Mrs. Peel, We are Needed.

“Granted, The Avengers’ vision of Britishness, while rooted in some truths about the national character, was pure fantasy. But it’s an attractive fantasy: this land where the heroes are tasteful yet fashionable, reserved yet lascivious, demure yet effective.”

Before Mulder and Scully, there was Steed and Peel: In the AV Club, Noel Murray sings the praises of “The Avengers’ stylish, lascivious vision of Britishness. I’ll confess that Mrs. Peel remains one of my earliest and enduring fanboy crushes. “[T]he secret to The Avengers’ ribaldry was that it isn’t just about sex: It’s also about power. Gale and Peel didn’t just flummox men with their beauty; they also had brilliant minds, and they kicked gents’ posteriors, routinely.” (Images via Heather McLendon.)

The Caesar Beyond the Wall.

As revealed at Entertainment Weekly today, joining the rest of the new Game of Thrones casts members above — Diana Rigg? Awesome. — is HBO standby Ciaran Hinds as the King Beyond the Wall, Mance Rayder. Somebody on a fan board offered Robert Carlyle — who’s busy making a mint over on ABC’s Once Upon a Time — but Hinds is a great choice also, and a much more prominent actor than I suspected.

Slaughter, Infidelity, Donuts.

In the movie bin, Homer J. Simpson gets stuck between a rock (Iraq?) and a hard place in the trailer for The (long-awaited) Simpsons Movie; Edward Norton (brandishing a surprisingly lousy accent) and Naomi Watts struggle with a loveless marriage by way of W. Somerset Maugham in the trailer for The Painted Veil (also with Liev Schrieber, Toby Jones, and the always lovely Dame Diana Rigg); and Wilbur the pig picks up a “spin” doctor with a way with words in a new Internet-only teaser for Charlotte’s Web (Between Julia and Buscemi, it seems like the voice-work is going to be really distracting.)