Best. Bond. Evar.

(NOTE: This was actually written Saturday night. Totally PWI and it fell apart at the end, so I've been debating what to do with it. I've decided to clean up some of the phrasing and spelling and let it go...)

So this was really awesome as far as a James Bond franchise goes.

I mean, of course, the recent release of "Casino Royale". Which, compared to over 30 years of the original James Bond/Ian Fleming stories, is a gritty, suspenseful and hardcore telling of the old-skool tale that we're all familiar with.

Sean Connery was the ultimate macho-Bond. Then there was the underrated George Lazenby, with what was my favorite Bond story ever. Then Roger Moore took the franchise over with some of the most gratuitous Bond-insanity ever (Duran Duran notwithstanding). And there were still attempts at making the Bond mythos relevant with Dalton and Brosnan and the like. Dalton tried to evoke the Lazenby mythos, but beyond that, the silliness continues.

This version was almost entirely devoid of silliness, witch was totally awesome.

The whole notion of a hardcore everyday Bond, with his charms in the service of country over class plays more toward the original Fleming novels than the outcome of the stories that spawned from that era.

But then the whole Texas-holdem game (instead of the classier Baccarat) made the whole point of the series rather lame. I mean, was this whole thing just World Series O' Poker when it came down to it?

At any rate, it's kind of unfortunate that such an entertaining show fell into the trap of a lot of disparate elements. But still fun nonetheless.