TV

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
1x06 Brighton [season finale]
Despite his admirable love of Queen, I'm not much of a fan of the Pub Landlord, which made for a somewhat disappointing end to an otherwise outstanding series.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Torchwood
3x05 Children of Earth: Day Five [season finale]
Depressingly believable, and uncompromisingly excellent with it.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Poem of the Week is on holiday

Due to the moving issues previously mentioned, Poem of the Week will return next week.

TV

Torchwood
3x04 Children of Earth: Day Four
An outstanding episode on every level: scary, exciting, surprising, funny and heartbreaking. Torchwood has really, finally come into its own with this miniseries (or maxi-episode, as I heard it described today, and it seems an even more fitting term). While it might be nice to see a return to 13 individual episodes next year, in many respects this format is even more exciting. Lord alone knows how they could top it though!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Torchwood
3x03 Children of Earth: Day Three
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
1x05 Belfast
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Torchwood
3x02 Children of Earth: Day Two
A brilliant second episode. Perhps not as packed as the first, but series like this need a good kick to get going and then can afford to slow the pace slightly in the middle. That said, with all the action going on, Torchwood certainly couldn't be accused of being slow-paced. For one, the JCB rescue/escape is an instant-classic action sequence.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Blade Prequel Trilogy In The Works by Dave Golder
(from SFX)
The involvement of the original director -- and not, it seems, of Wesley Snipes -- is promising.

Monkey Island to return today by David Bradley
(from SFX)
"Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal is the first part of Tales Of Monkey Island, a five-game series with a whole new swashbuckling storyline... It launches on PC and WiiWare later today."

Torchwood BBC1 run starts with nearly 6m viewers by Leigh Holmwood
(from guardian.co.uk)
"Torchwood: Children of Earth brought 5.9 million viewers and a 26% share to BBC1 in the 9pm hour, comfortably winning its slot, according to unofficial overnight figures."

TV

Loose Women
6/7/09 edition
Featuring John Barrowman, who's always a riot.

Torchwood
3x01 Children of Earth: Day One
The new series of Torchwood gets off to a flying start -- a proper semi-political thriller, packed with all the requisite mystery and twists (and genuine ones at that!), but not losing any of the show's usual humour, character or quirkiness.
It also impressed in seeming to contain more plot and action than your average Torchwood episode, despite being the first not to tell a self-contained story. This may be the skill of having Russell T Davies back in the writer's chair -- imbuing more pace and interest into 59-minutes that tell just one fifth of a story than most writers can achieve telling a whole tale in 45 minutes. That's without mentioning how multi-faceted it was, managing to throw in horror and sci-fi plot points right beside domestic relationships, sweet character moments and broad comedy.
This is what Torchwood has been aiming to be all along, and it was fantastic. Let's just hope the rest of the story can live up to the opener...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Moving update

Due to technical issues relating to my move (see previous few days for related posts), updates to this blog will not appear with their regular efficiency for the next week. Rest assured that updates will continue daily (though delayed) and normal service will resume shortly.

TV

Wimbledon 2009
The Men's Singles final, of course. I'm glad Federer got his record-breaking 15th Grand Slam title at what is almost his home Slam, though felt sorry for Roddick -- he worked hard, deserved it at least as much, and has just the one Slam win to his name (so far). He looked almost broken.

Technology

Spent most of today moving stuff again, but that included setting up my oft-discussed new TV arrangement.

I've not had a chance to fully calibrate and enjoy it yet, but the brief check-it-works tests proved it all to be as stunning as I hoped.

Moving

My Cultural Experience spent today moving, with occasional breaks to visit the likes of B&Q, which rather got in the way of any more genuine cultural experiences.

TV

Wimbledon 2009
Today at Wimbledon, Andy Roddick put out number three seed -- and, thanks to the absence of Nadal, runner-up-favourite -- Andy Murray. Despite being British, I was more than a little pleased. Well done Roddick.

Articles

Listening to Mr iPhone by Rory Cellan-Jones
(from dot.life on the BBC Blog Network)
A moderately interesting piece about an interview (yes, "about an interview", not "an interview") with the designer of numerous Apple products, Jonathan Ive. Sadly, the comment section quickly degenerates into yet another Mac vs PC flame war.

World Exclusive: Hands-on with Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series on Blu-ray by Anton van Beek
(from Home Cinema Choice)
A first-look/review of the first 14 discs of the forthcoming UK/Region B release of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica on Blu-ray. After getting shafted with extras on the DVD releases, it looks as if the UK is getting a full port of the US Battlestar set. We may lose out on the Cylon action figure, but we get some different cool packaging -- and it's much cheaper than importing! And good news for both regions: looks like they've done it justice with the set. Something to seriously look forward to, then.

TV

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
1x04 Swansea [2nd half]
After waiting a few days for this in the end, it was a sadly disappointing second half.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Bill Nighy joins cast of Deathly Hallows by Lara Martin
(from Digital Spy)
Though not which part he'll play.

Conversation, Forever Captured, in Dinner by Jen Chaney
(from The Washington Post)
An interesting review of the new Criterion DVD of My Dinner with André, which makes some interesting points about modern culture (specifically regarding the rise of YouTube).

Cybermen - Del-eat! Del-eat! by Dave Golder
(from SFX)
"This brilliant Cybercake, created by a shop called Truly Scrumptious was spotted by SFX reader David Todd... Apparently, the cake took four days to make."

Ross criticises Norton, Barrowman shows by Mayer Nissim
(from Digital Spy)
What is says in the title, really, though read the article if you want the exact quote. Could he be jealous of their increasing dominance at the Beeb?

Russell T Davies talks Torchwood by Ian Berriman
(from SFX)
Most Davies interviews are worth a read, and this is certainly no exception. A decent length too.

Magazines

Radio Times 4-10 July 2009
Torchwood's back! Hurrah! Good feature on it. Pretty cover (with exclusive imagery) too.

Articles

Review of How the West Was Won Blu-ray by Leonard Norwitz
(from DVDBeaver)
A great piece, part Blu-ray/film review and part article on the Cinerama process. There's some immensely insightful contributions from Cinerama documentarian Dave Strohmaier too (scroll right down past the screengrabs). It's a teeny bit technical, so primarily of interest to film/cinema/technology/Blu-ray buffs, and of course you have to battle past the AICN-esque lack of user-friendly design/formatting present at DVDBeaver, but I found it worth it.

Star Trek - What You Missed by Harry Barber
(from TNMC)
Barber has read an early version of the Star Trek script and here describes some of the stuff in there that didn't make the final cut, including at least one whole subplot. Whether it was cut at script stage or later, no one knows -- only the DVD/Blu-ray is likely to reveal that now.

Articles

Michael Jackson tops album chart
(from BBC News)
"Michael Jackson has topped the UK album chart and made six new entries in the singles top 40, six years after his last number one. Greatest hits album Number Ones rocketed from 121 to the top spot after a surge in sales since the superstar's death on Thursday... Four of his other hit albums also made a reappearance in the top 20... Thriller, still the biggest-selling album of all time, raced from 179 to number seven...
A total of 11 Michael Jackson or Jackson Five albums featured in the top 200. In the singles chart, 43 out of the top 200 singles feature the singer, with Jackson hits accounting for all but one of the new entries in the top 40."

Review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
and
The Fall of the Revengers
by Roger Ebert (from rogerebert.com)
Ebert lays into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with his usual panache -- twice! I still haven't bothered to see it, but I can well believe every word of this.

Tomas, Tommy, Tom: Past, present and future? by Matt Withers
and
Three Toms in The Fountain by Marc Caddell
(from rogerebert.com)
Two different, but equally intelligent, views on what exactly is going on in The Fountain, a film many dislike but I thought was rather good (with some reservations).

Technology

As I've discussed my TV-related plans a couple of times before, I thought I'd give updates now final decisions have been made and things have been ordered.

HDTV: Samsung LE37B650
It may have flaws, but the ones it has are of little consequence to me, which means it's pros stand out all the more.
In the post.

Blu-ray Player: Panasonic DMP-BD60
One of the best around at this price point, and also one of the few available chipped for multi-region -- a must for me.
In the post.

TV/Broadband/Phone: V+HD / Virgin Media
Yes, last time I had been verging on Sky, but their offer ended. This is for the best really -- Virgin will cost a lot less and BBC HD is the main HD channel I'll watch anyway. Considering my TV has a USB slot that will play movie files, there are always other ways of accessing HD content...
Installation ordered.

Blu-rays
I've also ordered an initial batch of films, so I can actually enjoy my BD player (plus it will upscale my thousands of DVDs, of course).
Ordered / in the post.

Thanks to moving house as well, all of this should be completely set up in the next 5-10 days. Ooh it's exciting.