TV

2010 Unwrapped with Miranda Hart
This was rather good last year and doesn't disappoint this either.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

2010 Unwrapped extra
Some deleted sketches, sporadically available by the BBC Red Button service. While last year several of these merited inclusion in the main programme, this year they're more variable. A pair of Springwatch-based clips are quite good -- and can be watched here and here -- but an extended sketch about Lost Land of the Tiger is entirely laugh-free. If you'd like to subject yourself to it anyway, its in three parts here.

Just William [2010]
1x02 Parrots for Ethel
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
9x13 Christmas Compilation 2010 [special]
The usual MtW Christmas mix of best bits, outtakes and Christmas-themed new bits.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Primeval
4x01 Episode 1
Remember Primeval? It got cancelled (quite justly, to be honest) after the last series, then renewed as a complex co-production (the next series will premiere on Watch later this year before airing on ITV around this time in 2012).
So has this cancellation and longer production window (the last series was two years ago) improved the show? In short, no. If anything, it's worse. The writing's as bad as ever, but the new lead cast members are as cheap and tacky as they looked in photographs. Oh dear. Still, at least the CGI dinos are now even prettier in HD.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Upstairs Downstairs [2010]
Part Two The Ladybird
More Downton-esque plots emerge -- oh dear. Despite that, Upstairs Downstairs is still enough of its own entity to work and coexist with ITV's rival.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Excalibur (1981)
[2nd watch]
John Boorman's full-blooded, gritty, violent, sex-fuelled, beautifully shot, epic retelling of the Arthurian legends.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)
...sort of. So sort of, in fact, that I'm not counting it in 100 Films despite never having seen it before. It was on in the room while I was doing other things, for most of the length of the film, and while I didn't watch it properly I saw enough to tell it's absolute rubbish.

Collection Count

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

I suggested last time that this update would be a couple of days late. I'm sorry to have worried you throughout all your Christmassy celebrations by delaying it by well over a week. It's mainly laziness.

Naturally, thanks to Christmas, a new clutch of titles have entered my collection. And because there's not likely to be many new additions to cover in the immediate future, this update only covers my Christmas acquisitions -- next week's entry will include the handful of pre-orders I received between Christmas and New Year and so, despite this entry being the one on New Year's Day, it's next week's that will show the state of my collection at the end of 2010.

OK?

So, here's what that Christmas clutch looks like... in numbers, anyway:

Number of titles in collection: 1,254 [up 7]
Of which DVDs: 1,097 [up 2]
Of which Blu-rays: 155 [up 5]

Number of discs in collection: 3,129 [up 35]
Number of films in collection: 1,331 [up 11]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,544 [up 72]

Statistic of the week should be the latest running time update, but as next week is all end-of-2010-y, I'll save it for then.

See you next week then, faithful reader.

1111111

It's eleven minutes past one A.M. on the 1st of January 2011 --

-- or, to put it another way,

1:11 1/1/11!

Wow, eh?

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2011, dear readers!

Today's date -- in case you hadn't noticed -- is 1/1/11. Awesome.

Plus, I have a really special post that'll pop up in an hour or so. Truly, you shan't believe your mind!