TV

Doctor Who
26x07 Ghost Light Part Three [2nd watch]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
3x03 Episode 3
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Would I Lie To You?
8x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Spirit (2008)
[#89 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Doctor Who
26x06 Ghost Light Part Two [2nd watch]

The Great British Bake Off
5x07 Pastry
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Musketeers
1x10 Musketeers Don't Die Easily [season finale]
Seems like it would've been quite easy to write the Cardinal out after all... Anyway, good show. Look forward to series two.

Films

Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
[#88 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

Doctor Who
26x05 Ghost Light Part One [2nd watch]
It's quite hard to think of a classic Who serial that's very like Listen, so this is the best I could come up with: the Doctor taking his companion to a mysterious and nigh-unfathomable thing from their past in a dark, creepy and complex tale.
It also means that, for the second week in a row, my tie-in four-parter is less than four parts. Ho hum.

Duck Quacks Don't Echo
2x03 Episode 3

Two Tribes
1x21 (15/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
7x02 (12/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Celebrity Squares
1x01 Episode 1
Despite being billed in some places as a 21st Century version, this feels like it was made in the '70s.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Mock the Week
13x07 (11/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Scott & Bailey
4x01 Episode 1
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

Crimes of Passion
1x03 No More Murders
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Braveheart (1995)
[#87 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...? 2014 #9

Seemed an appropriate choice this week.

this week on 100 Films

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


Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)

Disney attempted to replicate the success of Mary Poppins with this, another musical adaptation of a fantastical British novel set in Britain with British people in it — including some kids who, based on their accents, must be from the same part of London as Dick Van Dyke’s Bert.

Read more here.


Idiocracy (2006)

The creator of Beavis and Butthead imagines a future America in which, essentially, everyone has become his once-famous animated creations. I think — I never watched it. Basically, everyone’s a moron.

Read more here.


Monsters vs Aliens (2009)

it’s The Avengers with ’50s B-movie monsters. If that doesn’t sound like a fun concept, you’re probably already on a hiding to nothing. It has a love and understanding of B-movies that should keep many a genre fan happy, suggesting it was created for them almost as much as its true audience [i.e. kids]

Read more here.


Plus four were new to the new blog...


Be Kind Rewind (2008)

The work of Michel Gondry and the comedy of Jack Black are both, shall we say, acquired tastes, and not ones you would necessarily expect to overlap. Yet here they do — at least to an extent — but while Black is again doing his usual schtick as the Ker-Azy Best Mate, it’s the writer-director who is perhaps offering some surprises.

Read more here.


It Happened Here (1966)

Alternate histories are always fun, and nothing seems to have provoked more than the Second World War. Which, as a defining event in modern history for a good chunk of the world, is understandable. It Happened Here is perhaps one of the earliest examples, depicting a 1940s Britain under Nazi occupation.

Read more here.


Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

arguably Agatha Christie’s most famous novel, perhaps because of its widely-known twist ending, or perhaps because it’s inspired in part by a high-profile true story, or perhaps because of this multi-Oscar-nominated all-star adaptation.

Read more here.


Over the Hedge (2006)

CGI movies are far too common these days, meaning that the quality is dropping... Over the Hedge is certainly derivative — its character arc is almost directly lifted from Toy Story, for example — but it is beautifully animated

Read more here.


More next Sunday.

TV

Doctor Who
34x04 Listen
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Doctor Who Extra
1x04 Listen
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
3x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Tumble
1x05 Episode 5
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Two Tribes
1x20 (12/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Dark Shadows (2012)
[#86 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Collection Count

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

A classic TV series on DVD, half a new one on Blu-ray, and a movie on BD too, make for increases in almost every tally this week.

Number of titles in collection: 1,697 [up 3]
Of which DVDs: 1,203 [up 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 494 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 4,232 [up 8]
Number of films in collection: 1,830 [up 1]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 6,242 [up 23]
Number of short films in collection: 438 [no change]

See you next week, faithful reader.

TV

The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice
1x06 Episode 6
Having an unrepentant Diana on feels like it's reopened that can of worms just after it had finally died down...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Last Leg
5x06 (5/9/14 edition) [season finale]
Ending a week too early to cover the Pistorius verdict! Shame. Great episode, though.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Two Tribes
1x19 (11/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

The Great British Bake Off
5x06 European Cakes
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Musketeers
1x09 Knight Takes Queen

Two Tribes
1x18 (10/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
20x22 The King's Demons Part Two [season finale; 3rd watch]
What an odd ending. Essentially, the Doctor uncovers the Master's plot... and then all the time travellers just leave. There must be some very confused 13th Century nobles left behind, but we never see any of that. The downsides of being only two parts, I guess. You have to wonder if three is the ideal length for a Who story -- two is a bit rushed and unsatisfactory, whereas with four (or more) a good deal of the middle episodes is often spent doing sod all.

Two Tribes
1x16 (8/9/14 edition)
1x17 (9/9/14 edition)
[Watch episodes 16 and 17 (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
20x21 The King's Demons Part One [3rd watch]
Any Doctor Who fans reading this will notice that, despite my stated aim of watching a four-parter after every new Who episode this year, The King's Demons has only two parts. There are a couple of reasons for this: one, it has the best connection to Robot of Sherwood that I could think of (it's set in the same era, with the same king on the throne; and, in the second half, features a robot); two, it has a neat connection to a story we'll be watching later (more on that when we get there); and three, due to a familial invasion we only have time for a two-parter this week anyway -- what serendipity!

Two Tribes
1x15 (5/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

The Grey (2011)
[#85 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown
7x01 (5/9/14 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Crimes of Passion
1x02 King Lily of the Valley
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
[#84 in 100 Films in a Year 2014]

Articles

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Jack the Ripper unmasked: How amateur sleuth used DNA breakthrough to identify Britain's most notorious criminal 126 years after string of terrible murders
by Russell Edwards (from Mail Online)

Sorry to link to the Daily Fail, but this is a rather fascinating story, all over Twitter today.

I started reading it with a high degree of scepticism -- surely it wouldn't turn out to be true? It would be someone deluding themselves about some "well, maybe... kinda..." evidence. But it does sound pretty convincing, actually. I'm sure other experts will weigh in and review the evidence over the coming days/weeks/months, and perhaps then we'll know for certain.