For auld lang syne, Sarah & George

Beware of A Place to Call Home final season spoilers in this post!

One of my favourite TV series, A Place to Call Home, ended in October after 6 seasons. I have loved this show and will miss it! I wouldn’t have minded a few more seasons…

Things worked out for the much troubled Sarah (Marta Dusseldorp) and George (Brett Climo)…

vlcsnap-2018-12-29-11h32m19s059vlcsnap-2018-12-29-11h32m35s801vlcsnap-2018-12-29-11h34m08s909… and for the rest of the characters on the show. A special mention for season 6 goes out to Carolyn (Sara Wiseman), Jack (Craig Hall), Elizabeth (Noni Hazlehurst) and Roy (Frankie J. Holden) who really tugged at my heartstrings this final season..

The show ends with the message that there are always challenges ahead (some are briefly shown), but all challenges are faced together and can therefore be borne. Beautiful.

Right after the final episode aired in October, I started making a Sarah & George centric farewell fan video but then I got stuck fairly early into making it. It was a challenge trying to keep it short and even now there are more clips I wish I could have included, but then the video would have been endless. Also, real life events interfered and so I never got around to finishing it… until now! Be aware that if you watch the video it will contain spoilers for the show.  YouTube has alas blocked the video in Australia and New Zealand, so here are links to the video on Vimeo…

… as well as on YouTube…

The video ends with “For Auld Lang Syne” – it feels fitting for the end of the show but also for this time of year, at the end of the year. It feels like the video was meant to be finished now and not earlier.

Thank you cast and crew of A Place to Call Home for 6 great seasons of a wonderful show! I’m already missing you…

Giddy!

Marta Dusseldorp, lead actress from A Place To Call Home who plays Sarah, actually saw the fan video I made recently for George and Sarah in season 5!

Marta Dusseldorp APTCH season 6

How do I know that she has seen it? She tweeted a reaction!

Last year she retweeted something I wrote and this time she actually commented and again I am stoked! I had to reply to her, of course…

I never fangirl to garner attention from the object of my affection, I never tweet to the objects of my affection (I only hashtag them) and I never ever expect a reaction. In fact, I am more than fine not being noticed, I’d be embarrassed… I just fangirl because I need to let my enthusiasm out. So, when one of your fangirl objects personally acknowledges you for something you have done because you admire the work they do, I admit, it makes me feel giddy! Thank you Marta for making my day! 🙂

The Look of Love

Season 5 of A Place to Call Home just finished airing on Dutch TV. Not that I needed to really watch it, I’ve already seen it and blogged about it here, but I did dip in on occasion when I happened across it. I still love this show! And it reminded me that I had been meaning to make a season 5 fan video for Sarah and George, which I have now finally done. During this season, George (Brett Climo) and Sarah (Marta Dusseldorp) are finally together.

George Sarah APTCH season 5

Though not yet able to marry and officially living apart, it really is common knowledge that they are together and that Sarah’s son, David, is also George’s son. For them it’s all about the love they share this seaon, so “The Look of Love” felt very appropriate here (I love Nina Simone’s voice!)…

Season 6 has already started airing in Oz and I’m there for the ride. Sadly, season 6 is the final season but what a ride it’s been so far. 🙂

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Aussie – as in an endearment for an Australian. 🙂 There has been some great Aussie entertainment news this past week!


Last week two of my favourite Aussies were posing together: Simon Baker of The Mentalist fame and Hugh Jackman. Simon has made a movie called Breath and Hugh Jackman and his wife Deborra-lee Furness were helping Simon promote his movie in New York City! As shared on Hugh’s instagram account…

… as well as on Simon’s instagram account. Apparently Jackman hosted the screening!

Here a few more pictures from that same event (click to enlarge)…

Breath is an Australian movie set in the 1970s. It’s a coming of age story about two teenage boys who befriend an older surfer (Simon Baker) and he challenges them to take risks. Here’s a trailer…

Simon Baker not only stars in this, he also directed, produced and co-wrote this movie and, as an accomplished surfer himself, he also surfs in it. I’m not sure how wide the release will be but the first reviews I have seen sound promising!


In other Aussie news: the Australian Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries film is a go! Crowdfunding (and yes, I also am a backer) helped make this possible. 🙂 All the main actors will be back and filming will start in October in Morocco and in Australia (Melbourne). The new movie is called Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears

You can read the full press release here. From the press release…

“The film opens with the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher rescuing Shirin Abbas, a young Bedouin woman, who has been thrown into jail in British Mandated Palestine, for making trouble at a time of colonial unrest. After a perilous escape from Jerusalem, she rejoins Shirin as a fellow guest in the home of Lord and Lady Lofthouse, for the London ‘season’ and she pledges to help her right a wrong and discover the truth about the Crypt of Tears – an ancient crypt rumoured to lie somewhere beneath the rolling sands of the Negev Desert.

Fiona Eagger said: “Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears will have the witty intrigue of Indiana Jones, the opulent style of a Merchant Ivory Production, and the feminist fun of Thelma and Louise.”

It’ll be a while before we’ll actually see it but already I am getting excited for this!


Also, a bit of Aussie fun: Chris Hemsworth, Australian actor of Thor fame, posted this funny little video of him signing photographs of himself the other day.

I can so imagine that it must feel like a workout if you have to sign so very many!


And in final Aussie news – nominations for Australia’s biggest TV awards, the Logies, have just been announced. The Aussie show A Place to Call Home, that I love so much, has been nominated for ‘Most Outstanding Drama Series’!

They won the award last year and I wouldn’t mind them winning it again this year! Jenni Baird has again been nominated for ‘Most Outstanding Supporting Actress’ for her role as Regina…

… and by George, would I absolutely love to see her win! She has been the most dubious, chilling and layered character on the show, she was robbed for not winning last year. I hope she gets it this year, fingers crossed!


Yes, I love me some good Aussie news!

Top fanvids on my YouTube…

I updated my fan video corner on this site yesterday evening, adding a page for the TV series Suits. I have made several videos for that show, the last one was in November, but I suspect that after series 7B airs (starting March 28th!), I will be making some more Suits videos. I didn’t have a Suits page yet but now that omission has been corrected.

I have a  YouTube channel, which is where I post most of my videos and I have posted videos there from the end of 2010 onwards. While I do post, I very rarely check any stats and I’m not very active there, community-wise. After I post a new video, I sometimes throw a quick peek at a few basic stats from the last few videos I posted but tend to quickly move on. I don’t aim to gather a huge following, I’m just sharing what I make and should others like it, then that’s the extra bonus.

Anyway, while updating my fan video corner here, I thought I’d check out my YouTube stats in a little more depth for a change. What I see is that I have garnered 957.875 views over the past 7,5 years! I don’t know if that’s really a lot in the grand scheme of things but it sounds like a lot to me! I am also surprised that I have 607 subscribers! They must come from varying fandoms as I have made videos for several different shows, but that number surprises me. I was also able to see what my most viewed videos were and the results also surprised me…


My number 1 most viewed video is a Suits video called ‘Crazy’ which I posted last November. I am gobsmacked that a video I posted only 4 months ago should already be at the top of the list! As I type this, the video has had 141.058 views and 296 likes (with 20 dislikes)…

I wonder what makes this Suits video so very popular! My first Suits fan video was made up of gifs, so not that great and I get why that one isn’t so popular. Another Suits video I made (“Bomb”) is blocked in USA and Canada (but also available on Vimeo), so I get why that doesn’t have that many views either. I do wonder why the one I made after ‘Crazy’ (called ‘Demons’) is stuck at 746 views, though, which is about 1000 views less than even that gif video. Is it really that much worse? Or was the popular one shared on some very popular Suits platform and is that why it is so extremely well viewed? In any case, this is interesting!


The number 2 most viewed video is one I did of a little Pierce Brosnan romcom called Laws of Attraction. Not the best of romcoms but I liked it and as there were very few fan videos of this movie out there, I decided to make one. It was posted in September 2012 (so took 5,5 years to garner the views it got) and has 132.506 views with 185 likes (and 18 dislikes). I guess it must be the big name (Pierce Brosnan), but it is the only video I also get spam notifications on. So, I’m thinking, maybe bots are responsible for some of those views?

I have a Pierce Brosnan videos page for the 4 vids I made starring him, should you care to see more. Two more Brosnan videos are in my top 10 most viewed list as well: at number 5 a Remington Steele ‘Kiss me’ video and at number 7 the ‘Love is all you need’ video.


My 3rd most viewed video is a bit of a dramatic Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries one. That one (posted in April 2016, so almost 2 years ago) has 115.914 views and the most likes of any other video on my channel: 666 likes (with only 10 dislikes)! So, number 3 in views but number 1 in most liked. 🙂

More Miss Fisher videos here. There are two more Miss Fisher videos in my top 10 most viewed list: at number 4 is ‘Jack’s Desk’ and at number 9 is ‘They can’t take that away from me’.


I also have A Place To Call Home videos, the most popular one of that show is the ‘At Last’ one I made at the end of season 4 a year ago, it’s the 6th most viewed video on my channel.

And ‘Time in a Bottle’ that I also made for that show is number 8 in the top ten.


I made a few Call the Midwife videos three years ago, some of them are also relatively popular. The most popular one for that show is ‘I Choose You’ (number 10 of my most viewed videos), which highlights the choice Sister Bernadette has to make…

More Call the Midwife videos here.


Outside of the top 10 videos, I also want to highlight a The Mentalist video. I always kind of assumed my old The Mentalist ‘That man’ video would remain my most popular video but that one is down to number 19 on the list now! Goes to show how long it’s been since I’ve actually really looked at stats. That video, one of my earliest fan videos (made in 2011!) and a little less polished looking, still remains one of my own faves. It is also still the most popular video of the The Mentalist ones I made…

More The Mentalist videos here.


And last but not least: I made the most videos for Silent Witness when the character of Dr. Harry Cunningham was still around. The show was never the same again after he left and after they killed off Dr. Leo Dalton a year later, I stopped watching altogether. My most viewed Silent Witness video (made in 2013, number 15 most viewed) got blocked on YouTube a year ago, so I have put it up on Vimeo. It dealt with the loss of Harry… Even after all these years (4, I think) I still hope that Dr. Nikki Alexander (she still does Silent Witness) will ride off into the sunset with Harry after all…

More Silent Witness videos here.


I should make a Richard Armitage fan video some time… but there are so many good ones already out there, I don’t feel like there’s much I can add. And I guess I should do this YouTube video analysis again some time in the future and see how things stand then. It’s been fun. 🙂