Ioan spotting....

Happened to see an episode of Fox's animated series, "American Dad," on Sunday night and noticed that Ioan Gruffudd's name came up in the credits. What's our favorite British midshipman, Horatio Hornblower, doing lending his beautiful British voice to a bit (and I mean bit) role on the series? Not sure, but I'd much rather see him in person. If he's got time for this, clearly he should have the time to sign on for a few more installments of the Hornblower series? -- Amy

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham?

Village gossips report that Keira Knightley and Rupert Friend, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham in last year's Pride & Prejudice, have been seen frolicking together sans chaperone. --Kim

Kate and Sam to Take Revolutionary Road

Actress Kate Winslet and her director hubby Sam Mendes (Jarhead, American Beauty) are considering an adaptation of Richard Rates' 1961 novel Revolutionary Road. Here's a description of the "rediscovered" novel from Amazon.com:

April and Frank Wheeler are a young, ostensibly thriving couple living with their two children in a prosperous Connecticut suburb in the mid-1950s. However, like the characters in John Updike's similarly themed Couples, the self-assured exterior masks a creeping frustration at their inability to feel fulfilled in their relationships or careers. Frank is mired in a well-paying but boring office job and April is a housewife still mourning the demise of her hoped-for acting career. Determined to identify themselves as superior to the mediocre sprawl of suburbanites who surround them, they decide to move to France where they will be better able to develop their true artistic sensibilities, free of the consumerist demands of capitalist America. As their relationship deteriorates into an endless cycle of squabbling, jealousy and recriminations, their trip and their dreams of self-fulfillment are thrown into jeopardy.

--Kim

Update: Forgot to link to the source.

Life After Bleak House...

We'll have no more Lady Dedlock after this Sunday, but happily, Masterpiece Theater has plenty more to offer this spring. Writer Andrew Davies (who adapted Bleak House) gives us his take on another classic in "He Knew He Was Right," an Anthony Trollope novel best described as a Victorian version of Shakespeare's Othello. It airs March 26 and April 2.

I'm also excited for the MP production, Under the Greenwood Tree, airing on April 23. It's a Thomas Hardy adaptation about a Dorset village schoolteacher who's expected to marry rich, but (whaddayaknow) falls for the penniless bachelor in town. More details to come. If it's even half as good as the Masterpiece Theater version of Far From the Madding Crowd, I'm sold. -- Amy

If You Missed It The First Time...

PBS is re-broadcasting "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (starring Rupert Everett) on Tuesday, March 5. Here's our review from when it aired last October. -- Amy

Papa, Can You Hear Me?

Director Roger Donaldson recently denied circulating reports that Anthony Hopkins would be starring in an Ernest Hemingway biopic. "There were too many problems with the rights and the financing," says Donaldson, who directed Sir Anthony in his latest release, "The World's Fastest Indian." -- Amy

Big Wig....

My heart is palpitating having just seen a trailer for The Libertine starring Johnny Depp, John Malkovich and Samantha Morton. Heralded as the "most controversial film of the year," it hits theaters on March 10. Has a man in a wig ever looked so hot? -- Amy