Jack Black is Charles Darwin

Well, I guess I can see it. I think I hoped that for the 200th birthday of Darwin there would be some kind of serious biopic - perhaps along the lines of PBS's "Evolution" series. Instead we get Jack Black and Adam Sandler in "Bulldog - the Huxley Chronicles." Based on Ivan P. Tatterson's comic series of novels Sandler will play Bulldog Huxley, the gruff but well meaning vocal advocate of Evolution who keeps getting the somber Darwin (Black) into a variety of uncomfortable social situations.

The publicity stills leaked so far include Darwin and Huxley dressed as ladies running from a mob of what look to be Puritans or Pilgrims. I think this is supposed to be a version of the scene in the book where the Anglicans get after the pair, but this looks very over the top.

And casting Harvey Keitel as Archbishop Wilberforce seems a bit odd to me. Couldn't SOME of the cast actually be British? Is this some strange reversal of the "House Syndrome" where British comic actors play serious roles in American TV? It should be interesting.

I know the shots of the balloon-fight-over-London look exactly like I'd imagined them, and the set design of Darwin's lab (including all of the little finch heads mounted like trophies of a game-hunter) are probably the most fetching steam-punk images since the regrettable "Wild, Wild West" film.