You have questions. I have some answers.
Q: My family and I have been enjoying the old "Big Bang Theory "series. At the end of each episode there is a "writing" about someone’s day or something someone is writing about. What is that?
A: You have been noticing the so-called “vanity cards” displaying logos of production companies at the end of shows. While some became famous for their images (the MTM cat, for example), writer-producer Chuck Lorre has used them for observations, thank-you's, social commentary, tidbits about making his shows and other items. One sample, from a 2014 “Big Bang” card: Howard’s starting to throw a baseball was “an outright steal from classic scenes performed by Gleason and Carney (who probably stole it from Laurel and Hardy, who probably stole it from Euripides).” Lorre has done the cards for about 25 years, including on “The Big Bang Theory,” “Young Sheldon,” “Mom,” “Mike & Molly,” “Dharma & Greg” and “The Kominsky Method.”
Some of the comments were collected in a limited edition book, “What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Bitter,” in 2012. Copies of the book can cost you — Amazon recently listed it for $444 — but you can find the images of all the cards up to the present day, including several censored ones, online in “The Official Vanity Card Archives” on chucklorre.com. Just understand that once you start looking at the cards, it’s hard to stop.
Lorre, by the way, recently made a deal for a new comedy series for HBO Max. It’s called “How To Be a Bookie.”
Q: Is there going to be a fourth season of “Servant” on Apple TV+?
A: The network ordered a fourth season of the thriller from M. Night Shyamalan back in December. That will be the final season, completing Shyamalan’s stated goal of a story told in 40 episodes. I do not have an air date but an Apple representative said there may be news soon.
Q: “Masterpiece” had a program, “World on Fire,” which left the audience hanging in its last episode. Could you please tell us if this series will be completed?
A: A lot of questions have come this way about the World War II drama since its first season aired more than two years ago. Series creator Peter Bowker has said that the second season had “a long wait due to a certain pandemic,” but production finally began in July with an eye on a premiere in 2023.
As for what’s coming in the second season, the BBC said it starts in “October 1940. Lone pilots are sent to destroy German bombers prowling the skies above Manchester as the Northern Blitz begins. The true reality of war has arrived in Britain. … (The series) will take viewers from the streets of Britain into occupied France, Nazi Germany, and to the sands of the North African desert, where British troops struggle alongside Indian Sappers and Australian Diggers to adapt to a very different kind of combat.”
Q: Back in the early 2000s or in the 1990s I watched a show called “Mulberry.” It had a lonely spinster and a young man she thinks she hired. It is divulged later that the man is supposed to prepare her for her death. Is this available anywhere?
A: The British series originally aired in 1992-93 for a total of 13 episodes. Geraldine McEwan plays the old woman, Miss Farnaby, and Karl Howman is a new Grim Reaper sent to her. You can find the episodes on YouTube. There is also a complete series DVD set, which I have seen for sale on Amazon. You may also be able to find that set through your local library.
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