Morning Coffee (5/27/17)

(The problem with happy Friday links these days is that there are then a million bombshells to catch up on on Saturday.)

Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin

Senate Intelligence Committee requests Trump campaign documents

Jared Kushner now a focus in Russia investigation

A Republican strategist is now confirmed to have colluded with Russian hackers

The Trump administration just lost its best chance at a legal win on the travel ban

A fascinating profile: Wanna Know What Donald Trump Is Really Thinking? Read Maggie Haberman

Click through for contract details - parental leave, yay! - if you're interested: Writers Guild of America Members Ratify New Three-Year Contract

I am very excited that Olivia Colman is coming back to our TVs: ‘Broadchurch’ Season 3 Gets June Premiere Date On BBC America

Heh: Harvard's Student Paper Is Drunk and Taking Potshots at Mark Zuckerberg

This is way harder than it should be, and in some cases I could only figure it out because Rowling would never write as badly as Trump speaks, even on purpose: Who Said It: Donald Trump or Vernon Dursley?

Morning Coffee (2/10/17)

Okay, time for some happy Friday links to distract us.

This Tom Hiddleston profile is just COMPLETELY delightful. COMPLETELY.

Perhaps you need a She Persisted shirt?

I'm very excited about the next season of Broadchurch.

Hahahaha. THIS SUNDAE.

Ooh, there are some interesting teases in this Star Trek: Discovery video.

This is the kind of heist movie I want to see.

The Chinese literary sensation who moved to Mayo for love

CHEESE SCIENCE!

I want them all: 30 Pairs of Excellent Bookish Earrings

Ooh, 6 Stops on the Hunt for the Holy Grail. I've been to one of them!

This is so cool: How an Antiquarian Horologist Brings Tiny Machines Back to Life

As is this: The Citrus Family Tree

Weird and Hilarious Illustrations from Victorian-Era Shakespeare Plays

Morning Coffee (5/13/14)

Oh no: Casey Kasem is missing.

Has the Santa Maria been found?

Castle fans, if you're reeling after last night's finale, here's a postmortem with Andrew Marlowe.

Broadchurch and/or David Tennant fans, here's the trailer for Gracepoint. Unpopular opinion: I'm fascinated to see how they start from the same place and wind up somewhere different.

Hieroglyph seems like this year's Sleepy Hollow, as in "FOX concept that sounds bizarre and terrible but might end up being awesome."

Why are people freaking out about Satanism at Harvard?

On Grief and Eating

The Onion: Stone-Hearted Ice Witch Forgoes Exclamation Point

Hurrah for Broadchurch!

British crime drama Broadchurch premiered on BBC America last night, so I realize that now pretty much everyone is writing posts that say "Yay Broadchurch! It was great!" But I feel compelled to add my voice to the chorus - yay! It was great! While I do like traditional murder-of-the-week crime shows, I am also enjoying this current (mainly European, it seems) trend of slower shows that trace one investigation over the course of a season or more. (I even liked season two of the U.S. version of The Killing. I know, I know.) When done correctly, these slower investigations mean that the detectives we follow from case to case aren't the only real characters. The people in the victim's life, who in most procedurals are brief guest stars, get to be multidimensional characters in their own right - if the show is written correctly, at least, and so far it looks like Broadchurch is. The victim's family, the newsagent, and the local reporters are already interesting, and I look forward to seeing how it develops everyone further.

Broadchurch is set up with some familiar elements - the victim's slightly shady parent, a friend with secrets, small town intrigue - but that's by no means a bad thing. The conventions of the genre exist for a reason, and there's space to do almost anything within that framework. Among the cast, David Tennant's getting most of the attention, of course, but others shine too and the variety of interesting female characters are worth some focus as well: Olivia Colman as an ambitious detective who also happens to be a mother, Jodie Whittaker and Charlotte Beaumont as the victim's mother and sister, Carolyn Pickles as the local newspaper editor with unflinching standards, Vicky McClure as a somewhat mysterious and morally questionable young ambitious reporter. Now that I think about it, in the first episode, at least, more time was given to the women's career ambitions than to the men's, and it will be interesting to see how that progresses.

I'm not going to promise to write about Broadchurch every week, because inevitably something would happen to prevent that, but I'll try to check back in next week, at least, to see if the second episode lived up to the hopes I have after watching the first. If you missed it, it looks like BBC America is rerunning the premiere on Friday at 11pm. And at the moment, you can watch the premiere for free online, though I'm not sure how long that will last.

Morning Coffee (8/8/13)

My friends Heather and Crissy have their Vampire Diaries companion book Love You to Death 4 coming out soon, and look who wrote the foreword!

The awesome Holly Black is touring in September, including some New England dates. Go see her!

Leonardo DiCaprio might play Harald Hardrada, and I appreciate that the first line of this piece is basically "But he's already playing Rasputin!", because that was my exact reaction.

After last night's Broadchurch (more on that later), if you need a phone notification sound of David Tennant yelling "Bloody Twitter!", well, here you go.

Ryan is wise: “Doctor Who” has a new lead, but is in more desperate need of a new showrunner

I had no idea about this history of The Oregon Trail. (The game, not the actual historical thing.)

Interesting read: Who Am I to Judge? Francis Redefines the Papacy

Stephen King's Family Business