TV

Blankety Blank
2x09 Episode 9
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

A Ghost Story for Christmas
Count Magnus
Not a bad little spooky tale, but I made the mistake of watching it right after the Inside No. 9 special, which was so excellent and clever and well-made that, I’m sorry to say, it made this look lesser is every respect by comparison.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

His Dark Materials
3x01 The Enchanted Sleeper
Doesn't feel like two whole years since the last season of this. It took me a few minutes to settle back into some elements of the story, and it feels a bit like this episode was scene-setting for where future instalments will go, but it also promises some interesting things. And I love the theme music. Great to have it back; going to be sad when it ends.
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
30x09 Christmas Special

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
1x02 Week 1: Tuesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

This Cultural Life
2x03 Tim Minchin
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

Normally this week would also have the next monthly running time update, but as next week's post will be on (or just after) December 31st, I'm going to leave it until then, to include all the end-of-year increases too.

As for normal business... some of my long-delayed orders finally turned up, just before the pre-Christmas post cutoff! Hurrah! There's a good few packages of stuff still stuck somewhere, but I guess that's to be expected (especially as several of them are coming from the US). So long as they turn up eventually, that's all that really matters.

In terms of what did arrive, it's enough to make for an above-average week in most stats, and a blazer of an increase in one figure in particular. Y'see, this week's single biggest addition is also an oddity: a new DVD! (But the DVD count stays the same because I upgraded something else to 4K.) It's Network's box set of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series of British '60s B-movies. The 47-film complete series set adds 20 discs and 54 films to my tallies (because it includes seven bonus films made around the same time). Not many single sets are so large. With a running time of over two solid days, it'll certainly have a significant impact on next week's update...

Number of titles in collection: 2,987 [up 10]
Of which DVDs: 1,039 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,948 [up 10]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 221 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 7,392 [up 33]
Number of films: 3,644 [up 62]
Number of additional cuts: 296 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,508 [up 10]
Number of short films: 1,025 [up 1]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Blankety Blank
2x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Ghosts
4x01 Happy Holiday
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

How I Met Your Father
1x07 Rivka Rebel

Inside No. 9
8x01 The Bones of St. Nicholas [Christmas special]
Only the second episode of Inside No. 9 I've watched, and I thought it was fantastic — a proper spooky ghost story for Christmas. I really should go back and catch up on the whole series.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Richard Osman's Festive House of Games
1x01 Week 1: Monday
The regular House of Games (as opposed to the prime time version, right? But this isn't really a third version...) gets a Christmassy makeover for the next two weeks. And the modifications go slightly beyond slapping sleigh bells over the theme and a tree in the corner, so that's nice.
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
4x14 Long Shot

TV

Cunk on Christmas
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

House of the Dragon
1x10 The Black Queen [season finale]
I've been too busy trying to finish my 100 Films Challenge to get round to this finale; but having abandoned that, well, now I have time. And it was worth the wait — which will hopefully be true of season two, too, because I really want to know what happens next but that's a couple of years away.

TV

Live at the Apollo
17x01 Christmas Special
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mystery Science Theater 3000
Jackbox Holiday Showdown: Hosts vs Mads
I haven't watched any MST3K since September (oops), leaving me with almost half (6 out of 13) of the current season still to watch (oops). And the finale is a Christmas special, too, so by the time I get round to that in, like, June it'll be thoroughly out of date. Or maybe it'll take me all of 2023 to get caught up and I'll just watch it a year late, who knows? Anyway, this isn't an episode, either, but a livestream special in which the cast compete at Christmas-themed party games. Fun times.
[Watch it (for free) on the Gizmoplex.]

QI
20x09 Toys, Tinsel, and Turkeys (XL version) [Christmas special]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Morecambe & Wise Show
6x07 Christmas Show 1971
I'm sure I saw various Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials when I was growing up in the '90s, but I have no idea which ones specifically; and, of course, there are routines in this one (not least "Andrew Preview") that have been repeated on numerous clip shows, so I've definitely seen them there. Anyway, whether I've seen this before or not, I didn't intend to watch it this evening, but got sucked in because it's so good — the comedy is timeless. Funny to think, though: when Shirley Bassey turns up and sings Diamonds Are Forever, she's not perfoming some old classic from her back catalogue (what we now know it as), but her then-recent single. Weird.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Russell Howard Hour
6x13 Christmas Special
Not the whole show, just the bit with Garth Marenghi. Worth it.

Scouting for Toys
1x09 Karl Lagerfeld
1x10 Barbie [season finale]
[Watch the series (again) on UKTV Play.]

Collection Count

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

At this point I've thoroughly lost count of how much stuff I'm expecting by when — some has arrived; lots hasn't; some has arrived but had to go back, or wait for a replacement; new stuff has been ordered, and arrived, or not...! I am keeping track of it all, order by order, just to make sure stuff arrives (or that I'm chasing stuff that hasn't), but I've lost track of what the total is in terms of the number I've been citing in these updates.

In the end, just two new titles did turn up this week (with around 17 more that I seriously thought might but didn't, and more still in the post that will take some time to get here (a trio from Australia that were only dispatched yesterday, for example)). One of those was a BD-to-4K upgrade, too; so despite the fact that I'm expecting an absolute tonne of stuff (and have been expecting some of it for three weeks or more now), this week's update is rather meagre...

Number of titles in collection: 2,977 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,039 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,938 [up 1]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 218 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 7,359 [up 2]
Number of films: 3,582 [no change]
Number of additional cuts: 296 [no change]
Number of TV episodes: 9,498 [up 7]
Number of short films: 1,024 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

Films

Mr. Soft Touch (1949)
[#89 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]

Films

Jackass 3D (2010)
[#88 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]
Like Saw 3D, although I watched this in 2D, it's still called Jackass 3D. (It's never had a true-3D disc release. I thought I'd found a copy to download, but it turned out to be faked.)

TV

Mock the Week
20x10 (2/12/2021 edition)
20x11 (9/12/2021 edition)
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

University Challenge
2022/23 Episode 16
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wheel
3x06 Episode 6
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

I Wouldn't Be in Your Shoes (1948)
[#87 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]

TV

The Wheel
3x05 Episode 5
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Avatar (2009)
[2nd watch]
[#86 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]
First time seeing it since the cinema, almost exactly 13 years ago. It's quite good, donchaknow.

Radio

The Confessional
1x00 The Confession of David Tennant
Read about the new series of this in the Radio Times and, the BBC being what it is nowadays, was able to jump back in time to listen to this old episode (the pilot, I guess) with David Tennant, because it's always nice to hear him being interviewed.
[Listen to it (again) on BBC Sounds.]

Collection Count

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

Thanks mainly to postal delays, I had a mindbogglingly ginormous 31 titles on my list of things that might arrive this week — a mix of delayed stuff (some of which should've arrived two or even three weeks ago), stuff that was due now (things arriving on time seemed doubtful, all things considered), and stuff which might've turned up a little early (seems laughable now, but under normal circumstances...) In the end, the actual number of titles I received was 11 — a more-than-solid (certainly above average) number in isolation, but it does mean there were 20 titles that didn't arrive.

One that did was the second season of classic Doctor Who on Blu-ray. The nine-story box set should replace six DVD releases (a couple of them are two-story box sets), but, due to special features being joggled around (so I'm keeping DVDs until the extras turn up elsewhere), in my collection it only replaces... one. Ha! We're very nearly halfway through the Blu-ray range now, and I'm still hanging on to loads of DVDs for the odd extra here and there. I imagine, as we get into the second half, it's eventually going to swing the other way — you know, a six-story set will actully knock out eight or nine DVDs due to finally including missing extras, that kind of thing. I hope so, anyway...

Another upgrade this week was Casablanca to 4K. I was unsure about getting it, because the Blu-ray copy I have is already suitably lavish, there were no new special features, and the jump in picture quality didn't look that huge. But then Amazon had it on a time-limited offer and, well, I caved. I got the 3-disc "ultimate edition" with exclusive bonus disc so that it could replace my current copy (which also has that bonus disc)... but that one is so nicely presented — mainly thanks to a large-format 64-page art book — that, for now at least, I'm keeping both. Which means I could've saved a few quid and just got the regular 4K edition, as it's only the 4K disc I need if I'm keeping both. I should've reminded myself how nice my current copy was before I hit that "buy" button...

Number of titles in collection: 2,976 [up 9]
Of which DVDs: 1,039 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 1,937 [up 9]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 217 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 7,357 [up 21]
Number of films: 3,582 [up 6]
Number of additional cuts: 296 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes: 9,491 [up 46]
Number of short films: 1,024 [up 5]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Mock the Week
20x07 (4/11/2021 edition)
20x08 (11/11/2021 edition)
20x09 (25/11/2021 edition)
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Cyber City Oedo 808
by Jonathan Clements (from All the Anime Blog)

So, I'm selling my copy of Cyber City Oedo 808 to buy the newly remastered version that's out in March. Sadly, the new edition loses the 50-page booklet (in favour of some art cards — yawn! It also loses the soundtrack CD, but I've already ripped that), so I've read it before selling it off. There's an interview with John Wolskel, who wrote the series' UK scripts, and Rory McFarlane, who composed new music for the UK dubs. Both quite interesting. The main piece is a history/analysis article, which is available in full online — linked above, obv.

It's a shame the new edition doesn't include the booklet — much more to my interest than some sodding art cards (which most boutique label releases seem to come with nowadays; they must be cheap to produce). But at least I've read it once; and, to be honest, most of my Blu-ray booklets don't even get read that often.

Films

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945)
[#85 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]
Blindspot 2022 #11

Considering I often struggle to watch any kind of film on a work night nowadays, attempting a 3-hour-10-minute one might seem foolhardy. The secret ingredient: it's in two parts, so I could stop halfway if needed. I also made sure to start with plenty of time, just in case — and I'm glad I did, because I watched the whole thing in one sitting (well, okay, I did have a little break at the intermission) because it's brilliant.

Films

Christmas Holiday (1944)
[#84 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022]