Knights of Honor (video game)

Knights of Honor is a real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by Bulgarian Black Sea Studios. It was published by Sunflowers Interactive in Europe in 2004 and Paradox Entertainment in North America in 2005. The game takes place in Medieval Europe, spanning the early centuries of the second millennium in three historical time periods. The player can choose to play as one of over 100 playable kingdoms.
In 2019, a sequel titled Knights of Honor II: Sovereign is announced and the game is being developed by Black Sea Games, which consisted of former Creative Assembly Sofia employees who worked on the original game, and will be published by THQ Nordic.
Gameplay.
"Knights of Honor" is played on a large map of Europe spanning from Ireland to Caucasus and from Scandinavia to the northern coast of Africa. The map is divided into parcels of land called provinces. Each province is governed by a city and contains several "Rural Areas" which can be towns, farms, monasteries and coast towns. These rural areas can't be altered and are placed randomly across the map before each game. The city, however has room for several buildings which can give bonuses to the rural areas or the city itself, such as more piety in the monasteries when a church is built or a higher income from the towns when a market is present in the city. Other buildings are needed to recruit certain units (such as a swordsmith for sword-wielding units or a fletcher for bow-wielding units) or to defend the city such as walls and towers. A city only has limited room for buildings. Thus, not all buildings can be built in a city and the player must carefully consider what to build for a particular city. Compared to other strategy games, building structures in "KOH" takes a rather long time. The main goal of the game is to become emperor of Europe. However, the player is free to do whatever they wish. There is no set time limit.
Resources.
There are three kinds of resources which can be spent on a variety of upgrades. Money is needed to recruits units, build buildings, etc. It is earned by taxes, trading and kingdom power. Piety is used for increasing your kingdom power and converting provinces to your religion. Books are used to educate your knights and adopting provinces. Towns themselves also generate hammers (used to construct certain buildings) and food which determines how long they can withstand sieges.
Religion.
Religion plays an important role in Knights of Honor. There are 4 different types of religion: The Catholic Church, The Orthodox Church, Islam, and Paganism. The catholic Pope has much influence in medieval Europe. He can excommunicate catholic kingdoms and call for crusades against non-catholic kingdoms. When a player chooses to go on a crusade they are granted powerful Crusader units. When the Pope dies, his successor is chosen among several clerics throughout Europe. If the player happens to have a very experienced cleric, there is a chance he will be chosen as Pope. From then on, the player controls the Pope and can choose to excommunicate kingdoms and call for crusades, a successful crusade can result in a puppet state that is unquestionably loyal to the leader of the crusade or plunder the town for a huge sum of gold. The Catholic Church is located in Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Orthodox factions are located in south east Europe and answer to Byzantium. These factions can declare independence and form their own churches which grants them a greater sum of gold while lacking the disadvantage of being excommunicated which results in a gold penalty. Islamic empires have the ability to call a Jihad which is similar to a Crusade and will cause armies to spawn at their borders and attack any invaders or rebels. This is a powerful ability but it has a long cool down period . Islam is found in north Africa and the middle east. Paganism is the smallest religion being found only in Scandinavia and some parts of eastern Europe. Pagans do not collect piety (a religious resource used to build certain units and buildings and perform some diplomatic options) so are free to focus on gold and are not troubled by religious problems such as religious tension but they have a penalty on their income and have bad relations with all other religions. Paganism is the only religion the player or other kingdoms cannot convert to, the only way to play as a pagan nation is to start the game as one. The player can renounce his faith and adopt another official religion (except paganism) but such religious conflict will often split the kingdom up and one must reunify the nations as a result.
Trade and exotic goods.
Provinces can have up to three attributes called ""province features" which allow the construction of certain buildings. For instance if a province contains fertile soil, an apiary can be built in that province. These buildings give access to "trade goods" which have a number of positive effects on the kingdom. For example, horses allows mounted units, wine makes a population happier and silver brings in extra money. Controlling such provinces is the key to success in "Knights of Honor".
Besides trade goods, which can be obtained in provinces where the right province features are present or by importing them from other kingdoms, there is another type of goods called "exotic goods". These goods can't be produced within a province but have to be imported by means of an admiralty, the upgraded version of a harbour. Examples are ivory, gems and spices.
Exotic goods, together with trade goods, are needed to activate so called "kingdom advantages". There are ten different kingdom advantages each requiring a different set of trade and exotic goods and each giving a different advantage. For instance, the kingdom advantage "Secret Order"", which gives a bonus to spies, requires the following trade goods: columns, statues, silver and dyes and the following exotic goods: ebony and ivory.
Controlling many provinces certainly gives an advantage over other kingdoms not only because of more income but also because of the goods and eventually the kingdom advantages. However, larger kingdoms are harder to maintain and defend.
Modding.
A large community of modders created a lot of content for the game, though nowadays almost all has been lost in the closure of Sunflowers/Black Sea Studios Website. But some mods have been restored and have been recently developed thanks to the nostalgia of some players. One of them has created a mod which allow to play on new monitor resolution such as Full HD - 1920x1080 and 1366x768p. It adds many new content and tweaks.


Shadowland (Arnold novel)

"Shadowland: Search for Frances Farmer" is a 1978 biographical novel by William Arnold, ostensibly about the life of actress Frances Farmer. The book is a fictionalized account which was further distorted when adapted as the film "Frances" in 1982. Arnold sued for copyright infringement, claiming the film's screenplay writers appropriated several of his "fictionalized" elements, but eventually lost.


The Baker Street Boys

The Baker Street Boys is a British television series made by the BBC and first shown in 1983. The series recounts the adventures of a gang of street urchins living in Victorian London who assist the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes in solving crimes and find themselves tackling cases of their own.
Production.
Anthony Read planned out the show's format. Read had previously been a script editor and writer on the 1965 "Sherlock Holmes" series starring Douglas Wilmer. He claimed to have long wondered what the Irregulars got up to when not in the service of Sherlock Holmes and the series deals with this subject.
Although Holmes was always absent (explained on-screen by his being too busy working on another case, being held captive by Professor Moriarty, or confined to bed by illness), Dr. Watson was always around to assist the Irregulars when necessary.
Holmes was only ever seen obliquely (Roger Ostime provided the character's voice) while Dr. Watson, Inspector Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson all featured more prominently.
Episodes.
Eight episodes were broadcast:
VHS release.
In 1985, the BBC released 4 episodes from the series on VHS video. They were edited into two 48-minute-long episodes.
The two stories featured were "The Adventure of the Disappearing Dispatch Case" (from Episodes 1 and 2) and "The Adventure of the Winged Scarab" (from Episodes 5 and 6).
Books.
Seven books based on the TV series have been published to date:


Den of Thieves (novel)

Den of Thieves is the third book in the Cat Royal series by Julia Golding. In this story the protagonist, Cat, becomes homeless, travels to Paris, dances with an old French man and becomes a spy.
Plot.
In this third installment, Mr Sheridan, the theater owner decides that Drury Lane is in need of a refurbishing so he intends to close it down for a few years. Because of this, many of the servants and actors have to leave and find work elsewhere, including Cat. Later on, Cat meets Syd on her way to visit Frank and Lizzie, and he stops her for a chat. Syd reveals he is going to leave London on a boxing tour for a few months, which horrifies Cat.
When she gets back Pedro tells her that when theatre closes he is going on tour around France with the Signor,
and asks her where she'll be staying and Cat is too proud to ask anyone for help so she says she has a place to go to but doesn't specify a particular place.
Then a messenger tells Cat that Billy Shepherd wants to see her and, remembering she is in debt to him from "Cat Among the Pigeons", she agrees to go. When she arrives she notices Billy has become considerably richer, as he has a vast jewel collection, a large gentleman's house with good-quality furniture and expensive clothes. Billy says to her that he wants her to get him the crown jewels and then she will no longer owe him anything. Cat doesn't want to agree, but he doesn't let her leave until she does, so she has no choice.
In the evening Syd is going on a night out with his gang and Cat wants to go too, but Syd says no. This results in an argument on why he doesn't let her in the gang and Syd doesn't give a specific answer until Cat asks if he has a girlfriend waiting for him and he doesn't want to present himself with her, at which point he expresses his feelings in a kiss on the lips before hurrying away.
At this point the theatre has closed. Cat notices she isn't on the list of people who will continue to work for the theatre when it is reopened, meaning she is no longer legally able to stay with the theatre group. Due to this she is left in the streets and in desperation to sell her manuscripts and make some money she falls prey to a book selling fraud called Mr Tweadle. In his home she is treated like a slave while he puts her stories in a magazine and gives the reputation of a reckless young moll. Later she is rescued by Frank and Mr Sheridan.
To find out the effects the French Revolution had on its people, Mr Sheridan decides to send her to Paris to work as a spy, as he thinks she's perfect for the job. So Cat travels to Paris under the pretense of a girl learning ballet, and hates it. She gets sea-sick and is bullied by her fellow ballerinas who do their best to make her experience with them a misery.
She and Frank are soon tangled up in a revolt, and sentenced to be hung but are rescued by a strange French boy. It isn't long before they find themselves kneeling before Jean-Francois (J-F) Thiland, the king of the Parisian thieves. They manage to escape, with J-F having befriended them and promised to protect them.
The two survive many more struggles - the Avon family being arrested, Cat being kidnapped by J-F's lifelong enemy and several little problems in between. But Frank and his family have their dignity restored, thanks to the duchess' fantastic opera singing.
And with the help of a drunken sea captain, Monsieur Bonaventure, sails set for England and all ends well.


Sword of the Samurai (video game)

Sword of the Samurai is an action and strategy video game developed and published by MicroProse in 1989 for the DOS platform. It features role-playing, strategy, and arcade elements set in feudal Japan. The player begins the game as a little-known vassal samurai; his ultimate goal is to replace Oda Nobunaga as the daimyō responsible for reunifying sengoku Japan.
Tommo purchased the rights to this game and digitally publishes it through its Retroism brand in 2015. The game was re-released in 2014 on Gog.com and Steam with support for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Gameplay.
The game begins by giving the player their choice of name, clan, and family specialty. Within the game, death is final and frequently risked; an early priority is establishing a family, which permits the player to continue as the samurai's heir in the event of death or retirement. In the first two sections of the game, the player rises from a minor retainer to a more powerful lieutenant and then to daimyō over his entire clan. At each of these levels, he competes to curry favor from his lord with three computer-controlled rivals who also seek to become first in favor and next in succession. Each samurai has several properties, including land holdings, army size, sword-fighting ability, and generalship. In keeping with the Bushidō theme of the game, army size and honor have the greatest influence over how the samurai are ranked.
A wide array of dishonorable actions are also possible. The player (and AI controlled characters) may kidnap and rescue family members, dishonor other samurai, or even assassinate their rivals or lord. Naturally, such behavior carries serious risk. The samurai performs these acts personally and risks capture or death. At minimum, exposure entails loss of honor and land and more serious offenses require ritual suicide (seppuku); a failed attempt on the life of the samurai's lord occasions the extermination of his entire family, losing the game.
After becoming a daimyō, the game shifts to a wargame format, with the goal of conquering enough provinces to claim the title of shōgun. The player no longer wanders personally through a provincial map but directs his army through the three lower Japanese islands. He is able to direct his underlings to deal with any sword fight or melee minigames without loss of honor: the focus is on the size of the player's army and mastery of the battlefield tactics.
After winning the game, the player is given a final summary of the future of his dynasty. Depending on various factors such as the victor's honor and the presence of an adult heir, the length of the dynasty could range from hundreds of years (like the Tokugawa shogunate) to a quick dissolution after the shōgun's death (as occurred with Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi).
Development.
MicroProse designers Sid Arnold and Lawrence Schick began development of "Sword of the Samurai" in late 1987, after the success of the company's first role-playing adventure game "Sid Meier's Pirates!". They chose to set it during the Sengoku period because the era's chaos made it possible for samurai to gain great power regardless of background, and gave players the goal of uniting the country and becoming shōgun. MicroProse co-owner Sid Meier helped develop the NPCs' artificial intelligence and the dueling.
Reception.
In the February–March 1990 issue of "Games International", Brian Walker was disappointed in this game, commenting that although the outside of the box had promised "'a role-playing action-adventure simulation' [...] it is none of these things." Although he found combat quite easy and even fun, it failed to advance in challenge as he worked his way through the game; he wrote of the arcade-style combats, "they soon pale as you continuously fight the same opponents in the same locations." He did like the graphics, which he called "superb and offer a real flavour of Japan". He also called the system for fighting strategic army battles "the most innovative parts of the game." And he liked the beautifully detailed glossy manual. However, the "less than cerebral arcade sequences" led Walker to give the game a poor rating of 5 out of 10, although he did give the graphics an excellent rating of 9 out of 10.
Jim Trunzo reviewed "Sword of the Samurai" for "White Wolf" #20, rating it 4 out of 5 overall, and stated that "Sword of the Samurai is one of the most complete programs designed. Virtually all aspects of the period of the genre are covered. The storyline is complete and effectively mixes warfare, domestic concerns, and political matters."
"Computer Gaming World" stated in 1990 that "Sword of the Samurai" "offers even more than its spiritual ancestor, "Pirates!"". It praised the game's graphics, soundtrack, and many choices during gameplay. Later that year and in 1993 the magazine gave it four stars out of five, stating that the game did not sell as well as "Pirates!" despite "near perfect" game play and historical accuracy.


Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ

Self-Portrait with the Yellow Christ is an 1890 or 1891 painting by Paul Gauguin, produced in Pont-Aven in Brittany and now in the musée d'Orsay in Paris, to which it was assigned after its purchase by the French state in 1994 with financial assistance from Philippe Meyer and a Japanese patron.
The artist shows himself between two of his own artworks, "The Yellow Christ" (1889) and a grotesque ceramic self-portrait – he often used Christ as a symbol for himself and thus the work fulfilled his desire to create a triple self-portrait.
History.
When the artist began the canvas he had been in Pont-Aven for two years. He produced the work just before leaving for Tahiti. The work is one of several on religious themes from the same period, making him (in Manuel Jover's words) the "original core of Symbolism in painting" – it also included "The Yellow Christ" and "The Green Christ". Initially in the collection of Gauguin's friend Daniel de Monfreid (1856–1929), it had entered Ambroise Vollard's gallery by 1902. It was acquired by Maurice Denis in 1903.


The Treasure of Pancho Villa

The Treasure of Pancho Villa is a 1955 American Technicolor Western film directed by George Sherman and starring Rory Calhoun, Shelley Winters, and Gilbert Roland. The film was shot on location in Mexico.
Plot.
During the Mexican Civil War of 1913, mercenary Tom Bryan (Rory Calhoun) and his Lewis machine gun he names ("La Cucaracha") joins a band of revolutionaries headed by Colonel Juan Castro (Gilbert Roland). Though paid for his services, Bryan is tired of the squalid life he is living in Mexico and is considering offering his services to Cuba.
Bryan is offered one more highly paid job. Castro is planning an assault and robbery of train carrying a vast amount of gold belonging to the central government. Because of the strength of the escort of Federales on two trains, one carrying an artillery piece on a flat car, his men are dubious of success. Castro has two aces up his sleeve; Bryan with his machine gun, who will be disguised as a passenger on the train, and Pablo Morales, an expert dynamiter, who will blow up a bridge separating the two trains. Castro senses treachery by Morales as the two did a robbery years ago with Castro leaving Morales behind, however Castro is reassured by Morales' wife that he is a Villista and is not a traitor.
After wiping out the Federales, they steal the gold shipment from the government train, gold that Castro intends to deliver to revolutionary leader Pancho Villa. Pursued by the Mexican Army, they flee to the mountains along with Ruth Harris (Shelley Winters) an American who was living in Mexico as a schoolteacher but who became a soldadera after her father was murdered. Villa and his men do not appear at the rendezvous; however, Morales gains the loyalty of some of Castro's band to keep the gold for themselves. Bryan also wants the gold for himself, wishing to use it to finance his own revolution in another country where he can loot the nation and retire in splendour. He guns down most of the Mexicans with his Lewis gun in order to keep the gold.
Morales, Ruth and the others are captured by the Federales, with Morales offering them the gold, Bryan, and Castro in exchange for money and amnesty. Because of her American nationality, Ruth is escorted to Tampico to be deported to America, while the others are to be executed.
Tracked by Yaqui Indians working with the government pursuers, Bryan is reconciled to Castro's ideals, and the two build a gun emplacement out of the bags of gold to make a last stand. The Federales send Morales with a white flag of truce and a hand grenade, but Castro kills him first. Castro is killed by the pursuing Mexicans and Bryan has to blow up the gold in order to prevent them recovering it. This starts an avalanche that buries both the gold and the pursuers. Unarmed and broke, the solitary Bryan makes his way to Tampico to be reunited with Ruth.
As Bryan leaves the place where he has buried Castro, he looks up at the vultures circling and tells them that they have feasted on many things but if they should ever have done so on Castro, they would have feasted on a real man.


The Wild Bunch (video game)

The Wild Bunch is a computer game released in 1984 for the ZX Spectrum and 1985 for the Amstrad CPC by Firebird Software. Despite its name, it has no relation to the 1969 film but is set in the Wild West. The title refers to a fictitious gang of outlaws featured in the game, loosely based on the real Wild Bunch gang who were prominent in the 1890s.
The game music is the cowboy ballad "Streets of Laredo".
Gameplay.
"The Wild Bunch" is a text-based adventure game, with limited use of graphics. The player controls a protagonist who finds a dying man who was attacked by a member of the Wild Bunch gang. Before dying he describes the culprit and gives the player his Colt 45, just as the local sheriff arrives on the scene. The player is assumed to be the murderer and the sheriff tries to arrest them, but they escape. The object of the game is to prove the protagonist's innocence by tracking down the real murderer and handing him over to the law. Along the way the player can also arrest and hand in other members of the gang, whose descriptions are obtained from wanted posters. Scoring is based on the money earned from rewards, gambling at poker or finding gold nuggets while travelling. The game ends if the protagonist dies due to their strength reaching zero, they are killed in a gunfight or are arrested. It is, however, won by successfully tracing, identifying and handing in the real murderer, which usually involves "not" killing him in a gunfight but taking him in at gunpoint.
At all times during the game the player is pursued by Charles A. Siringo of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Charlie Siringo was a real life lawman during the time that the game was set, though the game is not based on any true story.
At the start of the game, the player can choose to start off in one of five towns. Each town has a number of premises which can be visited to obtain information about the Wild Bunch gang and how to avoid being arrested. The player can also earn money by playing poker, increase their strength by drinking in the saloon bar or buy items of use in the store. The player can travel between towns (journey time is reduced by buying a horse and saddle). When travelling, food and water are consumed on a daily basis and each day the player runs a risk of encountering enemies which must be dealt with by fleeing, fighting or bribing them. Random events such as sandstorm, rockslides and even the player's horse going lame will increase journey times. Running out of food or water reduces the player's strength and their horse can also die from this. The traveling environment will affect the supplies used. While in the plains the player's horse does not consume horse food or water, apparently finding sufficient from the plains. While traveling through the mountains or deserts, however, the player will consume water from canteens and their horse will consume horse food. If their horse runs out of food in the mountains the game will comment: "Horses don't eat rocks". If their horse runs out of food in the desert the game will comment: "Horses don't eat sand". The player's own food will decrease regardless of the terrain being traveled. When first arriving in a new town, there is a risk of being arrested, although if this is avoided it is possible to stay in the town for as long as is needed. This risk is somewhat mitigated by visiting the telegraph office before setting out to see which town the player's pursuer is currently staying in. This may change while the player travels.
The game has three levels of difficulty to choose from and allows the player to choose a name for the character they control. The difficulty level is tied directly to how long Charles A. Siringo stays in one town looking for the player. On the hardest difficulty level he seems to stay put for no more than three days, meaning that even if the player checks the telegraph office there is a strong chance he has moved to a new town before the player's own journey completes.


Ourselves Alone (Boardwalk Empire)

"Ourselves Alone" is the second episode of the second season of the HBO television series "Boardwalk Empire", which originally aired October 2, 2011. The episode was written by Howard Korder and directed by executive producer David Petrarca.
Plot.
Nucky is released from jail, and becomes aware of the defection of several key allies, including his brother Eli and Jimmy, to the Commodore. Margaret, in disguise, takes an active role in helping Nucky's business, retrieving incriminating pieces of evidence from his office while it is being searched by government agents. Jimmy visits New York to discuss a business proposal with Rothstein that would essentially replace Nucky with Jimmy as supplier. Afterwards, Jimmy plays cards with Luciano and Lansky, who suggest they go into heroin distribution. After the game, Jimmy kills a pair of well-connected Mafia hoods who try to rob him. Chalky, still in jail, is taunted and attacked by another inmate from out of town. His influence is demonstrated when all of his cellmates come to his defense.
Reception.
The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. The A.V. Club awarded the episode a B+ saying, "It’s moments like these—Jimmy in Rothstein’s office, Jimmy at the poker game, Chalky in a cell with Purnsley—that make Boardwalk Empire a much better show than its detractors allow." IGN gave it an 8 out of 10, noting the improved pacing, "'Ourselves Alone' seems to be a direct response to those who had issues with the overall pacing of last season, complaining that the gears on Nucky's political machine turned too slow. It's only the second episode of the new season, and Nucky's already plotting retaliation against those challenging him."


Beach Music (novel)

Beach Music is Pat Conroy's novel about Jack McCall, a South Carolina native who flees the South with his daughter Leah after his wife commits suicide. This novel explores the Vietnam War-era, the Holocaust, and coming of age in the 20th century. It was published in 1995.
Plot introduction.
Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his daughter, is trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide, but his search for solitude is disturbed when a telegram from a family member summons Jack back to South Carolina to be with his ailing mother. He begins to explore his past and all its demons, as well as a new mystery: His sister-in-law and two school friends invite Jack to help them track down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protester and never resurfaced. As Jack begins a journey that encompasses the past and the present in both Europe and the American South, he also begins a quest that will lead him to shocking truths—and ultimately to catharsis, acceptance and maturity.
Writing and publication.
Conroy began writing "Beach Music" as a way of coping with his own mother's death in 1984. Ten years later, he submitted 2,100 typed pages to Doubleday editor Nan A. Talese. With Conroy's consent and help, she trimmed it into a much shorter version. The book reached the top position on the New York Times Best Seller list. Paramount Pictures purchased the rights for $5.1 million, but as of 2015, still hasn't made it into a movie. Scripts were written (and rewritten several times), and Brad Pitt was at one point offered the part. Interviewed in 2009, Conroy said the film plans are "still hanging out there."
Themes.
Like "The Prince of Tides", Conroy's earlier novel, "Beach Music" deals with "picking away at life's wounds with a sharp wit".
Some other (potentially controversial) themes in the novel include:
Setting.
Setting holds as much importance in "Beach Music" as its themes, or even the main character, Jack McCall. Pat Conroy acknowledged in an interview that the perception that he is “the product of a single landscape is actually false”. As a military kid, Conroy moved often and lived in Rome, Italy for three years before finding his longest lasting home in Beaufort, South Carolina. Both of these locales hold great significance for Jack McCall in "Beach Music". He runs from the traditions and his past in the southern atmosphere of South Carolina, and seeks refuge in the food and travel of Rome, Italy.
Waterford, South Carolina represents all that Jack wishes to forget, namely his wife, Shyla’s, suicidal jump off Silas Pearman Bridge.
Rome, Italy represents the shield Jack uses to protect his daughter Leah from their family’s tumultuous past, as well as his own discomfort with dealing with that past.


A Dangerous Maid (Boardwalk Empire)

"A Dangerous Maid" is the third episode of the second season of the HBO television series "Boardwalk Empire" and 15th episode overall. First aired on October 9, 2011, it was written by Itamar Moses and directed by Susanna White.
Plot.
Nucky reaches out to various sources for help in fighting the legal charges against him. To his dismay, many that he formerly did favours for are now turning a blind eye to his predicament. Capone visits Atlantic City to end Torrio's bootlegging arrangements with Nucky. Irishman Owen Sleater offers his services to Nucky. Richard Harrow is on a job for Jimmy, selling alcohol to one of Nucky's clients. Sleater informs the client that Harrow doesn't work for Nucky, and engages in a fight with Harrow's men. After a brief standoff, both men withdraw.
Nucky publicly confronts Jimmy and the Commodore with an open declaration of war.
Rothstein talks with Joe Masseria, a local Mafia don, over a dispute with Luciano and Lansky, which is largely based on the deaths of two of Masseria's nephews- the two men Jimmy killed while visiting Rothstein. Rothstein orders his men to pay compensation to Masseria.
An increasingly bored, depressed and pregnant Lucy contemplates throwing herself down the stairs after Van Alden forbids her to try out for an upcoming musical. Later, Van Alden sends her a record player and this noticeably lifts her spirits.
Margaret receives word that her estranged family from Ireland are now living in America. She unsuccessfully attempts to contact one of them. Margaret becomes friendly with her maid. But when her maid claims to know that Margaret is really 'Peggy Rohan', Margaret coldly disengages from the conversation.
Title.
"A Dangerous Maid" is a musical by George and Ira Gershwin. The script for it is given to Lucy by her friend Eddie Cantor.
Reception.
Critical reception.
"IGN" gave the episode a score of 7.5 out of 10, saying that it had "... a very slow burn of a narrative that spends more time filling in backstory of certain female characters than it did pushing the Nucky vs. Commodore conflict forward." "The A.V. Club" rated the episode a "B+".
Ratings.
The episode was watched by 2.856 million viewers. It was up a tenth with adults 18–49 in its third week, rising to 1.2 million in the 18-49 rating.


Quest for Camelot Dragon Games

Quest for Camelot Dragon Games is a 1998 video game based on the Warner Bros. film "Quest for Camelot" and developed by Knowledge Adventure. It was released as a tie-in with the release of the film.
Gameplay and plot.
This game contains a collection of mini-games for children based around the characters of the Warner Bros. animated film "Quest for Camelot."
"Working Mother" magazine explains, "What child wouldn't jump at the chance to raise a baby dragon? With this game, kids can give their critter a bottle, rock it to sleep, entertain it when it reaches middle childhood and supervise it during the dreaded teen years."
Critical reception.
In their review of the game, SuperKids said: "Even fans of the Warner Brothers animated feature "Quest for Camelot" will be disappointed with this uninspiring software adventure. In fact, if not for the addition of a virtual pet - a charismatic dragon that the user raises from a hatchling to a self-sufficient pre-teen, the program would be a total ho-hum."


Deacon King Kong


Jules-Alexandre Duval Le Camus

Jules-Alexandre Duval Le Camus (5 August 1814, Paris - 23 June 1878, Saint-Cloud) was a French painter who specialized in portraits and genre scenes.
Biography.
He was the only son of the painter Pierre Duval Le Camus. After receiving his initial lessons from his father, he was admitted to the studios of Paul Delaroche and Martin Drolling at the École des beaux-arts de Paris. He was awarded second place at the Prix de Rome of 1838.
Although his style is almost indistinguishable from his father's, he preferred to paint on smaller canvases. In addition to his best-known scenes from daily life, he did some occasional depictions of Biblical and mythological subjects. A notable example of this may be seen at the choir of the (1868-1876), which was a commission from the French government.


Michael Angelo Immenraet

Michael Angelo Immenraet (18 October 1621, Antwerp – 1683, Utrecht), was a Flemish history and portrait painter who is mainly remembered for the lavish Baroque painting series of Biblical scenes which he produced for the Unionskirche, Idstein in Germany.
Life.
Philips Augustijn Immenraet was born in Antwerp as the son of a German piano builder who had immigrated to Antwerp. He was the older brother of the successful landscape painter Philips Augustijn Immenraet. It is not clear with whom he trained but on the basis of his style he is often regarded as a painter from the school of Peter Paul Rubens.
Immenraet married Maria Vergouwen, the sister of the painter Johanna Vergouwen on 8 February 1661. The couple had three daughters. His wife died in 1664 upon giving birth to the third child. Immenraet and his sister-in-law Johanna Vergouwen engaged in extensive legislation regarding the inheritance of his deceased wife. On 26 November 1665 he married Margaretha Corthals and after her death he married a third time with Maria Brouwers. He had four daughters and two sons from the three marriages.
Immenraet is documented in The Hague in 1661. Here he paints a chimney piece for the 'Hofje van Nieuwkoop', a housing project for poor widows funded from the inheritance of Johan de Bruijn van Buijtewech, a rich citizen of The Hague. The chimney piece represents the double portrait of Odila en Philippine van Wassenaer, the nieces of van Buijtewech and two first governesses of the project. The two young governesses are depicted as shepherdesses.
He was registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1663.
He worked in Germany for a period where between 1673 and 1678. He was responsible together with his pupil or assistant Johann Caspar Bencard for 38 of the oil on canvas paintings decorating the ceiling of the Unionskirche, Idstein.
Little is known about his later years except that he died in Utrecht.
Work.
Michel Angelo Immenraet painted allegorical, history, religious and genre scenes as well as portraits. Aside from the painting cycle in the Unionskirche, Idstein not many of his works are known.
The earliest known work by him is the "Double portrait of Odila en Phillipine van Wassenaer as Shepherdesses" of 1661 ('Hofje van Nieuwkoop', The Hague). The portrait depicts the two young governesses of het 'Hofje van Nieuwkoop' as shepherdesses in an Arcadian landscape. This type of idealized representation was in vogue in the Dutch Republic at the time.
The best-known works from his oeuvre are the series of 38 paintings, which the realized with the assistance of Johann Caspar Bencard for the ceiling of the Unionskirche, Idstein. The commission was given by Johann of Nassau-Idstein (1603–77) who wished to turn the existing church into a Baroque "Predigt- und Hofkirche" (sermon and court church) after the Thirty Years' War. The Dutch painters Joachim von Sandrart and his nephew Johann von Sandrart also created paintings for the church. The difficulty for the artists was to create a language that corresponded to Lutheran sensitivities. The programme of works all represent scenes from the Bible without any depictions of saints as would typically have been the case in a Catholic church. The works represented the stories from the Bible as ever present, living realities. The Biblical figures are dressed in courtly Baroque garments. The painting of the "Visitation" shows Mary arriving with a servant who carries her cases on his head. Saint Elisabeth’s residence with its formal garden in the background resembles the Idstein residential palace of Johann of Nassau-Idstein, the construction of which was commenced in 1646. The subjects and the use of Baroque optical illusionism in the paintings in the center of the ceiling are intended to make the viewer look up, from altar to the back: "The Transfiguration", the "Elevation of the Holy Cross", "The Resurrection", "The Deposition", "The Ascension" and "The Vision of St. John on Patmos".
A number of Immenraet’s compositions for the Unionskirche were based on well-known works by Rubens. For instance "The Wedding at Cana" on the south wall is largely inspired by Rubens' painting "The Feast of Herod" which is in the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. The series of works were at the time regarded as a remarkably unique Baroque contribution to church decoration in Protestant Germany.


The Box of Delights (TV series)

The Box of Delights is a BBC Television adaptation of John Masefield's 1935 children's fantasy novel "The Box of Delights" starring Devin Stanfield, Patrick Troughton and Robert Stephens. It was broadcast on BBC1 between 21 November and 24 December 1984. The series was adapted from Masefield's novel by Alan Seymour, directed by Renny Rye and produced by Paul Stone.
The series is a fantasy adventure about a schoolboy who is entrusted with a magical box which allows him to time travel and shapeshift to protect the box from an evil magician. An innovative mixture of live action and animation, the production made extensive use of the Quantel Paintbox and chroma key effects. The series cost £1 million to make in 1984 (£ in ), the most expensive children's series the BBC had made to that date, but it was widely acclaimed and won a number of BAFTA and RTS awards, in particular for its special effects.
Production.
John Masefield was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom between 1930 and his death in 1967, but alongside his poetry he also wrote books for children. "The Box of Delights: or When the Wolves Were Running", published in 1935, was the sequel to his 1927 book "The Midnight Folk". Masefield's novel had been adapted by the BBC for radio several times; a six-part adaptation, with a script by Robert Holland and John Keir Cross, was produced three times as part of its "Children's Hour" with different casts in 1943, 1948 and 1955. A new radio adaptation by John Keir Cross had been produced for "Saturday Night Theatre" in 1966, then remade with a new cast in 1977.
Producer Paul Stone had a longstanding ambition to create "the ultimate in children's drama" after discovering Masefield's 1935 novel "The Box of Delights" in the 1970s. Stone told "Books for Keeps": "as soon as I read it I wanted to make it for television. It's an amazing and singular mixture of adventure story and poetic myth and the writing is packed with visual imagery...television is uniquely able to translate those qualities from one medium to another".
It took Stone ten years to obtain the rights and to get the green light on the production. There had been plans to make a Hollywood feature film of the book, so the rights had to be re-negotiated with the Masefield Trust, who administered the author's estate. Stone said in an interview with the "Radio Times" that this delay was "a blessing" since the story "call[ed] for feats of animation which television simply couldn't realise five, perhaps even two or three years ago."
Director Renny Rye was at that time on staff in the BBC Children's department at Television Centre, but had previous experience from the drama department, so was chosen by Edward Barnes to direct what would be what would be one of their most ambitious children's dramas to date. With a large number of effects shots, coupled with extensive location filming, the production was the most expensive children's drama the BBC had yet created, costing more than £1 million in 1984.
Visual effects.
The production featured an ambitious number of visual effects for its day, particularly the combining of real actors and hand-drawn animation in the Herne the Hunter scenes. These effects were supervised by Tony Harding (visual effects designer) and Robin Lobb (video effects). Paul Stone told the "Radio Times" that the programme featured "new sophistications of colour separation overlay, of the electronic 'paintbox' and the Quantel technologies." The latter allowed the shrinking of the actor to one-twentieth of the original image size, allowing Kay to shrink to a toy boat or Cole to disappear into a painting. Colour Separation Overlay (the BBC's term for chroma keying) had been in use at the Corporation since the 1970s, but had not been used to the extent of "The Box of Delights". Unlike the more common green screen used for digital effects, CSO used blue as the primary keying colour.
When production began, Rye recalls that this process could only be created live in a studio, so the composite background and foreground images had to be fed through a desk. The Visual Effects team designed a system which took a black and white key of the foreground subject at the same time, meaning that images taken some time apart could be combined in post-production. Rye recalls "This was the biggest leap forward technically at the time. It meant that a lot of the things I couldn’t work out how to do I could suddenly do.
The post-production process took six months, aided by the BBC developing a new effects studio at Television Centre. The staff were able to use the programme as a test bed for new technology. For example, the Ampex Digital Optics (ADO) machine was purchased for the studio shortly after post-production work began meaning that they would zoom composite video sources during flying sequences. Rye recalls for one effects shot in episode 2 "we had to link up eleven separate inputs into this video studio. Seven or eight of them were video machines, which were downstairs. We were taking machines away from "Match of the Day" highlights and "Top of the Pops", which were being made at the same time, to feed images in to create one image."
Locations.
Railway station scenes were filmed at and on the steam heritage Severn Valley Railway; Tewkesbury became the fictional Tatchester; the bishop's children's party was recorded at Kinlet Hall, Shropshire (the location of Moffats Independent School, whose pupils and staff served as extras); the interior of Hereford Cathedral and its choir were featured extensively in the final episode (although the exterior of "Tatchester Cathedral" was Tewkesbury Abbey). Exterior shots of Abner Brown's theological college were filmed at Eastnor Castle, near Ledbury, Herefordshire. The snowy mountainous landscape of King Arthur's castle was filmed at the Peel of Lumphanan, Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire. During filming, the crew were almost snowed in by 12-foot blizzards. Renny Rye recalls: "We could hardly use any of the locations I'd recced because we couldn't get out of the hotel. Nearly all the locations were unreachable because the snow was so thick (which is why it looks quite magical in the film), so virtually all of it was shot in the hotel gardens."
Music.
The opening and closing title music features an orchestral arrangement of "The First Nowell" extracted from the third movement of the "Carol Symphony" (Andante quasi lento e contabile) by Victor Hely-Hutchinson. The movement had previously been used for the 1940s "Children's Hour" radio adaptation and has become synonymous with the story. Hely-Hutchinson wrote his "Carol Symphony" in 1927, and had a long association with the BBC, eventually becoming its Director of Music in 1944 until his death aged 45 during the harsh winter of 1947 when he caught pneumonia as a result of refusing to turn on the heating in his office.
Jon Jacob notes describes the work's suitability for the titles: "It's not immediately obvious what we're listening to at the beginning...one steady note in the strings hangs in the air; a harp creates an eerie music-box effect. A counter-melody joins soon after. A vague sense of menace threatens to overpower...The unsettling feeling doesn't last for long: it's resolved with the quietest of bassoons playing one suspended note transforming the moment into a quiet triumph and, the introduction of a familiar carol – The First Noel."
The recording used in the 1984 adaption was from a 1966 EMI recording (LP catalogue No. ESD 7021) featuring the Pro Arte Orchestra conducted by Barry Rose. Incidental music is by Roger Limb of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop using a combination of orchestral and synthesised instruments. Tom Urges notes that Limb's incidental music "adds to the heady mix of ancient and modern, of reality and fantasy, and builds on the atmosphere we are prepared for as viewers by one of the best choices of theme music in the history of British TV."
Casting.
To play Kay Harker, the main child protagonist, two hundred children were auditioned. Director Renny Rye recalls: "My purist notion was that children's imagination was so great they could do it better if they hadn't been tutored. So I went round lots of schools and saw children from many, many schools." Devin Stanfield was chosen on account of having "a good face without seeming too modern or too handsome...the demands of filming called for someone with a great deal of stamina [with] a ready imagination, especially as he'd be called upon to react to invisible delights that would only afterwards be electronically added to the film." Stanfield was the grandson of the actor Leslie Sands and had previously had a few small parts in television programmes.
The kindly Punch and Judy man Cole Hawlings was played by Patrick Troughton, famous for his portrayal of the Second Doctor in "Doctor Who" between 1966 and 1969. Renny Rye said that Troughton "was my favourite Doctor Who...[he] had a quality that is unsurpassed, I think, as someone to pull you into a tale." A "Blue Peter" feature at the time connected Cole Hawlings to the actor's earlier role, observing that Troughton was once again playing a mysterious, scruffy time traveller.
Robert Stephens was cast to play the sinister antagonist Abner Brown. He recalled hearing the 1948 BBC Radio production on "Children's Hour" when he was seventeen and was so thrilled to be asked to appear in the television version he replied "Of course - for nothing!" Stephens said that he enjoyed the novel's depiction of the "magician and gangster" Abner dressing as a clergyman, since it upset the expectations of the audience. In a review for "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe", Rhys Thomas said that Stephens "put so much into it...he doesn't camp it up and make it funny, he's just really frightening."
Stephens’ partner and future wife, Patricia Quinn best known for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was cast as Brown's own partner in crime, Sylvia Daisy Pouncer.
Plot.
Kay Harker (Devin Stanfield) is returning from boarding school for Christmas 1934 when he finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box. The current owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlings (Patrick Troughton) whom Kay meets at the railway station. They develop an instant rapport, which leads Cole to confide that he is being chased by a magician called Abner Brown (Robert Stephens) and his gang, which includes Kay's former governess.
The box allows the owner to shrink in size, to shapeshift, to fly, to travel to the past and to experience various magical wonders and creatures, and thus is sought for evil purposes by Abner. Cole (who turns out to be the medieval philosopher and alleged magician Ramon Llull) entrusts the box to Kay. The schoolboy then goes on to have many adventures across time as he protects the box from Abner Brown.
During his travels, Kay encounters many characters drawn from English folklore, history and pagan mythology including Herne the Hunter, King Arthur, Father Christmas, unicorns, Roman soldiers and medieval monks. Jenny Shirt of "We Are Cult" notes that "The Box of Delights" features a recurring "motif of the intertwining of paganism and Christianity".
Episodes.
The series was first shown in six half-hour episodes in November and December 1984. BBC Worldwide released the serial on DVD in 2004.
During December 1986 the series was repeated on BBC1 as three 50-minute episodes:
Reception.
The BBC TV production of "The Box of Delights" won three British Academy of Film & Television Arts awards (BAFTAs) and a Royal Television Society award: The serial was nominated for five BAFTAs - for best Children's Programme, Video Cameraman, Graphics, Video Lighting and VTR Editor; and won three - for best Children's Programme, VTR Editor and Video Lighting. The Royal Television Society award was won for Technique, for Robin Lobb and the BBC Special Effects team.
In the mid-1980s the BBC made concerted efforts into making productions for international sale, and the success of "The Box of Delights" on PBS in the U.S. led to commissioning of further fantasy series, in particular "The Chronicles of Narnia" (1988–90).
In 2015, "Radio Times" magazine reported that amongst its audience:
"The Box of Delights" made a big impression on those who saw it when it originally aired more than three decades ago on BBC1. Mainly because it somehow managed to be the image of snowy Edwardian chocolate-box perfection, and pretty bloody creepy at the same time...The incidental music and special effects — while nostalgic for those who revere, say, Peter Davison-era "Doctor Who" — do seem dated to 21st-century kids dazzled by CGI. But the whole thing is carried off with such innovative spirit and charm that it really doesn't matter."
The children's author Piers Torday noted that the series was his first experience of "appointment to view" television, stating "The early special effects in the style of "Doctor Who" were as stardust to my young eyes...It wasn’t only the state-of-the-art animation and the compelling performances that captured my imagination, but also the magic of the story."
Simon Brew, reviewing the series for "Den of Geek!" in 2011 was of the opinion that although dated in some respects, the festive atmosphere and story contribute to its continued appeal:
Inevitably, under greater scrutiny, it’s not hard to see the Sellotape holding it all together in places. There’s also a lull in the middle of the story that’s hard to ignore, and cliffhangers that are barely worthy of the name. But there’s also a strong drama, with surprisingly broad appeal here. It benefits from such a large cast...the ambition of the production, and the weaving in of practical effects, animation, and some computer work, is quite excellent...Most of all, though, it just works. It has a strange quality, in that it just feels so right, that it doesn't require being picked at and pulled apart. It is what it is, and in this case, that means it remains one of the most magical Yuletide dramas that the BBC has ever made."
Soundtrack release.
An extract featuring the "First Nowell" title segment was released as a single by BBC Records. A soundtrack album was released in December 2018 by Silva Screen Records (SILCD1547).


Pong Savada Khmer


Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy

Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy is an American travel documentary series that aired for three seasons from 2011 to 2013 on History. It premiered on February 8, 2011.
Premise.
In the series, Larry the Cable Guy travels America and experiences a variety of different life styles that occur "only in America" – the comedian explores the country, immersing himself in different lifestyles, jobs and hobbies.
Each episode starts with Larry saying:


Self Portrait (Kramskoi)

Self-Portrait is an oil-on-canvas painting of 1867 by the Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi. Oval in shape, it is a self-evaluation: Kramskoi indicates how he sees his own facial features and his relationship with the world around him. Then 30 years old, the artist renders himself formally dressed, handsome and intelligent-looking. His pose causes him to be gaze down on the viewer, with an appearance that is, according to the Tretyakov Gallery, "severe and demanding".
The painter Ilya Repin wrote of the work, "What eyes! You can’t hide from them. They are small and are sunk deep in their orbits; gray, lit up…What a serious face!"


Smartest Guy In The Room

Smartest Guy In The Room is an entertainment documentary series that tests the problem solving capabilities of three individuals: Guy Messenger, Randy Rice and Terry Myers. These people are termed as having blue collar jobs but being geniuses with an IQ higher than 140. The tasks presented in the program tests the basic skills of physics, chemistry, mathematics and mechanics. Produced by Authentic Entertainment and telecast on the History Channel, the first season consisted of 12 episodes aired between 1 January and 14 February 2016.
Format.
Each episode consists of two mentally challenging tasks that require planning and perseverance. In each task, one of the three men present a challenging assignment to the other two, which has to be completed within a stipulated time. Winning a challenge presents a player with one point, failing which the point goes to the person who presented the task.


Albert von Keller

Albert von Keller (27 April 1844 – 14 July 1920) was a German painter of Swiss ancestry. He specialized in portraits and indoor scenes. Female figures are a prominent feature of his work.
Biography.
Keller was born in Gais, Switzerland. He was one of eight children born to Caroline Keller, who was divorced at the time of his birth. As was customary, she had resumed the use of her maiden name. Her ex-husband's brother may have been his true father. When he was three, after several moves, the family settled in Bayreuth where he attended primary school and took piano lessons. In 1852, his mother became a citizen of Bavaria and, by extension, so did he. Sometime in mid 1854, they relocated to Munich and he was enrolled at the . He graduated in 1863 and transferred to Ludwig Maximilian University to study law.
After 1865, he decided to pursue a career in art instead, but spent only a short time at the Academy of Fine Arts. He made numerous study trips throughout Germany, France, Italy and the Low Countries. From 1867 he worked at several different studios throughout Munich, including that of Arthur von Ramberg, where he drew nude studies. He had his first showing at the Glaspalast in 1869 and became a member of "", an artists' association, in 1873.
In 1878, he married Irene von Eichthal (1858–1907), great-granddaughter of the Bavarian Court Banker, Aron Elias Seligmann, Freiherr von Eichthal. He would eventually paint over forty portraits of her. Their first son died as an infant. Their second son, Balthasar, was born in 1884, but died in 1906, shortly before his mother.
He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1883, while living in Paris. In 1886, he became a member of the new "Munich Psychological Society"; actually a group devoted to the paranormal, founded by Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. Soon he began representing parapsychological motifs, connected to Christian themes, with visions and hallucinations. In 1892, he was one of the co-founders of the Munich Secession and served as Vice President from 1904 to 1920. He was also a board member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund. In 1898, he received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown, which entitled him to use the noble "von" in his name.
He died on 14 July 1920 in Munich. He and his wife Irene are interred at the Alter Südfriedhof there.


Balthasar van den Bossche

Balthasar van den Bossche (1681–1715) was a Flemish painter who is mainly known for his wide range of genre subjects and occasional portraits.
Life.
Balthasar van den Bossche was born in Antwerp where he studied under the Flemish genre painter Gerard Thomas, an artist who specialized in paintings of studio and picture gallery interiors. Van den Bossche became a master of the Antwerp Guild in 1697. He then travelled to France and maintained a studio in Paris for some time.
He had returned to Antwerp by 1700 and worked for an art dealer. At the same time he continued to paint with notable success. He had important patrons such as the Duke of Marlborough who visited Antwerp after the Battle of Ramillies in 1706. The Duke of Marlborough was so impressed by van den Bossche’s works that he commissioned him to paint a portrait of the Duke including the scene of a battle. Van den Bossche painted the portrait in collaboration with Pieter van Bloemen, a well-known painter of animals, in particular horses.
In 1774 Sir Joshua Reynolds referred to van den Bossche when writing about the French painter Antoine Coypel (1661–1722): 'The modern affectation of grace in his works, as well as in those of Bosch (sic) and Watteau, may be said to be separated by a very thin partition from the more simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmegiano'.
The artist's successful career was cut short by his death in Antwerp in 1715. The portrait and genre painter Jan Carel Vierpeyl was one of his pupils.
Work.
General.
While van den Bossche’s works include the occasional individual and group portrait, the bulk of his output explored the various genre subjects that had been introduced in Flemish and Dutch painting in the 17th century. The preferred subjects of his genre paintings were picture galleries and artist studios, which were also the preferred themes of his master Gerard Thomas. He also painted alchemists in their laboratories, guardroom scenes, conversation pieces, merry companies and doctor visits.
His teacher's style was evident in van den Bossche’s work. He shared the same preference for depicting luxurious bourgeois rooms and conversation pieces, that showcased his patrons' social superiority. These interiors were adorned with the symbols of genteel politeness, artistic discernment, fashion and wealth to highlight that his sitters possessed material wealth as well as social graces.
Like other Flemish artists of his time, van den Bosche was mindful of the prevailing preference in the market for French and Parisian art and adapted his Flemish style to conform to Paris tastes.
As was customary in Antwerp, van den Bossche collaborated with other specialist painters. His collaborations with Pieter van Bloemen (an animal specialist) and Jacob Balthasar Peeters (an architectural painter) are documented.
Artist studios and picture galleries.
Van den Bossche gained a reputation with his representations of artist studio interiors and art collector galleries. He often painted pendant works with one of the pair of paintings representing an artist studio and the other the patron in his home with his collection.
The genre of the 'gallery paintings' is native to Antwerp where Frans Francken the Younger and Jan Brueghel the Elder were the first artists to create paintings of art and curiosity collections in the 1620s. Gallery paintings depict large rooms in which many paintings and other precious items are displayed in elegant surroundings usually with the owner present. The earliest works in this genre depicted art objects together with other items such as scientific instruments or peculiar natural specimens. The genre became immediately quite popular and was followed by other artists such as Jan Brueghel the Younger, Cornelis de Baellieur, Hans Jordaens, David Teniers the Younger, Gillis van Tilborch and Hieronymus Janssens. The art galleries depicted were either real galleries or imaginary galleries, sometimes with allegorical figures. The later development of the genre to which van den Bossche contributed depicted the figures in the gallery paintings in a manner which emphasised that they formed part of an elite with privileged knowledge of art. His gallery paintings thus were a medium to accentuate the notion that the powers of discernment associated with connoisseurship are socially superior to or more desirable than other forms of knowledge.
The artist studio genre developed in the 15th century when artists started representing themselves in elevated historical guises, either as the Evangelist Luke painting Mary and the Infant Jesus or as famous painters from antiquity such as Apelles, painter to Alexander the Great. Seventeenth-century Dutch painters inverted the traditions of the two preceding centuries by rejecting historical guises and idealised settings and substituting more direct, true-to-life images of the painter at work. Some artists such as Adriaen van Ostade created images of very dilapidated studios, as if a painter of peasant scenes like himself should be a peasant in real life. Others such as Gerrit Dou refined the genre by turning them into erudite allegories of the arts. However, the genre was never intended to provide a realistic representation of an artist studio, but was rather a representation and promotion of a particular view of the role or status of artists. The artist studios are usually depicted with the props used by artists in the creation of their work. Van den Bossche often reused the same props in various treatments of artist studios. For instance the heavy drape and globe in ' (sold at Sphinx Fine Art) reappear in the ' held by the Hermitage. Van den Bossche included in these works a window opening to a leafy Italianate view. As in all 17th-century artist studio portraits, the light in these studio and gallery scenes comes from the north and from side windows rather than roof panels.
Physicians and alchemists.
The theme of physicians and alchemists was popular in 17th century Flemish and Dutch genre painting. David Teniers the Younger was the principal contributor to this genre and its iconography in Flanders. The view of the public towards practitioners of either craft was ambivalent and physicians and alchemists were regarded either as persons seriously committed to the pursuit of knowledge or as charlatans and quacks using deception to seek material gain. The ambivalence of this attitude was reflected in the artistic representations of physicians and alchemists.
While alchemists were mainly concerned with transmutation of base metals into more noble ones, their endeavors were wider and also involved the use of their techniques to diagnose or cure people (the so-called 'iatrochemistry', which aimed to provide chemical solutions to diseases and medical ailments). There was therefore an overlap with the role of physicians. One of the popular methods of medical diagnosis was the so-called 'uroscopy', the analysis of the urine of a patient. Whereas this was considered a valid diagnostic method in the Middle Ages its validity had come under attack by more modern-minded physicians in the 17th century. The practice of uroscopy and the questions surrounding its use by medical practitioners were the impetus for genre paintings on the theme of the 'piskijker' ('pee looker'). They typically showed the inspection by a physician or a quack of a flask of urine provided by a young woman. If the inspection revealed the image of a fetus this was proof that the woman was pregnant.
An example of van den Bossche's contribution to the genre is the composition ' which shows a man examining a urine flask for the purpose of medical diagnosis. He is surrounded by alchemical and scholarly apparatus and books. A mother, daughter and child are consulting him. A possible interpretation of the scene is that they are trying to find out whether the daughter is pregnant. Another scene with a similar subject called ' (Chemical Heritage Foundation) shows a man (the iatrochemist) holding up for inspection a urinal that was brought to him by a servant. The iatrochemist is consulting at the same time a manual. The room contains a number of alchemist tools but is clearly not intended as a realist representation of an alchemist's or physician’s work area. This is clear from the fact that many of the motifs in the scene are borrowed from Teniers or from other works of van den Bossche himself such as the globe and the Turkish carpet which he also used in some of his art studio scenes. The depictions of van den Bossche of the theme of the uroscopy do not appear to criticise the iatrochemist but rather show him as a person to whom the patients come in the confidence that he is a man of knowledge.
Guardroom scenes.
Balthasar van den Bossche also painted a number of guardroom scenes. A guardroom scene typically depicts an interior with officers and soldiers engaged in merrymaking. Guardroom scenes often included mercenaries and prostitutes dividing booty, harassing captives or indulging in other forms of reprehensible activities.
Van den Bossche's guardroom scenes did not include the rowdy scenes more common in the 17th century but depicted more intimate settings of officers with their servants. An example of a guardroom scene by van den Bossche is the "" (Sold at Dorotheum on 14 April 2005, Vienna, lot 116), which shows an Oriental looking officer who is instructing an African servant to add a saddle to a pile of weapons, a drum, parts of armour and a war standard in the foreground of the picture. The armour depicted in the picture was already out of date at the time it was painted since metal armours, breast plates and helmets fell out of use from the 1620s. It is possible that in line with the moralizing intent of the genre, the armour is a reference to the vanitas motif of the transience of power and fame.


The Visit of the Royal Physician (opera)

Livlægens Besøg (The Visit of the Royal Physician) is a 2009 Danish-language opera by Bo Holten based on the best-selling Swedish novel "Livläkarens besök" by Per Olov Enquist.


Sword of Rome

Sword of Rome is a board game for 2-5 players, designed by Wray Ferrell and first published in 2004 by GMT Games. A second edition, which expanded the game to support five players, was published in 2010.
Reception.
It was awarded the 2004 Origins Award for "Best Historical Board Game".


Albert Baur

Albert Baur (7 July 1835, Aachen - 7 May 1906, Düsseldorf) was a German painter, illustrator and engraver, associated with the Düsseldorfer Malerschule. He is sometimes referred to as Albert Baur the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, , who was also an artist.
Biography.
He was born to a family of bankers and was originally sent to Bonn to study medicine. In 1854, against his parents' wishes, he quit medical school and enrolled at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied from 1855 to 1857. His primary instructors there were Christian Köhler and Heinrich Mücke. He also took private lessons from Wilhelm Sohn and . In 1860, he moved to Munich and spent two years as a student of Moritz von Schwind. In 1863, he married Marie Beuth (1841-1917) and they had four children.
In 1864, he received a prize for his matte paintings of the Last Judgment at the in Elberfeld. This work was commissioned by the jurist, , the father of Baur's friend and school colleague, Heinrich Ludwig Philippi, whose influence prompted him to specialize in history painting. One of his first major works depicted the body of Otto III being carried across the Alps to Germany.
In 1872, he was named a Professor at the Grand-Ducal Saxon Art School, Weimar, but his attendance was apparently rather sporadic as he took numerous study trips throughout Europe. He returned to Düsseldorf in 1876 and lived there for the rest of his life.
Among the best known works from this later period are a series of "Nischenbilder" (niche paintings) for the (Town Hall), depicting the "Love of Art", "Industriousness", "Desire for Knowledge" (Wissensdrang) and "Patriotism". Later, he added a mural showing Düsseldorf being taken over by Brandenburg in 1609, following a royal succession dispute.


Fields of Fire (game)

Fields of Fire is a solitaire tactical wargame published by GMT Games that is designed to simulate various historical campaigns of wars between World War II and now. The game is card based with two decks used to play, including a terrain deck and action decks. You must build maps for missions and then use turn-based strategic actions. A single game consists of several missions from a historical campaign and each of these individual missions can be played in about 3 – 5 hours. It has won "Games Magazine"'s award for Best New Historical Simulation Game in their 2010 "Games 100" issue.
According to the manufacturer,
A second edition was published in 2017.


Doctor Zhivago (TV series)

Doctor Zhivago is a 2002 British television drama serial directed by Giacomo Campiotti and starring Hans Matheson, Keira Knightley and Sam Neill. The teleplay by Andrew Davies is based on the 1957 novel of the same title by Boris Pasternak.
The serial is the second English-language screen adaptation of the book, following the 1965 feature film. It was produced by Granada Television, with co-funding from the American PBS station WGBH Boston and the German company Evision. It was first broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom, beginning on 24 November 2002. In the United States, it aired as part of "Masterpiece Theatre" on 2 and 9 November 2003.
Plot.
Part I.
The story begins in Tsarist Russia in the early 1900s and is set primarily against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War of 1918–1921. At its core is Lara Guishar Antipova, a young woman from Moscow who has a profound effect on three men who become enamored with her.
Victor Komarovsky, an unctuous, wealthy businessman with political connections, is involved in a casual affair with Lara's bourgeois dressmaker mother Amalia, who encourages her teenage daughter to accept his invitation to dinner in an attempt to retain his financial support of her household. Initially Lara is repelled by the thought, but she finally accepts because of the pressure that he exerts on her, which ends up forcing her to have relationships and use to control her.
Meanwhile, Lara is involved in an affair with the idealistic reformer Pasha Antipov who drifts into left-wing extremism after being wounded by sabre-wielding Cossacks during a peaceful demonstration. Pasha runs to Lara, whom he wants to marry, to treat his wound. He asks her to hide a gun he picked up at the demonstration.
The title character is poet and doctor Yuri Zhivago, who first sees Lara from the window of a café. The two meet when Zhivago and his mentor are called to minister to Amalia after she attempts suicide in response to her daughter's relationship with Victor Komarovsky. When Komarovsky learns of Lara's intentions to marry Pasha, he tries to dissuade Lara, and then rapes her. In revenge, Lara takes the pistol she has been hiding for Pasha and shoots Komarovsky at a Christmas Eve party, but wounds another man by accident. It is here where Zhivago and Lara encounter each other again when he is called to tend to the wounded victim. Komarovsky insists no action be taken against Lara, who is escorted out. Upon meeting face to face, both Zhivago and Komarovsky take an instant dislike to each other. Komarovsky warns Zhivago to stay away from Lara.
Although enraged and devastated by Lara's affair with Komarovsky, Pasha marries Lara, and they have a daughter named Katya. Zhivago eventually marries his cousin, Tonya Gromeko, with whom he was raised after his father, who was involved in shady business dealings with Komarovsky, killed himself back in 1897. Together they have a son named Sasha.
In 1915, with World War I raging, Yuri Zhivago is drafted and becomes a battlefield doctor. He and Lara are reunited over a year later in a makeshift field hospital, where she is serving as a nurse while searching for her missing husband. The two fall in love but do not consummate their relationship. Together they run a hospital for several months, during which time radical changes ensue throughout Russia due to the communist takeover of the country. Lara leaves the hospital to return to her village while Zhivago returns to Moscow.
Part II.
After Russia's involvement with the War ends in 1917, Zhivago returns to Moscow and to his wife Tonya, son Sasha, and his uncle Alexander, whose house in Moscow has been divided into tenements by the new Soviet government. Zhivago briefly returns to work at a hospital where his old friend, Misha Gordon, is the director of the hospital. Despite supporting the revolution, Zhivago is suspected for having bourgeois tendencies. Gordon arranges for travel passes and documents in order for Zhivago and his family to escape from the continuing unrest in Moscow to the far away Gromeko estate at Varykino in the Ural Mountains. Zhivago, Tonya, Sasha and Alexander now board a heavily guarded cattle train, at which time they are informed that they will be traveling through contested territory, which is being secured by the infamous Bolshevik commander named Strelnikov.
While the train is stopped, Zhivago wanders away. He stumbles across the armored train of Strelnikov himself. Yuri recognizes Strelnikov as the former Pasha Antipov. After a tense interview, Strelnikov informs Yuri that Lara is now living in the town of Yuriatin, then occupied by anti-Communist White Army. He allows Zhivago to return to his family.
The family lives a peaceful life in Varykino for the next year-and-a-half until Zhivago finds Lara in nearby Yuriatin, at which point they surrender to their long-repressed feelings and begin a secret affair. When Tonya becomes pregnant, Yuri breaks off with Lara, only to be abducted and conscripted into service by Communist partisans.
Lara is called to serve as the midwife when Tonya is ready to deliver her second child, and Tonya realizes who she is. As the Civil War draws to a close, and coming under increasing suspicion, Zhivago deserts the red partisans and treks across the mountains to Lara's house, where she nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, Tonya, her two children, and her father have returned to Moscow.
Pursued by Komarovsky, now a leader in the Communist Party, Zhivago, Lara and her daughter flee to Varykino. Months later, Komarovsky, still obsessed with Lara, arrives and offers them safe passage out of Russia. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky persuades Zhivago it is in Lara's best interests to leave because of her connection to Strelnikov, who has fallen from grace and lost his position in the Red Army. Zhivago convinces Lara, who is expecting their child, to leave with Komarovsky, telling her he will follow her shortly.
Strelnikov, now a hunted man, arrives at Varykino in search of his family soon after they leave with Komarovsky. Zhivago assures him Lara and his daughter are safe, and Strelnikov kills himself.
Zhivago returns to Moscow and learns his wife, son, and father-in-law were deported and their location is unknown. Several years later, while sitting in a café, he sees a young boy who reminds him of himself as a child passing on the street with his mother, who he realizes is Lara. Before he can reach the pair, he suffers a fatal heart attack. Lara brings young Yuri to view his father's body, and as the two near their home, she realizes that the NKVD is waiting to place her under arrest. Pretending they're playing a game, she urges her son to run away as quickly as he can, with the book of poems Zhivago wrote over the years, before she surrenders to the authorities.
Production.
In discussing adapting the Boris Pasternak novel for television, screenwriter Andrew Davies revealed the task was "daunting because the book is reckoned to be a masterpiece and the film is a great movie and one that I admire very much. Robert Bolt is the king of epic screenplay writers in my book. But as I got further into the book I kept thinking that I didn't agree with Robert Bolt about how to tell the story... and I began to feel much more excited." He added, "It was also a relief to find so much in the book that hadn't found its way into the first movie and could make great drama... I thought the film does the spectacle really well. Rather surprisingly, it also explains the politics very well, but I thought it could do a better job on the relationships. It's probably a bit controversial, but I thought we could say more about Lara and Yuri and how they get together; about Lara's extraordinary situation at the beginning of the story and Yuri having a dreadful start to his life with his parents dying. None of these things really came out in the movie, but they are there in the book. I think that if they look at both versions now, people will probably think that this version in a lot of ways works better for our time. It's more contemporary. I think they'll find the performances are more subtle yet speak to us in our time. Maybe my script will seem out of date in 20 years time because a lot of them do, but watching the original film, I think the central performances look stilted and dated now."
Initially Davies and director Giacomo Campiotti clashed about how to present the material. Davies recalled, "The first couple of weeks after Giacomo joined this project were horrendous for me because "Zhivago" has always been one of his very favorite books. He has always dreamed about filming it and has his own interpretation in his head. I can actually remember thinking after one long, long day, where we just didn't agree about a single thing, that it wasn't going to work—it's either got to be him or me. Somehow, we arrived at a compromise and I have almost forgotten what we were arguing about now, as now we are both very pleased with the script. I always knew that he would make it look beautiful because he has got a poet's vision and now, having seen the rushes and some cut footage, I feel like he is my favourite director of all time. Everything is delightful now... Giacomo Campiotti's direction makes it extraordinary."
Because so much of the story is set in the winter, it was crucial to film the series where it was likely snow would be available. Due to budget constraints, Russia, Norway, and Finland were deemed too expensive. Alberta, Canada was considered until the producers learned the previous year's snowfall had been minimal. Other Canadian provinces were rejected because the production crew was told it would be too cold to operate the needed equipment. Slovakia, where a 95% chance of snow was predicted, was selected for the March filming, and there was a blizzard two days before shooting began. But it quickly melted, and eventually the scenic designers had to utilize 1000 bags of artificial snow. Producer Hugh Warren recalled, "We had all the expense of going to Slovakia as well as the trouble of crossing the border, and then there was no snow. It was more than a little ironic."
Costume designer Annie Symons and her staff of thirty had to create more than 3000 costumes and 35,000 individual items of clothing for the cast. The characters of Zhivago and Lara each had at least 90 costume combinations, and six other principal characters had an average of fifteen changes each. By the time principal photography ended, a total of 984 yards of fabric, 300,000 yards of thread, 1 million buttons, and 7,000 safety pins were used.
Critical reception.
Alessandra Stanley of "The New York Times" said, "By trying so hard for authenticity, this "Doctor Zhivago" drains the story of much of its lyricism... Mr. Lean's grander, glossier version was a closer match to the romantic spirit of the novel's hero... The Davies version is engrossing but more for the harrowing scenes set in the civil war after the revolution than for the novel's legendary love triangle. Black-and-white archival photographs - Moscow slums, newspaper shots of soldiers marching off to World War I - are interspersed throughout the film and slowly bleed into a scene of the television show. The visual trick gives the series a quasi-documentary feel and is quite effective. Yet Mr. Davies takes the same liberties with Pasternak's text as the original film did, focusing on the love story and discarding a lot of the politics, secondary plots and literary sidetracks... This "Doctor Zhivago" can be watched as a useful history lesson and as a cautionary show business tale: it is a lot easier to adapt a Jane Austen novel than it is to remake a film by David Lean."
Brian Lowry of "Variety" observed, "Some will rightfully pine for Maurice Jarre's Oscar-winning score, Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, yet this somewhat less epic take on Boris Pasternak's book is a creditable version, featuring outstanding performances and considerable romance. And hey, kids, it sure beats reading the Cliffs Notes."
Tom Jicha of the "South Florida Sun-Sentinel" called it "a stunning success" and continued, "Davies' screenplay is involving, the cinematography is captivating, the costuming and set designs evoke a sense of time and place, and the top-of-the-marquee performances are world-class." He concluded, ""Doctor Zhivago" is a hefty production, which demands a four-hour, commercial-free commitment from its audience. But the reward is a richly layered character study and love story, worthy of the franchise under which it airs."
Melanie McFarland of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" graded the series B+ and commented it "manages to maintain true to the main story line, streamlining incidental characters to keep the film from becoming too unwieldy, which takes some effort considering the book's rich language and numerous characters... Even so, this version, though a little better paced than the original, is still fairly sluggish. Given the book, perhaps that's unavoidable."
Awards and nominations.
In the UK, the serial was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Drama Serial but lost to "Shackleton". Giacomo Campiotti was nominated Best New Director and Annie Symons was nominated for Best Costume Design.
In the US, the serial was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Miniseries but lost to "Angels in America".
DVD release.
Acorn Media released a Region 1 DVD on 4 November 2003. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with an English audio track and subtitles. Bonus features include extensive interviews with the cast and crew, a photo gallery, a biography of Boris Pasternak, and cast filmographies.


Mary Anne (novel)

Daphne du Maurier's novel Mary Anne (1954) is a fictionalised account of the real-life story of her great great grandmother, Mary Anne Clarke née Thompson (1776-1852).
Mary Anne Clarke from 1803 to 1808 was mistress of Frederick Augustus, the Duke of York and Albany (1763-1827).
He was "The Grand Old Duke of York" of the nursery rhyme, a son of King George III and brother of the later King George IV.


Thomas Elek

Thomas Elek, also known as Tamás Elek and KERPAL (born 7 December 1924, Budapest - d. 21 Feb 1944, Paris) was one of 22 members of the French resistance convicted and executed at the fort of Mont Valérien as one of the Manouchian Group, part of the French liberation army FTP-MOI. After the executions, the Vichy government sought to discredit the resistance members, and widely distributed and posted thousands of copies of the "Affiche Rouge." Named for its red background, the poster featured ten of the Manouchian group, including Elek. It identified him as "Elek Juif Hongrois 8 déraillements" (Elek, Hungarian Jew, 8 derailments).
Elek had immigrated as a child with his family from Hungary to France in 1930, when they settled in Paris. After France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940 and enemy forces occupied Paris, he dropped out of the lycée and became involved in underground resistance movements. He was credited with armed attacks on German soldiers, including a train derailment in July 1943 that resulted in the death of 600 men.
Biography.
Early years.
Thomas Elek was born in Budapest, Hungary on the 7 December, 1924 to a family of communist intellectuals. The Elek family (Thomas, his father Sandor, his sister Marthe and his mother Hélène, then pregnant with his brother, Bela) emigrated to France in 1930. They settled in Paris, where his mother, after various minor jobs, became a restaurateur in 1934
Second World War.
Elek left the Lycée Louis-le-Grand at the age of 16, to become involved in the underground movement after Nazi German forces defeated France and occupied Paris. He joined a group of students at the Sorbonne who were linked to the "Groupe du musée de l'Homme", wrote and distributed tracts, and stuck "papillons" (butterflies - flyers) to walls. In August 1942, sympathising with the "Jeunesses Communistes" (Communist Youth), he became involved with the FTP-MOI (Francs-tireurs et partisans - Main-d'œuvre immigrée) and took up the armed struggle of resistance. His "nom de guerre" was KERPAL.
Shortly after, Elek was assigned a solo attack on the Rive Gauche German bookstore, in which he used a booby-trapped copy of Marx's "Capital." In March 1943, along with the young Czech, Pavel Simo, he made a grenade attack on a restaurant reserved for German officers at Asnières. Simo was arrested, and executed on 22 May 1943 at the Stand de tir de Balard.
On 1 June 1943 in a spontaneous attack, Elek threw two grenades into a group of 70 Germans in front of the Jaurès metro station. He was promoted and named head of the group at the center of the 4th detachment of the FTP-MOI Paris region; they were known as "des dérailleurs" and commanded by Joseph Boczov.
Elek participated in several railway derailments, notably that of 28 July on the Paris-Château-Thierry line. This derailment is said to have caused the death of 600 German soldiers.
In 1943 Elek was arrested with others of the Manouchian Group and tortured by the Vichy "Brigades Spéciales". He was transferred to the Germans and detained in Fresnes Prison. All but the sole woman member of the Manouchian group were condemned to death in a show trial by military officers, and executed by firing squad three days later, 21 Feb 1944, at Mont Valérien. The woman was beheaded at another site.


Das Nachtlager in Granada

Das Nachtlager in Granada ("The Night Camp in Granada") is a romantic opera in two acts by Conradin Kreutzer. The libretto is by based on Johann Friedrich Kind's 1818 drama of the same name.
Performance history.
The premiere of a first version with spoken dialogue was performed on 13 January 1834 at Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna. The second version (with recitatives) was performed on 9 March 1837 at Theater am Kärntnertor.
It was subsequently given in London at the former Prince's Theatre on 13 May 1840, and in New York City on 15 December 1862.


Deacon of Death

Deacon of Death is a 2004 Dutch documentary film by film director Jan van den Berg and Willem van de Put and was produced by DRS Films. The film introduces Sok Chea, a victim of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 70s, as she confronts Karoby, the man she remembers killing her family and others in their village when she was a child. Karoby has never been brought to trial and still lives in the village where the atrocities took place.
In 2004, the film had a fairly successful theatrical release and won the Golden Calf for best long documentary.


Chapter 2 (House of Cards)

"Chapter 2" (or "Episode 102") is the second episode of the first season of the American political thriller drama series "House of Cards". It premiered on February 1, 2013, when it was released along with the rest of the first season on the American streaming service Netflix.
Plot.
Frank (Kevin Spacey) is still sitting on the terrace of Freddy's, enjoying his first step to securing his revenge. He is off to meet part of the Democratic leadership for breakfast, where they discuss their course of action on how to handle the poorly-received education bill. They are interrupted by Remy Danton (Mahershala Ali), a former press secretary-turned-corporate lobbyist, who reminds Frank that his main client, SanCorp, has heavily invested in him. Meanwhile, Doug (Michael Kelly) finds something on Senator Michael Kern (Kevin Kilner), President Walker's nominee for Secretary of State, but Frank refuses to use it. After leaking the draft of the education bill, Frank secures control of the legislation and lures Donald (Reed Birney) into becoming his scapegoat. Claire (Robin Wright) continues downsizing her staff at the Clean Water Initiative.
Frank arranges a meeting with Zoe (Kate Mara) and hands her an editorial from a student newspaper in which Kern had denounced the Israeli occupation of the West Bank as illegal. Despite reservations, Zoe and her editors decide to publish. During an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Kern is confronted with an advance copy of Zoe's article. Furthermore, Stamper manages to locate Roy Kapeniak (T.J. Edwards), Kern's former co-editor of the student newspaper. Frank decides to send Russo (Corey Stoll) to talk with Kapeniak, who reveals that it was actually his article, not Kern's. Russo asks him to lie about it and say that Kern wrote it. Barnes runs the story linking Kern to the editorial, ending his nomination. With everything already planned, Frank contacts Durant and has Barnes leak the senator's (Jayne Atkinson) name as Kern's replacement in order to fuel early media speculation. Durant leads the polls and thus wins Vazquez's and Walker's support. Frank provides subtle affirmation of the choice.
Reception.
The episode received positive reviews from critics. "Boston Globe" Matthew Gilbert noted that "the first two episodes were expertly directed by David Fincher" and Spacey's harmonious cadence such as those used in the first scene of this episode "makes even his character's mercy killing of an injured dog—which he does by hand—seem a little less brutal." Ryan McGee of "The A.V. Club" said, "No actor, even one as skilled and charismatic as Spacey, can maintain interest with stakes this low over the long haul. For "House of Cards" to move to the next level, things have to stop being easy. They have to start getting hard. If the show does that, what's merely good right now should leap into the level of greatness."