last python alive
i can’t really tell if terry jones’s constant reversion to his old shtick in terry jones’s medieval lives is
i. tactical,
ii. just kneejerk, or
iii. semi-sheepish.
you can hardly accuse jones of dumbing down or selling out – he’s a actual real professional slapstick goof-off – and it none of it gets in the way exactly. if you watch it to learn stuff you will – cz he’s a actual real professional historian also, and discovered that henry iv had chaucer murdered in prison, maybe.* animating the illuminated manuscripts is holy grail knock-off of course – and you might just miss gilliam’s visual sense – but since TV hates static pictures and wd certainly otherwise be requiring the rostrum camera guy do dumm stuff with shock comedy zooms on scary monsters etc, this is more than forgiveable. as for terry’s tumbles across the screen, dressed up as gurning emperor, jester, kern or gallowglass, well, they serve no great purpose, except a kind of wonky-faithkeeping: as if he knows some people are turning on to see this kind of thing and he feels badly about letting them down completely the way EVERY ONE of his EX-BUDDIES so tediously did tv-wise.
*(i mean maybe chaucer wz murdered (he’s not sure) and maybe jones discovered it (i’m not sure))