TV

Due South
3x11 Asylum [2nd watch]

Family Guy
2x03 Da Boom
2x04 Brian in Love

The Graham Norton Show
8x19 (4/3/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Let the Right One In (2008)
[#29 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]
And tomorrow, Hammer's US remake, Let Me In.

Articles

10 o'Clock Live: an alternative (comedy) view by Laura Pledger
(from What We've Been Watching... at Radio Times)
10 O'Clock Live is an easy target, really, but this is nonetheless well observed and amusing.

Tarantino 'sues True Blood's Ball over macaws' by Simon Reynolds
(from Digital Spy)
This is a quite spectacularly odd story.

Collection Count

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

This week's updates include a new TV series on Blu-ray, an upgrade of a TV series from DVD to BD, and a BD that isn't out 'til Monday. Shiny.

Number of titles in collection: 1,280 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,101 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 179 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 3,189 [up 4]
Number of films in collection: 1,349 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,737 [up 7]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

10 O'Clock Live
1x07 (3/3/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Extraordinary Dogs
1x06 The Mystery of Healing 2
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Fast and Loose
1x08 Episode 8 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Friday Night Dinner
1x02 The Jingle
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

My Life in Books
Episode 10 Robert Harris and Trinny Woodall (of 10)
While it would be going too far to say everyone's been worth listening to, this has been a consistently interesting series. Some more wouldn't go amiss... though whether the Beeb will consider it or just file it away as part of their "year of reading", who can say.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Guillermo del Toro Confirms He’ll Direct Pacific Rim; Talks Future of At the Mountains of Madness by Matt Goldberg
(from Collider.com)
Following on from yesterday's article, del Toro himself speaks a bit about what went wrong and why there's still a good deal of hope for the project.

Invasion of the stick figures from outer space! by Roger Ebert
(from rogerebert.com)
Ebert's beautifully scathing review of Battle: Los Angeles.

TV

Due South
3x10 Perfect Strangers [2nd watch]

Family Guy
2x05 Love Thy Trophy
2x06 Death is a Bitch
2x07 The King is Dead
In the unlikely event anyone's keeping track, this is where the UK Season 1 DVD comes to an end.

The Killing [aka Forbrydelsen]
1x13 Day 13
If you've still not watched any of this, start it now and you can watch one a day (which, considering each episode covers a day (more or less) is rather neat) before it disappears from iPlayer. If you like high-quality thrillers or crime drama, you won't regret it.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

My Life in Books
Episode 9 Larry Lamb and Sarah Millican (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Is it fair to blame Universal for the state of the industry today? by Drew McWeeny
(from Motion Captured at HitFix)
In the wake of Universal cancelling Guillermo del Toro's H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, At the Mountains of Madness, McWeeny looks at the reaction from other websites and explores why this decision is regrettable but completely understandable and, actually, not Universal's fault at all. A very interesting piece.

TV

Extraordinary Dogs
1x05 Above and Beyond Loyalty
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Family Guy
2x02 Holy Crap
2x09 If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'

House
7x12 You Must Remember This

How TV Ruined Your Life
1x05 Progress
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

My Life in Books
Episode 8 Duchess of Devonshire and Elizabeth McGovern (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

My Life in Books
Episode 7 Jeanette Winterson and Alastair Campbell (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Silk
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Yes Minister
2x05 The Devil You Know

Films

Unthinkable (2010)
[#28 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]

TV

Outcasts
1x06 Episode 6
There are flashes (brief, brief flashes) of really-quite-good-ness in Outcasts... but most of it is just unremittingly poor writing, be that implausible dialogue or hole-riddled plotting. Still, only two episodes left.
[Subject yourself to it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

South Riding
Part 2 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Top Gear
16x06 (27/2/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

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

The Four Musketeers (1974)

this second effort has less action, which could be fine, but more importantly it’s less fun. In and of itself such a statement doesn’t make it bad, but it consequently fails to fulfil the promise of the first film. It’s also a little more ramshackle… Considering Three Musketeers has a kind of endearing scrappiness to it, that a similar factor becomes a negative point here either means they took it too far or there was a certain luck to the first film hanging together.

The Three Musketeers (1973)

Where to begin? The action, I suppose. It’s loaded with the stuff. It puts later movies — from eras when we’re more accustomed to non-stop, regularly-paced action than the ’70s — to shame with its barrage of sword fights. And if you think they’d all be the same and become repetitive, you’re dead wrong.

I do stick with alphabetical on this, but it feels silly now.

Anyway, there's also the February update this week.

More next Sunday.

TV

24 Hour Panel People
Saw various bits of this live webstream throughout the afternoon and evening, in which David Walliams (and others, naturally) complete 19 different panel shows in one 24 hour period. With lots of long breaks for set changes and that kind of malarky, which for viewers of the live stream means cutting to some budget presenters in a "pod". It's still going on right now (unless they're on a break, but you know what I mean) and is due to finish at midday. The (almost) complete schedule is here. BBC Three will be showing a series of highlights programmes next week.
[Watch the live stream here.]

The Culture Show
The Books We Really Read [special]
Part of BBC Two's Culture Show-based coverage of World Book Night (indeed, the only bit I properly watched), Sue Perkins looks at what makes blockbuster books sell while literary fiction... doesn't. Including Sophie Kinsella being reasonable and Lee Child coming across as a right idiot.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Due South
3x09 Dead Guy Running [2nd watch]

Faulks on Fiction
Part 4 The Villain [final episode]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

The Killing [aka Forbrydelsen]
1x12 Day 12
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Let's Dance for Comic Relief 2011
Episode 2 (of 4)
As much as I enjoyed the tap dancing, I really didn't expect the British public to put it through first! Shame about Lulu too, though Noel Fielding has a better chance of beating Russell Kane, so...

My Life in Books
Episode 6 Sister Wendy and Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen (of 10)
A dry edition of what's otherwise been an entertaining and pleasantly fast-moving watch. I can see why this episode is tucked away in the middle of the run.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Cloak and Dagger (1946)
[#27 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]

TV

Due South
3x08 Spy vs. Spy [2nd watch]
Even by Due South's standards, this episode was barmy.

Family Guy
1x07 Brian: Portrait of a Dog [season finale]
2x01 Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater
2x10 Running Mates

The Graham Norton Show
8x18 (25/2/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
[#26 in 100 Films in a Year 2011]
Christ, it's nearly two-and-a-half years since I read this! And I've been meaning to watch it ever since.

Collection Count

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

After everything turned up last week, there's still a few left over this week (just): three new titles and a DVD-to-BD upgrade. Thrilling. But on the bright side, running time update for the lot of it! Yay!

Number of titles in collection: 1,278 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,102 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 176 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 3,185 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 1,348 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,730 [up 22]

Plus this week it's time for a running time update, so...

Total running time of collection (approx.):
228 days, 10 hours, and 32 minutes.
(Up 2 days, 13 hours, and 55 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

10 O'Clock Live
1x06 (24/2/11 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Due South
3x05 Seeing is Believing [2nd watch]

Family Guy
1x03 Chitty Chitty Death Bang
1x05 A Hero Sits Next Door
1x06 The Son Also Draws

My Life in Books
Episode 5 Peter Snow and Dan Snow (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Due South
3x06 Bounty Hunter [2nd watch]

Family Guy
1x01 Death Has a Shadow
1x02 I Never Met the Dead Man [2nd watch]
1x04 Mind Over Murder
I've only seen random episodes of Family Guy before (plus the first two Star Wars ones). Turns out, this second one is one of them.
And secondly, Family Guy has a whole messed-up-mixed-up history of which episodes are in which season and which order, for various reasons that don't need going into. Though I'll just watch them in the order presented on the Region 2 DVDs, numbering is courtesy of Wikipedia's episode list (i.e. by US transmission).

Friday Night Dinner
1x01 The Sofabed
C4's new sitcom apparently had a very good launch, ratings-wise. Which is nice, because it's quite good.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The Killing [aka Forbrydelsen]
1x11 Day 11
I hope it wasn't Troels who did it, because a) you surely can't drag that out for half the series, and b) Bremer deserves what's coming to him. In fact, I hope Bremer did it and is trying to frame Troels. That'd be good.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

My Life in Books
Episode 4 Sir Trevor McDonald and Rebecca Front (of 10)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]