Quote: “Viewers can handle an unlikeable Doctor, but if all he does is rant and rave, he’s in danger of becoming something worse—boring.” Indiewire, hitting the nail on the head.

 

Doctor Who? No, Really, Who Is This?

After a much-anticipated start with the arrival of Peter Capaldi to the titular role, “Doctor Who” has bobbed and weaved, struggling to retain any of its old charm and pure fun. The new Doctor looks his age but certainly doesn’t act it, making decisions on a whim. Some viewers are discontent with the disjointed direction the show is taking, while others praise the writing. This weekend’s newest episode featured the moon hatching and the splintering of Clara’s relationship with the Doctor that seemed a long time coming.

 

What if it’s Shonda Rhimes’s world, and we’re just living in it…

Showrunner Shonda Rhimes, among many others, was awarded the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal in Sanders Theatre on Tuesday, just days after ShondaLand’s takeover of Thursday night on ABC. “Scandal” entered its long-awaited fourth season with a flurry of activity, catching the audience up on what we missed off-screen. Two months have passed, and the dynamics have shifted between many of our beloved characters, including the introduction of a brand-new Mellie. Rhimes had promised a return to the core cast, a downsizing that would help the show recuperate after a bit of a messy third season.  

 

In light of the recent New York Times/Shonda Rhimes scandal, audiences questioned how the premiere of “How to Get Away with Murder” would do on its first night. Although still struggling to establish itself after its first two episodes, there’s time for the show to hit its stride, and it’s definitely got enough twists to rival “Lost”.

 

Olivia Pope’s Summer Reading List...

“Gone Girl” was definitely a literary hit this summer, even making an appearance as the book Olivia is reading on the beach in the “Scandal” premiere as if readers needed any more proof of its status. The film adaptation premiered this weekend on the silver screen. Tracking the story of an unhappy marriage and a wife’s subsequent disappearance, the movie has already made waves and generated some Oscar buzz. The Rolling Stone describes it best when it calls it “the date-night movie of the decade for couples who dream of destroying one another.”     

 

What to say to your friend who’s still secretly a Twihard…

It may be time to grow up, but you’re not only one who remains hung up on the teen romance series. Lionsgate and Stephanie Meyer just announced that they will be choosing five budding female directors to create five new short films based on the series’s characters to be released via Facebook for everyone else who’s still stuck in 2008. So drink your fill and find some other series to love, for all our sakes.

 

What to Read

Want to say you read a book before it was a Nobel Prize winner? Pick up Haruki Murakami’s new novel “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.” Having lost the Nobel Prize in Literature last year to Alice Munro, this new work of fiction could just push him over the edge for this year’s award.