TV

Atlantis
1x02 A Girl By Any Other Name
That name presumably being "Morgana", as the makers of this (and, funnily enough, Merlin) seem to have borrowed her arc plot for Medusa.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Friends
2x23 The One with the Chicken Pox [4th or so watch]
2x24 The One with Barry and Mindy's Wedding [season finale; 4th or so watch]

Films

Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)
[2nd watch; #84a in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

To mark Doctor Who's 50th anniversary on my film blog, I'm intending to write Make/Remake articles on the two Dalek movies. Which naturally means re-watching them, because I haven't seen them for years (and now own them on Blu-ray).

Initial impression is, I liked this a good deal more than I used to, which I think might have been received wisdom about them being almost a blight on Who history. It's certainly of comparable quality to the original serial, which it sticks to very closely.

Fiction

Solo by William Boyd
Part Two, Chapters 9-18

The end of the Africa section of the novel -- next up, Bond goes the titular solo. It's a bit meandering at times, but it builds to a helluva last-minute twist; actually, the kind of twist you feel you should've seen coming, but I didn't at all. Super stuff.

TV

Doctor Who
21x18 The Caves of Androzani Part Two [2nd watch]

Downton Abbey
4x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Friends
2x22 The One with the Two Parties [4th or so watch]

The Great British Bake Off
4x07 Pastry
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
2x21 The One with the Bullies [4th or so watch]

Mock the Week
12x10 (26/9/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
21x17 The Caves of Androzani Part One [2nd watch]

After just four episodes in the presence of the Fourth Doctor (the lowest amount yet, but not the lowest overall), #bbbDW50 races on to the titular Time Lord's fifth incarnation.

This one's a pretty clear choice for a celebration of the show's 50th anniversary: it's the story most recently voted the best ever by fans, in (where else) DWM's Mighty 200 survey. There are a number of contenders for such a lofty position (other regular incumbents include Genesis of the Daleks and The Talons of Weng-Chiang), but Androzani is also a deserving choice -- not least because two of its four episodes feature some of Doctor Who's best ever cliffhangers. (The fact that the middle one's remarkably poor should just be overlooked.)

Despite being a personal favourite too, I've only actually seen it once -- I first got into Who through the Target novelisations, and Androzani was one I read and loved from those early days of my fandom. Nice to revisit it properly, then -- it deserves it, it's bloody great.


Friends
2x20 The One Where Old Yeller Dies [4th or so watch]


The Hoff's Best Film ...Ever!
1x06 The Hoff's Best Romantic Comedy Film ...Ever! [season finale]
Action, Horror, Sports, Sci-Fi... Yeah, rom-com totally fits with that.


Suburgatory
2x10 Chinese Chicken
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Unintentional comedy day...

Friends
2x18 The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies [4th or so watch]
2x19 The One Where Eddie Won't Go [4th or so watch]

The Hoff's Best Film ...Ever!
1x04 The Hoff's Best Dance Film ...Ever!
Action, Horror, Sports, Sci-Fi... Yeah, dance totally fits with that.

The Sarah Millican Slightly Longer Television Programme
3x01 Episode 1
Miss Millican goes the way of most BBC comedy programmes and gets a buried-in-the-schedules extended-by-10-minutes repeat of her programme.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer, or watch the shorter version in HD.]

The Two Ronnies Spectacle
1x01 Two Become One
Like Bring Me Morecambe & Wise, but with the Two Ronnies. So that's nice.

The Wrong Mans
1x01 The Wrong Mans
A new comedy-thriller from Horrible Histories' Mathew Baynton and Gavin & Stacey's James Corden. Very promising first part -- funny and thrilleringy.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
13x04 Terror of the Zygons Part Four [2nd watch]

OK, so maybe I was wrong about the Skarasen the other day. Some dodgy effects at the end aside, though, this is a cracking conclusion to a great story. Top choice for the Fourth Doctor, if I do say so myself.

Also noteworthy, #bbbDW50 reaches the halfway point today: this is the 25th episode of the 50 we'll be watching to mark the anniversary. (However, because scheduling decisions will see the final 10 episodes squeezed into two weeks, the chronological halfway point was... yesterday. Huh, thought they'd be further apart than that. But I suppose turning the single-episode TV Movie into a three-parter for our schedule counterbalances the speed of the final episodes. Anyway...)

Incidentally, the 5.1 surround sound mix on the DVD sounds fantastic, especially the theme music.


Friends
2x17 The One Where Eddie Moves In [4th or so watch]


The Great British Bake Off
4x06 Sweet Dough
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Never Mind the Buzzcocks
27x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Solo by William Boyd
Part Two, Chapters 7-8

TV

Friends
2x16 The One Where Joey Moves Out [4th or so watch]

QI
11x03 K-Folk (XL edition)

Films

The Falcon in San Francisco (1945)
[#84 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

Flight (2012)
[#83 in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

this week on 100 Films

Three brand-new reviews were published to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...


The Dinosaur Project (2012)

The story concerns a group of present-day explorers heading into the jungle to find dinosaurs. Lead explorer-man’s son tags along for various contrived reasons, and because he is Young and Hip he brings a bunch of cameras that he’s constantly recording from, hence the found footage thing. And the footage is “found” rather than “returned” because, of course, Things Go Wrong.

Read more here.


Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

At times I wondered if the film might just want to be a straight thriller, but that Kubrick couldn’t escape what he saw as the inherent ludicrousness of the situation. Even if you wanted to try reading the film from that angle, the silly bits are too silly to take the rest seriously.

Read more here.


Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

For a film with world-ending consequences, it all feels a little slight and lacking in scale. I’d say it feels “of its era” — a slightly indefinable feeling based on not only the quality of its CGI but also the cinematography, the choice of locations, the tone and pace... — but it’s less of its era, more a few (or more) years earlier.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982/2007)

You don’t need me to tell you about Blade Runner. It’s one of the most popular movies ever, if not with a mass audience then with a significantly-sized cult following and even wider-spread respect. Still, I’m going to go on about it for a bit anyway.

Read more here.


Cloverfield (2008)

it’s when the monster turns up that things kick off. From then the film does a great job of creating an unrelenting chase/escape, drawing the viewer in with its first-person/eyewitness style. You’re never going to be fooled into thinking it’s a real thing that really happened, obviously, but it comes as close as it’s likely to.

Read more here.


Jumper (2008)

Budget is plastered across the screen in incredible action sequences that show off the promise of the concept to good effect. Griffin jumping a double decker bus at Roland is a particular highlight. The jumping car chase, on the other hand, is visually neat and a good idea, but also entirely pointless

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Atlantis
1x01 The Earth Bull
The BBC's attempt at a Merlin replacement is another rejigging of familiar myths and legends, from the same people who made Merlin. Seems like a safe bet, eh? On the evidence of the first episode, it's certainly of a level with Merlin -- though if they're not careful it'll be too of a level, recycling character arcs and 'twists' on familiar icons that we've seen before.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Friends
2x14 The One with the Prom Video [4th or so watch]
2x15 The One Where Ross and Rachel... You Know [4th or so watch]

Films

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Deluxe Edition (2013)
[#82a in 100 Films in a Year 2013]

This animated movie was originally released in two parts, one at the end of 2012 and the next early in 2013. Now it's been combined into one long movie and is out on US DVD and Blu-ray in a couple of weeks (except at Best Buy, where it's already available). I've reviewed both parts separately (here and here), so this single-cut doesn't count as a new number.

(Although my rule for things-I've-seen-before-in-a-new-form is they must be significantly different, and this is double the length of either part individually, and watching in one sitting is very different to watching in two chunks separated by many months... they're still the same two films. It's not much different to double-billing the existing versions.)

You can read more of my thoughts in the review I posted on Letterboxd. The same thoughts (and maybe more) will, of course, eventually turn up on 100 Films too.

Fiction

Solo by William Boyd
Part One, Chapters 1-2
Part Two, Chapters 1-6

aka the new James Bond novel!

After the present-day diversion of Carte Blanche, it's back to 1969 for a continuation of Fleming's Bond. That means it's set after Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care, the first of the current run of continuation novels from five years ago (which was set in '67), but whether it embraces that into continuity or outright contradicts it I don't know (and can't remember Devil May Care well enough to work out).

As a novel unto itself, it's a funny but entertaining mix. It begins with two chapters about Bond's birthday and his strange almost-encounter with a mysterious woman (presumably something that will have renewed relevance later), but then it's off to Africa for Bond to single-handedly stop a civil war. It certainly feels more like a Fleming novel than Jeffrey Deaver's movie-influenced modern novel, and I think it's fair to say that's definitely a good thing.

Articles

Hitchhiker’s Guide director Dirk Maggs: "Douglas Adams told me there was more to come"
by Tristram Fane Saunders (from Radio TImes)

The producer and director on doing justice to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, working with Neil Gaiman, and the debt they both owe to Douglas Adams

Including some of Radio 4's reaction to the recent adaptation of Neverwhere he helmed for them.

Collection Count

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

A Blu-ray! No -- two Blu-rays!

Number of titles in collection: 1,615 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,185 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 430 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,023 [up 6]
Number of films in collection: 1,719 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 5,963 [up 9]
Number of short films in collection: 392 [no change]

Next week it's the monthly running time update. See you then, faithful reader.

TV

Castle
3x01 A Deadly Affair
Back on C5! After just... 9 months. Well, still, hurrah!
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Celebrity Fifteen to One
That was surprisingly good fun. I imagine the sheer volume of celebrities required for any one edition will prevent this becoming some kind of back-door pilot, though.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Doctor Who
13x03 Terror of the Zygons Part Three [2nd watch]
Y'know, I think the Skarasen is actually a pretty well-executed effect, all things considered -- I mean, this was 1975, on a UK kids' TV budget. Some (like in the BBC episode guide linked above) assert it ruins the story, but that's going far too far. And with this placing in the top 20 of the Mighty 200, it would seem others agree.

Friends
2x12 The One After the Superbowl Part 1 [4th or so watch]
2x13 The One After the Superbowl Part 2 [4th or so watch]
No Superbowl occurs or is mentioned in either of these episodes. I presume it was originally on immediately after said sporting occasion, a point which is thoroughly lost almost 18 years later.

A Touch of Cloth II
2x02 Undercover Cloth Part Two

A Touch of Cloth: Behind the Scenes
Behind the scenes of A Touch of Cloth II, with a look ahead to A Touch of Cloth III.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
4x06 80s Night Special
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
2x10 The One with Russ [4th or so watch]
2x11 The One with the Lesbian Wedding [4th or so watch]

Mock the Week
12x09 (19/9/13 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Vera
3x04 Prodigal Son [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Comics

A Redtail's Dream by Minna Sundberg
Chapter 2

Only about four days of the print campaign left, and I'm beginning to feel pretty sold. It's not perfect storytelling -- see my complaints last time, only now with more typos -- but the story and characters are appealing, and the art can be quite beautiful.