TV

Children in Need 2023
Apparently I haven't watched Children in Need since 2020. I knew I wasn't as dedicated to these charity-athons as I used to be (I watched them religiously in my childhood, through my teens, and I guess most of my twenties too), but I thought I'd watched it more regularly than that of late. Obviously not. (I checked out the intro to last year's show while it was still on iPlayer and realised, yeah, I'd only watched the reveal of Millie Gibson as the new Who companion on social media.)
Frankly, I can't really say I watched this year's either: I dipped in and out, primarily waiting for the Doctor Who sketch. That took the form of a brand-new scene, possibly titled Destination: Skaro (per RTD on Instagram), starring David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor in an encounter (sort of) with the Daleks. You can watch it by itself on iPlayer or YouTube, as well as the whole charity event (linked below). More thoughts on Letterboxd.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who: Unleashed
1x00 Children in Need
Who's new behind-the-scenes show begins (sort of — I mean, it's the first "episode" of Unleashed that's been released, but it's not full-length, is it?) with a look at the making of that Children in Need scene.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Last Leg
29x02 (17/11/2023 edition)
More Doctor Who-inspired viewing, sort of, in the sense that David Tennant was a guest tonight and I was still around my TV so ended up tuning in. I used to watch The Last Leg regularly, of course, and it was funny to see how little it's changed over the numerous years I've not been a viewer.
[Watch it (again) on Channel 4.]

TV

Children in Need 2008
Hurray! I love Children in Need. Even when it's below-par (and, let's face it, it's well past its best -- it's mostly music these days, with no natty 3D or Smell-o-Vision gimmicks and very few original sketches or whatnot) it's still entertaining, still has its moments, and, of course, it's all for a good cause. Plus anything with this much Terry Wogan has to be good. But this year was better than most -- highlights being Doctor Who and Top Gear/Ashes to Ashes -- so that was super.
[Watch it (again) in hour-long chunks on iPlayer.]

QI
6x01 Families [Children in Need special]
For those who don't know, each series of QI has an alphabetical theme -- i.e. series one was "A", series two "B", and so on -- making series six "F". So in that sense, this is at the end of series six; of course, being filmed more recently, it could be called 7x01. Rubbish, says I. Not that it matters, or anyone cares. Anyway -- it's all the better for having added Terry Wogan, who was (of course) brilliant. I love QI -- there's a Christmas special on the way, followed by series "G" in 2009.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]
Edit: Oh, the confusion! I blame TV.com. Anyway, this is 6x01, not 6x11, because the (first?) 2009 series if "F".

TV

Children in Need 2010
How good was that Doctor Who trailer?! I was naturally excited for the Christmas special anyway, but that looked exceptional. And beautifully shot too.
Meanwhile, 'East Street' amused me because I have almost no idea who is in which soap, so that could just be what either is always like for all I knew. But they pitched it such-like that I got (all?) the jokes. So that was nice.
More CiN tomorrow, of course.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Colditz
2x01 Arrival of a Hero

Mastermind
for Children in Need [2010 special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Children in Need Rocks the Royal Albert Hall
Star-studded gig in aid of Children in Need. With a line-up full of Today's Hot Pop Acts it's inevitably a mixed bag, dependent on your tastes, but it's all for a good cause so you can't complain too much.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
3x05 How I Met Everyone Else
Ah, the semi-inevitable 'how we all met' episode, a staple of any long-running sitcom. Luckily, this ep is worthy of that grand tradition.

The Sarah Jane Adventures
3x11 The Gift Part One
3x12 The Gift Part Two [season finale]
Guest starring (the voices of) big-name actors Miriam Margolyes and Simon Callow! Just goes to show how well SJA does for itself.
It's a relatively low-key season finale, despite the guest stars and a world-threatening plot -- there's very few locations, lots of standing around nattering, and a ton of CGI, which is presumably where the story's budget went. Not the best SJA story then, and feeling more like a low-budget mid-season effort than a grand ending, but entertaining enough.
Fingers crossed for a fourth series...
[Watch part one and part two (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead

Steven Moffat's episodes of Doctor Who arrive with no small degree of expectation. Ever since he penned the first season two-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances (which holds the rare honour of having both the best and worst episode titles ever, in my opinion), fans have revered Moffat as the God of new-Who writing. It's not an undeserved reputation: The Empty Child episodes are fantastic, one of my favourite ever stories (and winner of a Hugo); I think his second season effort, The Girl in the Fireplace (which also won a Hugo), is overrated by many, but it's still a good episode; and Blink (which has so far won a BAFTA, and would really be robbed if it didn't make it a hat-trick of Hugos) was an excellent concept wonderfully executed, with the best companion-who-wasn't ever. Then there's the Children in Need short he penned, Time Crash, which is just about perfect.

The news that he'll be taking charge of the whole shebang from season five (airing in 2010) has been greeted by many as if it were the second coming. I think they're being over-optimistic -- not because I think Moffat will do a bad job (quite the opposite), but because many are people who are somewhat unhappy with the way Russell T Davies has run things, and the quality of his episodes, and presume Moffat will bring more of the flavour of his episodes. I'm sure he'll bring his own spin to proceeding, but Moffat and Davies seem to get on well, and the former is clever enough to realise the reasoning behind Davies' showrunning decisions. If he chooses to pen five or six episodes per year, as Davies has, then I don't think anyone can expect them all to be of the same quality -- or indeed style -- as his one-or-two-per-year contribution so far, and he certainly won't make the whole season in the same vein. In my opinion, the correct outlook for Moffat's forthcoming reign is that it will continue Who in more or less the quality and style we've become accustomed to, and that's a good thing.

But analysis of a future that's two years (and nine episodes) away is slightly beside the point: what of the expectations for Moffat's latest two-parter, set in the 51st Century upon a planet that's one big library -- called, simply enough, The Library -- and concerning 'air piranhas' that live in the shadows and a present-day girl who may be dreaming everything... One of the first things that strikes me is Moffat's repeated motifs, which are arguably beginning to cover his Who work to the point of being too easily guessed. There's the faceless monsters (here, a skeleton in a spacesuit, following gas-masked zombies, clockwork droids and living statues); turning everyday things into scary things (ticking clocks, 'the monster under the bed', statues, now shadows); unusual female helpers for the Doctor (two this time -- River Song, who knows the Doctor from his future, and a little girl in another time -- following in the wake of a girl/woman he encountered across her timeline, and a girl interacting with a message he recorded decades earlier); which brings to light another motif, the mucking about with time (see previous examples); also mucking about with structure (more prevalent in his own series, Jekyll); an "everybody lives" ending; and catchphrases ("count the shadows", following "are you my mummy?" and "don't blink"). The only one he seems to have dropped is the banana.

Of course, this is repetition on an unintrusive level (with the possible exception of "everybody lives", which seemed to repeat dialogue wholesale from The Doctor Dances), and it's a tad churlish to pick on these things if the storytelling and new concepts are up to scratch. The latter certainly are: shadows are a great topic to pick on, and cunningly used; The Library is a beautiful idea (and prettily executed by all the design teams, especially the exterior vistas from The Mill); the human-faced helper statues are creepy; and, most effective of all, one of Who's best-ever death scenes, as the mind of Miss Evangelista remains stored in her suit and struggles to understand what's going on -- absolutely chilling, heart-achingly sad, and perfectly executed. Part two contains so many crazy, mashed together ideas that it's pretty hard to pick them apart. Which, in some ways, is a problem: the whole thing is so bold, so mad, so complex, so different, that it doesn't quite seem right at 7pm on Saturday on BBC One. Some people will love it, of course -- some would regardless, just cos it's by Moffat, so their views are virtually useless -- but I'd be fairly surprised if many of the show's target audience truly engaged with it.

As a fan, the main thing that troubles me is Professor River Song. She knows so much about the Doctor that it's incredibly tantalising for a viewer, wanting to know how and why she knows it all and what their adventures together were/will be like. On a practical, production level, the fact that she knows an older Doctor -- specifically, an older 10th Doctor -- is problematic. While it sounds great on the surface -- David Tennant for decades! Hurrah! -- on that practical production level, how do you assure he sticks around long enough to have a suitable number of adventures with River in the future? And that Alex Kingston (who everyone involved seems to think is a much more important actress than the average viewer would) agrees to return too? And if you don't do either of those things, surely this incarnation's final story is locked in as needing to end with some future-revealing montage that explains all this? Perhaps what worries me most is that, in their concern for telling a great story now and in their blithe disregard for such matters (RTD has often said how happy he is to leave continuity debates up to the fans), no one really bothered to consider all this, and it'll just be forever ignored for fans to argue about for eternity (the winner, of course, will be some alternative timeline theory, where the 10th Doctor didn't really regenerate at the end of the 2009 specials / season five / season six / etc, but lived for decades more and had his adventures with River, and somehow this River fell through some portal or other into our timeline and then met our Doctor and blah blah blah). On the bright side, perhaps they know something we don't about who's signed up for 2010's season five, or just what timeline-splitting events may occur in Journey's End...

I shouldn't worry so much of course -- I should, trust and/or ignore, and try to enjoy the story for what it is. But, as a fan, I can't help it; and, on the flip side, as someone who frequently enjoys engaging with Who on the same level as its target audience, I hardly think this new adventure from Mr Moffat is an unequivocal success.

In fact, a bit like Jekyll, I do wonder if I want to like it more than I actually do.

TV

Children in Need 2018
I can't remember the last time I actually watched Children in Need — well, this blog tells me it was 2014 — and I didn't even watch all of it this year, but I saw a fair bit (including the Mastermind special, which might've been the best bit). It was… fine. I swear there used to be more special sketches and stuff...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

It's Children in Need on Friday, which means there won't be time for me to catch up on last Friday's shows as I usually do; which means today and tomorrow will be filled with all their usual stuff, plus Friday's... hence this long list:

Ask Rhod Gilbert
2x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Frozen Planet
Part 3 Summer
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
7x02 The Naked Truth
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Impressions Show with Culshaw and Stephenson
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Live at the Apollo
7x02 Episode 2
I am shocked to discover Lee Nelson can actually be funny. I mean, the character is still fundamentally annoying, but some of his material was quite good.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Mentalist
4x01 Scarlet Ribbons
Well, that was fairly obviously what was going to happen. Shame in many ways, it would've been interesting for the show to move on beyond its never-ending Red John constraint. Ah well.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Pointless
3x37 (3/11/10 edition)
I love it whenever I get a pointless answer, but particularly when I do it in the final, and I was particularly particularly pleased to do it in the final on a tricky Sherlock Holmes question. Yay for me.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Spy
1x03 Codename: Grades
This might be the best comedy on TV right now. And it's on Sky. What?

TV

Children in Need 2011
Being the post-midnight stuff, of course, which this year was back to being mostly repeats unfortunately. Great total though -- the highest ever by over £5 million!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Family Guy
It's a Trap!
Family Guy complete their run through the original Star Wars trilogy with this spoof of Return of the Jedi, released on DVD & Blu-ray last December and later aired (in an edited form) as the end of season nine back in May.
And that's it, because they're not bothering with the prequels. Unless they change their minds, of course. Which I doubt.

House
8x05 The Confession
Some people have been really laying into this series of House, but I've liked it. However, I do agree that getting the old team back in this episode gives it a real boost.

The Jury
2x04 Part 4 (of 5)
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Merlin
4x08 Lamia
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Pointless
3x39 (5/11/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Spy
1x04 Codename: Bookclub
I think this is the best comedy on TV right now. Love it.

In the unlikely event anyone is curious, I've now decided to give up on Wilfred. Having watched the first four episodes a while ago, I just don't care enough to spend another three-and-a-bit hours of my life watching the rest.

Articles

BOMBSHELL: Oscars Best Picture Race Expands to 10 Nominees by Seth Abramovitch
and
Who Stands to Gain the Most From Oscar's Best Picture Bombshell? by S.T. Vanairsdale
(from Movie|Line)
I believe some people call things like this a "game changer", but that sounds silly. Instead of the traditional five (and it's not all that traditional, actually) there will be ten films competing for the big prize at next year's Oscars. Will everyone else follow suit in the bid to retain Oscar-predictor status? Or will this go down as a bad experiment by the Academy and it'll be back to five in 2011? Only time will tell...
(The first article is the news and press release, the second some analysis.)

Avatar - Footage of James Cameron's sci-fi 3D film has been seen and it is stunning
(from Live For Films)
"The first footage from James Cameron's Avatar has been screened to the public for the first time in Amsterdam at the Cinema Expo International. It looks as if everyone who saw it was stunned."
Read the article for what they had to say. I'm beginning to wonder if this can possibly live up to its hype -- it's going to have to look genuinely 100% real throughout to match the boundless praise being heaped upon it, and that's a tall order for anything. A more moderated response and flaws would be more forgivable, but at this rate, no flaw will be accepted.
And, in all honesty, part of me hopes it fails miserably and takes the equally-over-hyped 3D revolution with it.

BBC denies Doctor Who reunion reports by Neil Wilkes
(from Digital Spy)
To be honest, they didn't really deny it at all -- so little, in fact, that the article doesn't even quote their comment til the final paragraph! Still, rumours of an all-Doctors Children in Need special have been doing the rounds for years, so there's no good reason to assume it's any more likely this year than before. Even if it does happen, I seriously doubt it'll be the first appearance of the 11th Doctor... though that might be quite cool.

Johnny Depp discusses Pirates 4 by Lara Martin
(from Digital Spy)
...and doesn't say much. Still, it's on its way.

Poem of the Week: Casey at the Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

As promised last week, here's another selection from The Nation's Favourite Comic Verse. It's about baseball -- or, to us Brits, 'glorified rounders' -- though a lack of knowledge on that front is no barrier to enjoyment, as the basic theme of this could easily apply to most sports (and for much of it could be about most sports).

The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
So when Cooney died at second, and Burrows did the same,
A pallor wreathed the features of the patrons of the game.
A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, 'If only Casey could but get a whack at that --
We'd put up even money now with Casey at the bat.'
But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a fake;
So upon that stricken multitude a deathlike silence sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.
But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled in the mountaintops, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the hillside and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.
There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.
Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.
And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped --
'That ain't my style,' said Casey -- 'Strike one,' the Umpire said.
From the benches black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And it's likely they'd have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.
With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signalled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the Umpire said, "Strike two."
'Fraud!' cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered, 'Fraud!'
But one scornful look from Casey and the multitude was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.
The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville -- mighty Casey has struck out.

This was first published in a newspaper in 1888, a year which looks kinda nice written down. It's clearly Thayer's most famous poem and has its own Wikipedia page here with more info than you could ever need.

There's also a version of the poem at Wikisource which has many notable differences to the one I've published here, which is taken directly from The Nation's Favourite Comic Verse. It's not just a case of formatting or punctuation -- some lines are almost entirely different. Wikisource says their version is the original from the paper; I don't know where this (revised, presumably) version originates.

TV

Doctor Who
30x14 The Next Doctor [2nd watch]

The Tenth Doctor portion of #bbbDW50 concludes with the 2008 Christmas special, the last episode of Doctor Who to be made in standard definition (but, almost ironically, the first we're watching on Blu-ray).

Every episode in this viewing season was selected for a reason, be it to represent a certain monster, or as a gold-standard classic, or even for its notoriety. Why did The Next Doctor win out over the numerous RTD-era classics? Well, it's one of the least-regarded Christmas specials, and as I haven't seen it since it first went out (five years ago!) it seemed overdue a personal reappraisal. It also features the Cybermen, who are the most startling oversight in a run of stories that has included Daleks (twice), Ice Warriors, Autons, the Master (twice), Omega, Zygons, Sontarans, and the Kandy Man.

Finally, watching The Next Doctor right after an episode starring "the next Doctor" was too fun to miss. (There are plenty of other episodes from season four and the specials that I've yet to re-watch, so that's the real reason, isn't it?)

In the end, the best reason to watch was that reappraisal. The Next Doctor is really good, with a peerless performance by David Morrissey and a great turn from Dervla Kirwan too. The Cyberking is a bit much, but otherwise the Cybermen are great, particularly effective at a snow-bound funeral and when they betray -- or, as it turns out, attempt to betray -- Miss Hartigan. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the best Christmas special, but it's actually a very good one. Hurrah!


Elementary
2x03 We Are Everyone


Friends
5x01 The One After Ross Says Rachel [4th or so watch]
Really, it's Part 3.


Only Connect
Children in Need Special: Scrabblers v The Balding Team

TV

Doctor Who
33x05b Vastra Investigates
After the one we got during Children in Need, here's another brief prequel to Tuesday's Doctor Who Christmas special. Intriguing...
[Watch it (again) on the official Doctor Who site.]

The Graham Norton Show
12x09 (21/12/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Loving Miss Hatto
It must be Christmas -- I actually watched something when it was actually on! See also below.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mr Stink
Quite marvellous this was -- perfect Christmastime family entertainment. Slightly wish I had a 3D TV to have seen its full effect; not because it needed the extra dimension, but just because... well, it's a gimmick, isn't it -- but sometimes a fun one. I don't think you can watch it online in 3D though. Heck, you can't even watch it in HD!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Spy
2x10 Codename: Last Scupper [season finale]
I say "season finale" -- there's a double-length Christmas special on Boxing Day that I should imagine picks up where this left off. But it was billed as the season finale nonetheless, and did rather wrap some things up at least.

Films

Fist of Legend (1994)
[#77 in 100 Films in a Year 2008]
I hadn't intended to watch this, but wound up getting sucked into it after Children in Need. Apparently it's "regarded as one of the best martial arts films of all time, and almost universally viewed as Jet Li's best" (source: Wikipedia), but the dire English dub does its best to hide this. The fights are still good though.

Star Trek Trailer
This trailer isn't officially released online 'til Monday, but as it's attached to a certain major release that's just come out in the States there're some surprisingly good bootlegs online already. Like this one, for example. Hard to judge properly without being able to see it properly (though the quality's probably better than you expect), but, as someone who's not much of a Star Trek fan anyway, I remain unconvinced. But it looks like Simon Pegg will be good at least.

TV

How I Met Your Mother
3x04 Little Boys

Mastermind
for Children in Need [2009 special]
In which Mark Watson scored the highest (celebrity?) score ever... only to have it beaten within a few minutes by Lucy Porter. Poor Mark.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Misfits
1x02 Episode Two
Continues to be surprisingly good, applying a welcome sci-fi twist to any of the Skins-like drama it feels the need (or the budget constraints) to include.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Russell Howard's Good News
1x04 (12/11/09 edition, extended repeat)
[You can only see the shorter version on iPlayer.]

TV

Children in Need 2012
Specifically, everything after midnight; though the link below will just take you to all the CiN stuff on iPlayer.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Have I Got News For You
44x05 (9/11/12 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the extended version (again) on iPlayer.]

Merlin
5x07 A Lesson in Vengeance
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Children in Need 2012
As ever, there'll be more CiN tomorrow to cover the post-midnight stuff (which is, naturally, still on as I post this).
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Derren Brown: Fear & Faith
Part 1 (of 2)
Or, to put it another way, Derren Brown: Fear -- next week is the Faith part. Although it does work, because there's certainly some faith in here and I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover there's some fear in religious faith.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x02 (13/11/12 edition)
C4's new daytime quiz show, which I primarily watched because it's presented by Sandi Toksvig and she seemed an arbiter of quality. It's not bad, but it's basically just a simple question format -- pleasant enough but hardly taxing. Not likely to make the jump to a prime-time variant. (And I started with episode two because episode one wasn't available on Virgin Media's version of 4oD, because Virgin are useless like that.)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Hebburn
1x04 Feeling Dynamic
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Hunted
1x06 Ambassadors
See also today's Articles.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Only Connect
Children in Need Special: Goldfingers vs Fowls
I did surprisingly well at this... though, as you may remember from last year, they apparently make it slightly easier for the celebrity/special editions, so that might not be saying a whole lot.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Arrow
2x04 Crucible

Atlantis
1x08 The Furies
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Children in Need 2013
Midnight to 2am, featuring dregs and repeats... and a record-breaking total.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited
1x08 The Eighth Doctor
Half an hour on one story -- no mention of the books, audios, comic strips... And because it was made months ago, no mention of The Night of the Doctor either, which is a shame.

Friends
4x23 The One with Ross's Wedding Part 1 [5th or so watch]
4x24 The One with Ross's Wedding Part 2 [season finale; 5th or so watch]

The Science of Doctor Who
Prof. Brian Cox's lecture on the real-life science related to concepts from Doctor Who. Essentially, this means time travel, with a diversion into the possible existence of aliens. Interesting, but a shame there was nothing on uniquely Who concepts like something being bigger on the inside.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Children in Need 2010
Being the post-midnight stretch, naturally (are you surprised I'm thorough enough to list it separately?)
Lots of repeats, as per usual, but once you've stuck with it for five hours it feels wrong to quit with only two to go. Besides which, they often pull out a couple of new bits, not to mention the final total. Down on last year though it may be, £18.1m is nothing to be sniffed at.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Merlin
3x11 The Sorcerer's Shadow
Guest starring the guy who plays Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter movies -- he's in the sorcerer's shadow indeed.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Russell Howard's Good News
3x04 (11/11/10 edition; extended repeat)
[Watch the short edition (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Comic Relief 2011
The post-midnight bit, obviously, which (unlike Children in Need) actually includes new, good stuff. Particularly liked the celeb version of Newport State of Mind.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Jack and Kevin's Comic Relief Lock In
Comic Relief's regular "the main show's over so here's a pre-recorded clip show" bit, featuring some familiar sketches/sitcom clips alongside some never-shown-on-TV-before bits. Personally I hadn't see the majority, so that was nice.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Outcasts
1x08 Episode 8 [series finale]
And that's that. I shan't really miss it, and neither will most people, though it did get better towards the end. Nonetheless, I'm sure it'll be largely forgotten. Some mysteries left hanging though -- damn the makers' assumption they'd get a second run! Maybe someone will answer them at some point, somehow...
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Yes Minister
3x01 Equal Opportunities