TV

Agatha Raisin
4x01 Kissing Christmas Goodbye [Christmas special]

The Great British Bake Off
12x09 Pâtisserie Week
[Watch it (again) on All 4.]

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x48 Week 10: Wednesday
5x49 Week 10: Thursday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

It's the last Collection Count of the year! No, not of 2022 — I know it's already January 2nd, but I didn't get anything new this year (yet), so this is really the last count for 2021. (Also, it was meant to be posted yesterday, but sorting out all the numbers took time.)

The big addition this week is Severin's box set of folk horror, All the Haunts Be Ours, which across 12 discs (plus 3 CDs) contains a whopping 22 films and 14 shorts (not to mention all the other special features). There's also Fim Detective's The Sherlock Holmes Vault, containing four films from the 1930s plus a bunch of shorts. Together, they represent some significant increases for the final update of the year.

Also this week, as well as the usual stats, it's time for a monthly running time update. Plus, as I said, it's the annual wrapup, so we can also see how things have increased since 2020's final count.

Number of titles in collection: 2,750 [up 3 this week; up 240 in 2021]
Of which DVDs: 1,055 [no change this week; down 26 in 2021]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,695 [up 3 this week; up 266 in 2021]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 141 [up 1 this week; up 48 in 2021]

Ending the year on a nice rounded number of 2,750 titles? I like it. But that increase... Last year's title increase was 234, which I described as "mad" because the previous high was 154 — and now there's a new high! Oh dear. Moving on...

Number of discs in collection: 6,905 [up 18 this week; up 459 in 2021]
Number of films: 3,264 [up 27 this week; up 363 in 2021]
Number of additional cuts: 247 [up 1 this week; up 44 in 2021]
Number of TV episodes: 9,226 [up 1 this week; up 244 in 2021]
Number of short films: 930 [up 21 this week; up 119 in 2021]

459 discs in one year?! Bloody hell! But last year it was over 500, so... As for 244 episodes of TV, that's a new low, down from last year's then-new low of 289. I think it's partly me buying less TV, but also less TV making it to disc nowadays (whither a Blu-ray box set of The Americans, hmm?), not to mention a lot of the 'best' TV having shorter seasons.

Total running time of collection (approx.):
497 days, 5 hours, and 20 minutes.
(Up 6 days, 13 hours, and 12 minutes from last month.)
(Up 30 days, 14 hours, and 48 minutes from last year.)

That's a massive increase for just one month (all those many-film box sets, I guess), but last year's annual increase was larger (over 32 days). Still, the average is around 23 days, so 2021 was no shirk. Last year I said "I do hope I manage to calm it down again next year" and, well, I guess I did... but not much, eh? Maybe next year...

And that begins next week, when I'll definitely have more stuff to add. There's no stopping me! See you then, faithful reader.

this week on 100 Films

No reviews on 100 Films in a Year this week, but my look back at 2021 is underway...


2021: The Full List

As revealed in my December review, 2021 finished on a tally of 207 new films — my third highest ever. They’re all listed below, in alphabetical order

Read more here.


My Most-Read Posts of 2021

2021 was a relatively quiet year for me, review-wise — I made just 55 posts, vs. over 120 in each of 2019 and 2020, and over 200 in 2018 and 2017. Nonetheless, that’s still enough from which to draw a Top 5, right?

Read more here.


There was also the December monthly review, which obviously has a year-end-y aspect to it...





And tomorrow on 100 Films, a new era begins...