the buzz log

Turmoil in Africa... your turn. A military coup up-ended the first elected president of Mauritania, and led to an online scramble for rebellion details, the country's location, and a timeline of the nation's growth. The junta marched with supporters and promised free elections, while the the daughter of ousted leader Sidi Cheikh Ould Abdallahi called for U.N. intervention.

.... Meanwhile, a blood trail leads to Laurence Fishburne as a possible new "CSI" boss. The tough guy catapulted into the top 50 terms, shooting past "paris hilton for president" queries. Methinks there's a veep candidate here.

...No relation to Han, but the force and Buzz beats strong for soccer goalkeeper Hope Solo (+270%), comeback kid for the USA women's Olympic team.

...And now, let's end with a Buzz Log eye-candy moment with Boris Kodjoe (+62%), soon to be in a romantic comedy near you.

Filed under: TV, Actors, Politics, Soccer, Military, Africa, Olympics

Mrs. Peel, you're still needed... and wanted.

Diana Rigg, who played the coolly delicious, leather-clad Emma Peel in the playful '60s British spy series "The Avengers," turned 70 on Sunday. A birthday Search salute exploded: Lookups for the septugenarian surged a staggering 90,086%, landing her leather boots among the day's top 25 terms. That's more searches than Miley Cyrus with her new "Breakout" album, Britney Spears and her custody loss, or Angelina Jolie hoisting her new twins.

The fervor over a Dame turning 70 speaks to the cult power of the spy show, and calls for a TV history lesson: "The Avengers" (no relation to the Marvel comic) breathed campy aesthetics and thumbed its nose at all convention and storytelling while still looking timeless thanks to designer duds, spiffy vintage cars, and gender-role tweaking. The show also made small-screen history by casting a woman as a partner (to dapper spy John Steed, played by Patrick Macnee), rather than a sidekick or damsel in distress.

The postmodern Mrs. Emma Peel was built to appeal to men—"man appeal" or M-Appeal (get it)—which in the '60s meant putting a Shakespearean-trained lass in leather and stretch jersey. The lady also fenced, published scientific papers, ran an empire, dispensed bad guys with karate chops, and was fearless in the face of cackling villainy. The Man Appeal still holds up 40+ years later: Guys not only conducted more than 80% of Rigg's birthday searches, but also made up 8 out of 10 "emma peel" searches (which strode to the top 500 Sunday). 

Rigg left the show in 1968, starring next as the only Bond wife ever in the movies. Still, two seasons had been enough to establish her as an iconic, liberated character who even now still seems before her time. Rigg herself has said for years that image is "not relevant to me," although a recent interview shows she still hasn't lost her cool.

Filed under: TV

Does the Emmy statuette carry more weight for an actress?

Television has long been a landing pad for talented women. Cybill Shepherd and Angela Lansbury revived their careers when they went detecting in the '80s and '90s with their respective series, "Moonlighting" and "Murder She Wrote." These days, Kyra Sedgewick ("The Closer") and Holly Hunter ("Saving Grace") talk even tougher on cable, possibly making TNT the rougher, tougher version of the Lifetime Channel.

As another round of actors and actresses put "Emmy nominee" on their resumé, Hollywood Reporter brings an eye-opening perspective from seven past contenders for Best Actress categories on what (fleeting) legitimacy a nomination can bring. The women also discuss the better availability of female roles on TV, which spurs a particularly rousing rant from Minnie Driver ("The Riches"), who hates "the idea of reaching a certain age and being put in this box that forces actresses to become these battle-axes who speak out against youth culture," and an eloquent philosophy waxed by Brooke Shields ("Lipstick Jungle") about fame being a "fascinating, precarious concept" that still "deterioriates your soul."

TV has regularly fed creative concepts to the movies for some time, but the recent box-office triumph of (Emmy award-winning) "Sex and the City" may underscore the argument for a female cinematic presence on mediums small and big. Later this month, "The X-Files 2" brings back the whip-smart, pragmatic FBI detective Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson), adding to a sparse field of heroines so far populated by surrogate moms (Tina Fey and Amy Poehler), a female assassin (Angelina Jolie) and a plant-hunting robot (voiced by Elissa Knight).

Besides Emmy contenders, recent interviews with favorite actresses include the Los Angeles Times' chat with "Battlestar Galactica" actress Rekha Sharma, among the rare breed of minority actresses in sci-fi; who might sub for Search favorite Mary Lynn Rajskub as she's too pregnant for another season of "24," and the (limited) return of Jorja Fox in "CSI." Statuette or not, the ladies deserve a little attention for proving that their expiration date is way after 30.

Filed under: TV, Movies, Actors, Women, Emmy Awards, Emmy Awards 2008