Now, ah, you guys are gonna figure out how to spellcheck the word “episodes”before you take over ITV, right…?

I am available for hire these days. Like I used to be. Should you have any writer/script editor/story producer needs. 🤷🏻‍♂️ www.andrewellard.com

Ooh, Alice and Steve is very good indeed.

Just played chapter 8 of 007 First Light. Haven’t loved a Bond game this much ever. Not even close. Someone have me on a podcast to rhapsodise. So much good writing. Two back to back scenes equate Bond with heart and hope. Words rarely used for the character but so applicable. It’s a real *take*.

I know Charlie Higson’s book kinda got there first, but Amazon/Villeneuve would be crazy to miss the chance to start their Bond series with the title On His Majesty’s Secret Service.

The YouTube video essays by @montyzander.bsky.social are always good, but this rich analysis of Wolfenstein: The New Order - a franchise I’ve barely a passing interest in - is peak stuff. https://youtu.be/QydfhmIy9pw

Oh thank god for a grown-up take on the Doctor Who situation.

Hulke's whole script, and the full story of the Stanmark radio pitch, can be found in issue 3 of Nothing at the End of the Lane: www.endofthelane.co.uk/Issue3PDF.html

Gah, yes!

Of all #DoctorWho historical papers this is maybe my new favourite curio - Malcolm Hulke’s 1966 pitch for at a new pilot script for the show. This was mooted for radio, potentially to star Bella Lugosi as the Doctor, or later Peter Cushing. (Taken from David Brunt’s Hartnell Production Diary book.)

Going live imminently! New video explores a BRILLIANT trick Camfield pulled off in Devil’s Planet. ➡️ youtu.be/OPnvw8HOhxc?...

Watched Innerspace with a fellow autistic. Now feels like it’s about a neurodiverse man who gains an inner neurotypical voice to guide him. Making him better able to navigate social situations like meetings and romances, read subtexts more clearly, and manage anxiety.

I ended up quite taken with The Drama. A sitcom script (not a complaint) shot like a thriller. It read to me as damning of modern America’s cultural failures of empathy, intellect, comprehension and acknowledgement of culpability. YMMV.

❤️ Literally just on the NASA live feed: Artemis II: We can see the moon in one window, the earth in the other. It gives the best sense of the scale and distance yet. I got a photo with my wide angle lens. CAPCOM: Amaze amaze amaze.

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

Doing this. Come? https://londonscreenwritersfestival.com/keeping-your-voice-in-features-and-tv/

Still find myself giggling at last week’s #SNLUK, particularly Shakespeare’s “cunty little earring”. Roll on episode two.

Oh, it did. Almost entirely. Well - jolly good, then. On we go!

I’m incredibly keen to have SNL UK succeed, but so far I’ve seen marketing references eel pie and beans on toast. Which is how the UK looks to Americans - an outsider take. Like the US version, to win this needs to feel like the call is coming from inside the house.

Having such a visceral, joyous reaction to the #DoctorWho lost episodes news. What a feeling.

Rob Grant. I can’t believe it. All love and respect to his family. Half of the team that showed teenage me how ambitious sitcom storytelling could be - so well that I made it a career. I rewatched Red Dwarf: Terrorform tonight. Because it always felt to me like an especially Robbish episode.

Just remembered how I had Citizen Kane spoiled for me years before I knew it existed by an episode of The Real Ghostbusters that featured a ghost obsessed with recovering his SPOILER.

And now it IS December. Who needs greetings cards?

I’ve been itching to tell someone that Predator Badlands and How To Train your Dragon have some serious narrative overlap. Ahem: Predator Badlands and How To Train your Dragon have some serious narrative overlap.

Always felt Kill Bill’s black and white fight needed re-editing. The eye doesn’t track as fast shot-to-shot without colour, which is how it was originally edited. Having it returned to colour for The Whole Bloody Affair? I’m IN. Not for the blood, for the clarity of action. youtu.be/-SzkFgEqB6Y?...

Very much enjoyed Eden, Ron Howard’s new film on Prime. Good ‘hell is other people’ stuff, which I hate-enjoy. For all the 1930s setting its’s horribly contemporary. All influencers, egotists and resource terror. Worth renting The Galapagos Affair documentary from Apple for two quid afterwards.

What exactly happened with those two totally separate Lord of the Rings DVD documentaries? This is a really good breakdown of the hows and whys. https://youtu.be/k68X9r14XAw?si=poOaKGIwjEVQYFaN

Buying groceries in the States is insane right now, even compared to the UK cossy-lives. Normal big bag of Doritos costs $5.50 in the supermarket, which is about £4.10! (In the UK they’re £2.50, which is about $3.40)

I tried using a friend’s sex toy but it was a totally different vibe.

The BBC iPlayer app on my AppleTV box just gained subtitling. Huge font, not adjustable, but…there they are. Working. Like they’ve not been saying it’s impossible for six years. Any else got this?!

As a Stephen King fan, two Bachman adaptions coming out this year is cool all hell. That both look like they totally get the source materials’ dystopias is THRILLING. The Long Walk trailer has a real 70s-gone-bad vibe. The Running Man’s has an asshole battling the world that made him into one. 😁👍🏻

Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, Han Solo and Finn all have the same arc: from self-interested scoundrel to committed rebel. And I enjoy the moment that change lands every single time.

Cassian always shoots first #Andor

Ellie and Joel in season 2 = Amy and Rory in season 7 = Leslie and Ron in season 7

I have a new car. And I have read the whole manual. (Cos autism.) But I cannot find out what these two little dudes are. They’re not lights, microphones, air vents or speakers. The block fills a space that, on some models, stores sunglasses. Can they really be just…nipples? For the aesthetic?!

When I first got on TikTok I was thrilled but surprised to discover hundreds of young people who loved the Phil Collins songs from Disney’s Tarzan. With a mania. None of the weary disgust of the reviews at the time. Using Take Me Home on the new #DoctorWho trailer? Love it. I bet they will too.

Delighted by this inadvertent Severance pun from the AppleTV menu.

Live Laugh Logopolis

If I were editing the Broccoli-Wilson 007 tribute video for the #Oscars I might not have included a clip from Never Say Never Again, since that was a rival film to their franchise…

Seems unwise to murder three Bond songs in front of so many witnesses. #Oscars

@jamesmoran.com We have, at last, a name: Squeepoo! https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNd1EVP5o/

Also, we just got to see Scarlett Johansson playing a version of Audrey from Little Shop and it was *perfect*. #SNL50

I’m doing my best to make sense of #snl50 and it’s going pretty well - all the archive content thrown out in recent weeks set up a lot of the references and callbacks.

@chrishewitt.bsky.social @helenlohara.bsky.social Hello, and thank you for being reliably splendid podcast voices. 👋🏻

Ace from #DoctorWho is named for her catchphrase. Itself just a common exclamation of positivity in the 1980s. Which is actually great. I would totally accept a modern companion named Slay.