Wednesday 19 October 2011

TV

The Great British Bake Off
2x10 Masterclass Part 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
10x12 (13/10/11 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless
3x18 (24/9/10 edition)
For some reason the BBC have abandoned the current series of Pointless mid-way to delve back two series to an apparently random point in series three, with episodes originally aired a little over a year ago. What's interesting is how different it all looks... but only slightly. The set and structure have clearly been slightly tweaked at some point (possibly when it made the move from BBC Two to BBC One) -- it's not massively different, but sort of subtly, uncannily so.
But hey, I've never seen these episodes, so it's got all the same play-along-at-home fun as a brand new one would.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

It's new comics day! So while I wait for Forbidden Planet to get round to sending mine, and then wait for them to get round to arriving ("Saturday at best" is the usual time frame), it makes sense to read some of those late-arrivals I haven't got round to from the last fortnight of releases...

Animal Man #2 by Jeff Lemire & Travel Foreman
The villains and their crimes are horribly gruesome in this, but then I guess it's a horror comic (well, a superhero-horror comic) so it goes with the territory. The stuff with Buddy's family is brilliant though, giving it a completely different tone to most superhero books. It's not just a surface "this hero has a family!" schtick either, but one that Lemire is using really well as part of his story. You may remember that the first issue was a surprise sell-out hit, and I see no reason why that won't continue.
Though why one character is called Reg in dialogue but clearly has a name badge saying "Ned", I don't know.

Batgirl #2 by Gail Simone & Ardian Syaf
You may recall I wasn't massively enamoured with the first issue of Batgirl (unlike many a fangirl/boy, apparently), but I was intrigued enough by the villain to keep reading. This issue was much better, I felt, in large part again thanks to the villain -- Batgirl herself is too repetitive, especially in the over-recapping of the first issue at the start. I'll stick with this until the end of this arc, to find out what happens with said villain, but I imagine I'll drop it then.

(And one of these days I'll get round to my backlog of CLiNT -- it puts my piles of unread 2000 ADs & Megazines to shame.)

Articles

Review of Batman #2 by Ryan K. Lindsay
(from Comic Book Resources)
A second absolutely glowing five-star review for Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo's Batman book. Look forward to getting my copy sometime in the next 8+ days, then, depending on how efficient Forbidden Planet are feeling.

Five new DC Comics #1s recommended for movie lovers by Matt Singer
(from IFC)
We're over halfway through the #2s now, so this article is perhaps a little late to the party, but it's still a slightly different angle to look at The New 52 from.