After having yesterday off it was so weird to be at work while it got dark - whereas everyone else had had that weirdness yesterday. And then I had to drive home in the dark and I'm not used to driving in the dark. And the small car park we have where the likelihood of hitting someone is about 90% has no lights. So that was fun. But then tonight's social got cancelled, so I watched SJA. And now there be SPOILERS.
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I was going to write a review of this episode when I saw it, or last weekend, but didn't get to it. And I've been writing an episode tag and I wanted to check a few details, so I re-watched bits of this Monday and Tuesday night. And now I'm awake stupidly early, I thought I'd write it up now. And include the odd detail that came out of the BFI panel which I couldn't say before because they would have been spoilers. SPOILERS. Read more...

Today I did something I hadn't done since the second episode of the first series of SJA - I watch part 1 of an episode without watching part 2 straight after. Well, I say watching, I watched a few bits out of order since I remembered what went in between given that I only saw it two weeks ago. I just wanted to check I remembered some stuff.

Overall, the whole episode is great, I loved it. But part 1 on its own is merely alright. All the good stuff happens in part 2. Out of curiosity I watched the part 2 trailer too and I'm very glad I don't usually do that. After seeing that I can't believe anyone needs to watch part 2 - they've given it all away! Maybe that's just because I know what they're hinting at, but now I'm very glad I stop the video before the trailer can manage more than a word.

I stopped watching SJA in two parts when there was a week between the two. I wondered if it wouldn't be so bad when there's only a day between them - I have time for one part of an episode on Tuesdays, but both is pushing it. Now I know - don't do it. And since Spooks is already making Mondays less bad, it'll be good to have SJA to make Wednesdays less bad (I hate Wednesdays, nothing good ever happens on Wednesdays).

I hate cliffhangers in TV programmes. The reason why I've thought about it now (and ok, only just got round to posting about it) is because at the SJA panel last week someone asked why each episode was split into two parts. The reason was that the people making the decision liked cliffhangers. And in some of the commentaries on the Doctor Who DVDs some of the people have said how much they prefer the old format because they had cliffhangers. I think they're crazy.

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A rare Tuesday in for me, so I got to watch this week's SJA tonight. Review of this week's episode, so spoilers for it: Read more...

Funnily enough, there are spoilers for The Nightmare Man in this post.
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Yesterday I went to London to see a preview of the third SJA story, Death of the Doctor. Without spoilers for any of series 4, with the exception of the two people in this episode. Even though I'm avoiding spoilers this one is impossible to avoid - and will be even more so in a week's time when doubtless it'll be all over all the TV guides.
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Today I am not at work. This is because I'm off to London this afternoon. This evening is the SJA episode Death of the Doctor featuring Jo Grant. And the Eleventh Doctor. And Lis Sladen and Katy Manning are going to be there, which is very exciting. Originally I had been going to work today and I'd have 15 minutes between getting home and catching a train. But then I rearranged my days off, so I have to be ultra organised tomorrow as I'm going back to London tomorrow afternoon, getting back late at night, going to work the next morning and then going to ballet straight after.

I almost don't quite know what to do with my morning, but I have been distracted watching Armstrong and Miller videos on their website (and then discovered they have a whole load more on their youtube page). But I am not going to see them until November.

But I have finished the first draft of my ficathon walks into a bar story, which has Elrond and Maria from SJA meeting. Although not in a bar. After effectively taking September off writing it was so hard to get started - I spent the whole of the weekend procrastinating about it. But I feel much better now I have a first draft, even if it is awful and without any actual emotion. I have a few weeks to get it finished in.

I lay in bed this morning, refusing to get up before 9am after I slept for a whole 15 minutes later than I would have done if I'd been going work. I was trying to decide what to do in London. I remembered my sister told me there are lots of second hand bookshops in Tottenham Court Road, but the trouble with those is they involve spending money, carrying round books and standing with my head on one side looking at bookshelves makes me dizzy. So instead I googled London museums and upon seeing the list it came up with I immediately remembered one I wanted to go to: the Imperial War Museum.

I was working through London museums, but it got put on hold a bit while I've been ill. At least they're free, so it doesn't matter if I don't finish any of them in one go. I originally had no interest at all in this one until I went to the War Museum in Ottawa as I had a day left and had run out of other places to go. And I unexpectedly enjoyed it. I didn't know much about wars between Europeans and the natives and hearing about WWII from the Canadian perspective was so different to what you hear here. The Imperial War Museum is just down from Westminster, which is near where the BFI is and I have two hours between the museum closing and the screening starting. Even I can't get that lost that it'll take me that long to get between the two. And the BFI is next to the place where I saw ISIHAC back in the summer. Tomorrow I have to find the Bloomsbury theatre to see Chris Addison, which will be a whole new adventure as I've never been to that area at all...

It is 10/10/10, an exciting date. There won't be another exciting date until 12th November, and that's not nearly as exciting.

I meant to post a few times this week and then it just didn't happen... Mostly because I've been spending my time working my way through the Commonwealth swimming. I tape what's on BBC1/2 during the day, then watch it in the evening. So then I can fast forward through everything that isn't an actual race, which is a vast improvement. Although sometimes I miss bits and only discover which stroke they're doing and how far they're going once they've started the race. It just makes it more exciting!

I got very excited this morning when I went up the road to Sainsburys and discovered the old Woolworths is turning into a Currys/PC World. Playing with an iPad is only ten minutes walk away!

This week I'm off to London to see the third Sarah Jane Adventures episode (ie the one with Jo Grant in). And then back again the next evening to see Chris Addison, which I'm really looking forward to. I will definitely write up the SJA thing, and depending on whether I can make it spoiler free or not, I'll either post it next week or in a couple of weeks time.

My plans for the last week and a bit were derailed by waking up the Sunday before last really dizzy without me having done anything to set it off. So I've done an awful lot of nothing at all recently. Well, except for watching all of Make it or Break it, for which I blame jedinic.

But it was the perfect thing for when I had no brain. I do have a secret love of teen dramas, although usually high school based ones. This one's just the same, only centred round gymnastics. It's completely OTT drama-wise, but that's what I like about it.I can forgive some of the gymnastics for not making sense (it helps not to think about it), but I can't forgive Sasha for saying he won an Olympic gold for England, as that's impossible and I can't believe that none of the writers or the actor (who's English) spotted that.

The characters took a while to grow on me, but Sasha (who's a bloke and played by an Englishman - I'm still not sure whether the character is Romanian or English) started a teasing relationship with Summer and then he became my favourite character. He's also the hero-type, which hhertzof pointed out are the ones that tend to be my favourites.

Fortunately just before I was dizzy my Gmail account got hacked. Gmail spotted it and stopped the emails from going out, but I did then spend a whole day changing all my passwords. Some of them are a nightmare to find where to change, some of them just didn't work and I ended up emailing to get them changed. I now have more passwords and more secure passwords than I did (I should have changed them long ago really). Some of them are so secure it takes me a few attempts to log in while I fail to remember what they are.

My friends' wedding was on Saturday, which was good. The actual ceremony felt never-ending and was really boring (seriously, it was 45 minutes and it only took 2 minutes to actually marry them), but it was good to talk to people I hadn't seen for ages. The official photographer took a picture of all the Rotaractors and that must have been at least half the people there. I definitely established that the whole thing isn't for me - that would be my idea of hell making such a big deal of it and being the centre of attention and all the formalities you have to do. The only part I like is getting to see all your friends at the reception.

This weekend I was watching some of the publicity The Bill actors did the morning the last episode was shown. By publicity I mean appearing on things like GMTV. But they mentioned that Sean Bean was in episode 4 (back in 1984). It just so happens that I have that one on DVD and thought some of my friends list might be interested. So I have some screencaps. Read more...

I had intended to write a post about The Bill the night the last episode aired (in this country) and now I'm looking at a blank input box, I'm not sure what to write. I'm not sad, actually, possibly because the last episode wasn't as good as some we've had recently. Partly that comes of having everyone in it and it having a lot of Jack in a uniform (which I still can't get used to) and Neil Manson aka Dodgy DI (who seems to have had a personality change from dodgy to bland).

For anyone who hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about (which the Americans reading won't), The Bill is a cop show. Read more...

I keep thinking I should update, but then I have nothing to say. I feel like my life has nothing going on it at the moment. Or at least nothing interesting. Which I've just realised is a terrible lead in to this post, which is a summary of what I'm up to... Read more...

I haven't updated a while. First I didn't have time and then I didn't want to catch up and then I got dizzy... But these are all the things I might have posted about had I got round to it sometime in the last couple of weeks: Read more...

Last Thursday, when I put the TV on for HIGNFY there was no signal. It turned out later that was because there was a fire at the transmitter. So I just watched it on the iPlayer.

Last night I put the dinner on and came to watch Doctor Who once it was halfway through - and found there was no sound. After playing about with aerials I concluded I didn't know what the problem was, but since Doctor Who had finished by that point and it was on the iPlayer, I watched it there.

This morning I tried doing a factory reset and rescan, which had no effect. At which point I decided I'd have to have a look at the back of my PVR (I watch all TV through that because I can live pause and rewind, but can't on the telly). So I pulled the stand out a bit - which was hard because it was heavy - and the picture flickered. At which point I checked the scart lead and the minute I pushed it back in the sound came back...

On the plus side, last night's recordings all have sound in, so I can watch Confidential and The Prisoner today.

I got Frontier in Space from Lovefilm today after dbskyler talked about the commentary I decided I wanted to see it. It comes in a set with Planet of the Daleks, which I don't like much because it has Daleks in it. Each story has two discs, but Lovefilm only lists one. I just assumed it was because they're a bit useless (given that they're a bit useless), but no, it's because they send you both and count it as one! Very handy.

I've only made it through episode 1's commentary so far, but it's quite interesting and funny.

Confidential just reminded me that I wanted to say this after the first episode at Easter, but I don't like to put spoilers in here because hiding them depends on how people are reading and whether they can hold off from clicking on them.

There are spoilers for The Eleventh Hour in here, but not for any series 5 episodes after it. Read more...

I'd never seen The Prisoner, but I knew a few bits about it - including the ending. So when it started on ITV a couple of weeks ago I was keen to see what it was like, on the basis that if I liked it, maybe I'd like the original and if I didn't like it, then maybe I'd like the original.

So far I've found it to be alright, but not that gripping and quite slow. But I want to find out how they're going to end it and it's only six episodes, so I'm definitely going to keep watching.

And then ITV4 showed the original. Which I had to watch on ITV Player because I didn't found out until two hours after it was on (amazing, something I want to watch actually being on there!). Annoyingly my netbook does sound but no picture, but the laptop's happy. And it doesn't have adverts, which is good and unexpected.

So after having seen the first episode (which excitingly had Paul Eddington (Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister) and George Baker (Inspector Wexford) in) I have to say that I prefer the original. It's more exciting and it's more realistic. The new one has the residents of the village refuse to admit that anything outside of it exists, whereas in the original they know it does, but they can't leave. And it doesn't have as many people - it comes across as really odd in the new version that he's Number 6 when the people go up to Number 554 or whatever.

And it reminds me of The Avengers because it was made in the 60s so it just has a similar style and feel.

Although The Bill moved to Tuesdays, as far as I'm concerned, it's actually on at dinnertime on a Wednesday because I'm never in on a Tuesday.

So I've just watched last night's and not far into it I thought to myself that one of the main characters on it looked suspiciously like Lee Ross, who played Kenny in Press Gang. Much as I was tempted to skip to the end, I thought the easiest way to find out would be to look on the website. Except that this episode doesn't seem to exist! They list the last one as being on 20th April and the next one on the 4th May. Where did the 27th April go, I wonder?

I spent the episode trying to convince myself it wasn't him - the character he was playing was 10 in 1987 and without looking it up, I know Lee Ross must be older than that. But it was him. I was quite impressed I recognised him, but there's definitely something in the face that hasn't changed in twenty years.

I'm amazed at the moment at just how good The Bill is. So many episodes have me on tenterhooks it's almost like watching early episodes of Spooks, except instead of wondering if everyone's going to die, you're wondering if they're going to work out what happened and whodunnit. I can't believe they're cancelling now, when it's good again.

Just because PowerDVD and WordPress make it easy - a picspam of The Bill from Sept-Oct 1988 (Volume Two DVD). Read more...

I've spent the weekend watching The Bill from 1988 and look who pops up - it's Robert Glenister. And I can do screencaps now I have PowerDVD! Read more...