. They run to the dock and have a gun battle. John is untying the boat while Charley covers him. We don't see if they escape.

Sarah has a battle in the hospital with her own coverall guy and zaps his head with the defibrillator. (Nicely done Sarah! Bonus points for innovative use of medical equipment.) She heads back to the funky lighthouse place to see the body of a coverall guy. Down on the dock the boat is gone but she sees a deceased Charley floating in the water with bullet wounds in the shape of three dots in his chest.

Two episodes to go! And I but lots of STUFF is HAPPENING in them too!

Ruth Wilson in A Streetcar Named Desire

Updates have been a bit thin on the ground, but here's news of what Ruth is up to after finishing Small Island.

Grandage also announced further casting for Rob Ashford's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The previously announced Rachel Weisz (as Blanche DuBois) will be joined by Elliot Cowan as Stanley Kowalski, Barnaby Kay as Mitch and Ruth Wilson as Stella.

Source: www.variety.com

According to www.donmarwarehouse.com A Streetcar Named Desire runs from 23 July - 3 October 2009.

Felicity Jones in The Men at the Pru

Felicity's next job is in The Men at the Pru...

British actress Felicity Jones has signed to play the female lead in Ricky Gervais' 1970s insurance-world dramedy "The Men at the Pru."

Jones will play Julie, who is led to believe by the men around her that a woman should focus on raising a family but who wants to break out and pursue a career in photography.

The picture, from the Sony International Motion Picture Production Group, which is designed to cultivate local production, is set to shoot in the summer in the U.K. It revolves around three men in their 20s who work at an insurance company (Pru is short for Prudential). Gervais is writing, directing and producing with "Extras" collaborator Stephen Merchant.

Jones has had roles in a number of high-profile British pics, starring last year in Julius Jarrold's "Brideshead Revisited" for Miramax, in the specialty division's upcoming Stephen Frears' period romance "Cheri," and Julie Taymor's femme-centric retelling of "The Tempest."

Jones has also just signed with CAA in the U.S. She continues to be repped by Independent Talent Group in the U.K.

Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

Christina Cole in Emma and Maggie Hill

Thanks to friend Anna for letting me know that Christina Cole is playing Mrs Elton in the new BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma. This will be a return to the world of Jane Austen for Christina as she played Caroline Bingley in last year's Lost in Austen.



Christina is also apparently playing the lead role in a US pilot called Maggie Hill. I read that it's about a surgeon with schizophrenia.

Sounds like a barrel of laughs.

Lucy Liemann in Reggie Perrin

I've just seen a trailer for a remake of Reggie Perrin on the BBC. First minus point against it is that it's a remake of a Leonard Rossiter comedy, so how can it compare. Second minus point against it is that it stars Martin Clunes and he always plays the same character, i.e. Martin Clunes.

However it gets at least five plus points for casting Lucy Liemann in it.



Lucy played script editor Sam in the really very good Moving Wallpaper, the second series of which has just been shown on ITV. She usually ended up playing the comic foil to the endearingly vain and inept producer Jonathan Pope played by Ben Miller.

So I will make the effort to watch this new thing for Lucy. I will be very surprised it it even raises a smile, but Lucy's presence will make watching it worthwhile.

Terminator: TSCC Episode 2.19

This episode continues the "Captain Queeg" storyline from last week. It turns out to be quite a talky episode, but in a good way.

In the present John asks Derek how long he would last in a fight against Cameron without weapons. Derek agrees that if Cameron wants someone dead then they are dead.

John goes to "Kendra's", sorry Jessie's, hotel room and draws a gun on her. He tells her not to pretend that she doesn't know him. He gets her to admit she killed Riley and then decides to let her go. She asks if he would have deactivated Cameron if he believed she killed Riley. He says no. "Then it's a damn shame," says Jessie.

Derek is waiting for Jessie downstairs. He explains how he killed Andy Good in the present even though they were like brothers in the future. He says he doesn't think that this Jessie is "his" Jessie. She runs. He raises his gun and appears to pull the trigger.

There's just a little bit of Cromartie in this one. He is painting model figurines. Later he reveals to Weaver that he knows about former employees who have "resigned" but have not appeared since. He says he found a "resignation letter" for Ellison in Weaver's computer system.

In the flashbacks to 2027 we see the repercussions of the mysterious box being taken onto the submarine. Queeg won't reveal what is in the box. One of the sailors is disgusted that the metal have made their way into every aspect of the resistance. He wonder's who is running the war.

Later some of the crew break into the box. A T-100 kills one and takes their form before vanishing into the sub. Jessie wants to search but Queeg overrules her. Tensions run high and members of the crew accuse Jessie of being metal.

Queeg kills a dissenter and Jessie resolves to take over the ship. She shoots queeg in the head and abandons the sub. Just before boarding the escape pod the T-1000 appears to Jessie and passes on a message for John Connor. The answer is 'no'. Jessie and the crew escape and we also see the liquid metal machine escape.

Back at base Jessie is being debriefed by Cameron. Jessie wants to give the message to John in person but Cameron insists that telling her is the same thing. Jessie realises that the sailor was maybe right about the metal running the show. She tells Cameron the answer was no. Cameron tells her that the question was "Will you join us?" Does this imply that there is a rogue grouping of machines out of Skynet control. Was the T-1000 the one that would become Weaver?

Cameron also reveals that Jesse has lost the baby she was carrying during the mission on the sub. So all in all this episode does go some way to explaining why Jessie was so focused on getting Cameron away from John Connor. She believes that she is the only one who can see what a danger Cameron and the metal have become.

Laura Vandervoort in Riverworld

After working on the remake of "V" Laura Vandervoort, my favourite Supergirl, will be appearing in another SF remake.

Sci Fi has found lead actors for "Riverworld" and "The Phantom," its upcoming movie events that will serve as trials for possible new series.

"Battlestar Galactica" veteran Tahmoh Penikett and "Smallville" supergirl Laura Vandervoort will star in "Riverworld," and Ryan Carnes ("Desperate Housewives") has been cast as the Phantom.

Penikett is best known for playing Helo on "Battlestar." In "Riverworld," he will play war correspondent Matt Ellman, who is killed along with his fiancee (Vandervoort) but awakens in a mysterious world populated by everyone who has lived on Earth.

Source:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i701e5f503331aba04a5ed840f1b14291


I assume that the new Riverworld will be based on the series of novels by Philip Jose Farmer which have the same plot.

I believe there was another Riverworld pilot made a few years ago but it never followed up by a series.

Emma, Persuasion and Our Mutual Friend Penguin TV Tie-ins

I made a few nice finds in a second hand bookshop today. Over the last couple of year's I've been catching up on all the period drama's that I didn't watch when they came out in the 1990s. Usually Penguin books put out a TV tie-in edition and today I found three more for my collection.

First of all here's the 1996 edition of Jane Austen's Emma to tie-in with the version made by ITV. Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong are shown prominently on the cover. The cover also mentions a "making of" book is available. What is nice about this edition is that it contains eight pages of colour cast photos in the middle. No, I'm not scanning them as I don't want to ruin the spine. The cover price was £3.99.



Not far away from that book I spotted a copy of Jane Austen's Persuasion featuring photos of Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds from the 1995 BBC adaptation on the cover. I was prompted to get this version of Persuasion on DVD in 2007 after seeing the excellent Sally Hawkins version. This book does not have photos of the cast inside but was originally on sale for the amazing price of £1.99!

Finally here is the 1998 tie-in edition of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend. This book has photos of Anna Friel and Keeley Hawes on the cover. This one also has eight pages of cast photos inside and was on sale for £3.99. Not bad value for 900 pages. I've not seen this adaptation yet but I will be hunting it out on DVD. Unfortunately the spine of this book appears a little sun-faded.

I don't know if anyone else is interested in these sort of books but I thought I'd stick the photos up here for other like-minded people!

Terminator: TSSC Episode 2.18

In this week's episode the death of Riley has repercussions and we see the return of Cromartie, Ellison and Weaver.

"Kendra" is visibly injured after her fight with Riley so she goes to a bar and picks a fight to explain her wounds.

Sarah is packing her stuff for a move while chatting to a neighbour. The neighbour just happens to mention that her boyfriend the cop had to deal with a murder and goes on to describe Riley's distinguishing marks just so Sarah can find out Riley was killed.

Sarah goes to tell John. Finding John with Cameron Sarah tells the machine to leave the room. Cameron steps outside and sees a bid fly away. Summer Glau then gets the funniest line of the episode: "Goodbye bird. There was a 51% chance I wouldn't have killed you."

Sara believes that Cameron killed Riley. John wants to believe she didn't. When Derek gets the news he tells "Kendra". She replies that maybe some "good" can come of it and John will destroy Cameron. Derek is not impressed with her attitude, but he probably agrees.

Sarah discovers Cameron's stash of spare parts and burns them.

Later John goes to look at Riley's body. He sees her wounds and appears to work out that Cameron could not be responsible.

Elsewhere Weaver's little girl wants to play hide-and-seek. Cromartie lures her to his basement room and offers to play. She goes missing. Later Ellison and Weaver have to play a guessing game to find her. Weaver is impressed with what "John Henry" is learning. Ellison is not. After they find the girl in a helicopter on the roof he gives Cromartie a good talking to about placing the girl in danger.

A series of "flashbacks" to 2027 show a mission on the submarine that "Kendra" once mentioned. The "metal" captain uses unorthodox methods to escape attack from a Skynet machine called a Kraken. "Kendra" then realises that they are 300 miles off course.

The captain (called Queeg after the captain in The Caine Mutiny) says he is on a secret mission for John Connor. They are to pick up a package. Eventually they get the package from some other terminators. It is a mysterious metal box. What can be in it?

The episode ends with a "to be continued", but in the "next time" preview we can see a liquid metal T-1000 come out of the mysterious box and attack the crew of the sub. So was it a secret mission for John Connor, or was it a trick by the terminators?

Another good episode, although this one does feel like build-up.