TV

Archer
3x08 Lo Scandalo
So, instead of episode four, we get episode eight. What? Still, s'a good'un. No idea what they made available on Demand 5 (the title is episode four's, but that doesn't mean the content is), but here's a link anyway.
[Watch an episode of Archer (again) on Demand 5.]

Castle
2x05 When the Bough Breaks
Nice use of music in this one, every time "a certain British secret agent" came up.
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Onion News Network
2x05 Exposed, Brooke Alvarez

Pointless
6x30 (26/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Sarah Millican Television Programme
1x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Sport Relief 2012
Part 2
The 40-minute BBC Two bit, featuring Twenty Twelve and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Onion News Network
2x02 Missing Baby Kate
2x03 Fantasy Brainwall
2x04 Dead Reporter
Sky Arts have moved quite swiftly on the second series of ONN (the first only concluded in February), though the shift in time slot meant I unfortunately missed the first one. Boo.

Pointless
6x29 (22/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Sport Relief 2012
Part 1
As Sport Relief has become essentially Comic Relief with added sports personalities, so a worthy cause has also become actually worth watching. Highlights in these first three hours include hilarious new sketches from Outnumbered and Miranda.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Pointless
6x28 (21/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Pointless
6x26 (19/3/12 edition)
6x27 (20/3/12 edition)
[Watch the 20/3/12 edition (again) on iPlayer.]

The Voice UK
1x01 The Blind Auditions 1
The BBC's big new talent show was actually pretty entertaining. Thing to watch for: will Danny ever turn his chair round before someone else?
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

The Bigger Picture: Mass Effect 3, Mutant Turtles, and The New Tyranny of the Fan-trum
by Drew McWeeny (from Motion Captured at HitFix)
"we are in the midst of The Age Of Fan-Fiction", argues McWeeny, because fans have too much say in things. I agree wholeheartedly.

TV

Archer
3x01 Heart of Archness Part 1
3x02 Heart of Archness Part 2
3x03 Heart of Archness Part 3
Archer finally returns to the UK... and the advantage of holding back a week is that I get to watch the opening three-parter in one feature-length chunk. Hooray!
And unlike the US, where this three-parter aired in September before a four-month gap before the rest of the series in January, it'll just continue next week over here. Double hooray!
[Watch Heart of Archness parts one, two and three again on Demand 5.]

Collection Count

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

Number of titles in collection: 1,459 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,150 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 309 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 3,615 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,547 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,449 [no change]

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

Total running time of collection (approx.):
260 days, 10 hours, and 50 minutes.
(Up 17 hours and 11 minutes from last month.)

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Let's Dance for Sport Relief 2012
Episode 5 (of 5)
Twenty dances were performed, and now the eight acts judged the best (and, this year, most of them actually were!) fight it out for... well, something... infamy, I guess... Still, there was a deserving winner -- that makes four-for-four in that regard. Better than most talent shows manage.

Pointless
6x25 (16/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Last Airbender (2010)
[#31 in 100 Films in a Year 2012]
I'm not prone to hyperbole when it comes to the quality of films -- I hate it when people declare something "the worst film I've ever seen" when it's actually passable or only a little below average -- but this is unbelievably bad.

Comics

Batman and Robin #7 by Peter J. Tomasi & Patrick Gleason
On the one hand, this is just one big long fight; on the other, it's a fitting climax to the story. Looking forward to the next one.

Wolverine and the X-Men #7 by Jason Aaron & Nick Bradshaw
Fun fun fun. I hope AvX taking over all the related books doesn't ruin this for months on end.

TV

The Book Show
6x09 Episode 9
Shown last December (presumably that was the first showing; it was when I recorded it), this episode focuses on crime fiction, currently hugely popular. Featuring interviews with Anthony Horowitz about his recent Sherlock Holmes novel (the first officially sanctioned sequel by the Conan Doyle estate) and P.D. James talking about her murder-mystery sequel to Pride and Prejudice.
[Watch it (again) on Sky Go, if you're so enabled/inclined.]

House
8x14 Love is Blind
Great episode. Nice return of a lupus in-joke, and a top guest star... who I won't ruin as it's not on Sky1 for over a week.

Films

Legally Blonde (2001)
[2nd watch]
If you've not seen this, it's better than you probably think it is. Not a Great film, but for it's genre/style/target audience, surprisingly good.

Articles

Jenna-Louise Coleman joins Doctor Who
by Chuck Foster (from Doctor Who News)
"Someone you've probably never heard of is the new companion" is the main story reported most places, and therefore the other little nuggets revealed are more interesting. Like that the Ponds will leave in episode five, which features the Weeping Angels, and the new companion is introduced in episode six, the Christmas special; and that that means there are at least 8 episodes to broadcast in the anniversary year, and Moffat has said there'll be an unspecified number coming later; and that the Daleks will also be appearing in the first half of the series; and that the Beeb has described the new series as "14 big, blockbuster-movie episodes", and it's likely to have no two-parters. So that's all quite exciting.

First look at Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock in The Girl
by George Wales (from Total Film)
"With Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren"

You can go Holmes again
by Mark Medley (from The Afterword at National Post)
A piece from last year about Horowitz's new Holmes novel (see today's TV) that's rather interesting for all the people it interviews besides Horowitz, including the assertion that his is far from the first authorised sequel.

TV

Pointless
6x24 (15/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Scott & Bailey
2x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Watson & Oliver
1x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) In HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

John Carter flop to cost Walt Disney $200m
(from BBC News)
Ouch. But not exactly unexpected by... well, everyone except the filmmakers, it would seem.
The BBC also have a round-up of notable box office flops -- if John Carter hits that prediction, it will set a new record for the biggest flop ever, 'beating' 1995's Cutthroat Island. That's an impressively long time for a box office record to have stood, actually.

TV

The Mentalist
4x16 His Thoughts Were Red Thoughts
[Watch it on Demand 5 from Friday 6th April. Probably.]

The Sarah Millican Television Programme
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Castle
2x04 Fool Me Once
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Dirk Gently
1x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Pointless
6x23 (14/3/12 edition)
Category: films directed by Tim Burton. How many I remembered: all of 'em. Go me.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Room 101: Extra Storage
12x08 Episode 8 [season finale]

Top Gear
18x07 (11/3/12 edition) [season finale]
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

this week on 100 Films

Just 1 new review was posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and it was...

Super (2010)

For all its grounded reality, Super lets loose in the final fifteen minutes, creating a punch-packing sequence that’s the rival of any comic book movie. It’s emotionally-charged action, all the more powerful for its semi-amateur-ness and realistic brutality. It climaxes in a face-to-face between our hero and the villain which is as good as any you’ll find in such a film.

Read more on my new blog or my classic blog.

More next Sunday.

TV

The Chronicles of Narnia
1x03 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode Three
1x04 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode Four
1x05 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode Five
1x06 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode Six [season finale]
Barbara Kellerman overacts spectacularly as the White Witch. The Aslan puppet, on the other hand, is just spectacular. OK, it wouldn't really stand up in a production today, but for the time it's brilliant.

Let's Dance for Sport Relief 2012
Episode 4 (of 5)
Rowland Rivron probably deserves to win the series... and, by the time this is posted, anyone who watches live will know if he did or not. But not me. Probably not for another week.

Pointless
6x22 (13/3/12 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Chronicles of Narnia
1x01 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode One
1x02 The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe Episode Two
Ah, classic BBC children's dramas! They may look cheap today, and filled with child actors spouting RP, but they have a distinct charm all their own. What's quite incredible about this one in particular is that it gets going faster than the more recent film adaptation. Not something you expect of a mid-'80s serial.

The Secret Policeman's Ball
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]