TV

Friends
8x14 The One with the Secret Closet [5th or so watch]

The Michael McIntyre Chat Show
1x01 (10/3/14 edition)
Not a bad start. Feels a bit... untopical. Hard feeling to pin down. Maybe it's the lack of a news-riffing opening monologue, like Graham and Jonathan have. Not necessarily a problem, but it means it feels less like a chat show and more like a comedian's recorded-well-in-advance TV show, such as Sarah Millican's programme.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Silk
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapter 26

TV

How I Met Your Mother
9x06 Knight Vision
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Person of Interest
2x13 Dead Reckoning

The Voice UK
3x11 The Knockouts 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Friends
8x13 The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath [5th or so watch]

The Voice UK
3x10 The Knockouts 1
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Collection Count

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

An early appearance on my doormat by The Hunger Games 2 (out Monday) brings this week's smidgen of additions. Still, the forecast for next week is nothing.

Number of titles in collection: 1,661 [up 1]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 463 [up 1]

Number of discs in collection: 4,149 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,786 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x09 Sal's Pizza
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Friends
8x12 The One Where Joey Dates Rachel [5th or so watch]

The Last Leg
4x06 (7/3/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

TV

Coronation Street: A Moving Story
Not as much about the technicalities of the move and the new set as I'd've liked (s'why I watched), but hey-ho, should've gussed it'd be 'soapier'.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Elementary
2x16 The One Percent Solution

Friends
8x11 The One with Ross's Step Forward [5th or so watch]
The Blu-ray menus call this The One With Ross's Step Forward; TV.com call it The One with the Creepy Holiday Card. Who to believe?!

Yonderland
1x08 Dirty Ernie [season finale]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x02 Spare Parts Part Two

TV

Arrow
2x12 Tremors

The Mentalist
6x11 White Lines
[Watch it (again) on Demand 5.]

Room 101
14x07 Episode 7
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
1x05 Episode 5

Game of Thrones
3x10 Mhysa [season finale]
Tad underwhelming after the last episode, but by no means bad.

Person of Interest
2x12 Prisoner's Dilemma

Top Gear
21x04 (23/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

TV

Game of Thrones
3x09 The Rains of Castamere

Crikey.

To be perfectly honest, I guessed something like that would happen -- fans and creators have been talking about the Red Wedding since before season one began, mentioning it would be the climax to season three; and then there was the massive reaction online after it was broadcast (even without reading people's thoughts, the sheer volume of articles indicated how significant it was; I've had half a dozen saved since then to read once I got past this episode); and considering the characters involved, and their potential for deception (in particular Walder Frey), I had my suspicions that all would not end well.

But it was still shockingly, strikingly done, and the writers and makers did an excellent job of misdirecting the viewer. Indeed, it's so effective that even if you knew exactly what would occur (which even book-readers didn't, thanks to some modifications), it's still disturbingly executed.

Most fascinating, perhaps, is what it means for the series as a whole. One of the main driving plots for the entire thing seems to have just been cut off. Where does it go from here? Especially considering we're not even halfway through. Hopefully episode 10 provides some answers, and an indication of the course forward.


Outnumbered
5x06 The Musical [series finale]
A funny, moving, fitting finale. I know they've said they might come back for specials, but you kind of feel like they perhaps shouldn't -- how could they end it better? And would coming back for a random, disconnected, one-more-time be right?
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]


Silk
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

DVD Extras

"The Rains of Castamere" Unveiled on Game of Thrones Season 3

A Maximum Movie Mode-style feature looking at the creation of one of the season's (indeed, the entire series') most pivotal episodes. Packed with interesting detail, but executed in an incredible viewer-unfriendly fashion, sadly.

Fiction

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Volume II: Jonathan Strange, Chapters 23-25

TV

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
1x08 Old School
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Game of Thrones
3x07 The Bear and the Maiden Fair
3x08 Second Sons
So much for all that stuff about double bills yesterday, eh? But I'm so close now to episode 9, one of the most talked-about episodes of TV last year. (You might argue it was the most talked about, but 2013 was also the year of things like Doctor Who's 50th and Breaking Bad's finale, so there's stiff competition.)

How I Met Your Mother
9x05 The Poker Game
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Articles

Veronica Mars review: A dark thriller with a marshmallow centre by Emma Dibdin (from Digital Spy)
and
The Veronica Mars movie is "worth the wait" - review round-up by Susanna Lazarus (from Radio Times)

A full review of the movie from DS, while RT rounds up the opinions of The Guardian, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Hitfix and Indiewire -- and it all sounds great.

this week on 100 Films

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


North by Northwest (1959)

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for a good many movies — I wager most people would jump to Psycho if asked to name one, but that’s not to ignore… so many more. But of them all, North by Northwest is so packed with his trademark plots, characters, and style, that it is perhaps the ultimate Hitchcock movie.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)

While Denzel Washington and John Travolta are both actors who veer between competent and great, and so could theoretically match the performances of Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw in the earlier film, unfortunately they just don’t. Compared to the memorable characters created before, here the acting is crushingly adequate.

Read more here.


And new to the new blog...


The Fountain (2006)

it looks gorgeous. While the whole film is beautifully shot, it’s hard not to single out the future segments, in which Aronofsky chose to create space with “micro-photography of chemical reactions” rather than the usual CGI. However it was achieved, the important thing is it looks great.

Read more here.


The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)

Movies have taught us many things, and here’s another: don’t take the train from Pelham Bay Park at 1:23. In the past thirty-five years said train has been taken hostage three times, and while once every 11⅔ years may not sound a particularly high average, I’d wager it’s higher than for most trains.

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x06 The Climb
I'd say I normally double-bill Game of Thrones -- to be statistical about it, across the first two seasons I watched 60% of episodes as part of a pair. Not so this season, though. Not sure why. I mean, I know why -- because it's so good it feels wrong to be watching multiple episodes instead of savouring as individual instalments -- but previous seasons had that same quality too. Maybe they're now more satisfying as standalone episodes than they were before? Maybe it's just me? Probably that one.

The Voice UK
3x09 Battle Rounds 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Audio Drama

Doctor Who [Big Finish]
34x01 Spare Parts Part One

I've still got one story left in Big Finish's first 'season' of 8th Doctor adventures, but (for various reasons) instead of going straight on to that I've opted for this: Marc Platt (the writer of Ghost Light) 's acclaimed "origin of the Cybermen" tale, which as famously adapted into the TV story Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Based on this first instalment, however, it bears very little resemblance to what we got on TV. Maybe that comes later; maybe it was purely the "birth of the Cybermen" thing they took. This is much more traditional Who -- even with the potentially limitless budget of audio, it feels as if it could have been produced as a real-life Davison serial.

Collection Count

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

With several things I was expecting to be part of this update turning up just in time for the last one, there's absolutely nothing to report this week. Might be the same next time, too.

Number of titles in collection: 1,660 [no change]
Of which DVDs: 1,198 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 462 [no change]

Number of discs in collection: 4,147 [no change]
Number of films in collection: 1,785 [no change]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,118 [no change]
Number of short films in collection: 409 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

Game of Thrones
3x05 Kissed by Fire
Wow. After a bit of a slow start, over the past two or three episodes this season has really kicked off -- and how. I was going to double-bill this with the next one, but (as I discussed at one point last season) when it's this good it seems foolhardy to race through it too fast.

The Last Leg
4x05 (28/2/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]