TV

Dexter
4x11 Hello, Dexter Morgan
Cliffhanger-tastic! Though I guessed weeks (well, "episodes", certainly -- I probably watch it too quickly for "weeks") ago who would be saying the titular line. Next time: season finale! Tense.

How I Met Your Mother
5x17 Of Course
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Films

I'll be at 100 before I know it at this rate...

Brigadoon (1954)
[#93 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Force of Evil (1948)
[#92 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

The History Boys (2006)
[#94 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

TV

Dexter
4x10 Lost Boys

Grandma's House
1x06 The day Simon finally found the strength to accept that his mother was getting married [season finale]
Perhaps not Grandma's House's finest (half-)hour, but still an amusing episode. I hope we get more.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Roger & Val Have Just Got In
1x06 The Valerie Step [season finale]
An excellent final episode to an excellent series. I hope we get more.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

The Band Wagon (1953)
[#91 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Articles

The Death Star of the 1930s (and other great retro scifi diagrams) by Cyriaque Lamar
(from io9)
A gallery of illustrations from the '30s, some of which are rather spectacular in their own retro way. I particularly like the A City On series, though the Future Ocean Liner appears to be amazingly prescient -- I think more-or-less everything it suggests has since come to pass.

TV

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys
Part 1 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Mother
5x16 Hooked
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Dragons' Den
8x10 Episode 10 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Law & Order: UK
3x01 Broken
L&O:UK returns with a particularly strong episode dealing with a very difficult and emotive issue. It's to the series' credit that while the ending is ostensibly a good result, it's one few are wholly happy with.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Mountain Gorilla
Part 3 Safe in Our Hands [final episode]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Fox orders Outnumbered remake by Morgan Jeffery
(from Digital Spy)
Let's put this headline in perspective: they've not ordered a series, they've ordered a pilot only; and this isn't even the first time they've done that -- they made a pilot back in 2007 (clearly, it didn't go well). So this is less a case of "we'll see" more "will we see?"

Google Instant is trying to kill me by Charlie Brooker
(from Comment is free at guardian.co.uk)
Brooker, as usual, has a point, and he makes it amusingly. Hurrah! This is my favourite bit:

[Google Instant is] the internet on fast-forward, and it's aggressive – like trying to order from a waiter who keeps finishing your sentences while ramming spoonfuls of what he thinks you want directly into your mouth, so you can't even enjoy your blancmange without chewing a gobful of black pudding first.

TV

A Concert for Heroes
Recorded it and watched an hour behind so I could fastforward the boring bits. No, not the charity stories -- the rubbish comedians and (copious) rubbish 'music' acts.
See also: today's Articles.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Help for Heroes concert, Twickenham Stadium, review by Neil McCormick
(from Telegraph.co.uk)
Pretty much spot on.

this week on 100 Films

2 new reviews were posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

Bhaji on the Beach (1993)

The perspective is definitively female — no bad thing for a medium where, almost 20 years later, there are still few female directors, and those that garner the widest recognition tend to do so in typically male genres.

Bride & Prejudice (2004)

Melodramatic love story/stories? Check. A couple of over-acted comedy characters? Check. Characters bursting into song? Check. Bright, colourful, extravagant song-and-dance numbers? Check.

More next Sunday.

TV

Merlin
3x01 The Tears of Uther Pendragon Part 1
Darker? Check. Grittier? Check. Well, sort of check. I mean, it's scarier, isn't it. Anyway, my point was: ah, third seasons (/books/films/etc) of fantasy series...
Still, Merlin seems to get better with each passing season. Or even episode -- next week's looks like a belter; more season finale than episode two. I hope they've got even bigger things planned, then.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
4x08 (10/9/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

another Inception trailer 'spoof'

Most amusing:

via Live for Films

TV

Mock the Week
9x07 (9/9/10 edition)
Back from the six-week break it took for the Fringe. (I know, my comments are frequently invaluable.)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mountain Gorilla
Part 2 Last Stand of the Silverback King
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Heroes cancellation: Source says NBC not moving forward with movie that will wrap up series by Lynette Rice
(from at EW.com)
Title says it all. No surprise, really -- Heroes was a long way from popular by the end (hence why it got cancelled).

Torchwood writer John Fay excited by The New World, plus why killing Ianto was ‘right thing to do’ by XXNAPOLEONSOLO
(from scyfilove)
Again, the title more-or-less sums this up. It's an interview though, so there are a few more tidbits for fans to pick up on (though nothing about the plot of The New World, really, just the way it's being written and the point it starts from).

Collection Count

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

The numbers are all over the place this week, thanks to a couple of oversights and a new Blu-ray set that replaces four DVDs (it would've been more dramatic if another set had turned up to replace another four, but that's still in the post).

So, the number of titles go down, the number of DVDs goes down, and the number of Blu-rays goes up. The number of discs also goes down, thanks to BDs having plenty of room to house a two-disc-DVD's extras on a single disc. The number of films goes up slightly, due to a mistake last week, while the number of TV episodes goes down massively due to an error goodness-knows-when.

Ooh, exciting stuff.

Number of titles in collection: 1,214 [down 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,105 [down 4]
Of which Blu-rays: 109 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 2,971 [down 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,278 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,181 [down 24]

Statistic of the week:

Number of Batman titles in the collection:
12
(0.99% of the total)

Inspired by upgrading my four two-disc '80s/'90s Batman film DVDs to the Blu-ray set (yep, that's the box set I was referring to) (and, if you're interested, I upgraded both the Nolan films early in my BD days), I thought I'd round up how many Batman titles I own. It's perhaps more than you'd think (though it would've been 3 greater a few days ago!)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Grandma's House
1x05 The day Simon felt the family was ready to be healed
...he was wrong.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Mad Men
4x01 Public Relations
Hurrah for the unusually-early return of Mad Men to British TV! Lots of intriguing threads already set in motion, and I'm sure there are many more to come. Can't wait to find out what the next twelve weeks have in store.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Roger & Val Have Just Got In
1x05 Reply All
Many of the series' plots reach their apex this episode, making it less comedic and more dramatic/tragic as everything explodes. Certainly leaves things in an interesting place for tomorrow's final episode. Incidentally, just to reiterate from past weeks, this is an excellent series; critics who dismissed it were, I think, expecting a Comedy, whereas in fact it's more of a drama that, in accurately observing real life, is often very funny.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Universal Lands Stephen King's The Dark Tower And Plans Unprecedented Feature/Network TV Adaptation by Mike Fleming
(from Deadline New York)

"Unprecedented" almost seems like an understatement. Look what craziness they're planning:

The plan is to start with the feature film, and then create a bridge to the second feature with a season of TV episodes. That means the feature cast — and the big star who’ll play [lead character] Deschain — also has to appear in the TV series before returning to the second film. After that sequel is done, the TV series picks up again, this time focusing on Deschain as a young gunslinger... The third film would pick up the mature Deshain as he completes his journey. They will benefit from being able to use the same sets cast and crew for the movie and TV

It'll either be a fantastic, revolutionary success, or an embarrassingly huge flop.

TV

Derren Brown Presents Hero at 30,000 Feet

I normally have a comment after a Derren Brown special, but... no, not really. Other than to note the whole live bits seemed purely so they could set another countdown in motion! I guess we can expect another live special on 8th October at around 10pm, then.

Actually, one other comment: some people seem to feel cheated that he only landed a simulator. What, you really thought they were going to let a completely untrained man who was afraid of flying be responsible for landing a plane filled with hundreds of people? You really, genuinely believed that?

[This will be available to watch (again) on 4oD "soon".]

Films

Bhaji on the Beach (1993)
[#90 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
Read my review here.