TV

Archer
4x04 Midnight Ron
For some reason, 5USA haven't scheduled any episodes beyond this. First they dump it in the middle of the night, then they just stop after only showing five episodes? What gives, C5?!
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]


Doctor Who
6x23 The Seeds of Death Episode One

My Doctor Who 'season' (Twitter hashtag: #bbbDW50) progresses to the Second Doctor.

As I mentioned at the start, each of these stories has been chosen for a reason. My original choice for the 2nd Doctor was The Ice Warriors, because I've not seen it for years and when I last did I really enjoyed it; plus, with the Martians finally being re-introduced in the last series of nuWho, I thought it'd be nice for my co-viewer to see how they began. As originally scheduled, the DVD of said serial would've been out two days before we started viewing it (i.e. a week from today), but then I inserted the TV Movie into my plans and that got messed up. So I subbed this in -- still Ice Warriors, still well-regarded (or so I thought -- it actually only came 111th in DWM's Mighty 200), and with the added bonus of being a story I've never seen before. There'll only be three of those in this entire project.

This episode is a strong start to the serial. Hardly any of the TARDIS crew, really, but that's more than made up for by the exciting developments at T-Mat control centres on both Earth and the Moon. There's nifty-enough ways of working in big info-dumps to explain what the T-Mat is and establish the world for the workings of the plot, as well as quickly-sketched characters and conflicts. All sorts of promise there. It's underscored by Michael Ferguson's excellent direction, which even manages to keep the presence of the Ice Warriors secret (well, more-or-less) until the episode's final shot. Really looking forward to the rest of this one now.

Also of interest is that this was made at a time when space exploration was at its height -- we hadn't even landed on the Moon when this was broadcast. Yet it depicts a future where Earth has abandoned rocket travel into space and has no interest in travelling further than the Moon, and only that far because it is used to relay T-Mat signals around the planet. It's quite depressing and, the T-Mat stuff aside, all too similar to where we have ended up.


Friends
1x01 The Pilot [goodness-knows-what-th watch]
Two years and one month ago, I commented that I ought to re-watch all of Friends. Well, here I go! I have no clue how many times I've seen any of the episodes -- especially the first series, which I saw multiple times back when it was the only one my sister had on video -- so expect lots of those long, vague "goodness-knows-what-th" bits.


The Last Leg
3x03 (14/8/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]