Dorcas Lane; Dorky Name, Great Character

Who would have named their child (or their character) "Dorcas"?

Seemed a strange thing to do to someone, so I looked it up.  Turns out Dorcas is a Biblical name, so there's your answer. And apparently "that" Dorcas is such a big religious figure (and a disciple) that she even has a feast day here in the US. (So you can see how religious I am.)  Not only that, but her name means "gazelle". Wow. I guess this is all really cool! . . . Making me not just a heathen but rather a jerk for making fun of her name. . .

In any case, Dorcas Lane (great name) is a character in Lark Rise to Candleford and is fast becoming one of my favorite female roles.

Julia Sawalha plays this post-mistress -- a single woman, a community leader, a feminist and a stylish dresser. Dorcas is a warm, kind, soft, motherly woman and is also unabashedly sexy to men and gets to have a steady stream of very attractive suitors. She's honest and forthright -- not demure or shrinking -- and she's smart and funny. On top of all this she is definitely 40-something. Damn I love British tv!

Unlike in other countries (which shall for the moment remain nameless), where only 20-something women with perfect features get to be sexy and sought-after, Dorcas is a real woman on British tv. She is not flawless, but she is beautiful. (This reminds me of a running joke on the show, of Dorcas saying: "this is my one flaw" -- which changes all the time depending on whether she's applying that label to chocolate, or champagne, or meddling.) She is just like so many other real women I know. Nuanced and alive.

Proving yet again that for people who aren't too shallow to see it, 40+ is fine.

Speaking as someone who's "one flaw" is an obsession with British tv, I truly appreciate having such an astonishingly cool female character to watch.

Harry and Ruth of Spooks (MI-5): Another of the Best Couples of All Time.

MI-5 (Spooks') Harry Pearce & Ruth Evershed are a wonderful couple. Neither of them is perfect but they represent something higher.  Not every one who is in love gets to be together happily. We all know this is true; many of us have lived this situation and know it intimately, but few do it with such class.   

Despite living with the frustration of a friendship that has (almost) caught fire again and again, they don't succumb to anger and pettiness. Despite their water under the bridge they focus on their jobs and they don’t usually have trouble doing what needs to be done despite their feelings. They are living that not-quite-realized love that in some ways is a more perfect one than that lived by those who focus on what is physical.

After Season 9, the viewer can still hope that something will happen for the two of them. I understand that the Spooks writers are giving hints that they are not done with this storyline and interesting things are in store for Season 10. So it is too early to give the post mortem, but as of now, Harry and Ruth have: made lots of eye contact, declared a variety of feelings, been through hellish circumstances together, and kissed, once. Harry has also proposed. (I find it beyond adorable and old fashioned that he has proposed to a woman who, as far as I know, he has never even slept with and may have only kissed once. Cheers, Harry!)

Their relationship caught my attention almost from the moment Ruth walked on screen in Season 2. It got to develop slowly and naturally. In early seasons of the show, I didn’t really like Harry that much – he comes on too strong; he’s a little haughty and arrogant and harder to “get.” Ruth is the humanizing aspect of the show. She breezes in almost clumsily looking and seeming out of place; she is easy to take for granted. We can see ourselves in her – she represents what a real human might do (albeit, a real human with superb intelligence) under the extraordinary pressure cooker of being a secret agent. She is the lens we get to look at the rest of the Spooks through as an every woman and slowly, her lens allows us to see and fall in love with Harry

Just as the writing and acting allowed the character of Harry to settle down a bit and feel more realized, very subtly, a slightly deeper relationship could start to be detected between Harry and Ruth. In an interview with Peter Firth, he said that the original impetus for the relationship came from him and Nicola Walker – the actors. He said they were flirting with each other on set and that bled over to them holding their glances a bit longer and exchanging a bit more meaning when they interacted as characters, and that the writers for the show picked up on it and began to develop it. 

I think that is really cool – kind of the way real relationships develop in that subtle and unplanned way in real life. How one brief, almost imperceptible moment can give the suggestion that another person is interested and how that interest can be the very thing that seems attractive; how, subtly, before you realize you are even aware of someone you realize you have a crush on them. This natural root to the relationship and its slow unfolding feel very real.

They have taken turns being more in love and too busy or distracted and somehow, as out of sync with each other and burdened by their jobs as they are, they never seem to devolve towards snippiness. They treat each other with respect and kindness. So (as of now) they get to live in love but apart; soul mates who may work together but not be together as lovers.

 

The depth of this type of relationship is very sexy and is something that we don’t usually get to see portrayed on screen.  Peter Firth is not a gorgeous guy but he becomes extremely attractive as Harry – especially when he is near Ruth. These actors are middle aged. And neither has the kind of conventional beauty you usually see in Hollywood, but they both radiate great appeal and attractiveness on screen. And they become beautiful in the context of this pairing.

They are an all time great couple.

See also, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, the best couple of all time.

And if you liked this post, you might also like the Ultimate Spooks-Lovers Harry and Ruth Episode Guide or my homage to Sir Harry: The Strange Mystique of Harry Pearce. I Worship His SirShip

"MI-5's Harry and Ruth: Another of the Best Couples of All Time." LostinBritishTV 

Lets Get Real -- MI-5's Ros Myers is Amazing.

Ros Myers of MI-5 (Spooks) kicks ass. She has a great hair cut. She is a seriously ripped hard body. (I only know that part because in one episode, she is shown lying on her bed grieving for a team member who's died and she's wearing a strappy tank. Her shoulders and biceps are amazing!) She wears skinny jeans and has long legs.

Were she to be photographed with an eye toward presenting her beauty she would be stunning. She has gorgeous eyes and great bone structure. But in Spooks, she is shot with a camera just inches from her face. She wears minimal makeup. She is about 40 years old and you can tell because the camera is not seeking beauty lighting when it films her (or anyone else on the show). Her face is lined.  That the character of a beautiful actress' face is allowed to be brazenly depicted on screen for all to see is a tremendous thing. No one is putting Vaseline on the lens in Spooks; if anything, they seem to seek out harsh shots to depict agents that are far from perfect, lined with the stress and care that has come from years of doing a difficult job.

But the wonderful part of seeing our actors this way is that it allows the viewer to really relate to them. She is amazing and leads a spectacular life but I don't feel jealous of her. We are very far apart in almost every way, yet I get to love her because I see her as a complete human being who is both fit and beautiful but also really "lived in". Relateable. My face looks like that too. I have loose neck skin and deep lines. And I am beautiful. Just like Ros.

And its not just Ros, the secret agent, who is brave. How many 40ish actresses are as brave as Hermione Norris in allowing herself to be shown in every detail, just as she is - both the stunningly attractive details and the ones most of us seek to hide.


She is an inspiration on so many levels. I do love Ros. If you do too, check out my complete homage to her in: Why Ros Reigns Supreme.

Downton Abbey's Anna & Bates and the Theory of Reality Fantasy

I have a new theory of fantasy. There are so many extraordinarily attractive people to be found in movies and on TV. These extraordinary people usually get to have exciting adventures, wear great clothes and hang out with other sexy people. For viewers, us regular folk, being attracted to purely fantasy people makes sense. They are perfect and gorgeous and fun to watch. They have lives we don't know or have and will never know or have and, honestly, don't even want to know or have. This is fantasy fantasy and it's nice, too.

But give me a choice between Brad Pitt and Brendan Coyle (Mr. Bates in the amazing television drama Downton Abbey), there is simply no contest. The winner is Mr. Bates. I know a lot of other people agree with me. Why is Mr. Bates and his touching relationship with Anna so deeply attractive?

Because of reality fantasy. Bates is someone we know -- or could know. He is flawed, interesting and compelling. He is both ordinary and extraordinary. His beauty is found partly on his face and partly in his character.  His face might not leap off the screen at you. It would be forgivable to not notice it at all and take him for just a regular person - a character actor. But blink, look again, and you'll see that he's fantasy normal. He is sort of every man, but he is so much better. Once you see it, it takes fire.

It radiates from the intelligent sparkle in his gaze. The depth of history and experience that lurks just below the surface. Oh, and maybe this only applies for Americans, but it resides in his to-die-for accent. It is found in his mischievousness mouth. The slight smile and beautiful curl to the lip line. He can talk. You can see that he can and will talk and say exactly what we want to hear - sometime. It resides in his broad, magnetic style. Once we stop to really see him, we know, instinctively, we want to get to know him better.  He works for a living. He walks with a limp. He is middle aged. He has a past. I don't know if I like him in spite of or because of these things.


Anna. Here is a woman who is beautiful on the surface and underneath. She is blond and young and pretty. But she is in a station in life where she might as well be anything else for all the good her charms will do her. She is past the first flower of youth. She works hard and is happy enough with her place but emptiness and longing are there as well. There is no real excitement in her life as she lives to work and serve. Yes, she is good -- through-and-through -- but she is not a simpery do-gooder. She is someone we like and would want to be friends with. She is someone we are, or have been.

But better.

Anna has spirit and consults her internal compass in deciding what is right or wrong. That internal compass allows her to: (1) drag a dead body from one part of the house to another in order to protect her mistress, (2) work to re-plant false evidence of theft in the room of Mr. Bates' foe after he tried to frame Bates, (3) open the corridor door between the male and female servants' halls when she was forbidden to do so, (4) seek out and conference with Bates' mother behind his back to try and clear his name, (5) cover up for her roommate when said roommate sneaks off for the day. Anna is forthright and unapologetic.

So, here is this lovely, grownup, lonely woman serving others in the house where she will likely live for a long time. The only men in her world are the completely out of reach aristocratic visitors and the servants like Thomas (the gay rogue), William (the shy, green, boy) and Carson (the much older butler). Almost from the moment she smiles a friendly welcome to Bates, we can see that this man, even though damaged goods in many ways, is the best opportunity for her in a long time. Opportunity, that is, for real friendship, shared exasperation with the goings on, and intelligent and thoughtful conversation.

By the time we learn that he is smart, kind, thoughtful, proud and sweet, Anna is already head over heels for Bates. When he walks into the kitchens where she sits alone and says tongue in cheek: "alone at last", we see the effect on her face.

For his part, when Bates comes to Downton Abbey, he is a slightly beaten man. He is deeply thankful for his chance to work. This situation must work out and he has his eye on nothing else. He is not thinking of love or even friendship - just living. Getting through. Making this work. Anna is kind to him and he's glad enough of it, but he isn't thinking about her. He has stopped seeing himself as a man. His disability, his age, and his past which includes war and taking the rap for a crime he didn't do, have put him where many of us are - in a course to the finish with blinders on. Plodding through as best as we can with the challenges life puts in front of us.

However, it doesn't take long for her presence to work on him at a deeper level. Seeing Anna and talking to her, he cannot help but notice how pretty she is. Deep inside he remembers women -- what it meant to be with a woman and it feels good to remember. But his crippled leg puts him in his place. He knows he is an old broken man. Almost against his will Bates begins to want to be young and whole again. I think this is why he looks for the limp-corrector and goes through the ordeal of trying to fix himself. He wants to be complete and even attractive. (He doesn't know, like we do, how very attractive he already is). Although the limp-corrector episode concludes with the idea that Bates must be content with who he is, we're not sure that lesson fully hits home. Instead it is his main cross and carrying it is the thing keeping him from Anna. He believes he doesn't deserve her.

How many of us regular people have lived this story from one side or the other? How many have been trapped in something small longing for something big? Or, have been changed by something big so much to think we don't deserve something small?

Anna and Bates are sexy, compelling and beautiful together because they are the story of life.

Check out Downton Abbey on Masterpiece


Downton Abbey's Anna & Bates and the Theory of Reality Fantasy. LostinBritishTV