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Doux News: July 12, 2015

This Week: Comic Con and Beyond – Behind the Star Wars Scene – The Shannara Chronicles – (Fear the) Walking Dead Trailer – Doctor Who Trailer – Merry Christmas! – And an Unhappy New Year – Con Man – One Australian City… – Random Recommendation – This Week in Trumps


Comic Con and Beyond

There’s been lots of great Comic Con news throughout the week—especially the official Doux Reviews Twitter feed from the lovely Ms. Bunny. Here are some highlights from the con and beyond:

The second season of Agent Carter will focus on a murder, which will just cement its awesomeness: Peggy Carter, sunshine noir, gumshoe detective…I am so excited.

Neal McDonough will play Damien Darhk on the fourth season of Arrow.

Amy Acker will have a recurring role on the USA drama (dramedy?) Suits.

Elodie Yung (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) will play Elektra in the second season of Daredevil, which will also feature John Bernthal as the Punisher (an anti-hero who kills with punny wordplay).


Behind the Star Wars Scenes




The Shannara Chronicles

MTV’s adaptation of Terry Brooks’ The Shannara Chronicles premieres in January:




(Fear the) Walking Dead Trailer

Season Six of The Walking Dead premieres October 11th. (A full list of Fall Premieres is available here.)



Fear the Walking Dead premieres on the same night on August 23:




Doctor Who Trailer

Doctor Who premieres September 19th.




Merry Christmas!

A sneak peak at the Sherlock Christmas Special:




And an Unhappy New Year

According to co-creator and producer Mark Frost, the new season of Twin Peaks has been pushed back to 2017: “We’ve finished the scripts, we start production in September, and that will be coming out on Showtime in 2017.”


Con Man

Alan Tudyk’s Indiegogo-funded Con Man will premiere on Vimeo in September. The web series will feature Nathan Fillion, Henry Rollins (!!), Seth Green, Joss Whedon, and probably some women, too.




One Australian City Gave Email Addresses to Its Trees—and You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!

The Atlantic has a lovely article on a new trend in arboreal correspondence. The city of Melbourne assigned email addresses to various trees so that people could report problems, like obstructive branches or portals to Christmasland. Instead, people began to email the trees various love letters. For instance:

Dear Green Leaf Elm,

I hope you like living at St. Mary's. Most of the time I like it too. I have exams coming up and I should be busy studying. You do not have exams because you are a tree. I don't think that there is much more to talk about as we don't have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I'm glad we're in this together.

Cheers,
F


And—here’s where it gets awesome—sometimes the trees wrote back:

Hello F,

I do like living here.

I hope you do well in your exams. Research has shown that nature can influence the way people learn in a positive way, so I hope I inspire your learning.

Best wishes,
Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165


That’s wonderful. I’d love to have a serious chat with the poor, thirsty magnolia tree outside my window about that terrible crow who keeps harassing the sparrows. I'm also fascinated by the comments on the article, which seemed to fall into two extreme camps: those who, like me, think this is one of the sweetest things they’ve ever heard, and those who think we should all go fuck ourselves for having imaginations.


Random Recommendation

HBO has been promoting the heck out of 7 Days in Hell, and I decided to watch it this weekend.

Here’s what I thought I was going to watch: a feature-length dramatized version of the world’s longest tennis match. I was pretty sure that such a thing existed, but I didn’t know the details, and I was excited to learn something. I really looked forward to Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, SNL), who is always hilarious. Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones) isn’t bad to look at. I played tennis when I was younger, too, although I don't follow the sport. Win-draw-win.

Here’s what 7 Days in Hell actually is: a 42-minute skit about a tennis match that never took place. There is no seven-day match on the records, and there is no tennis match—certainly not at Wimbledon—that involves an on-court threeway, the queen of England calling a young man a “fuck slut,” and numerous deaths. Andy Samberg plays a wackadoodle coked-up has-been; Kit Harrington plays a young man who knows nothing. It is supposed to be a comedy.

Here’s what it’s based on: there is a world’s longest tennis match: over 11 hours of play, spread across 3 days, with a total of 183 games in the first round of the Men’s Singles at the 2010 Wimbledon.

And here’s what I discovered on the internet (via a comment on the AV Club's review): the world’s most awesome liveblog, courtesy of the Guardian, on Day Two and Day Three of the match. A sample:

The Isner-Mahut battle is a bizarre mix of the gripping and the deadly dull. It's tennis's equivalent of Waiting For Godot, in which two lowly journeymen comedians are forced to remain on an outside court until hell freezes over and the sun falls from the sky…On and on they go. Soon they will sprout beards and their hair will grow down their backs, and their tennis whites will yellow and then rot off their bodies. And still they will stand out there on Court 18, belting aces and listening as the umpire calls the score. Finally, I suppose, one of them will die.

Do I recommend you watch 7 Days in Hell? Hell no. Do I recommend you read the liveblog, even if you don’t know much about tennis? Absolutely I do.


This Week in Trumps

Instagram user “trumpyourcat” has a wonderful variety of cats sporting Donald Trump’s trademark hairstyle:


(Via Billie via Rachel Maddow via Instagram)

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

12 comments:

  1. That tree story may be my favorite news item of 2015. Except for maybe the TrumpYourCat. I actually brushed Fox last night and put the fur on his head and it was hilarious, although Fox found it disconcerting.

    We have to wait until October for Fear the Walking Dead??? That's terrible!

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  2. Fun article this week,

    The tree stuff was both lovely and a bit disturbing. Why are people like that? I mean who can have a problem with a sincere conversation with a favorite tree? I've spoken to many trees over the years, and only one answered me back. It was a life changing exchange about nature and living in one place for its entire life. Watching the world flow around is such an elegant and beautiful thing. I think more tree's should have e-mail addresses. People should learn how to slow down and enjoy the things around them more, and trees can be great examples in that regard.

    I think you may have read an incorrect date for Fear the Walking Dead. From what I understand is premieres August 23.

    Yesterday there was a lot of buzz around the new trailer for the upcoming Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. So here is the link for that.

    https://youtu.be/0WWzgGyAH6Y

    Until next week!

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  3. J.D. is correct. Fear the Walking Dead will premiere August 23, then The Walking Dead will premiere after the spinoff series is done. They are going to stretch that ratings beast over as much of their yearly schedule as they can! :)

    I loved that Con Man trailer. It looks like such a fun romp. We may have to try to squeeze that one into the budget once it comes out.

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  4. Amy Acker on Suits? That will be a fun little Angel reunion with Gina Torres.

    Also just learned that the awesome Teddy Sears has been cast in Flash as Jay Garrick, the Original Flash.

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  5. Thanks for the corrections, guys! I update the Fear the Walking Dead info. That's what I get for trusting a YouTube blurb. :-)

    I'm so glad you all like the tree thing. Once I read that article, I knew I had to write up a Doux News this week to share it.

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  6. An anti-hero who kills with punny wordplay? I think you have the Punisher confused with Deadpool. I suspect Frank Castle had any sense of humor he may have once had surgically removed lest it get in the way of his mission.

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  7. Tricksterson, I know who the Punisher is. It was meant to be a pun: pun/punisher, since he's so very unfunny and really doesn't kill with words.

    It turned out to be a failed pun, I guess. Oh well. At least I still have that tree article. :-)

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  8. I liked 7 Days in Hell, I thought it was funny! (Apart from the unnecessarily crude bits. And while the jokes about the UK were mostly on point and pretty funny - we're too polite to point things out etc - the Swedish stuff was just bad). I remember the Isner-Mahut match, I watched most of it while I was working - that was amazing.

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  9. That liveblog is brilliant, thanks for the link Josie! The writer was pretty funny before the insanity started, but then it gets better and better!

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  10. I saw the tree story - it made my week. Anyone who has a problem with that article has an icy, shrivelled ball of evil for a heart.

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  11. For those with a sense of humor or an interest in tennis, 7 Days in Hell is actually very funny. Crude and silly at times, but what do you expect from something with Andy Samberg?

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