Friday 22 October 2010

TV

Band of Brothers
Part One Currahee [2nd watch]
Despite owning it on DVD since its release, and now Blu-ray too (well, instead), I don't believe I've watched Band of Brothers since its original BBC Two broadcast. With 10 days 'til sort-of-sequel The Pacific is released on DVD & Blu-ray, it seems a good time to finally reacquaint myself with its predecessor.
It's still thoroughly excellent, even though (as I recall it) the best is yet to come. One notable thing, nine years after it was first shown: how many of the faces are now much more recognisable. It's an incredible cast.

House
7x03 Unwritten

The Mentalist
3x02 Cackle-Bladder Blood
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
2x05 Bristol
So they're in Bristol, but they don't have Russell Howard on? What is the world coming to...
Though there's something even more troubling about this episode: Squeezing five comedians into the show's regular 45 minutes usually means we don't get to see enough of the good ones (equally, it means the poor ones are gone pretty quickly), but this edition is cut down to just 30 (for no apparent reason). It means everyone bar McIntyre is really rushed; ridiculously so, in fact. Why, people-who-do-such-things, why?
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

BBC confirms BBC One HD launch details by Andrew Laughlin
(from Digital Spy)
Hooray! With the existing BBC HD even more freed up to show stuff from the other channels, hopefully this will mean less instances of stuff not getting an HD simulcast. Sarah Jane in particular has been annoying me in this respect -- while CBBC and BBC One are showing two eps per week, on Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday/Thursday respectively, BBC HD is showing just one episode every Saturday. What? Why? Gits.

Director Norrington quits Crow remake by Simon Reynolds
(from Digital Spy)
I'd be lying if I said I'd been massively excited for this film, but the people involved and the 'new direction' talk had piqued my interest. So, this news is a shame.

Neil Gaiman drops Doctor Who hints by Morgan Jeffery
(from Digital Spy)
Beware spoilers, though I think Gaiman does a good job of genuinely teasing without giving away anything significant. In other words, it's more fuel for speculation (much more) without providing anything definitive.

Warner Bros confirms Hobbit cast by Christian Tobin
(from Digital Spy)
It's been the talk of the 'net today, but in case you missed it, nine of the leading roles in The Hobbit (in addition to the likes of Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis returning) have been confirmed. They're a mix of "brilliant!", "interesting..." and "I have no idea who that is".

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

And it's been doing so for a whole year!

Normally this would be the latest running time update (which is only logical -- I do it monthly, of course it would coincide with the anniversary), but I've expanded it rather for a sort-of-celebratory Statistic of the Week. More after the latest numbers...

...which this week see the Back to the Future trilogy hit Blu-ray. Gorgeous set, it is, and replaces my old DVDs. Plus two new DVDs and you get this:

Number of titles in collection: 1,226 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,103 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 123 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,007 [up 7]
Number of films in collection: 1,294 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,280 [up 60]

Statistic of the week:

In honour of Collection Count reaching its first anniversary, I've decided to see how much my collection has grown in the past year. Exciting stuff, eh?

So without further delay, in the last 12 months my collection has increased as follows...

Number of titles in collection: up 169 (15.99%)
Of which DVDs: up 79 (7.7%)
Of which Blu-rays: up 90 (272.7%)

Number of discs in collection: up 391 (14.95%)
Number of films in collection: up 200 (18.3%)
Number of TV episodes in collection: up 628 (17.2%)

Plus, in that first-ever post I included the first running time total. And so...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
212 days, 6 hours, and 58 minutes
-- up 32 days, 14 hours, and 5 minutes since last year! (That's 18.32%, fact fans.)

Well crikey. What a year, and all that.

See you next week for the start of Year 2, faithful reader.