Doctor Who spoilers!

Some minor spoilers for one of the upcoming Tenth Doctor specials have leaked:

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Dear Russell Brand:

Please find some obnoxiously horrible way to shuffle off this mortal coil before filming this remake, okay? Yes, you were funny when schtupping Kristen Bell in all sorts of interesting positions in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but you are not, no matter what your press clippings say, the second coming of Dudley Moore. Really.

That said, I am looking forward to your role in Taymor's version of The Tempest. Stick to that kind of remake; it'll suit you better.

Signal boosting: Chicago folks

Anyone out there have some crash space for a few hours today for kythryne? I can personally vouch for her as a nifty person.

Details here.

Gratuitous Broadway Musical post

There's a subclass of songs that are essentially, "here's a list of things that suck; now here's something less sucky in the chorus, like friendship or lots of beer." It's the idea behind the theme songs to Cheers, Friends, and Scrubs, amongst others.

It's also the idea behind "Join the Circus," the closing number of Barnum.

I've mentioned before that I'm a huge Cy Coleman fan. He's best known for Sweet Charity and The Will Rogers Follies, but I'm partial, in particular, to City of Angels, On the Twentieth Century, I Love My Wife, and Barnum. The latter two feature lyrics by Michael Stewart (who is also better known for other musicals, in this case Hello, Dolly, 42nd Street, and Bye Bye Birdie).

Barnum was the second Broadway musical I saw, after Annie. Unlike Annie, Barnum wasn't a show aimed at kids (although it's family-friendly). It also wasn't a long-time show; I saw it within the first month of its opening, with the original cast. That cast included Jim Dale -- who won a Tony for his role, and has done a wonderful job reading the Harry Potter audiobooks and narrating Pushing Daisies, but who is still probably best known to too many folks as Dr. Terminus -- and a then-mostly-unknown local actress named Glenn Close*. The play follows the life of P.T. Barnum in his early years, as he evolves from con artist and sideshow salesman into a partner in the circus with Bailey. It's fluff, often historically dubious fluff at that, but it's comforting fluff, too. The song below -- the only one I can find online from the original cast recording -- occurs at the end of the play, and doesn't feature any Close, or a lot of Dale (although you get him about 2/3 of the way through the song). It's still a comfort song for me, though.

And, of course, 'song's post reminded me of the song today.

I've got the original cast recording at home, and have been meaning to rip it to iTunes soon. I think I'll do that tonight.

Join The Circus - William C. Witter;Jim Dale;Peter Howard


*The British version, which is the only one available on DVD, stars Michael Crawford. So I've not seen it, as listening to Crawford makes me want to claw my balls off and shove them in my ears.

Riverworld again

The Network Soon to be Formerly Known as Sci-Fi is once again attempting a Riverworld series, because, you know, no one could possibly remember that they failed when they tried it two years ago.

I can only hope they'll follow this up with another Earthsea attempt, replacing the unspeakably miscast Kristin Kreuk with, I dunno, maybe Paris Hilton?

Ashes to Ashes subtitling?

Could someone please explain why BBC America feels the need to randomly subtitle some (but not all) lines of Ashes to Ashes? They're not lines that are spoken by only certain characters, or when noise is playing, or with thick accents, or whatever.

Also, why do they feel the need to open every commercial break with a preview of what's coming up after the break (a feature that's annoying enough on non-fiction shows like Ace of Cakes and Mythbusters).