You know the movie referenced in the first season of 30 Rock...the one whose title no one could pronounce? It turned out to be The Rural Juror...but until now, the name of the actual titular character has never been revealed.
It is "Earl Wuhrer."
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
1.27.2009
1.23.2009
of course, of course
Our current slate of Netflix DVDs includes episodes of the Cadfael series originally broadcast on British TV, and since that series is set in the 12th century, it's no surprise there are many horses. And we recently bought the DVD of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog - and all decent people know and fear the name of Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin.
We're also re-watching The X-Files...and the last episode we watched was the second part of "Terma," part of which is set in Russia...and features guards riding horses.
I began to detect a trend here - so I said to Rose that it was a bit curious, and I'd know something was up if there were a horse in the next DVD we watched...which seemed unlikely, since it was from the first season of 30 Rock.
Fans of that show know what's coming, of course: in "Corporate Crush," Liz Lemon opens the door to her office to find...Tracy Jordan, and a horse.
I'm not sure what this is all about. (Although, come to think of it, at a department meeting yesterday, my voice was, in fact, a little hoarse.)
Addendum: And, I just realized that two of the four items above also refer to...Thomas Jefferson! More mystery...
We're also re-watching The X-Files...and the last episode we watched was the second part of "Terma," part of which is set in Russia...and features guards riding horses.
I began to detect a trend here - so I said to Rose that it was a bit curious, and I'd know something was up if there were a horse in the next DVD we watched...which seemed unlikely, since it was from the first season of 30 Rock.
Fans of that show know what's coming, of course: in "Corporate Crush," Liz Lemon opens the door to her office to find...Tracy Jordan, and a horse.
I'm not sure what this is all about. (Although, come to think of it, at a department meeting yesterday, my voice was, in fact, a little hoarse.)
Addendum: And, I just realized that two of the four items above also refer to...Thomas Jefferson! More mystery...
1.08.2009
Hey! You got Onion in my CNN!
So I'm having lunch at Comet and reading The Onion, when I happen to look up at the TV, which was playing CNN. There's a crawl at the bottom saying something like PORN INDUSTRY WANTS ITS OWN BAILOUT.
You know that Philip K. Dick novel Time Out of Joint, where the main character Ragle Gumm finds objects disintegrating in front of him, replaced only by scraps of paper saying things like DESK and the like? (You know that Orson Scott Card - author of Ender's Game - and the folks who put together The Truman Show should be paying Dick's estate royalties...) This was a more high-tech version, where somehow the world of The Onion had escaped its textual confines and had virally infected the actual news.
That must be the answer. Because with more people unemployed with nothing else to do, how could the porn industry possibly be suffering?
(Next post will not mention The Onion - promise. Unless they pay me.)
You know that Philip K. Dick novel Time Out of Joint, where the main character Ragle Gumm finds objects disintegrating in front of him, replaced only by scraps of paper saying things like DESK and the like? (You know that Orson Scott Card - author of Ender's Game - and the folks who put together The Truman Show should be paying Dick's estate royalties...) This was a more high-tech version, where somehow the world of The Onion had escaped its textual confines and had virally infected the actual news.
That must be the answer. Because with more people unemployed with nothing else to do, how could the porn industry possibly be suffering?
(Next post will not mention The Onion - promise. Unless they pay me.)
10.03.2008
departures
A feature article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel the other day described the journey of comedy director David Zucker (a native of a Milwaukee suburb, Shorewood, and best known for his involvement with brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams in the production of the Police Squad and Naked Gun movies) from his liberal background to his current conservatism. At first, my reaction was, okay, some guy becomes more conservative as he ages - nothing very unusual there - but at a specific point in the article, I realized Mr. Zucker had departed the plane of reality. He's quoted describing Barack Obama as "an extreme left-wing candidate who doesn't represent the country."
Uh-huh. Exactly which positions of Obama - who's reliably liberal on social issues (as are most Americans) and moderate on economic issues (as are most Americans) - are "extreme left-wing"? Funny how the folks who make such accusations never back them up (nor are asked to: bad enough in a biographical puff piece like this one, but plain irresponsible in political reporting). And that "doesn't represent the country"? Apparently all those folks who voted for Obama in the primaries, and who gave Obama lead in most polls, must not be from this country. And Zucker has swallowed the lie that McCain represents "lower taxes." Here's a chart (whose presentation, from wealthiest to poorest taxpayers, gives casual readers a false impression), demonstrating that for most Americans, except the very wealthiest, Obama's tax plan will lower taxes considerably more than McCain's will.
And, sadly, dirt and grime have at last vanquished their mortal enemy: I refer, of course, to Mr. Clean: the actor who portrayed the eponymous cleaning products spokesperson, House Peters Jr., has died at the age of 92. That New York Times article describes the career of Peters - one of many bit actors who are all but forgotten now - but fails to explain where the rather exotic (for its time) image of Mr. Clean came from. I mean, nowadays bald-headed, muscular guys sporting white t-shirts and an earring are everywhere (although few have the illustrated Mr. Clean's bushy white eyebrows), but back then, that look must have seemed quite bizarre.
Uh-huh. Exactly which positions of Obama - who's reliably liberal on social issues (as are most Americans) and moderate on economic issues (as are most Americans) - are "extreme left-wing"? Funny how the folks who make such accusations never back them up (nor are asked to: bad enough in a biographical puff piece like this one, but plain irresponsible in political reporting). And that "doesn't represent the country"? Apparently all those folks who voted for Obama in the primaries, and who gave Obama lead in most polls, must not be from this country. And Zucker has swallowed the lie that McCain represents "lower taxes." Here's a chart (whose presentation, from wealthiest to poorest taxpayers, gives casual readers a false impression), demonstrating that for most Americans, except the very wealthiest, Obama's tax plan will lower taxes considerably more than McCain's will.
And, sadly, dirt and grime have at last vanquished their mortal enemy: I refer, of course, to Mr. Clean: the actor who portrayed the eponymous cleaning products spokesperson, House Peters Jr., has died at the age of 92. That New York Times article describes the career of Peters - one of many bit actors who are all but forgotten now - but fails to explain where the rather exotic (for its time) image of Mr. Clean came from. I mean, nowadays bald-headed, muscular guys sporting white t-shirts and an earring are everywhere (although few have the illustrated Mr. Clean's bushy white eyebrows), but back then, that look must have seemed quite bizarre.
10.02.2008
petty annoyances, oversensitive ears division
We're watching Season 4 of The Office (US version, obviously: the Brit version didn't have four seasons), and the thing that's bugging me? The production company's little trumpet tag at the end ("Deedle-Dee Productions") is ever so slightly out of tune with the musical tag that goes with the NBC thingy that follows, and it's like being forcefed very sour lemonade every time I hear it.
Dammit, folks: tune to the same pitch!
Dammit, folks: tune to the same pitch!
7.23.2008
bwah-ha-ha-ha timesink!
Dear Readers:
I love you all, but if you have a productive job, or caring family or friends, or children who need loving caretaking, I am here to destroy your world - by recommending yet another deeply meandering website full of goofy, cool, marginally useful info (one that, given my impenetrably dense layers of unhipness, was probably utterly all that back in the primordial days of March 2008 or so). In this instance, I'm referring to the TV Tropes Wiki, whose mission it is to explore, explain, exemplify, and exsanguinate all the various rhetorical, structural, technical, and adjectival tricks TV (and not just TV) writers and producers use in assembling their products. I suppose it should surprise no one that I stumbled onto the site via a link from somewhere Joss Whedon and Dr. Horrible -related (nor that many of the writers at the site are Joss fans).
If you're one of those people who finds it distressing to find language, art, or entertainment analyzed, don't bother...but if instead you find such practices fascinating (particularly when undertaken with a sense of humor), don't bother showing up to work tomorrow, be prepared to spend the night on the couch while your spouse stews at you, and assume your kid's gonna grow up to be a Republican anyway so why bother.
I love you all, but if you have a productive job, or caring family or friends, or children who need loving caretaking, I am here to destroy your world - by recommending yet another deeply meandering website full of goofy, cool, marginally useful info (one that, given my impenetrably dense layers of unhipness, was probably utterly all that back in the primordial days of March 2008 or so). In this instance, I'm referring to the TV Tropes Wiki, whose mission it is to explore, explain, exemplify, and exsanguinate all the various rhetorical, structural, technical, and adjectival tricks TV (and not just TV) writers and producers use in assembling their products. I suppose it should surprise no one that I stumbled onto the site via a link from somewhere Joss Whedon and Dr. Horrible -related (nor that many of the writers at the site are Joss fans).
If you're one of those people who finds it distressing to find language, art, or entertainment analyzed, don't bother...but if instead you find such practices fascinating (particularly when undertaken with a sense of humor), don't bother showing up to work tomorrow, be prepared to spend the night on the couch while your spouse stews at you, and assume your kid's gonna grow up to be a Republican anyway so why bother.
7.15.2008
which demon incapacitates fact-checkers?
I picked up a used copy of an amusing little book called The Psychology of Joss Whedon, which looks at psychological themes as played out in Whedon's TV series and the film Serenity. Nothing earth-shattering - not that I expected it - but you'd think a book clearly catering to rampant geeks would recognize the need for scrupulous fact-checking...a need the publisher amusingly falls short on twice within a single page.
In an article called "Existentialism Meets Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the book occasionally seems to confuse philosophical questions with psychological ones...), authors C. Albert Bardi and Sherry Hamby rather trivially misidentify whose song Giles sings at the open mic club (it's "Behind Blue Eyes" by the Who, of course - they think it's a song by Eric Clapton) and then, rather amusingly, confuse the mad Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula with the former Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist: "Every Dracula needs a Rehnquist..." they write.
Actually, I think a sitcom featuring Dracula and Justice Rehnquist would be kind of a blast: both were, after all, rather fashion-conscious, what with the Gilbert & Sullivan -inspired stripes Rehnquist infamously sewed to his judicial robes.
In an article called "Existentialism Meets Feminism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the book occasionally seems to confuse philosophical questions with psychological ones...), authors C. Albert Bardi and Sherry Hamby rather trivially misidentify whose song Giles sings at the open mic club (it's "Behind Blue Eyes" by the Who, of course - they think it's a song by Eric Clapton) and then, rather amusingly, confuse the mad Renfield in Bram Stoker's Dracula with the former Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist: "Every Dracula needs a Rehnquist..." they write.
Actually, I think a sitcom featuring Dracula and Justice Rehnquist would be kind of a blast: both were, after all, rather fashion-conscious, what with the Gilbert & Sullivan -inspired stripes Rehnquist infamously sewed to his judicial robes.
3.17.2008
BSG Actress Linked to Pornographers!!!
Uh, The New Pornographers, that is. Thanks to Don at Timedoor for pointing out this one: Nicki Clyne, Cally on Battlestar Galactica, played the lead singer in The New Pornographers' video for "The Laws Have Changed." (The video's embedded at Timedoor.)
bonus points for ubergeeky opening clause
In the Buffyverse, demons and vampires generally shun Halloween as being a pathetic excuse for humans to lamely pretend to be all evil-like and to rehearse the most clichéd stereotypes about demons, monsters, etc.
So, uh, Happy St. Patrick's Day. I hope no one thinks I'm too much of a monster if I stay home tonight, kick back, and enjoy a few rounds of online kitten poker. (I won't argue with a beer or two, though.)
So, uh, Happy St. Patrick's Day. I hope no one thinks I'm too much of a monster if I stay home tonight, kick back, and enjoy a few rounds of online kitten poker. (I won't argue with a beer or two, though.)
3.11.2008
more VU-related archival material...
In 1963, it was apparently possible for a performer and fan of avant-garde music to appear on a nationally televised game show to not only discuss that music but perform it. Sort of.
This would be unusual in itself, and even more unusual in that the performer is none other than John Cale. Here's the story in Pitchfork, and the video of the appearance below.
This would be unusual in itself, and even more unusual in that the performer is none other than John Cale. Here's the story in Pitchfork, and the video of the appearance below.
2.24.2008
gaah!
I still refuse to accept the annoying set of words formed along the lines of "thirtysomething" (i.e., "twentysomething" etc.), after the now-decades-old TV show and for some reason utterly beloved of hack journalists everywhere. The world got along just fine for centuries without a word ending in "-something" to describe the general age of people: "in their twenties," "in their late thirties," and so on. (Side question: is age always even relevant? We're addicted to generation-mania...see the related and annoying trend of vague generational names...)
And now the producers of the old Thirtysomething TV show (I'm just a puddle of peeves today: yep, I'm refusing to lower-case the name of the show...) are back with a new series, to be called Quarterlife (no points if you guessed that it, too, is supposed to be lower-cased) and dealing with the oh-so-traumatic maunderings of a bunch of folks in their early to mid-twenties.
Oh joy - now pop-sociology -loving journalists will have a new term, and a new phenomenon, to bluntly hit us over the head with: not enough for there to be a "midlife crisis," no; now we need a "quarterlife" crisis as well.
Grr.
I am going to go search YouTube for videos of cute kitties to calm myself down for a while.
And now the producers of the old Thirtysomething TV show (I'm just a puddle of peeves today: yep, I'm refusing to lower-case the name of the show...) are back with a new series, to be called Quarterlife (no points if you guessed that it, too, is supposed to be lower-cased) and dealing with the oh-so-traumatic maunderings of a bunch of folks in their early to mid-twenties.
Oh joy - now pop-sociology -loving journalists will have a new term, and a new phenomenon, to bluntly hit us over the head with: not enough for there to be a "midlife crisis," no; now we need a "quarterlife" crisis as well.
Grr.
I am going to go search YouTube for videos of cute kitties to calm myself down for a while.
2.04.2008
Come on!
Courtesy the divine Lauren Elizabeth:
'Arrested Development' Film Planned?
"Actor Jason Bateman has confirmed plans are underway for a movie version of cancelled TV sitcom Arrested Development. A rumored meeting between the star and series creator Mitch Hurwitz late last year fuelled speculation a big-screen adaptation of the cult show was in the pipeline. And now the Juno star has confirmed the cast has received calls from executives asking if they would be interested in reviving their roles once the ongoing Hollywood writers strike is over. He tells E! News, 'I can confirm that a round of sniffing has started. Any talk is targeting a post-strike situation, of course. I think, as always, that it's a question of whether the people with the money are willing to give our leader, Mitch Hurwitz, what he deserves for his participation. And I can speak for the cast when I say our fingers are crossed.'"
—via IMDB
'Arrested Development' Film Planned?
"Actor Jason Bateman has confirmed plans are underway for a movie version of cancelled TV sitcom Arrested Development. A rumored meeting between the star and series creator Mitch Hurwitz late last year fuelled speculation a big-screen adaptation of the cult show was in the pipeline. And now the Juno star has confirmed the cast has received calls from executives asking if they would be interested in reviving their roles once the ongoing Hollywood writers strike is over. He tells E! News, 'I can confirm that a round of sniffing has started. Any talk is targeting a post-strike situation, of course. I think, as always, that it's a question of whether the people with the money are willing to give our leader, Mitch Hurwitz, what he deserves for his participation. And I can speak for the cast when I say our fingers are crossed.'"
—via IMDB
1.25.2008
a compromise
So they're going to build a bronze statue of Fonzie in Milwaukee. There's been some opposition to this statue from folks who don't want yet another reminder of the outmoded Happy Days/Laverne and Shirley image of Milwaukee...but the decision's been made, and we'll have to live with it.
My suggestion is that occasionally, we put the statue in a cheap suit and tie and proclaim it a Barry Zuckerkorn statue. That'll give it a hipper, more contemporary image, I think.
My suggestion is that occasionally, we put the statue in a cheap suit and tie and proclaim it a Barry Zuckerkorn statue. That'll give it a hipper, more contemporary image, I think.
1.06.2008
Batman Begins...to tediously paulrusize*
It took me nearly a full year...but I finally have an answer to the question I raised in this post. We're visiting our friends Tonia and Cason in Dallas, and as it happens, Cason is a major fan of Batman (or, as he might insist, "the Bat-man") and, when for some reason my dumb little theory about the musical access code in Batman Begins came up, he felt compelled to check it out. So, courtesy a bootleg DVD of the Batman TV series (incomprehensibly, still not out on DVD - maybe it'll come out on Blu-Ray...) and a perfectly legitimate copy of Batman Begins, I can provide the following comments:
1. I theorized that the little three-note sequence of clusters Bruce Wayne plays on the library piano, which allowed access to the Batcave via an entryway hidden behind a set of bookshelves, might have been the same three-note sequence of clusters often heard as brass blats during fight scenes in the 1960s Batman TV series. While I thought I had a clear memory of how that brass blat sounded, as it turned out, at least in the couple-few episodes of the show we skimmed, those brass blats had no particular scoring: they seemed merely to be groups of two-note clusters (at the interval of a major second) overlaid on the underlying fight-scene score when punches were thrown...but which notes seemed variable and irregular.
2. In the first instance of the piano key (har...), the notes Bruce plays are as follows (and I haven't found a good way to put musical notation in these posts): the C and D two octaves above middle C; the B and C a seventh above that; and the F and a fourth down from the second cluster. Amusingly, one musical figure abstractable from this is D-B-G...a sequence identical in intervals to the well-known NBC musical call-sign. (This would be significant except that the TV series ran on ABC.) Neither of us was patient enough to listen closely enough to the second instance (during the fire) of this piano business to note whether it's the same as the first one - except that I did notice that the notes are detuned in the second example (presumably to indicate fire damage to the piano), implying either that the access is mechanical rather than sound-based, or that I pay far too much attention to detail and I should really just relax.
3. Still: that the TV series used a series of two-note clusters based on simultaneous seconds, and that the movie used the same musical idea as a key, is similar enough to suggest that this just might not have been an accident. Finally: the second-based clusters are a key sonic element of the well-known theme to the TV series (the various interjections that sound like "Batman...").
* a new verb, coined based on the image here, and derived from the "Paul Is Dead" craze and the way fans desperately squeezed the most vague traces of significance from the most recondite, trivial, and incidental atoms in the Beatleverse in order to support a patently absurd notion...
1. I theorized that the little three-note sequence of clusters Bruce Wayne plays on the library piano, which allowed access to the Batcave via an entryway hidden behind a set of bookshelves, might have been the same three-note sequence of clusters often heard as brass blats during fight scenes in the 1960s Batman TV series. While I thought I had a clear memory of how that brass blat sounded, as it turned out, at least in the couple-few episodes of the show we skimmed, those brass blats had no particular scoring: they seemed merely to be groups of two-note clusters (at the interval of a major second) overlaid on the underlying fight-scene score when punches were thrown...but which notes seemed variable and irregular.
2. In the first instance of the piano key (har...), the notes Bruce plays are as follows (and I haven't found a good way to put musical notation in these posts): the C and D two octaves above middle C; the B and C a seventh above that; and the F and a fourth down from the second cluster. Amusingly, one musical figure abstractable from this is D-B-G...a sequence identical in intervals to the well-known NBC musical call-sign. (This would be significant except that the TV series ran on ABC.) Neither of us was patient enough to listen closely enough to the second instance (during the fire) of this piano business to note whether it's the same as the first one - except that I did notice that the notes are detuned in the second example (presumably to indicate fire damage to the piano), implying either that the access is mechanical rather than sound-based, or that I pay far too much attention to detail and I should really just relax.
3. Still: that the TV series used a series of two-note clusters based on simultaneous seconds, and that the movie used the same musical idea as a key, is similar enough to suggest that this just might not have been an accident. Finally: the second-based clusters are a key sonic element of the well-known theme to the TV series (the various interjections that sound like "Batman...").
* a new verb, coined based on the image here, and derived from the "Paul Is Dead" craze and the way fans desperately squeezed the most vague traces of significance from the most recondite, trivial, and incidental atoms in the Beatleverse in order to support a patently absurd notion...
9.25.2007
News Flash! Bill O'Reilly Discovers Black People Are Human!
This is pretty unbelievable: I mean, he was actually surprised that, you know, it wasn't the middle of a stereotypical gangsta rap video?
Next up: O'Reilly discovers that Latinos do not all carry knives or wear bandoliers and sombreros at all times. Some even lack mustaches!
Next up: O'Reilly discovers that Latinos do not all carry knives or wear bandoliers and sombreros at all times. Some even lack mustaches!
9.13.2007
Jane Espenson explains it all
Via Fluxblog, ex-Buffy and Gilmore Girls writer Jane Espenson analyzes a spate of not getting it regarding the sorry not all that funny joke Sarah Silverman made at Britney Spears' expense. (BTW: if Britney was "fat," I'm the Pope.)
Syntactic reanalysis: it's not just for breakfast any more. I do wish, though, she'd included as an example one of my favorites of this type - the "punchline" to "Lola": "Well I'm not the world's most masculine man, but I know what I am, and I'm glad I'm a man - and so's Lola."
Syntactic reanalysis: it's not just for breakfast any more. I do wish, though, she'd included as an example one of my favorites of this type - the "punchline" to "Lola": "Well I'm not the world's most masculine man, but I know what I am, and I'm glad I'm a man - and so's Lola."
8.24.2007
sophisticated visual humor from those wacky Buffy folks
Apparently, this screen capture (from "Empty Places" in Season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) contains a secret clue concerning part of the compelling appeal of Faith (pictured). 
What kind of chips are those?
What kind of chips are those?
5.31.2007
without chemicals he types
We're working our way through the Season 2 Twin Peaks DVD set. I've long maintained that Season 2 is by no means the disaster some people claim it is - if only because what a lot of people forget is that the first third of the season is the conclusion of the Laura Palmer arc.
Admittedly, after that the show hits a bit of a slog...but once the Windom Earle plot gets going in earnest, I think it regains much of its special qualities. Apparently, that slog was due in part to Kyle MacLachlan vetoing a Cooper-Audrey affair subplot, on the (correct) grounds that it would have been massively out of character for Cooper to have an affair with a high school girl. True, nearly every character in the series has a dark secret...but I think what they eventually settled on for Cooper - his past affair with a married (adult) woman, and the consequences that followed from that - was far richer plot territory.
That said, if anyone wants to edit Season 2 to get rid of the more inane subplots, here's my list of things to cut:
Even though it leads pretty much nowhere, at least the James/Evelyn/Malcolm business isn't so utterly silly as those things above.
It certainly didn't help that, if you're an old fart like me who saw the shows in their original broadcast, the network's decision to delay and move the show around meant that some of those tedious plots (the Ben Horne one in particular) seemed to drag on for months. On DVD, thankfully, they go by pretty quickly.
Some trivia: much has been noted about the doubling/pairing that shows in so many elements of the series. One way that idea plays out is in familial or quasi-familial pairs, often involving substitutions or doublings for absent or dead family members (Big Ed in lieu of James's father; Norma in lieu of Shelley's mother; etc.). What's been less commented upon (according to some cursory googling) is the way that idea shows up outside the narrative, in casting. There are two father/son pairs among the cast and crew, and one set of brothers. Dan O'Herlihy plays Andrew Packard; his son Gavan O'Herlihy plays the crooked Canadian Mountie (the blond guy with the mustache). Warren Frost (Doc Hayward) is producer and writer Mark Frost's father. And the first of Windom Earle's victims we see - the drifter posed above the chessboard - is played by Craig MacLachlan, Kyle MacLachlan's brother (a particularly pointed substitution...since, of course, Cooper is Earle's ultimate target).
Admittedly, after that the show hits a bit of a slog...but once the Windom Earle plot gets going in earnest, I think it regains much of its special qualities. Apparently, that slog was due in part to Kyle MacLachlan vetoing a Cooper-Audrey affair subplot, on the (correct) grounds that it would have been massively out of character for Cooper to have an affair with a high school girl. True, nearly every character in the series has a dark secret...but I think what they eventually settled on for Cooper - his past affair with a married (adult) woman, and the consequences that followed from that - was far richer plot territory.
That said, if anyone wants to edit Season 2 to get rid of the more inane subplots, here's my list of things to cut:
SuperNadine
Ben Horne Refights the Civil War
Dick and Nicky (including the whole Lucy/Andy terminally unfunny contretemps)
The Irresistible Widow Milford
Horrifying Teen Triangle (special demerit points for that gawdawful song James, Donna, and Maddy record...)
Even though it leads pretty much nowhere, at least the James/Evelyn/Malcolm business isn't so utterly silly as those things above.
It certainly didn't help that, if you're an old fart like me who saw the shows in their original broadcast, the network's decision to delay and move the show around meant that some of those tedious plots (the Ben Horne one in particular) seemed to drag on for months. On DVD, thankfully, they go by pretty quickly.
Some trivia: much has been noted about the doubling/pairing that shows in so many elements of the series. One way that idea plays out is in familial or quasi-familial pairs, often involving substitutions or doublings for absent or dead family members (Big Ed in lieu of James's father; Norma in lieu of Shelley's mother; etc.). What's been less commented upon (according to some cursory googling) is the way that idea shows up outside the narrative, in casting. There are two father/son pairs among the cast and crew, and one set of brothers. Dan O'Herlihy plays Andrew Packard; his son Gavan O'Herlihy plays the crooked Canadian Mountie (the blond guy with the mustache). Warren Frost (Doc Hayward) is producer and writer Mark Frost's father. And the first of Windom Earle's victims we see - the drifter posed above the chessboard - is played by Craig MacLachlan, Kyle MacLachlan's brother (a particularly pointed substitution...since, of course, Cooper is Earle's ultimate target).
4.13.2007
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