super-unrealistic stretches of known scientific priniciples are what SF is all about.

Well...yeah!

Matt, I thought it was really distracting and the guy I saw it with commented afterwards that Stephen Strange had about 6 accents.

ION, we watched Top Secret last night. Carson from Downton Abbey was in it. Maybe that's why he looked familiar to me!

He has many talents, but an American accent is not among them.

It reminded me so much of Hugh Laurie's accent from the first season of House. I think maybe that's just how Brits think we sound.

I always wonder if the American version of an "English" accent sounds as bad to them as many of the British "American" accents sound to me.

Did anyone else watch the London production of Gypsy on PBS over the weekend? The little kids were comical in their attempts to do the American accent a lot of the time. No shade, though -- they were doing a lot of other stuff really well!

And I just found out that Louise was also Irene Adler in Sherlock!

Oh, man, I need to see Arrival so bad so I can jump into this discussion! Stupid work. And sleep. Etc.

I always wonder if the American version of an "English" accent sounds as bad to them as many of the British "American" accents sound to me.

Well, it varies. The best are the ones where you don't realise they're not British, like Alexis Denisof or Kyle Soller off of Poldark. I'm sure there are equivalents in the US, but you don't notice because you don't clock they're not American.

Then there are the ones where you know they're not British, but the accent is OK, especially given that you're probably listening out for it. Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones falls into this category.

And then there are the out and out disasters. Dick van Dyke and Don Cheadle are probably the most well known.

But there are also lots of British and American actors not doing their native accents most of the time - David Tennant springs to mind, his Scottish roles are in the minority - and mostly pull it off. I honestly couldn't say if it's harder for a Scot to do British-English or American.

I'm sure there are equivalents in the US, but you don't notice because you don't clock they're not American.

I notice this more with Australian actor than British, but it's the toupee fallacy - since you only notice the bad ones, you think they're easy to spot.

I've been re-listening to the Outlander series, and to my ear, Davina Porter switches effortlessly between a variety of UK-based accents, but chokes when it comes to Americans. Her Bree, with two British parents, I can forgive, but her Joe Abernathy is kind of painful.

Camilla Luddington on Grey's Anatomy is one I didn't notice -- mostly. I think her accent is almost perfect, except she can't quite say "anything" right. (But could her name be more English??)