pubs
Changes are afoot for Masterpiece Theater, and MYSTERY! has now been wholly absorbed into it as part of the yearly run. On the interesting side, Gillian Anderson, looking prettier for her age, is the new Dianna Rigg (or Vincent Price, if you go that far back). Appropriate enough! Thing is, they’re talking as if “Masterpiece Mystery!” will now cease to have its own theme music, and will be ditching the Gorey intros for “amazing graphics”. This is all a bit sad, as the Gorey intros have made an enormous and tangible difference in my life. It’s one of those weird little personal nexus things. They helped to define much of my adult artistic sensibility, and they have led somewhat directly to some of my most important personal relationships.
Then again, the “new” Gorey intro has been in place for around twenty years now. Not that it’s in any way dated, I can see how they might be tiiring of it. Since he’s dead, they can’t just commission a new one.
In general, PBS has been rather neglecting MYSTERY! for a while. Whereas it used to be a regular companion series to Masterpiece Theatre, eventually it got folded into the run of its parent series and they ditched the host altogether. I suppose ITV hasn’t been producing cdetective series the way they were in the ’80s and ’90s. Though Poirot is still ongoing, I think Suchet only does a movie every couple of years now. Jeremy Brett is dead. Morse and Cracker are past. Does WGBH even invest in ITV production anymore? Can they afford to, the way PBS is run now?
pretty as gillian probably is on her own, i’d still wager they airbrushed the hell out of that picture.
Airbrush?! What is this, 1985?!
Yeah, you’re probably right. Still, hotcha!
it’s still called an airbrush in photoshop!
yeah, she’s hot. airbrushed faces turn me off though. they look so plasticky and smooth.
You forget Miss Marple. Seriously, when you mention MYSTERY!, Marple is the only thing that comes to mind, because that’s the only one PBS seems to ever advertise. It’s still in production, and it is also a co-production of ITV and WGBH.
I didn’t forget Miss Marple, I just stopped short of mentioning because I never actually sat down and watched it when I was younger. Though the theme music is certainly in my head. I’ve been curious about seeking it out, now that I’m done with the Brett Holmes stuff.
Man, his final season is depressing. I felt my empathy screaming out. It’s so hard to watch, because you KNOW he died right after this and he looks so, so, so ill. Like he really should not be out of bed. Oddly, that he is barely in a couple of episodes only reinforces this because you know why he wasn’t in them.
You’re right, there is new Marple series. It’s different from the old one; it’s sort of a modern twist, rather than an attempt at a faithful adaptation, as the ’80s-’90s series was. I’ve heard good and bad things about it, though I haven’t filtered them yet.
I didn’t see that WGBH was still involved, though. That’s somehow reassuring.
Oh. Were you talking about the new series from the start? I was thinking of this one.
Still, the relatively recent photo currently on her wikipedia entry is pretty much the opposite of a photoshopped glamour shot, and seems like it should be an unflattering photo, except she still looks great in it. “prettier for her age” indeed.
Yeah, I was. I’m surprised it only dates back to 2004/5; it feels like I’ve been seeing bits and pieces and ads for Miss Marple starring Geraldine McEwan for longer than that.
Which, I must confess, is about the limit of my exposure to Masterpiece or MYSTERY!: bits and pieces or ads after watching something else on PBS. More endings than beginnings, which means that at least half the stuff I may have seen I’m not even sure if it was run under one of those banners.)
My point was mainly that the new series seems, on paper, to fit all of the criteria you laid out for a “classic” MYSTERY! program. Except it’s new and you haven’t seen it.
I don’t get TV!