Tuesday 11 August 2020

TV

Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years
1x01 Boys from the Dwarf
Three-part history of the show currently airing on Dave. I imagine it covers a lot of the same ground as the extensive documentary series they made for the DVDs, albeit with new talking head interviews recorded now (but presumably the heads' memories are the same!) Of course, those DVD docs will only have been seen by relatively die-hard fans, whereas this series is being broadcast on a popular TV channel, so fair enough (especially nowadays, what with physical media sales being what they are). Presumably this'll get a DVD release eventually, thereby completing the circle! (The series was originally supposed to air alongside The Promised Land back in April (it was delayed by (what else) the pandemic), so I guess it would've been a special feature on that disc if all had gone to plan. Whether or not it'll still be remembered by the time Series XIV rolls around...)
[Watch it (again) on UKTV Play.]

Films

The Stunt Double (2020)
[#186a in 100 Films in a Year 2020]
Short film by Damien "La La Land" Chazelle, designed to show off shooting on the iPhone 11 Pro and a vertical aspect ratio. It is of mixed success. You can watch it here.

Fiction

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
1 The Adventure of Silver Blaze

Expanding on that 1999 poll I mentioned yesterday, the guy who ran it has a website about it with lots of additional facts and stuff -- more than I'm personally interested in, to be honest. But one thing he's done is produce a table that compiles the results from major Sherlockian polls run in 1944, 1954, 1959, 1989, and his 1999 poll, giving a sort of "poll of polls" ranking of all 56 short stories. I'm not necessarily using this as a slavish guide for which stories to read next, but it's nice to have the info.

On this ranking, The Speckled Band and The Red-Headed League remain first and second, with A Scandal in Bohemia third, and Silver Blaze fourth. It's not a favourite of the Pocket Essentials guy (who scores it 3 out of 5, describing the plot as "rather on the dull side"), thereby justifying my search for a more objective ranking!