TV

The Choir: Unsung Town
Part 4 (of 4)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Red Riding: 1983 (2009)
[#52 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
The final part of the trilogy is the best by some margin, in my estimation.

Magazines

Doctor Who Magazine #413

Featuring The Mighty 200, DWM's reader-voted countdown of the best Doctor Who stories ever (and, indeed, the worst) -- the first time they've done this since 1998, in which time we've had 50-something new stories with Chris Eccleston and David Tennant. Some of the final placings are quite surprising -- I wonder if shops will now have to remove the "No.1 Story Ever" stickers from Genesis of the Daleks DVDs?

Best of all, however, is this observation in closing: "note the awesome symmetry of the stories at either end of the poll being not just from the same season, but actually consecutive. That's Doctor Who all over -- madly diverse, occasionally polarizing, but always surprising."

TV

The Secret Millionaire
4x08 Martin Stamp [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Would I Lie To You?
3x07 (21/9/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

How I Met Your Mother
1x09 Belly Full of Turkey
1x11 The Limo
As expected, I was right that I'd missed an episode and it was entirely my fault. Ho hum. A run of three very good episodes though -- and, indeed, so were the ones before them. Given a couple of weeks to settle in, How I Met Your Mother has definitely found its feet.

Walk on the Wild Side
1x05 Episode 5
I had been intending to watch this whole series after it was quite well-reviewed by the Radio Times. But then I didn't. The promise of Wildlife on Mars in this edition spurred me on however. Shame it was rubbish. Much of the rest of the programme was quite good though, ironically. Maybe I'll watch it again in future... except the last one was this week.

Films

Red Riding: 1974 (2009)
[#50 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
Are they films or are they a miniseries? I shall expound further on this when I post my review (though I think it's obvious which option I'll choose).

Red Riding: 1980 (2009)
[#51 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]

TV

Later... with Jools Holland
35x01 (18/9/09 edition)
See here for my comments on Tuesday's live version of this edition.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Merlin
2x01 The Curse of Cornelius Sigan
Saturday night's second best family drama returns for a new run, with a rather by-the-numbers episode unfortunately. Nothing wrong with it, but it was more mid-season filler than big comeback, sadly. The rest-of-series trailer at the end looked quite good though.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Mock the Week
7x11 (17/9/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Tudors
3x07 Protestant Anne of Cleves
Cromwell's downfall looms -- hooray! But Joss Stone seems miscast as the appallingly ugly Anne of Cleeves; not because she can't act, but because she's hardly ugly.
[Watch Episode 7 (or, as the BBC insists, '5') (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Video screens hit paper magazines
(from BBC News)
On the one hand, "ooh cool". On the other, it's far from perfect -- read the full article to see all the various flaws with this particular form of video-in-print.

new review at 100 Films

The Right Stuff (1983)

Kaufman leaves the technical aspect of proceedings alone. The various test flights and rocket launches we do see are undoubtedly important set pieces, but they’re not a thorough catalogue of events. Attention is only lavished on the scientific and engineering challenges when it has some direct impact on the characters, and just as often Kaufman is concerned with the family — specifically, the wife — behind the astronaut.

Read the full review at 100 Films.

There are currently 15 films in the review pipeline at 100 Films. As ever, updates here as and when they're posted.

TV

Derren Brown: The Events - Live
1x02 How to Control the Nation
A Toy's Story was classic Derren, the kind of stunt I always enjoy (and by "classic" mean "have seen him do before", of course), while The Giveaway certainly provided its share of amusement -- especially the "particularly suggestible" guy who donated his shoes. And Subject 5 -- whose arms mysteriously floated upwards, to Derren's apparent bemusement -- was most amusing
As for the event itself... well, I didn't get stuck, sadly. Did you?
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

How I Met Your Mother
1x10 The Pineapple Incident
Either I've missed an episode or E4 have skipped an episode. Either way, "oops".

Films

The Right Stuff (1983)
[#49 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]

TV

Desperate Romantics
Part 6 (of 6)
An unusually serious episode to end the series. The final scene's return to comedy, however, may've been misjudged.

How I Met Your Mother
1x07 Matchmaker
1x08 The Duel

Later Live... with Jools Holland
35x01 (15/9/09 edition)
Watched this primarily for Muse (who were great, of course, especially doing United States of Eurasia), but unsurprisingly discovered all sorts of other greatness in the process. Hurrah!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Tudors
3x05 Problems in the Reformation
3x06 Search for a New Queen
[Watch Episode 6 (or, as the BBC insists, '4') (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Harper's Island
1x03 Ka-Blam
1x04 Bang
...except my recording decided to cut out before the end of Bang, so I'll have to wait 'til Friday's repeat to find out who saved Trish from drowning.
Oh, wait -- I can follow my very own Handy Link and watch it now. (Excluding credits, I missed literally 30 seconds. Wow.)
[Watch Ka-Blam and Bang (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
3x06 (14/9/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Choir: Unsung Town
Part 3 (of 4)
So whoever announced this as a three-parter was wrong.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Desperate Romantics
Part 5 (of 6)
Four weeks to the day since I watch the preceding installment of this. That's the problem I have when a series ends -- less incentive to keep up. Still utterly barmy, but fun with it.

How I Met Your Mother
1x06 Slutty Pumpkin

Mock the Week
7x10 (10/9/09 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

new review at 100 Films

Sherlock (2002)

Holmes is recast as a kind of Victorian James Bond, both in terms of his character and the plot structure. It begins with the end of the previous mission, before progressing through various familiar beats, like the villain helpfully explaining his plan and a climactic big shoot-out... except on a much, much, much smaller scale. To add to the effect, Dr Watson is revealed to be “a bit of an inventor” — a Q in the making? Even Holmes himself is not immune: young, dashing, and womanising. Yes, womanising.

Read the full review at 100 Films.

There are currently 15 films in the review pipeline at 100 Films. As ever, updates here as and when they're posted.

TV

Doctor Who: Greatest Moments
Part 3 The Enemies [final episode]

How I Met Your Mother
1x05 Okay Awesome
I never did find out if the late-night repeats were uncut, but this is where I switch to watching them, just in case. Good timing though, because this episode was easily the best one yet: cleverly written, with Character Development and A Message to boot, and, most importantly, very funny.

Articles

Great Movies: The First 100 by Roger Ebert
(from rogerebert.com)
For those who don't know, Ebert does a weekly series of reviews where he highlights the Greatest Movies Ever Made (in his opinion, obviously). Here's a piece he published on reaching the 100th entry in this series, which is actually a beautiful argument for why we should all broaden our filmic horizons. Such things can often be preachy or held back by the author clearly hating the mainstream too much, but not so Ebert, who is well-reasoned and acknowledges that "some of the big hits are good, and a few of them are great". He's simply evangelical about film and a great writer. An inspiring read.

Pirates 4 Sails Stranger Tides by Owen Williams
(from Empire)
I knew the title On Stranger Tides rang a bell -- I'd heard of it being one of the inspirations for The Secret of Monkey Island before. This news makes me a great deal more excited about the film, I must say.

The importance of punctuation 2

TV

Marple
4x02 Murder is Easy
Helluva cast, as always. Not originally a Marple story this, but she was so well integrated you'd never guess. When Marple began, however many years ago now, I wasn't certain it was up to snuff, but it's rather good these days. This was a particularly good one.

Wildly Popular Iron Man Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film
Spoof news item from the Onion that can't have failed to escape your attention at some point in the past 18 months or so. I actually watched it in full for the first time today, believe it or not in research for an essay.

Music

The Resistance by Muse
[up to 7th listen]
I don't normally play an album (old or new) this much in such a short period of time, but The Resistance is certainly growing on me. It helps that it starts so well -- by the time I've listened to all the great opening tracks, it's not too hard to just keep going. And, like I say, those ones are growing too. Hurrah!