TV/Movies Megathread

[Syt]

Also, I realized Archer is now cancelled. Apparently, the makers had 2 more seasons mapped out, but FXX pulled the plug, so they cobbled together a one hour finale, trying to wrap up a number of plot threads.

I mean, the series was not as good as early seasons any more, but the last two seasons were notably better than some earlier ones (e.g. the coma episodes).

Then again, maybe better not to drag it out too long. And the status quo on which they ended leaves room for continuation in case someone (Netflix?) want to revive it.

[Josquius]

Continuing to watch new Dr who.
It has gotten better than the first episodes.
Though the dr out of nowhere suddenly being madly in love with some guy is weird.
Also noticing this series a lot of people questioning is name. "the doctor? Dr what?"
Which is not something you saw too often in new who. People just generally took for granted that was his name. I wonder if there's anything to it.

[celedhring]

Also, I realized Archer is now cancelled. Apparently, the makers had 2 more seasons mapped out, but FXX pulled the plug, so they cobbled together a one hour finale, trying to wrap up a number of plot threads.

I mean, the series was not as good as early seasons any more, but the last two seasons were notably better than some earlier ones (e.g. the coma episodes).

Then again, maybe better not to drag it out too long. And the status quo on which they ended leaves room for continuation in case someone (Netflix?) want to revive it.

I admittedly haven't watched the last two seasons in full, but I really had a hard time watching the show without Walter in it. She was such an integral part of what made it tick. Better let it die, imho.

[Tamas]

Wow, Shogun is excellent. Halfway through the season so far.

[Syt]

I admittedly haven't watched the last two seasons in full, but I really had a hard time watching the show without Walter in it. She was such an integral part of what made it tick. Better let it die, imho.

Well, in the final season they move Lana into her role and bring on a new (British) female agent to take her place. It was a decent dynamic, I thought.

[Admiral Yi]

Love this scene.  I've watched it over and over.  Mattie is a grifter and a liar.  Always wondered what a writ of replevin is, looked it up.

"A writ of replevin is a prejudgment process ordering the seizure or attachment of alleged illegally taken or wrongfully withheld property to be held in the U.S. Marshal's custody or that of another designated official, under order and supervision of the court, until the court determines otherwise."

[Admiral Yi]

Method acting at its finest.

[celedhring]

So, I've been watching the Thin Man movies - maybe I will do a Savonarola-style review of the franchise when I'm done. Or maybe not.

Anyway, this got me thinking... who originated the most precious trope of them all, the "detective gathers all of the suspects - upper class twits and adjacent - in a glamorous location and unravels the mystery".

My first instinct is to find the first Agatha Christie novel that features it. I don't own the earliest ones, but going off somewhat vague plot summaries it seems that "Secret of the Chimneys" (1925) features something like it, although the person unravelling the mystery isn't the story's detective. "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" (1926) definitely does, and there's a bunch of older Poirot short stories that maybe have it, but it's hard to parse them out from the summaries I found of the web.

Of course, I assume the trope has other precedents in literature. Any ideas?

[HVC]

Jesus at the last supper, though with his prescience Jesus called out Judas' crime and Peter denouncement before it happened

[Josquius]

Nearly finished fallout.
It's good.
Interesting it has been turned into a global warming analogy.

[Josephus]

So, I've been watching the Thin Man movies - maybe I will do a Savonarola-style review of the franchise when I'm done. Or maybe not.

Anyway, this got me thinking... who originated the most precious trope of them all, the "detective gathers all of the suspects - upper class twits and adjacent - in a glamorous location and unravels the mystery".

My first instinct is to find the first Agatha Christie novel that features it. I don't own the earliest ones, but going off somewhat vague plot summaries it seems that "Secret of the Chimneys" (1925) features something like it, although the person unravelling the mystery isn't the story's detective. "The murder of Roger Ackroyd" (1926) definitely does, and there's a bunch of older Poirot short stories that maybe have it, but it's hard to parse them out from the summaries I found of the web.

Of course, I assume the trope has other precedents in literature. Any ideas?

It wouldn't surprise me if Christie invented the trope.

[Josquius]

I'd suspect it's not something with a definite first and that there were earlier stories gathering all the suspects in a more mundane location.

[Barrister]

I'd suspect it's not something with a definite first and that there were earlier stories gathering all the suspects in a more mundane location.

Yeah I would suspect that Christie raised it to the level of a trope but you can find earlier examples.

[Oexmelin]

I don't think there are that many previous examples to Christie's trope? Not really in Poe's three or four detective stories; I struggle to recall many Sherlock Holmes stories where all (suspects are gathered for the big reveal; and the few examples I recall from Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin stories are mostly about thefts, and the glamorous locale is often simply the victim's estate.

[Sheilbh]

I think I have an answer!

From Martin Edwards' "The Life of Crime" it sounds like it was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I think the first Poirot:

Her original manuscript contained a climactic courtroom scene inspired by Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room, but Lane [her publisher] felt this denouement didn't work. Thus Poirot revealed the solution to the puzzle not from the witness box, but rather to the suspects gathered in the drawing room. This device became a Christie trademark, and the book also featured a 'dying message' clue, two floor plans and three reproductions of handwriting. Above all, she took the 'least likely suspect' solution that Bentley had used in Trent's Last Case to satirise omniscient detectives, and treated it seriously as a means of mystification.

So it sounds like something she invented from a publisher's note.