ambrose

I dearly love Jenna, or Jenna Louse, or whatever. She is as cute as any puppy you'd ever see. But her portayal of Victoria is uniformed (historically) and it's in a production by BBC that's strange, to say the least. Mediaeval Babes? The them is anathema to Victoria! Why not use some of ALBERT'S MUSIC!! "Alleluia" for the theme? Ugh!

Jenna's explanation that she did not know about Victoria's music (she could sing?) and almost nothing about Albert's huge influence with the importance of music (The Royal Albert Hall came out of this!). The idea that Jenna didn't know that Victoria could sing! Oh my!

The lack of Albert's musical reference and his influence in arts is sadly downplayed for political effect here. For me, I don't care! Victoria's legacy is growth of the empire and the spread of British custom, both of which are downlplayed in this series.

As a fan of the F Word as presented on UK television, I was hoping for the best. This was a big disappointment. Fox (and their associates) has changed the premise to make it impossible to care about who wins. The celebrity interviews stink. Gordon's segments on cooking are brief and odd. At least in the UK version we got some of his culinary knowledge. This was a big disappointment but it was not completely unexpected, based on what Fox has done to Gordon's prior series.

Maybe it will improve, but I don't think so. Once established, the formula is just repeated over and over.

I was anxious to see a two-part program on the life of Walt Disney. This one shown on American Experience was a disappointment. Bits of his early life were tossed in as though you knew about them. Elias was presented as a one-dimensional authoritarian figure without much love for his sons. Both Walt and Roy have disabused us of this. There are so many hundreds of hours of interviews from people who knew Walt from the early days, and these were not chosen to be included. Instead, we got the "talking heads" approach from those who have read about Walt's life.

Now, I was not expecting the Bob Thomas approach, but the first program wasted so much time with analyzing things that the facts of his life were jumbled and difficult to follow. Did Walt ever draw? When and why did he leave this and go to Laugh-O-grams? What was Elias 's attitude about this? Was Flora, his mother, supportive or critical? These things are knowable. Instead, we got more and more analysis. Then, Part One ended at a good dividing spot, but we were not prepared for the remainder of his life in the second program.

It's true, as has written another writer, that one might tell the story of Walt's life in a five part Ken Burns style mini-series and get all the interesting and necessary facts included. Given a bit less than four hours, things must be omitted. We didn't see and hear any of the Nine Old Men, or Roy E or Roy O Disney, or Diane or Sharon, or Lillian. Lillian was responsible, pretty much by herself, for *Walt* Disney Concert Hall, and Roy was responsible for the name *Walt* Disney World and not Disney World. Why was Walt interested in creating EPCOT? Did he suddenly become preoccupied with future building? We heard that Hazel was with Walt at the end but we never heard from the person who spent more time with Walt than anyone else. Of course, many of the primary sources are long dead, but video of them exists, and some of it should have been included in order to tell Walt's life story, at the expense of the some of the commentary and analysis.