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"Why can't you harness Might so that it works for Right?"

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (13)



joseph_fiennes_camelot_a_l.jpg

Starz has picked up “Camelot” to replace “Spartacus: Blood and Breasts” in its Friday time slot between seasons. There is essentially no information out about it yet, except for some particularly good casting. They’ve gotten Joseph Fiennes to play Merlin, because apparently there’s a “playing legendary wizards” gene in the family. I’m pretty sure that despite the fact that smoldering hot Merlin is obviously fantastic in its own way, this casting exists solely so we can imagine the Fiennes family sniping over the holidays. “My super wizard is smoking hot and lives backwards in time. Yours looked like a snake and got killed by the kid who has sex with a horse in Equus.”

They’ve also gotten Eva Green to play Morgan, because seductive evil is the best kind. Finally, there’s Jamie Campbell Bower as “a reckless” Arthur, who I know nothing about except what I just found on Wikipedia. He’s had roles in two Twilight films, the last two Harry Potter films, and has a minor role in HBO’s “A Game of Thrones.”

I assume that they’re starting pretty early in Arthur’s life since they’ve cast a 22 year old for the lead and also haven’t yet announced who will play Lancelot, who usually comes in a little bit later in the legends. I hear Richard Gere is available though.

The only thing that is really surprising is that Starz has time slots, which is something that should have occurred to me since it’s a television station of sorts. I’ve never seen this station other than looking briefly at satellite or cable packages that I can’t afford or seeing it on the occasional trade news post. See, I grew up without cable, because my parents thought books were a better investment. Television came on a massive antenna bolted to the roof of the house. If we rotated it one way we got Fox and nothing else, rotated the other way we got everything except Fox. So since the 49ers were in the NFC (and thus on Fox for those years), we’d have the antenna pointed towards Fox during football season and the other way for the rest of the year. A lot of people have stories like this, except that they were set about twenty five years earlier than mine.

In any case, the point is that my brain has been hard wired from childhood to have a few slots for television. There are the networks, which are free. Then there are seventy or so more channels you can get on the normal tier of satellite or cable. Then it gets really vague. I know HBO exists in theory, but only because it’s in hotel rooms and on DVD boxes. Then there is a nebulous pile of additional channels like Showtime and Starz that I collectively classify as poor-man versions of HBO that I have never ever seen except on the side of DVD boxes.

Do many people in these parts get those additional channels? Is it even meaningful for Starz to announce a timeslot other than the release date for the DVDs?









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Comments

Starz has been snagging some good stuff, like "Pillars of the Earth."

SLW, you're always one of my favorites, but now I will love you forever for giving me A Sniping Fiennes Christmas. I hope sweet potatoes get thrown in a fit of pique and that the word "Chumscrubber" gets bandied about.

Posted by: coveredinbees at December 20, 2010 3:59 PM

Also Jamie Campbell Bower was pleasantly flaxen-haired in Sweeney Todd. That's about all the praise I can muster.

Posted by: coveredinbees at December 20, 2010 4:00 PM

I've never heard of Starz. Or, I've heard of it but thought it was Showtime because they both begin with S. I don't get those fancy, schmancy, additional channels. I rent the DVD's as soon as they are available on Netflix.

The last time I watched HBO, there was only one HBA and they had a countdown of about 15 to 20 minutes before each movie started, and you'd sit and watch the clock countdown while someone cycled through a park with a video camera strapped to his forehead. We were easily entertained in the old days.

Posted by: BWeaves at December 20, 2010 4:03 PM

Here is the distinction between the Fienneses:

Joseph - aesthetically pleasing, yet myopically dim-witted looking, severely-limited acting range

Ralph - aesthetically-pleasing, bangs flight attendants mid-flight, looks intelligent and often appealingly naughty, quite good at treading the boards

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at December 20, 2010 4:17 PM

Score! Jamie Bower Whatever has a pretentious Twitter feed and his own website. I smell a teen idol!

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at December 20, 2010 4:19 PM

You can't beat Helena Bonham Carter as Morgan...nor Sam Neill as Merlin. And who can forget Miranda Richardson as the seriously fucking hot Mab?

They should just give it up already.

I mean, who the fuck actually watches that TV series "Merlin?"

And now this?

PFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffttttttttttttttt.

Posted by: DeistBrawler at December 20, 2010 4:32 PM

They’ve also gotten Eva Green to play Morgan

Sold.

Posted by: Todd at December 20, 2010 4:53 PM

That Bower kid looks like a young Jonathan Rhys Meyer, which is to say, thank God there's another generation coming up.

Posted by: AM at December 20, 2010 5:30 PM

Hey, don't knock "Merlin".

Yes, it is derivative and a total ripoff of Smallville, but it also has Giles as an evil son of bitch. That alone makes it awesome.

Posted by: SpacemanSpiff at December 20, 2010 6:19 PM

If you subscribe to Netflix you don't have to have Starz because they stream all of their movies and series onto Netflix. That's all I know about that.

Because I have Netflix I no longer have any of the movie channels on cable. However, I do have every other channel available on Time Warner cable. (Love my sports tier.)

I love Ralph Fiennes so I will look forward to "Camelot" even though I have never really cared for the story of Arthur and his band of merry knights!!

Posted by: mslewis at December 20, 2010 10:22 PM

I'd always heard that Camelot was a very silly place.

Posted by: CptCrckpot at December 20, 2010 11:12 PM

The good thing about the shows on Starz that they are always available the next day for streaming on Flexcube

Posted by: Brian at December 21, 2010 1:28 PM

sorry, that should say "streaming on Roku"

Don't post while on conference calls. The words start to run together

Posted by: Brian at December 21, 2010 1:30 PM