TV

Bad Tidings
Is this a "film" or a TV special? Well, it's a TV movie, more or less (it's properly feature-length, not just an hour long; and it's in 2.39:1, which used to mean something but doesn't really anymore), and I've counted TV movies as films in the past, so I guess it counts. (It doesn't really matter, especially as I've completed my new-style 100 Films Challenge this year, but it does affect whether I (intend to) review it on 100Films.co.uk and whether it counts towards my annual statistics there.)

The Box of Delights
Part 1 When the Wolves Were Running
[Watch the whole series (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x19 The One with All the Haste [5th or so watch]
4x20 The One with All the Wedding Dresses [5th or so watch]

Gavin & Stacey
A Special Christmas [2019 Christmas special; 3rd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
32x10 Xmas Special [season finale]

Would I Lie To You?
18x00 At Christmas
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
The Adventure of the Generous Miser
December 25th Part Three: The Investigation
December 26th Part Four: The Conclusion
And because I've already read Dr. Watson Takes the Case, that makes this the end.

TV

Doctor Who: The War Games in Colour
Following last year's The Daleks in Colour, here's the second in what seems intended to be an annual series of Classic Who colourisation/re-edits. This time, the Second Doctor's final serial (which, coincidentally, I watched for the first time earlier this year) is truncated from four hours to just 90 minutes. More thoughts here.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Friends
4x18 The One with Rachel's New Dress [5th or so watch]

Richard Osman's House of Games
7x80 Redemption Week 1: Friday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

The Rookie
6x01 Strike Back

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
The Skull (translated by Sarah Death)
This story is very nearly the best in the book, but then it takes a religious turn at the last second. I actually didn't mind the other Christianity-focused stories that are included, but this one has a nicely creepy "Ghost Story for Christmas" vibe until it's undercut with warm-hearted moralising. Oh well.


Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
The Adventure of the Generous Miser
December 23rd Part One: The Mysterious Carriage
December 24th Part Two: The Case

Crimes for Christmas ends with a four-parter, in order that it can conclude on Boxing Day — that's expressly the reason given in the introduction. Yeah, I know: advent calendars don't end on Boxing Day. It seems the Britishness of it as an occasion fascinates this American author, so he felt the need to stretch to it, somehow. But, as I said, advent calendars don't end on Boxing Day, so I'm reading this story in two "double-bills" so that it finishes tomorrow, as it should.

TV

Blackadder: The Cavalier Years
It’s just a sketch for a charity telethon (they haven't even bothered to upscale it for the Blu-ray, just included it in SD), and yet it creates a whole era of Blackadder, has a proper plot, runs the length of half an episode, and features at least one of the best gags in the entire series (at the level of “gets used in retrospective documentaries to illustrate the Baldrick/Blackadder relationship”). Splendid.

Friends
4x16 The One with the Fake Party [5th or so watch]
4x17 The One with the Free Porn [5th or so watch]

The Rookie
5x22 Under Siege [season finale]

The Wheel
5x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Comics

X-Men #3 by Jed MacKay & Ryan Stegman
I started with such good intentions, but — surprise surprise — I'm now in desperate need of catching up. Well, I'll try. (I'm enjoying these books a lot, it's just my general rubbishness at keeping at things!)

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 22nd: The Christmas Ripper (Conclusion)

For some reason, Belanger seems to be almost obsessed with the word "missus" (as in the colloquialism for "wife"). Someone's clearly told him it's how Brits regularly refer to their/others' wives, and so he's applied it liberally — it's not just in the dialogue of coppers or urchins, but of respectable types, and he has Holmes use it; he uses it in his narrative text too, which is almost more egregious. I double-checked in case it was me who'd misunderstood, but I was right: the word "missus" appears in Conan Doyle's original works precisely zero times. (Is this the worst of Crimes for Christmas' sins? No, but it is a consistently grating niggle. Or a hilarously misguided quirk, depending on your point of view.)

this week on 100Films.co.uk

1 new review was published to 100Films.co.uk this week...


The Cranes Are Flying (1957)

it was nominated for two BAFTAs, although it won neither: it was one of several still-acclaimed movies that lost Best Film from Any Source to a British film (Room at the Top) that also won Best British Film (do I smell bias?), and Samoilova lost Best Foreign Actress to the lead from that same film (hmm…) Next time someone tries to claim awards have become meaningless, maybe suggest they always have been.

Read more here.


There may or may not be more next Sunday, but there definitely will the week after, because then it will be time to get stuck in to my review of 2024!

TV

Blackadder's Christmas Carol
My Blackadder (re)watch fell over for no particular reason back in March (I've been meaning to resume it ever since, but without serious-enough intent to ever make it happen), but I'm jumping out of sequence now because otherwise, if/when I do resume the rewatch, when I get to this special I'll likely feel the need to pause again until whenever next Christmas is (at least a year from now, obv). Besides, it doesn't really matter if I watch them out of order. And this is one of the few episodes I'd never seen, so finally ticking it off was part of the purpose of the rewatch anyway.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Casualty
39x07 All I Want for Christmas [Christmas special]
Didn't intend to watch this, but the TV was still on (see The Wheel) and I ended up half-watching enough of it that I stuck with it even after I finished wrapping.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman
Been meaning to watch this since it first aired in 2015. It's ridiculous how long it takes me to get round to things... Anyway, it's a lovely overview of a great British institution, with plenty to cover so that its hour-long running time never runs out of steam. If anything, a little more detail in some places wouldn't hurt; and, of course, it's now nearly a decade out of date — an update bringing us into Aardman's "Netflix era" wouldn't hurt. Though maybe it should wait until that ends, which it surely will, similar to the Dreamworks period...
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Wheel
5x10 Episode 10 [season finale]
Didn't actually intend to watch this — and I only half-watched it, really — because I put the TV on to find some music to wrap presents by, this was just starting, and I got somewhat sucked in. But, as I say, I only half-watched it, so it'l be interesting to see if I can still remember the answers when I watch it 'properly'.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Films

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
[3rd watch]
[#100 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]

For the first time since I initiated my new-style 100 Films in a Year Challenge in 2022, I've completed it! Hurrah! And what a quality note to end on. Can't wait for Vengeance Most Fowl on Christmas Day.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 21st: The Christmas Ripper

Collection Count

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

The final pre-Christmas update of 2024 sees seven new titles added to my collection, but you wouldn't immediately know it from the numbers below. That's because there's a DVD-to-BD upgrade (of a box set that previously contained nine films, but now has 12) and two BD-to-4K upgrades (one of which adds a pile of discs, an alternate cut, and a bonus feature film).

Number of titles in collection: 3,440 [up 4]
Of which DVDs: 992 [down 1]
Of which Blu-rays: 2,448 [up 5]
— of which Ultra HD Blu-rays: 417 [up 3]

Number of discs in collection: 8,303 [up 17]
Number of films: 4,357 [up 13]
Number of additional cuts: 425 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes: 9,856 [no change]
Number of short films: 1,195 [no change]

Once upon a time, Christmas would've been one of my busiest disc weeks of the year. Nowadays, I might not even get any. Find out which way the pendulum has swung next week, faithful reader.

Films

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
[#99 in The 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2024 #12

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
The Princess of Babylon (translated by Peter Graves)
The Rat Trap (translated by Linda Schenck)
In Nazareth (translated by Peter Graves)
Redbreast (translated by Sarah Death)

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 20th: The Bordello Endemic (Conclusion)

Comics

Absolute Batman #2 by Scott Snyder & Nick Dragotta

Videos

Critical Role
A Daggerheart Critmas Story

CR's "Christmas special" is this entirely standalone live one-shot — which means I've actually been able to watch it rather than catch up on years of other stuff first. Hurrah!

Anyway, this was really good fun; even more so than the Session Zero led me to expect (and I enjoyed that too). It comes over like a great '80s Christmas/fantasy movie... or probably more like a modern '80s-set throwback-style Christmas/fantasy movie. Either way, it would've been a pretty fun movie, but with that not existing, it's super entertaining as what it is.

[Watch it (again) if you're a Member on YouTube, Twitch, or Beacon. (Free to non-members on YouTube from Monday.)]

Fiction

A Book for Christmas by Selma Lagerlöf
The Legend of Saint Lucia's Day
(translated by Linda Schenck)

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 19th: The Bordello Endemic

Games

Syberia

After just over another hour of play, it's finally finished! Honestly, good riddance. I think if I hadn't chosen to play this, I probably would've completed more games this year — I've had this on the go since October, which might not sound like a huge amount of time (it's two months almost to the day), but the game's only about 10 hours long. If I'd been enjoying it, I probably would've burnt through that in a week. Instead, I've never felt much desire to return to it; I always had to force myself a little bit — including today. It's a month since I last played it, and I've started or toyed with several games since then, and now I just wanted it done. Quite how it's got so many positive reviews is beyond me.

Previously I mused that I'd probably end up wanting to play the sequels anyway (the same thing that happened with NPCs, essentially); but, even though the game ends on a tease for what comes next, the story just isn't interesting enough — especially when coupled with all the other flaws (atrocious dialogue, dull characters, boring gameplay) — to compel me to carry on. Unless I forget myself someday, I'm done with the world of Syberia.

Films

A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008)
[2nd watch]

The fourth and final (for now?) Wallace & Gromit short didn't blow me away as much as it did when I first saw it, but back then I watched it in isolation whereas now it's coming straight off the first three. It may not quite reach their heights, but it's damn close; in any other series, this would be a comfortable high watermark, but those others are just so good.

Fiction

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes for Christmas by Derrick Belanger
December 18th: The Cudgeled Constable (Conclusion)