A friend of mine back home has it. It kinda drags one side of her face down. Sometimes it's better than others.

Yeah, I remember Whedon commenting on this during the filming of, iirc, A Hole In The World? That they had to keep arranging the shots so that they only saw one side of Wesley's face? (It may not have been AHITW, but I think it was - if not, it was certainly some hardcore acty rip-your-heart-out stuff.)

God. Poor bloke. What a bitch of a condition for an actor - the fact that he still doesn't seem to be in a regular gig makes me worry for him. In a vague, don't-know-you-at-all-but-really-love-your-work kinda way.

Meanwhile I'm spoiling myself for Ugly Betty with gleeful abandon, and beginning to suspect that I need to pick up The Office on DVD.

At present I'm working my way through Hex, and am astonished to find that it's really surprisingly good. I mean, okay, it's no Whedon show - but it's certainly as good as most of the genre offerings around at the moment. Plus - my people! And the lickable Colin Salmon - although they do seem determined to try to hide his smouldery goodness under bow ties, for some crazy reason.

But I do like the fact that it's a genre show with highschoolers who are going out and getting pissed and shagging around. And it's certainly my favourite take on the Dead Lesbian cliche. And I like the teachers' relationships with the students. So all in all - much more fun than I was expecting. Shame it only ran for two seasons.

Huh, I met Alexis last year. He was here in Liverpool doing a play for a few months. I didn't notice it at all. He was up for a lead in a CBS show this season I read on the interwebs, but he missed out in the end.

Hex - I really had issues with that show. It's actually really well shot, I think, but the scripts are... rubbish in places. Fay, I'd recommend SKINS to you - it's like Hex, minus the vampires. It's well writ and - well - awesome if you ask me. It's a 'teen drama', except each episode is shot from the point of view of a different character, the actors are actually teenagers, the parents are more screwed up than said teenagers, it's not at all rose tinted and it's aired after 10pm here. The writers are massive Whedon fan boys, and it shows. They make an effort to make you fall in love with the characters, no matter how flawed they are.

Oh my GOD, Kevin. You met Alexis last year? I just spontaneously turned into a fourteen year old fangirl here. Gah.

...

...

Okay, okay, adult nonchalence (or passable facade thereof) more or less resumed. That's fab, though - he was in Liverpool in a play? God, I'd love to see him doing theatre. What was the play?

...Hex has vampires? Huh. Only seen the first four episodes so far. I think perhaps your enjoyment of Hex (well, like most things) depends on context: I was expecting it to be shite, based on word of mouth, so when I watched it I was really taken aback by the fact that it's actually really quite good (compared to things like Smallville, SGA etc), and has production values and everything. I mean, if I'd come to it with high expectations, I dare say it would be another matter entirely - but I'd just watched the whole of Robin Hood, and quite enjoyed its crappy sub-Xena charms on the basis of (1) it being full of Brits and (2) I'm always a sucker for retellings of old stories, and for swashbucklers. I don't think it's as good as Maid Marion, mind, but it was quite upfront about being cheesy crap from the first few seconds of the first episode, so you knew what you were getting. (Mind you, I occasionally found myself twitching about things like costume and suchlike, even though I knew it was all codswallop.) So you can imagine that Hex came as a pleasant surprise.

SKINS I've not heard of, though. Sounds fascinating. Which channel's airing it?

I don't think Hex has vampires - just demons.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see The Office until Friday night.

Finding out what Dwight did to Sprinkles made me hate him even more, which I didn't think was possible.

Ended up icking too much over Andy's nipple problem.

I agree that Ryan is a dick, but he's a different kind from Michael. Michael means well but is utterly iincapable of translating that impulse into doing the right thing. Ryan seems to be hellbent on getting to the top in his career and doesn't seem to care too much how he gets there.

Oh my GOD, Kevin. You met Alexis last year? I just spontaneously turned into a fourteen year old fangirl here. Gah.

Yeah. He was staying in a hotel near my apartment, and I saw him just stood in the street. He was doing the play All My Sons here. I went to see him with a few mates from the online worlds one evening - amusingly, he told us we just missed Joss Whedon, who had flown over to see the play too. The previous day.

There was a hilarious moment where he left us and rang Alyson Hannigan on his mobile. Which is all good. We walked off and headed for the pub, but on the way there he walked back in our direction and we all froze. It looked like we were following him, we realised. So I'm, like, errr - what do we do? So Alexis walks up, waves, disappears off in another direction and we continue to the pub. Very very awkward. Entirely hilarious.

With Serenity, me and my best friend Kirsty had a similar thing. We were in full fan geek mode, covered in badges and such for the movie, and randomly Chewie (The Operative) gets in the lift with us in a hotel. We stood there, frozen. He clearly noticed we were mad fans, and probably thought we had followed him there. It was very very awkward. And, yes, when he got out - hilarious.

Kevin, that is fabulous.

Fab. U. Lous.

All My Sons, eh? Fantastic. God, wish I'd seen that - delighted to hear he's doing theatre, though (although I do feel that he should be getting at least as much screen time as Boreanaz is these days, because - holy shitloads of talent, Batman!). If I could choose (and in some alternative universe somewhere I'm a jobbing actress), I would rather be doing theatre than telly. (Presuming I was making enough to pay the bills, at least.) So that's cool.

(I went to the Serenity premiere on the 2nd day of the Edinburgh showing, so I missed the whole cast thingy. Plus I went with an Edinburgh-dwelling non-geek friend who'd inadvertently been sucked into the show when staying over at my place in Cairo (despite the fact that he's so far from liking SciFi in the first place that he doesn't even much like FICTION). But it was great to see My People en masse, even though they were mostly in mufty. I got very excited about a cunning hat that I spotted, but otherwise the crowd wasn't strikingly geek-clad. Ah, Chewitel Ejiofor. Bless him. I remember when he won the prize for Best Newcomer for his performance in Blue/Orange at the National Theatre - and, my lord, hasn't he done well?)

All My Sons, eh? Fantastic. God, wish I'd seen that

The Arthur Miller play? If so, and you haven't checked out the movie, do so. Hopelessly anvilly (just like the play), but Edward G. Robinson absolutely nails the role of the father.

Did anyone watch HIMYM last night?

I didn't really like Ted and Barney on the town as tourists (except I sorta liked Barney playing the hick, but I was mostly watching NPH acting than enjoying Barney. If that makes sense). I loved Lilly and Marshall, especially at the end and I liked Robin going back to being Robin. Keeping her around doesn't seem forced (I was wondering if it would even though Future!Ted refers to her as Aunt Robin) but the scenes with her and Lilly and her and Barney really highlighted that she has friendships and is more than just the girl friend.

Did anyone watch HIMYM last night?

Argh! Forgot about it and forgot to record it AGAIN.