TV

Friends
9x02 The One Where Emma Cries [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x07 Doomed to Die

Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game
Chapter 18 Group 2

That completes the 'adventure'/'campaign' portion of the game, but it also provides rules to continue playing (basically by creating your own 'chapter' via a random selection of different card types), so we also started a game following those principles.

TV

Friends
9x01 The One Where No One Proposes [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x06 Where Is He?

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x30 Week 6: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game
Chapter 18 Group 1

TV

Friends
8x23 The One Where Rachel Has a Baby Part 1 [6th or so watch]
8x24 The One Where Rachel Has a Baby Part 2 [season finale; 6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x05 Halls of Stone

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x29 Week 6: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game
Chapter 17

TV

Friends
8x21 The One with the Cooking Class [6th or so watch]
8x22 The One Where Rachel Is Late [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x04 Eldest

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x28 Week 6: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x19 The One with Joey's Interview [6th or so watch]
8x20 The One with the Baby Shower [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x03 The Eagle and the Sceptre

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x26 Week 6: Monday
8x27 Week 6: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game
Chapter 16
It took literally hours attempting it over and over, but we finally beat Chapter 16!

TV

Friends
8x17 The One with the Tea Leaves [6th or so watch]
8x18 The One in Massapequa [6th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x25 Week 5: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Notebook (2004)
[#64 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
Blindspot 2025 #7

Games

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Trick-Taking Game
Chapters 15–16
Chapter 16 multiple times over, because it's hard and we couldn't win it. Try again another day.

Collection Count

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

Just two new additions this week. Not 100% sure if this slow-down is due to fewer releases of interest or HMV cutting their 20% discount so I'm being more circumspect. Maybe it's a bit of both. Still, I have at least one or two titles preordered for next week... and the week after... and the week after that... and the week after that... So, yeah, there's no danger of my collection's growth stopping entirely.

Number of titles in collection: 3,586 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 987 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,599 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 488 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 8,620 [up 2]
Number of films: 4,550 [up 2]
Number of additional cuts: 451 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,160 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,250 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Friends
8x16 The One Where Joey Tells Rachel [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x02 Where the Stars are Strange

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x21 Week 5: Monday
8x22 Week 5: Tuesday
8x23 Week 5: Wednesday
8x24 Week 5: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x14 The One with the Secret Closet [6th or so watch]
8x15 The One with the Birthing Video [6th or so watch]

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
2x01 Elven Kings Under the Sky
11 months late (has it really been so long?!), finally getting round to this.

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x20 Week 4: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x13 The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath [6th or so watch]

Films

Finding Your Feet (2017)

TV

Friends
8x12 The One Where Joey Dates Rachel [6th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x19 Week 4: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x10 The One with Monica's Boots [6th or so watch]
8x11 The One with Ross's Step Forward [6th or so watch]

Leverage: Redemption
1x08 The Mastermind Job

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x17 Week 4: Tuesday
8x18 Week 4: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x07 The One with the Stain [6th or so watch]
8x08 The One with the Stripper [6th or so watch]
8x09 The One with the Rumor [6th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
8x16 Week 4: Monday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Wolf Man (1941)
[#63 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2025 #7

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
11 The Adventure of the Naval Treaty

"The end" of Memoirs, for me right now. There is one more story, The Final Problem, but I've already read it — not that it doesn't merit revisiting, but as I'm currently on a mission to finally have read all the Holmes stories at least once, and I've still got 27 short stories and a novel to go, my time is better spent elsewhere at present.

Comics

Absolute Batman
#7 Absolute Zero Part 1 by Scott Snyder & Marcos Martín
#8 Absolute Zero Part 2 by Scott Snyder & Marcos Martín

I made a bit of an (ultimately abortive) effort to catch up on 2000 AD last month, but I've also fallen (further) behind on my US comics reading (let's not mention all the books I've been buying for ages and not even started). I'd like to say reading this two-parter is the beginning of a turnaround, but I know I've got a summer ahead where my time is not wholly my own, so I imagine it will instead be a one-off before I next attempt to get back into the swing of things in September. But hey, you never know!

Collection Count

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

A bit of a quieter week, although my shelves would hardly think so because, while every addition is a single-film release, two of them are still big ol' collector's edition box sets (Hammer's Quatermass 2 and the new edition of Akira Kurosawa's Ran).

Plus, a rare increase for DVD: I've long thought about getting the Master and Commander 2-disc set for all the special features that are missing from the Blu-ray (hours of documentaries), and with the 4K just announced — but still missing all those extras — I finally got round to it. A second-hand copy for £1.99 doesn't feel too high a price, I must say.

Number of titles in collection: 3,584 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 987 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,597 [up 2]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 488 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,618 [up 9]
Number of films: 4,548 [up 3]
Number of additional cuts: 451 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 10,160 [up 6]
Number of short films: 1,250 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Talks Machina
#146 Episodes 99 through 109

Hey, Talks is back! (Not in our present time, obviously, but at the point I've reached in my C2 watch. Anyway...) The first three episodes of its return are tasked with covering everything missed during its hiatus, which is a lot — the peace talks that ended the war (arguably the most major overarching storyline of the campaign), plus the entire Rumblecusp/Traveler Con arc. No wonder there's nearly 5 hours' worth of episodes tasked with covering that entire period (almost an hour-and-a-half here, then over three hours across the next two episodes, which both aired between episodes 111 and 112).

[Watch it (again) on Internet Archive.]

Films

Stargate (1994)
[2nd watch]
[#62 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]

Pretty sure I've only seen this once before, because I'm also sure I haven't seen it since the mid-'90s — and I've been meaning to rewatch it for 20+ years! With no urgency, clearly.

This time I watched the longer version (whether it's a director's cut or just an extended cut, sources vary), which I'm sure I've never seen before, but the differences are minor enough (though, I hasten to add, not worthless) that I wouldn't have noticed the difference after all this time, so I don't think it merits counting as a 'new film' for 100 Films purposes.

TV

Critical Role
2x109 Frigid Propositions [remainder]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
10 The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
This felt very familiar for a story I don't think I've read before — not in an "I might have seen an adaptation way", but in a "maybe I have actually read this one" way. No matter, it's a good one, and now I know I've read it for future reference.

Non-Fiction

Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman
Chapter 5

TV

Critical Role
2x109 Frigid Propositions [1st hour]
Wanted to keep my hand in with C2, as I said, but it did feel a bit weird returning to it while halfway through Age of Umbra. Does call into question my plan to watch C4 while continuing to catch up on C1 or C3, but we'll see.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon.]

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
8 The Adventure of the Crooked Man
9 The Adventure of the Resident Patient

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
7 The Adventure of the Reigate Squire
aka The Adventure of the Reigate Squires. Both titles fit, so it's understandable but still kinda ridiculous that the discrepancy exists and persists.

Games

Gray Matter
Another hour-and-a-quarter gets me to the end of Chapter 2. Good thing it's quite an engaging story, with some solid puzzles (not exceptional, but I've endured worse), because otherwise some of the 'gameplay' is rather railroaded. The conversation trees, for example — they barely merit the term. One in this chapter gives you literally one option, repeatedly, without even the alternative to abandon the conversation. At that point, which isn't it just playing as a cutscene?

TV

Age of Umbra
1x04 The Rampart and Beyond [2nd half]
Halfway through this miniseries now, and it's been almost a whole month since I watched any of Campaign 2, so I probably ought to check back in on that next.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Critical Role Cooldown
Age of Umbra Episode 4
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Level Up! | Age of Umbra
After the cooldown, the cast's Age of Umbra characters increase from Level 1 to Level... 2, obvs.
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Films

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)
[#61 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]

Non-Fiction

Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman
Chapter 4

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
5 The Adventure of the Gloria Scott
This seems to be regarded as a sort of "lower middle"-quality Holmes tale, based on rankings I've compiled, which is interesting because it probably speaks to what people want from these stories. As a detective tale, it's a bit rubbish — there's a mystery, but Holmes only solves a minor part of it before he's literally handed a letter with the explanation (even if he hadn't solved anything, that letter would have come into his possession). But as a story in its own right, it's got some nice atmosphere and some exciting piracy-esque elements. And so I think we see how it ends up in the middle, because I imagine some must dislike it for being a poor detective story, while others simply enjoy it for what it is.

Collection Count

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

A few new additions again this week (next week looks to be a quiet one, with only one new title expected), but it's also time for the monthly running time update...

Number of titles in collection: 3,581 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,595 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 485 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 8,609 [up 6]
Number of films: 4,545 [up 6]
Number of additional cuts: 449 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,154 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,250 [no change]

Total running time of collection (approx.):
604 days, 5 hours, and 17 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 11 hours, and 56 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Age of Umbra
1x04 The Rampart and Beyond [remainder of 1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Live Aid at 40: The Concert
Didn't watch anything like all of this, but had a significant chunk of it on in the later evening.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
4 The Adventure of the Stockbroker's Clerk

TV

Age of Umbra
1x04 The Rampart and Beyond [1st hour]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Non-Fiction

Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman
Chapters 2–3

TV

Cobra Kai
3x09 Feel the Night
3x10 December 19 [season finale]

Having spent most of the season on a post mortem for the previous finale, this finale seems to primarily set up what the next season will be about! Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, because it's actually a very satisfying episode in its own right thanks to an impressively-staged centrepiece brawl between the students, followed by a long-awaited punchup involving the adults. That might sound a little slap-happy, but this is a show all about karate: of course the fights are a highlight.

Nonetheless, a negative reading of this season would be that it treads water, dealing with the aftermath of season two before setting up the next leg in season four. A kinder reading would be that it's a necessary bridge, moving characters and situations from where they were to where they want them to be for the next leg. I think a bit of both might be true.

On the bright side, at least season four exists — this is where YouTube cancelled the show, before Netflix came in and saved it. It scarcely bears thinking about that this could have been where it ended!

Non-Fiction

Oscar Wars by Michael Schulman
Introduction
Chapter 1

Subtitled "A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears", this book examines 11 significant events or trends in the history of the Oscars, exploring how those have shaped and changed the insitution, and through that Hollywood movies in general. So, for example, this first chapter is all about how and why the Academy and their associated awards were founded — a sequence of events with their own dramas and controversies to rival any that would follow. Despite beginning at the beginning with a fairly narrative chapter, this is billed as something more analytical, and with a wider overview, than just "a history of the Oscars". Based on all the positive reviews, I expect it to be very interesting.

Films

The Invisible Swordsman (1970)
[#60 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]

Games

Gray Matter
The problem with 'save game' time is if you, I dunno, say, miss some optional goals so reload a previous save to complete them, then perhaps skip over a lengthy cutscene that you watched before said reload but didn't need to see again. (Yeah, that isn't just a random hypothetical example.) Anyway, the clock says I played for just over an hour today, but the repetition makes it more like an hour and a quarter. I minor difference, at least.

TV

Cobra Kai
3x07 Obstáculos
3x08 The Good, the Bad, and the Badass
This is still a good show, but man, they've spent nearly the entire season on the fallout from the season 2 finale. It was a major event that definitely deserved some focus and 'dealing with', and some of the repercussions are right to be longer-lasting, but to dwell on it for the whole season? In fairness, that's not all this season has done, thank goodness, but it has been quite dominant. I feel like there must have been a better balance to have been struck between giving it due significance and making it feel like the story was progressing.

Critical Role Cooldown
Age of Umbra Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on Beacon.]

Games

Smurfs Kart
Got a medal on every track in Time Trial at Hyperspeed, my first time trying that faster version — and, in fact, my overall medal tally is better than at the slower Fun speed. So that’s an achievement… of a sort.

TV

Age of Umbra
1x03 What Is Gained, What Is Lost [2nd half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Games

Gray Matter
The save games on this tell you exactly how long you've been playing for, which is great for someone like me — it means I can tell you not that "I played for about an hour", but that "I played for 57 minutes". Vital information.

TV

Age of Umbra
1x03 What Is Gained, What Is Lost [1st half]
[Watch it (again) on YouTube or Beacon.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures
1.1 Vampire Weekend

Jodie Whittaker's Doctor comes to Big Finish — I'd say "finally", but this has to be quickest turnaround from TV to BF ever. No surprise: Jodie was talking about doing them before her time on TV had even finished. Anyway, here begins 12 new adventures released over the next couple of years (the final one is scheduled for May 2027). Can Big Finish do for the 13th Doctor what they've done for the 6th and, arguably, 8th and turn an underwhelming TV era into a fan favourite? Time will tell. This first instalment... isn't that.

But it's not bad, either. It feels very much like it's laying the groundwork. This is a light-weight romp-ish season opener; a reminder of all the different tones Who does, all at once (not a bad thing), with a breakneck pace and a focus on just being a bit of fun. In that sense, it's more successful than many of her TV episodes were.

Jodie and Mandip slip back into their roles as if they'd never been away, and there are some nice scenes between the Doctor and Yaz. That goes some way to make up for the supporting cast being a mite too large — there's not enough time for this many characters, so they're all quite vaguely sketched. It doesn't help that several sound quite similar, meaning it can get a bit confusing in fast-paced scenes with everyone present.

Still, a solid start to the 13th Doctor's adventures on audio. Hopefully future episodes will deliver on the promise of what Big Finish can do to positively transform an era's reputation.

Fiction

Doctor Who: The New Adventures
Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell
Chapters 12–13
Epilogue [the end]

This seems to be regarded as among the best of the Timewyrm quartet — okay, we're only talking about four books, so there's not much room for manoeuvre in ordering them, but the rankings I've seen consistently place it first or second, and I've seen it ranked in the top ten of all New Adventures novels..

Well, I've found it a bit of a slog. I mean, it's taken me almost two months to get through it, compared to under two weeks for each of the previous parts (that's partly real-life events disrupting my reading rhythm, but also partly me finding it tough going). It's got some great ideas, actually, but they take a while to show up. Part of what makes them great is that they're reveals and reveals require setup, but obviously it didn't do that pre-work engagingly enough for me. Ah well, it's done now.

Not sure where I'll go next with the New Adventures — I own a bunch, but not the followup Cat's Cradle trilogy (because it's not meant to be very good); although I do have the entire 61-book run as ebooks, so I could continue there… or maybe I should stick to ones I actually own and paid money for, and just progress in order of release. Either way, I've spent the better part of two years just getting through these first four, so I either need to pick up the pace or accept I'm going to spend the rest of my life reading the NAs.

Games

Gray Matter

I've got literally dozens of point-and-click adventure games I've bought over the last few years waiting to be played (not to mention a selection of various other types of game I've either bought on sale or got free through Prime, not least a few high-acclaimed and very long RPGs), and yet I wound up playing this, which I just saw recommended and, more or less on a whim, thought "let's play that!"

And then I spent way too much of my day trying to get it to work properly on my Mac (it's only available for PC — the basic port worked easily enough, but there was no audio, and that took ages to fix, and even now it doesn't work properly; but I can hear it, even if it's constantly glitchy, and that's better than nothing). So, I got there in the end, and therefore played... for 10 minutes.

Well, I've started it now, at least.

this week on 100Films.co.uk

It feels like just the other day I was writing about May on 100Films.co.uk, but a whole 'nother month has flown by and it's time to look back at June.

First up, the overall review...





...accompanied by my list of "failures"...





More next Sunday? More likely it'll be August before I know it.

TV

The 1% Club
3x09 Episode 9
[Watch all episodes (again) on ITVX.]

Have I Got News for You
69x10 (6/6/2025 edition; extended repeat) [season finale]
[Watch the extended episode (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

I thought this week was going to be dominated by Radiance, mostly sale pickups, but I guess those are coming on Monday now. Instead, there's a new Radiance box set, a title I missed in the sale so nabbed elsewhere (still with a discount, at least, but a few quid more than in the sale); plus a selection of Deaf Crocodile titles I ordered a while back but had to wait for them all to be released (it's a US label, gotta order multiple to make the p&p worthwhile).

Number of titles in collection: 3,575 [up 6]
Of which DVDs: 986 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,589 [up 6]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 483 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 8,603 [up 10]
Number of films: 4,539 [up 8]
Number of additional cuts: 449 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 10,154 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,250 [up 2]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Heads of State (2025)
[#59 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2025]

Games

Smurfs Kart

Games

Smurfs Kart
I'm getting better at this. I guess there's something to be said for practice.

Games

Smurfs Kart
It's growing on me a little, but I really wish you could remap the controls. I'm also beginning to see why "steering assist" is on by default — I turned it off, but perhaps that was unwise.

Games

Garfield Kart: Furious Racing
Got in a few more races and achievements before it did actually leave the free-with-Prime tier on Luna. And then I tried to find a replacement...

Smurfs Kart
Very similar on the surface, but a few changes to controls and difficulty made it much less satisfying. I did a few races, but I'm not sure I'll be going back.

Trackmania
A different kind of racing game — still a bit wacky, definitely not a sim (there's also a monster truck game on Luna that sounded altogether too serious), but not a kart racer either. I didn't care for the way it's not always clear where you should drive, and if you go wrong it will just let you wander around, which is irritatingly pointless. Also not really built for the levels of input lag you get on cloud gaming.

Oh well. At least it doesn't cost me anything to try these. Imagine if I got a Switch 2 right now and hated Mario Kart...