Hi, I'm back in the room. I think the phrase in the thread title was "Sophisticated silliness" and boy have we had some silliness over the past two years - remember the stags, drawings, cushions, poems, writings, SPO's worrying stats each week, cakes, gardening etc etc. Yes we have created a whole 'sub culture' around this programme.
Mildly serious point now..there was a different Director for last night's episode, I believe, and thinking about it now and then this morning during moments when I was supposed to be doing something important but incredibly boring, I couldn't help thinking it is a bit of a drama of two halves. It's transitioned from the familiar military action stuff to almost a watered down version of 'Spooks' (which I loved by the way). I'm not going to go into the issue of whether Elvis would really be that involved in it all - but it feels quite different to the last series in that respect.
As for saintly 'Sister Marie', I wonder if there is an element of jealousy in all of this. I don't get empathetic vibes from her at all. She was pretty hostile to Elvis in episode 1 and I wondered if it was because she fancied him herself - there's nothing like a bit of verbal sparring in an attempt to hide attraction. Perhaps we are reading it wrong and they just have a spiky family relationship but you've got to wonder - suppose she lets slip to Jamie that Georgie lied about the Elvis thing in Kenya?
Kuia I love the idea that Shakespeare would be writing TV drama now - I visited the Globe Theatre in the summer and spent a lot of time trying to tell my kids that in his day it was entertainment for the masses with lots of topical and political jokes and not highbrow texts that bore them to death in school. Also, apparently, Charles Dickens would be writing TV soaps if he was alive as that's pretty much what he did in his day and why the stories were sooo long - paid by instalment!