TV

Dragons' Den
What Happened Next 2 Duncan Bannatyne
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys
Part 2 (of 3)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Review Show
03/09/2010 edition
...though, if I'm honest, not all of it -- just the bits covering Tamara Drewe, Jonah Hex and CLiNT, and half of This is England '86 (before I got bored of it, having not seen the film or the series).

Articles

How To Reboot Resident Evil by Nathan Ditum
(from Total Film)
This whole article is worth reading just for the comments form "CthuluGonnaCall.com" on page 10. I laughed probably more than it deserved. Also amusing: page 13 on, where the article switches from "largely plausible (if fans were extraordinarily lucky)" to "not gonna happen. Ever."

Collection Count

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

This week, a few new Blu-rays give a little boost to the numbers. One is technically a DVD upgrade -- Psycho -- but as I own the DVD in a box set it won't be going anywhere. (Plus I think the DVD still has some special features that aren't on the BD, so...)

Another is... well, also a DVD upgrade, actually -- the wondrous Firefly. Somehow, they've stuffed the entire series into one of those slim US Blu-ray cases -- if/when I buy Serenity on (UK) Blu-ray, it'll be in a bigger box than the whole of the TV series. That's madness. Anyway, at the minute I'm keeping hold of the DVD for it's proper-sized, shiny-slipcased, nostalgia-filled loveliness, so Firefly just increases numbers rather than replacing them.

Number of titles in collection: 1,220 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 1,105 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 115 [up 4]

Number of discs in collection: 2,979 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 1,284 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,195 [up 14]

Statistic of the week:

Total running time of collection (approx.):
209 days, 17 hours, and 49 minutes.
(Up 1 day, 20 hours, and 21 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Family Guy
8x20 Something, Something, Something, Dark Side [season finale]
Having spoofed A New Hope (which, as I noted before, I watched before this blog began), the Family Guy team latterly turned their attention to The Empire Strikes Back. It's as hit-and-miss as you might expect, effectively retelling Empire with a bunch of non sequiturs and humorous criticisms thrown in.
The Family Guy version of Return of the Jedi, titled It's a Trap!, is due later this year. Wonder if they'll do the prequels...

Mock the Week
9x09 (23/9/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The South Bank Show
37x01 Andrew Lloyd Webber Revisited
aka The South Bank Show Revisited for the series' final run of ten programmes, which all (unsurprisingly) revisited past subjects. It aired back in March/April/May and I've had half of them on my V+ box ever since. About time I got round to them, I thought. So, um, I am...

Articles

The 33 Greatest Movie Trilogies by Helen O'Hara, Ian Freer & Alastair Plumb
(from Empire)
It's an odd list in places, which is what happens when you ask The Public, but not an uninteresting one.

A knock on Betjeman’s door by David Allen Green
(from The Staggers at New Statesman)

Why the CPS prosecution of Paul Chambers matters.

aka #TwitterJokeTrial. The appeal is tomorrow. And it really does matter.

TV

Law & Order: UK
3x02 Hounded
A rather good episode, I thought -- yes, it succumbed to 'justice' at the end, but it was never definitively cleared up who committed the central crime (though I'm sure some more simplistic viewers assumed it was by dint of what occurred in the end).
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Mad Men
4x02 Christmas Comes But Once a Year
Aww, poor Don's Secretary (Whose Name I Don't Even Know).
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

It Happened Here (1965)
[#98 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
Plus the extras, including a US trailer that cost more than the film itself(!) and an extended newsreel, in which the production team faked footage of a tank driving by filming it being transported backwards with the camera upside-down, then turning the film the other way up. Don't get much of that sort of ingenuity these days.

TV

Cheetah Kingdom
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Spooks
9x01 Episode 1
They're back! It's all a bit daft now! Some things will never change, I suspect. Until they cancel it, naturally.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)
[#97 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Articles

Traffic wardens 'advised to issue illegal tickets' by Liz Webb
(from the Express & Echo, via this is Exeter)
I always knew they were a shifty, untrustworthy, immoral lot 'round here. And 'round most places, I suspect.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats
10x04 (17/9/10 edition)
I think I missed the last series or two of this, largely because it had become thoroughly rubbish. Either I've recuperated or it's improved. (Incidentally, I swear the Radio Times billed this as the first of a new series, while C4 insist it's episode four. That said, episode one was on in June, episode two was a Big Brother special, and episode three doesn't exist, so what do they know?)
This episode, they seem to be going a bit QI: it's series 10 -- or, in QI World, J -- and the guests appearing alongside regulars Jimmy Carr and Jason Manford are Jack Dee, Jack Whitehall, Dr Christian Jessen and Jamelia. Suspicious.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Doctor Who: Adventure Games to return by Matthew Reynolds
(from Digital Spy)
Well, I hope they make them better next time!
In fairness, I've still only played the first one. I know I forgot to leave comments -- suffice to say, I didn't like it (repetitive, old-fashioned, full of soul-sapping 'stealth' segments rather than intelligence-requiring point-n-click style adventuring like proper 'adventure games'). Maybe games two and three improve it? I ought to find out. I'm not optimistic.
And, based on the comment that "the feedback we've had has been overwhelmingly positive", I don't expect we'll see an improvement in quality any time soon.

Top 10 'unanswerable' questions revealed
(from BBC News)
This list is funny, because it starts out profound ("What is the meaning of life?"), continues to be stereotypical ("Do blondes have more fun?"), and then gets specific with something you might assume was answerable but isn't (#9). Well, it made me chuckle.

TV

Dragons' Den
What Happened Next 1 Peter Jones
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow
2x01 Glasgow
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

The Devin's Advocate: Why Breaking Dawn Must Be Made Into A Movie by Devin Faraci
(from CHUD.com)
I read this a while ago and think I forgot to mention it. It sounds like it could make the whole Twilight franchise worthwhile. Almost. Maybe.

this week on 100 Films

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

Ministry of Fear (1944)

To say too much about what Ministry of Fear is actually about would ruin it, which I don’t want to do because in fact it’s a great twisty little thriller, a rather Hitchcockian ‘wrong man’ tale with a baked MacGuffin.

Robin Hood: Director's Cut (2010)

In short, the pace is off. It drags for most of the middle, waiting for something of genuine interest to occur. The climax feels slightly rushed... The Director’s Cut is 15½ minutes longer, a potentially significant chunk that could throw the whole centre of the film out of whack

More next Sunday.

TV

Merlin
3x02 The Tears of Uther Pendragon Part 2
That's another season of Merlin over then.
Oh, that wasn't a finale? Well, it felt like one. So what's next week? Lots of farting!? Christ, did they learn nothing from Doctor Who?!
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

QI
8x01 Hodge Podge (extended repeat)
I have a feeling I missed some episodes of the last series of QI. At least, there are a couple that were never mentioned on here. To be frank, they now produce so many a year, and have a tendency to scatter them about, and drop in repeats and skip extended editions, that it's no surprise I could've missed some.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Would I Lie To You?
4x09 The Unseen Bits [season finale]
Some people seem to have become fed up with Rob Brydon's interjections and participations this series, but personally I don't mind them. And his Quick Fire Lie tonight was one of the funniest bits... even if it was thanks to the panels' responses.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Robin Hood: Director's Cut (2010)
[#96 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]
Read my review here.

TV

Cheetah Kingdom
1x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Dexter
4x12 The Getaway [season finale]
So that's that for Dexter's fourth season, complete with a shocking ending... which, unfortunately, I found out about ages ago. (I won't mention more for the sake of anyone watching the series on FX, which is up to episode five tonight.) I look forward to seeing how it's dealt with next season, which I believe starts in the US imminently.

Mock the Week
9x08 (16/9/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Gigi (1958)
[#95 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Collection Count

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

This week, a Blu-ray replaces a DVD, though any evidence is wiped out by the last-minute arrival of a new Blu-ray and a new DVD. Exciting stuff, eh what?

Number of titles in collection: 1,216 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,105 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 111 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 2,973 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,281 [up 3]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,181 [no change]

Statistic of the week:

Number of titles produced in the '70s:
91
(7.5% of the total)

Having now counted titles produced in the '00s, '90s, '80s, and over 100 years ago, it seems reasonable to continue back into the '70s. (Based on form, you can expect the '60s in about two months.)

See you next week, faithful reader.