A Tale of Two Cities Dream Cast

A Tale of Two Cities is my favorite novel. So, even the whiff of a chance of a rumor that it may be filmed is enough to get me out dream casting. As it is, we're pretty sure that BBC4 will be adapting it soon. It's more than due, since the last TV version was in 1989, and it hasn't been on the big screen since 1958, if we don't count The Dark Knight Rises (which, given the cop-out ending, we don't). The new version is written by Alan Bleasdale, and Netflix might co-produce. There's also a feature film which has been on the shelf for ages. So who knows? Maybe we'll get two, which means there will be lots of thinkpieces from me.

To begin with some minor characters...

Agent Carter: Victimhood and Humility

[First of a series on female characters, feminism, and all that jazz. Haven't got it all worked out yet, but expect posts on The Phantom of the Opera, The New World, and more.]

When it comes to period drama, it's best to go British. Happily, despite the fact that Agent Carter is produced in America, it features the very British Hayley Atwell in the title role of Peggy Carter, which is nearly the same thing.

Taking up a few years after Captain America: The First Avenger left off, the first episode of Agent Carter finds Peggy (a luminous Atwell) struggling to readjust to civilian life. By what was surely some catastrophic bureaucratic error on high, Peg has been confined to an office job, serving coffee and pushing paper for a bunch of sexists. This has left her pretty depressed, feeling not only inadequate, but sorrowful, flashing back to her last moments talking to Steve Rogers. Thankfully, this morose introspection is interrupted when she's enlisted by Howard Stark (father of Tony, played by a delightfully mischievous Dominic Cooper) to help clear his name. Stark has been accused of selling weapons to the enemy - when, in fact, some super-sinister organization is behind it all.