JUST SING ALREADY

I have, of course, been watching The Gilded Age, which is now in its third season on HBO and has been picked up for a fourth. It's from Julian Fellowes, who also did Downton Abbey and Gosford Park. It's not as good as those; there are far too many characters, particularly since the action focuses on two households and have the family and servants for both. There are definitely storylines where the characters appear on the screen and I'm just like, "Ugh, I don't care!" 

The thing is...the actors. I'm not saying that literally every one of them has at least a Tony nomination, but most of them do. One of the storylines I don't care about involves the chef at one of the houses, and I can't get too mad at it because the chef is played by Douglas Sills, who I saw in The Scarlet Pimpernel in the 90s and actually met at the stagedoor and let me tell you, he was the loveliest person.

However, all this also means that I spend every episode muttering about how I just want everyone to start singing. This has gone into hyperdrive this season, because while Audra McDonald--AUDRA MCDONALD!!!--has been a regular for the entire run, BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL just showed up this season. Every time they appear on the screen together, I practically start vibrating on the coach from the strength of my desire for the two of them to start dueting.

On the positive side, the actors themselves are very aware of it. Morgan Spector, who plays George Russell (and who doesn't have a ton of musical theater in his background, though Wikipedia says he did a tour of The Lion King), said in a Variety interview

“You know what we should do? There’s the British tradition of the Christmas special,” Spector tells me on this week’s episode of the “Just for Variety” podcast. “If we could have a Christmas special, then we could have some singing and it would be great. Give the people what they want.”  

Someone needs to get on this.