This is attempt number 5 at getting my holiday pics to insert






It worked on attempt number 5. let's see if i can do it again...
It failed. Let's see...




ok, it appears i can consistently place pictures in teh text now. Best to get this sorted now rather than get pissed at it later


think of this as a teaser until i remember to delete it

Back from holiday and have a mountain of tv to catch up on as well as making a start on the holiday recap (hopefully post the first part this weekend). There's not going to be time for full reviews so i'll just do quick mentions of shows standing out.

Dexter : Season 4 is a vast improvement over 3, partly because the show seems to know where it's going early on and also because Jon lithgow and his character are excellent. I'm also glad to see they've played the "Dexter killing an innocent" card. He actually did it last season (twice if you include him killing outside his rules) and I'm glad to see the writers are addressing the last season and a half of borderline sloppy killings. The only thing marring this seasons storyline is the infantile sub-story featuring Laguerta and Batista. I can buy Batista being this childish but it's as if the Laguerta of season 1 and 2 has been replaced. I guess the actors wanted something to do but the writers could have ben more imaginative, A nasty twist is the only thing that can save that story from mediocre inevitability,

South Park : Whale Whores, I had a feeling it was going to be good on the title alone and I was right. Easily one of the funniest episodes this half-season (possibly whole season) with the writers at there bizarre and offending best. The Japanese keep turning up and spearing to death all whales and Dolphins kept in US aquariums/waterparks and Stan decides to do something about it. They also manage to take the piss out of "Deadliest Catch" and what I guess must be a similar show about a whale-saving crew. The ending is also incredibly offensive with the Japanese Kamikaze bombing whales but with a twist resulting in the Japanese butchering cows and chickens. That as well as a reminder that america dropped a nuclear bomb on them does raise the question of "who are we to call them barbaric?". Fuck you Dorfins!

Supernatural Episode 8: The only really good episode of the season is actually a comedy one. The difference here is that it involves the trickster god (who has popped up a couple of times before) allowing them to do crazy stuff. The brothers basically get trapped in a series of TV shows where they have to play the roles given, This includes versions of "grey's anatomy", a painful Japanese gameshow, a sitcom and "CSI". all of these are very funny but CSI is easily the funniest with both actors absolutely nailing the body language of CSI. I'm sure the Grey's spoof would have been even funnier if I'd actually seen the show too (I think I spotted the reference the actor playing daddy winchester was in Grey's though). There was even a good twist at the end of the episode and the role-playing actually fit into the series arc of both brother's being hosts to Michael and Lucifer. There was even a very nice and retrospectively obvious reason for why Sam and Dean have been chosen as the Vessels. All in all a very well crafted episode that reminded me of last seasons hay-day. Hopefully this is a turning point for season 5. Edit: it turns out I missed episode 7 by accident. Considering it didn't feel as though i missed an episode, I suspect it's not a good one.

Fringe : This season seems to have settled into the "every other episode is arc-relevant" essentially making it great viewing one week and passable distraction the next. the best episode by far was Episode 4, "Deferred momentum" in which we finally find out what happened when Olivia had a chat with Spock/Bell. The implications of this episode were the most interesting though. I'm now fairly convinced that the "big bad" in universe "2" is actually Walter Bishop. It makes perfect sense, considering "our" Walter kidnapped his alternate son from him. For those who weren't convinced that Peter was taken from universe "2" last season, just look at the woman who can see alternates reaction to Peter at the end of this episode. If this is the case it makes the "war" a far more personal one and in many ways makes "our" Walt the bad guy for instigating it. Edit: turns out I've missed episode 5 of this one too. Must be another filler (thankfully!)

Dollhouse : I have yet to catch up on the single episode that has aired in the last 5 week but thought I'd mention its cancellation. I think this is one of the few times where I can understand a show's cancellation. The first season had an atrocious start and the start of this season was weak too and I can't help but feel that the problem with the ratings was not just the timeslot/erratic scheduling (1 episode a month for the new season pretty much) but the fact that it sucked. Many viewers aren't willing to give a show the benefit of the doubt and even then I still think this show caters for a minor audience due to the subject matter. In many ways I think it was too dark and morally grey and would have been better suited to the culty audiences of HBO or showtime. I'll still be sad to see it go but I think it deserves to be canned too. Sorry.

I will be simulating the Royal mail for the ;next few weeks in that no-one will be seeing any post(s) here. The good news is that i'll be busy being on holiday rather than busy being at work :)

I'll be keeping a journal of my trip along Vietnam and will try my best to recount events here. It should be more visually interesting than Turkey as I now know how to put pictures within posts.

If there are no posts it will mean the weather will have been utterly shit and I don't want to mention the holiday ever again.

Some random thoughts/predictions

Supernatural will continue to be pointless unless sweeps week strikes while I'm away.
Stargate Universe will continue to resist the urge to fall back into standard stargate Universe.
Attenborough's life series will continue to show masturbatory high-def nature porn.
I've reluctantly started to enjoy True Blood (I blame supernatural for being shit).
England WILL win the world cup. In fact they will hand over the trophy to us now and cancel the tournament due to the inevitability of said fact. England's reputation will be maintained however as the trophy will be lost in the post due to strike action and we will have to forfeit the title.
Someone in X-factor will be kicked out for not trying hard enough eg they only gave 110%, while everyone else is giving 1000%. A malnourished scottish kid with little talent will probably do well as he will be mistaken as being a referendum on Scottish independence rather than a talent show,
Swine flu will be back with a media-vengeance and it will transpire a deadly strain was incubated within the MP expense scandal and that it can travel in time and was actual responsible for Madeleine's abduction and Diana's and MJ's deaths. You heard it here first! Take that Scoop British media.

See you all later!

This is a very funny musical coincidence. I'm assuming it's a coincidence as they are very different in execution but the basic tune and timing are virtually identical;

Travis' "Good feeling" from 1997




And Marilyn Manson's "Nobodies" from 2000

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Part of me loves the idea that Marilyn Manson was maybe listening to Travis while on tour and decided to rip them off.

and "treasure hunt"



Muse's "guiding light"

and Ultravox's "oh, vienna"


Muse's "victorious"

Blondie's "call me" (although good arguments have been made for Dr who too)

Muse's assassin


TV's Knightrider


I can't wait for the "Airwolf" homage. I heard a rumour Muse are in line for the next bond theme. It's clear they are good at sampling and it would save me trying to work out where the sample is from. I bet they could do an excellent "A-team" tune for the movie of that as well

Another month that flew by. The U.S, TV season started in earnest so there was plenty to try and watch, when i had the chance.

Enjyays

• Sunset Rubdown gig : wasn't going to go. Pleased I did!
• Meerkat Manor Season 4: Sheer brilliance and proof that "real" life can be just as entertaining and dramatic as scripted TV.
• Arrested Development: finished the show and was blown away. Not just the cleverest american sitcom I've seen but up there with the best of British too. You have to admire the balls of a show taking the piss out of their own cancellation.
• The Road: Not quite what I expected and far less grim than anticipated (I read too many dark books) this is a tale about the love between a father and son (more accurately a parent and child). The prose is some of the most efficient I've ever read, always leaving the readers imagination to fully realise the horror of its setting.
• Empire of Black and Yellow by Adrian Tchaikovsky: One of the best concepts for a fantasy book in a long time - tribes of people with the aspects of a particular insect. The first book is solid, if not outstanding but I'm looking forward to the author and world develop further.
• Stargate Universe. Too early to say whether it's going to be great but I'm giving the show Kudos for actually being very different from SG-1 and Atlantis.
• Brand New: Daisy: Their 4th studio album and in many ways their most challenging. After the first listen I was convinced it was utter garbage, by the third I knew it was either genius or madness. With every listen, I'm loving it more. Out of all the emo/punk bands out there, Brand New is the only one willing to explore their sound with every album.
• Superman titles: just finished the "world without Superman arc and I have to admit it's one of my favourite series out there. The irony is that out of the 4 core Superman titles, only one of them actually features Superman (and he's a soldier in that one and never in costume). You could argue that this means I'm liking it because of the lack of Clark Kent? I couldn't really care.
• Flash-Forward: Silly name, silly show but fun (so far).
• Naruto; finally got to see the Kakashi Gaiden story and have just been treated to Sasuke vs Deidara (only took 2 episodes) and have just finished a nice flashback on Jiraiya. The best it's been since the last manga adaption arc.

Enjnays

• Being semi-scooped by the "Daybreakers" film
• The cleveland show; I had low expectations but I really can't believe this show is by the same people who make "Family Guy" and "American Dad". They must be franchising as I never laughed once. In fact I was embarrassed for the show it was so painful. Made Friends look like "Arrested Development". DO NOT WATCH!
• The apparent cancellation of Meerkat Manor; this is the type of show that should be protected by some kind of charter. It better come back! Sign the petition!
• Supernatural Season 5: What the hell happened? Has the show gone meta-textual and the current season is the hell on earth that season 4 promised? It feels like it. Not awful but such a let down on what was promised.
• Drag me to hell. Maybe this was being meta-textual as well. A huge disappointment considering it was being billed as being Evil Dead worthy.
• True Blood. Feels awfully like what I imagine Twilight with sex to be. If I wanted to watch sex I'd be as well off getting hold of some porn. It's HBO junk food. That said, the end of episode 5 has me wanting to see episode 6.
• Defying Gravity; cancelled and even if we do see the unaired final 4 episodes, I very much doubt we'll be getting any closure.
• Livejournal: Plans to do a Batman:Reborn and Superman overview and a new TV show overview plus some episode reviews and simply not having the time.
• Muse: the reistance: Wow does this suck balls. Trying to be pretentious really doesn't suit them, especially when virtually every song is the rip off of another song. MK ultra samples "Treasure hunt" for god's sake!

Heroes deserves a special mention for not actually being in the "enj-nay" category. It's not worthy of positive comment but it doesn't outright suck or make me angry and that has to be worth something,

So I've had an idea for a Vampire book (started out as a comic) since 2000 and over the last few months I've actually being make a stab (or more accurately applying pressure that may almost break the skin). The premise was that vampires take over the world about 10-15 years from now and then rule for over 500 years until humans become extinct (thanks to battery farming) and the vampire race enters a drought as they have fuck all left to eat. Until one figures they should try eating each other. This turns out to be an acceptable alternative, aside from the bitten vampire then turns into a monstrous four-legged exaggeration of a vampire called a "hound". It was going to be a very dystopian world. Vampires are made by a virus (inspired by blade) which alters humans on a genetic level giving them their "powers" although I've limited them to being ageless and having advanced healing abilities. The virus resides in a gland above their fangs and they can choose to infect humans. I was going to call the first book "Drought"

I thought it was (and still is) a good idea for a vampire story,

Turns out I'm not the only one ...

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Vampire's ruling world? check
10-15 years from now? Check
Vampires running out of human blood? Check
Vampires turning into exaggerated forms of themselves.
Humans being battery farmed or hooked up to "milking" machines? Check

I have to admit I was pretty fucking gutted at seeing that trailer as it's essentially got every single one of my cool "new" ideas in there to the point my book will just look like a fanboy who enjoyed the film and decided to write some fanfic about it.
I've had a few days to collect myself and trying to find a positive side.

1. I'm shelving it and working on something else until I've seen the film to see how much damage it will cause me.
2. I'll have to stick to the future story and avoid any of the contemporary flashbacks.
3. Despite looking like I've been inspired by the film there are still a few novel ideas in there that I can play off.
4. Don't waste time being original because chances are someone had done it or is in the process of doing it,
5. Vampires are too competitive a market (like P53 in cancer research). I should be more imaginative and pick less popular monsters or make my own,
6. In writing this I'm starting to realise that it's not the end of the world for my vampire world.

Anyways, I'm using the opportunity to play around with my favourite project which is actually very similar to the "highlander" film but I can live with that as the execution is very different and I never intended it to be original (although it's pretty fucking sweet). I look forward to finding out someone has already started to film the exact same film...


P.S. To add insult to injury it also turns out there's a korean film about a vampire out called "Drought". This I can live with as there must be tons of vampire tales with the word drought in them. Plus this film is by the guy who made "Old Boy" and is a comedy - I need to check it out.

For anyone who cares, this is my winter viewing plans this year.

Supernatural - looking like it could become my new "heroes" in terms of scorn.

Defying Gravity (the rest of it)  - the lost emulation is grating but there's a novel near-sci-fi show in there too

Fringe - not good enough to be upset by plot holes/cheats, not bad enough to give up on. guilt free "diet X-files" tv.

Dollhouse - started a mess then showed glimpses of brilliance until an unsteady ending (not counting the unaired finale). Hopefully starts strong in season 2.

Medium - probably not as i still haven't watched last season

Dexter - the season premier was off to a better start than last year.

Family Guy/american Dad - will probably try Cleveland but suspect the quality will have to give somewhere between the 3.

Stargate Universe - I'm interested to see how similar it is to the rest of the franchise despite their claims of making it appealing to the yoof. By adding Robert Carlisle??? No idea why he'd sign onto stargate to be honest.

South Park - always reliable

Heroes - I'll save a few up and wait on word of mouth. I was able to quit Prison Break and this show has been worse than P-break for a long time. Maybe the addition of T-bag to the cast will help.

Flash forward - shit name, interesting premise worth the 12 episodes before cancellation or worse it's given another season when the premise has ran dry.

V - never seen the original but it sounds cool. Plus everyone piece of Blurb about the show is subliminally screaming "it's going to be just as good as the new BSG was"

Persons unknown - sounds interesting but clearly I'm the only one as there is no way of finding out when it airs.

Out of BBC TV the only things I will be watching are the Dr Who specials and Spooks/Survivors if they even made another season. BBC is good at keeping these things secret. I'll watch Harry Hill when that comes back too.

Before I start I thought i should add the above picture because in many ways a comparison with Sopranos is far more apt than the standard "cute and fluffy" pictures that is usually associated with Meerkats. In the season (possibly series) finale we get an episode which is up there with the darkest episode of Sopranos (it even gives Oz a run for its money). This episode is called, "The Darkest Day" and there is no bombast whatsoever in the title.

The episode begins with the Whiskers discovering that a puff adder has moved into their burrow. With 5 young pups, the Whiskers have no choice but to evacuate while some of them attack the snake. In a repeat of Flower's fate, Rocket Dog is bitten by the puff adder. the effect of the venom on Rocket Dog is truly disturbing as it makes her head swell to twice its size and is an image that is burnt into my memory. Even more frustratingly it seems like the rest of the Whiskers don't have a clue what to do and the disoriented Rocket Dog has to lead them away despite her pain and the fact that moving could spread the venom and kill her. What could possibly be her final acts, finally prove that she has what it takes to be dominant female.

Meanwhile the other Meerkat group, the Commandoes has a roving male in their midst. It turns out it is actually Miles, who was evicted by Zorro a few weeks earlier. I was expecting Zorro to chase him off but he is nowhere to be seen. Miles moves into the group and his brother Baker is not happy about it, With Zorro absent these two brothers decide to make a play for dominance but unusually the two are evenly matched which results in a lot of posturing before they eventually start to fight. And it's vicious.
To keep the viewers happy we are then treated to a fun montage in which the show cuts between the dying Rocket Dog and the escalating fight between Miles and Baker. Rocket Dog should be an actor as I have never seen a death be milked so incredibly well, in fact if it wasn't for the fact it was real I would have accused the actor of being over the top. Still very harrowing and I was thinking it couldn't get any nastier. Right?

Wrong. Nikita and the rest of the Commandoes have joined in the Miles vs Baker fight and they are taking the side of Miles. It's like Lord of the flies with poor old Baker being literally torn apart from all sides. At one point Nikita has his eye in her mouth. This is not for kids!

There is a quick break and the show returns to some landscape. I think I can finally have a breather from the horrors I have just witnessed but I am wrong again as the camera zooms into a radio-collar with a bird of prey next to it. It turns out that is all that is left of Zorro. First I'm thinking this is the most depressing 30 minutes of TV I've ever seen and then I become angry at the realisation that a bird has FINALLY KILLED A MEERKAT ONLY FOR THE CAMERACREW TO MISS IT!!!!! Four sodding seasons of being told how deadly they are only for nothing to ever come of it and when it does they miss it.
Luckily that is the low point of the show although i can't see how it could have got any worse other than for some fascist mongoose/gi/geese to storm into the manor and initate genocide and gang raping of the meerkats. Baker has been spared by the commandoe mob but is badly injured and a return to the Whiskers burrow shows that 3 days later Rocket Dog is still alive. She is still pretty screwed up but should survive now. It seems there will be a relatively happy ending until Bill Nighy tells us that Sophie is now ready to try and usurp Rocket Dog. That's the kind of thanks you get for putting your life on the line to save your family in the meerkat world, stabbed in the back.

And on that happy note the season ends. The sad thing is that it seems to be the final season as it has been over a year since any filming occurred and it seems US distributors are no longer interested in the show. I can see how after those final few episodes a lot of people may have been turned off. It was some of the darkest natural history ever seen and not the kind of thing children could easily watch. I'd almost argue that they should have filmed for longer and at least try to end on a happier note - I really hope things didn't get worse. It was almost as if they had brought in Darren Aronofsky as a guest director for the last 2 episodes!
I really hope that the show gets to live on in some format or the other as I really want to know what happens next to these little Meerkat familes I've been watching over for the last 4 years. Unlike other reality shows, their lives continue and I'm saddened to think I wont get to see what happens to them next - even if it's unpleasant.
If it is all over I guess I just have to be thankful that someone came up with this groundbreaking concept for a show. There are already several spin off attempts but none of them follow wild animals and are therefore missing the point. My fingers will remain firmly crossed that I'll get to see the Manor again...

rating 5 out of 5

I watch this show too fast to be able to comment on every episode but this penultimate episode is worth mentioning.
Rocket Dog leader of the Whiskers has evicted all of the adult females (they were all pregnant) and now there are only 9 of them. This is the weakest the Whiskers have ever been and it looks as if there's no coming back for them. Rocket Dog has spared one of her pregnant siblings, Rita, and like a shakespearean tragedy this turns out to be Rocket Dog's undoing. Rocket Dog gives birth to 4 pups and the next day she goes foraging. Rita stays behind and kills the four pups. The show has often stated this is what pregnant females do in order to maximise the survival of their own pups but this is the first time we've seen it on camera by a meerkat within a group. It just goes to show that Nikita of the commandoes was been sensible in evicting all the other females.

It's quite frustrating when Rocket Dog and the rest of the Whiskers return as it's clear they are confused/distressed by the loss of the pups but they simply don't have the ability to realise Rita was to blame. I guess if they don't see it happening they cannot imagine the likely possibility. Anyhow it made me quite hateful towards psycho Rita and this was only exacerbated by the fact that she gives birth to only one pup. One. She killed 4 just so she could have her single pup? Then it gets even worse as it turns out Rita doesn't want to feed her own pup, Juno. Psycho bitch. The meerkats may be stupid at times but they can also be amazingly caring as well, as Rocket Dog takes Juno under her wing and starts feeding him. It's the kind of thing a person wouldn't be able to do and I still felt like Juno and Rita should be punished.

It looked as though I was about to get my wish when Sophie came on the scene and I was partly hoping that she would eat Juno. To my amazement Sophie did no such thing and merely had her own 4 pups. Rocket Dog seems to be a soft touch as she allowed Sophie to stay. I'm glad Sophie was allowed back in as she was one of the more reliable meerkats in the Whiskers. Part of me wondered whether the whiskers would have had eight pups if Rita had been evicted rather than Sophie.

Another amazing look into how society works in other mammals. Much like our own it seems like there is murder, betrayal, kindness and forgiveness in equal measures and I was reminded once again that their is nothing that unique about our own behaviour.

rating 5 out of 5

Fringe got consistently better last season and while, by no means my favourite show, was settling into that "stargate" easy watching territory.
Last season ended with the reveal that Leonard Nimoy was the head of Massive Dynamic, William Bell, and that he was hanging out in a parallel universe. This season doesn't start where the last one left off and instead treats us to a car crash, followed by a guy breaking his face and stealing someones identity by sucking out their dental records. Then olivia flies out of a car windscreen minutes after the crash occurs.

Nice to see the show is still strange.

Unfortunately they pull the insomnia trick on us so that we cannot find out what actually happened when Olivia met Bell. That's frustrating me and I'd rather she just hadn't met him than them play that old trick on the viewer. Not much else really happens in the episode other than the none too subtle introduction of a new character who's only interesting angle is she is willing to accept all the shit that goes down in the Fringe division. We also find out that the shapeshifter is a soldier from the other dimension/earth-2 and that he can communicate with earth-2 via a magic typewrite (i'm not lying).
The episode really missed out on showcasing Walt who had little opportunity to shine other than his "Asterix" gag. Maybe they don't want to lay Walt on thick with it being the premier.

The ending was quite good in that it had a non-sensical twist involving Charlie. When Charlie visited Olivia I was convince he was the shape-shifter but i turned out to be wrong. During the chase scene at the end when charlie showed the shapeshifters body I thought it would have been cool if the shapeshifter had killed Charlie. Sadly I knew that couldn't be the case as the timing of incidents in the show didn't allow the shapeshifter the time to steal charlie's appearance, hide Charlie's body and retrieve the body of the dead nurse. Right?

Wrong.

This just felt like an even lazier and cheaper trick than the insomnia. Worse still they cheated the viewer. I think the idea is great in that we will now get to have an undercover earth-2 soldier in the show but the execution is awful. At this point the only defense i have for the writers is that things aren't what they seem and that the shapeshifter did die and the Charlie we saw is actually Charlie-2 from the other earth. It's far fetched but at least it makes sense.
A rocky start but still a lot better than some other season premiers this year (cough - supernatural)

Rating 2.5 out of 5 (+/- 0,5 depending on how Charlie died)

My fears were more or less confirmed with episode 2. They are merely going to spin wheels with probably episode 6 being important and then episode 10-11 as mid-season key episodes and then maybe we'll get a finale arc from 18-22.
I guess you could argue the show has gone back to it's roots as season 1 was one where if you only watched every 4th episode you would understand what the arc was.
Anyway the episode was entirely pedestrian which considering it reintroduced 2 to 3 old characters and an interesting new one seems like a missed opportunity. The highlight was the introduction of the horseman of death with a ford mustang as his mode of transport. Titus Welliver is one of those actors who can appear completely different in whatever role he is in be it deadwood, Jericho or Lost and I didn't really recognise him until he took his glasses off. The casting is funny though as it seems as if he and Mark Pellegrino are on a "two for one" off as far as appearing in shows are concerned. It would have been really funny if titus had been playing god as then there would be a nice reflection with lost in their casting as "key" opposites. I really hope that wasn't the last we saw of Death and that next time we meet him he has less of an obvious weakness than his magic ring. Hopefully we'll get to see the other horsemen as that may lead to 3 "interesting" episodes yet to come (hopefully not the ones I'm predicting).
The only other thing of note was the apparent stealing of a plot from "the Preacher comic" (read it now, if you haven't) in which it is revealed that God has gone AWOL and appears to be hidden on Earth somewhere.
The rest of the episode was by the numbers, with some more angsting over Sam's demon blood addiction. The thing is that there were no demons in the episode meaning Sam killed 2 humans but there was very little made of the fact. Granted he didn't know they were human but I would have hoped for a little more horror upon realising it.

rating 2 out of 5

I almost didn't make it to this gig, thanks to the biblical flood that occurred in central London on Tuesday night. I was absolutely wet through and could only really think about getting out of the wet clothes. Fortunately I realised that it would take 40 minutes to get home by which point i'd be half dry so I may as well see the band,
I'm pleased i did.

I've never been to the relentless garage before but it's a nice venue in that it's easier to get in and out of and is that ideal size between intimate gig but with room for crowding. I missed the support act but caught all of Sunset Rubdown. Luckily for me they mainly played songs from their new album, "Dragonslayer" and  "shut up I am dreaming" as I really like those two albums but found "Random spirit lover" impenetrable.
Musically, the band is very talented, although there wasn't that much in terms of improvisation (not always a bad thing though) and the leads vocals were very good. Bizarrely when the lead talked to the audience he was barely audible, which was a stark contrast to his powerful vocals.

I think the new album's material works really well for a live show, with "idiot moon" and "Anna, Anna, Anna oh" and "black swan" being standouts. Then again, one of their most powerful songs was the somewhat more understated, "The men are called horsemen there" and it worked very well.

One of the better bands I have seen this year and they deserve bonus points for entertaining me when I was miserable and wet!

I spotted this in merton Sainsbury's a couple of months ago. I had to get Vicky to confirm it as I thought I was imagining it. Inflation must be rife when a more expensive item is considered cheaper!

This is my attempt to add a bit of life to my posts. So far I can only get it to work by posting the image from photoshop. No idea why it's not working when I try and link from the post to photobucket. Any enlightened help would be appreciated! For now it will probably remain an irregular feature as it's too time consuming.

This show continues to grow on me, especially when they avoid the "beta" conspiracy. This was one of those episodes, as the main focus was on handling an accident. The accident itself was quite funny in that it felt like the kind of clumsy thing that could really happen. Steve, "how the fuck did i ever get to be an astronaut" and Paula, "Annoying documentary-maker" are still flirting to the point where it would probably be better for the mission to remove the libido-inhibitors and get it out of their system. Steve is being playful and tosses a huge canister her way, knocking her over and then causing her to lose her thumb and get a nasty gash in her stomach (beta was probably involved in the hatch closing on her). The special effects for the blood were quite good and it made it look like she was in serious trouble. I'm glad they didn't shy away from how utterly stupid Steve was. Then again he's not the only one as "Bunny-boiler" Jen is so obsessed with her rabbit foetus, that she is late in turning up as surgeon's aide. Not to be outdone, Mintz starts having crazy flashbacks too which, in conjunction with his alcohol withdrawal shakes, makes him a bit useless. Thankfully super alround america Maddux saves the day again, overcoming yet another character flaw - I'm starting to suspect he will ascend into godhood by the end of the season.

The flashbacks are quite well done too. Mintz is one of the characters that needs more attention as he has a pretty interesting background and he shows at the end of the episode he's got his wits about him (if only he's been on lost island things would have moved faster). Zoes continuing abortion storyline seems to finally get wrapped up, which is a relief as it was getting old - despite giving some nice character insights and not making Zoe seem too sentimental (although space is upping the sentimental aspects). By far the best scene was the one at the bus stop between Maddux and Zoe in that it was one of the best examples of "guy blathering on while girl just wants him to go away" that I have seen in a long time.

The show still has a lot of problems but there is a good show trying to find it's feet in there. I still think it would have been fine with just been on the ship and concentrating on those left at mission control but the flashbacks and conspiracy are clearly there to catch a post "lost" audience. The music is awful though. There have also been a lot of scenes where they seem to completely fail to capture the point they were making. This includes the scene where the mission commander toasts the mars deaths and was supposed to be a git but came off as nice, Jen's boyfriend being heartless over the bunny when it was clear she was being irrational, and last but not least Steve getting and taking credit for finding Paula's thumb when it was him who caused the accident.. Hopefully the latter will be rectified when Paula wakes up and informs everyone it was Steve's fault.

rating 3.5 out of 5

Season 4 of Supernatural was no doubt the shows best season to date (a good contender for show of 2008/9 winter). The last season ended with an excellent cliffhanger in that Sam unleashed Satan and armageddon Earth.

The problem with the seson opener is that they have wimped out. Aside from mentioning some natural disasters off screen, the world is exactly the same. They could have just shown the trailer for "2012". There's also the tv cop out of delaying the threat in that Lucifer has to find a body. So the opening of the 66(6) seals isn't enough of a delay? Surely they should have had the vessel lined up? This episode leaves me with the impression that they didn't think they were getting another season and now they are having to string things out in case it's a full season.
I enjoy the fun one-off episodes as much as everyone else but when you have written yourselves into an apocalypse you have to deal with it. I now suspect that Lucifer will have to build up his strength before making his move allowing for several "fun" episodes and essentially castrating any dramatic tension that existed in the show. While we are at it, I'm sick of the winchesters having to have an emo chat at the end of the episode. Bobby's Sam put down was fine, until it turned out the demon said it, as was Dean's initial "move on and deal with it".

Not an awful episode but worryingly mediocre and backtracking in nature. If this is anything to go by I would have rather the show had only been given a half season or 8 episodes for an exciting ending.

Rating 2 out of 5

This was a very odd episode in terms of presentation and came off as feeling a little too much like a scripted show and less a documentary. Now I realise, after some digging around on the actual science website of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, that the show does bend reality slightly anyhow but I can forgive that as it tries to keep things relatively simple but my problem here was more in the actual presentation.
Anyway it's a tried and tested TV film technique of showing something go horribly wrong and then do a "24 hours earlier" with multiple viewpoints that allow the viewer to piece together how things ended up the way they did. In this case the show starts with a dead meerkat and the Whiskers new babies stranded in the middle of a storm. We then get the day from the new babies POV in which they get boisterous and then taken on a trip by the babysitters only to stumble upon the aztecs who then attack. The kids are herded down a bolt hole with the aztecs trying to claw their way in. Things get worse when they discover there is a snake in the hole with them.
The irony is that when we see the Whiskers POV we find that they chased the Aztecs off their territory and unwittingly into the path of the wandering kids.
Luckily the storm drives the Aztecs off and Sophie brings the kids back to the main whiskers family. Unfortunately Suggs, one of Flower's final litter was bitten by the snake and died saving his nephews. Suggs wasn't a major character but his noble sacrifice was still a little sad. Unfortunately due to the gimmicky nature of the episodes presentation, Sugg's death felt a little less real than in a more straightforward episode. I don't blame the director/editor for trying something different with the format but someone should have realised it didn't work before airing it. Hopefully the rest of the series is back to more straightforward story telling.

rating 3 out of 5

There isn't really much else to watch at the moment so I thought i'd give this a whirl. The show has a lot of potential as it is trying to do "real" space exploration. that is with technology closer to our own rather than those with warp drives and artificial gravity. It's too soon to tell whether the characters are interesting enough to care about but the premise is fun and hopefully they will tone down the cheesy "creed" style music in future episodes.
There also seems to be a bit of a "lost" mystery vibe going on (in fact there's a "lost" style character flashbacks at play too) suggesting that something is behind the mission and that there is an alternative agenda at play. I'll lay it down now and predict that the "thing" is an AI supercomputer that has worked out the earth only has "X" years left until it is uninhabitable or destroyed. This mission is actually two-fold 1)to see if there is anywhere else in the solar system humans can live and 2) to see whether humans can handle long distance space travel. The AI is probably causing the imaginary sounds as a way of testing the humans. That's my bet, I'll see if I'm right.

rating 3 out of 5 (Cool idea but slightly shaky execution)

There are a lot of shows that I buy on DVD but you may be surprised to know that the only one where I drop everything and watch it instantly is Meerkat Manor. It was with much glee that I found it waiting for me in the post yesterday - after immediately ordering it over a weekend (price be damned). It's been a while since the last season was out (over a year I think) so I was wondering if I'd be up to speed on it. I needn't have worried because for all intents this is almost a spin-off in the sense that virtually all of the original "cast" has been replaced. I think there's only Zaphod and Mitch who are still around. I guess this is the price of filming animals in the wild where lifespans are short. The other major change is that the Whiskers have split into two groups, after the sad demise of Flower, and the show essentially has a split storyline following the two groups. I have to wonder if the biologists think the split whiskers have a low chance of survival as the title sequence has shifted the focus considerably onto all of the meerkat families.

Episode one essentially eases us into the new status quo. Rocket Dog is now in charge of the whiskers, while Maybelline is in charge of the smaller splinter group, called the Aztecs. The funniest thing about the episode is how the father of both leaders, Zaphod, is still hanging around the Whiskers and preventing his daughter from mating. It seems some things aren't that different between humans and meerkats.
There is also a bizarre encounter with an aardvark and a fun eviction of a mongoose, answering my long- standing question of "Who would win a fight; mongoose or meerkat?" It seems as if this may be a recurring story but the meerkat is on top so far. Not much else happens other than to drive home that both families need to start producing litters soon.

Episode two gets into things a little more with one of the commando roving males doing the rounds with the Whisker and Aztec females. The funny thing here is that Zaphod has gone walk about and manages to hang out with both daughters, driving off the suitors again. Hopefully Maybelline has at least got pregant as it would be sad for Zaphod to essentially end his own line of meerkats.
It also looks as though Rocketdog won't stay leader for long as one of the other females is already challenging her. Sophie even manage to snatch the roving male and received very little reprimand for it - if she has pups I suspect she'll take over, Flower would have never stood for that kind of shit which is probably why the Whiskers were one of the largest families under her and is now split in two and looking very fragile without her.

The show doesn't have quite the charm that it used to but then it's missing all the great "characters" in the form of Flower, Tosca, Shakespeare, Youssarian and Carlos. Hopefully they'll develop some new "characters" but they can only work with the material at hand for now. Despite this it is still fascinating TV and I love the stark contrast between the jovial music, Bill Nighy's tongue-in-cheek narration and the real-life meerkats eating one anothers babies, being killed by snakes, being exiled and being generally bloody viscious. It's probably what Big Brother would be like if they had hidden cameras watching the lives of chavs in a rough building estate - now that would be excellent reality TV!

I have no idea where August went as it absolutely flew in. Here's some of the highs and lows.

Enj-yays

• Breaking Bad season 2 - the first season had it's moments but the second season was simply excellent. Great characters, great acting, a refreshing honesty and worryingly funny, this is probably the best "HBO-style" show on air right now.
• Arrested Development - oddly enough I got hold of this thinking it was "curb your enthusiasm" so I was initially disappointed I had got them mixed up. It turns out to have been very serendipitous as this is an excellent comedy that I missed out on when it aired. Surprisingly edgy for an american sitcom and almost more in line with UK sitcoms, the show avoids traditional sitcom tropes and often takes the piss out of them. A great ensemble cast but my personal favourites are Gob, the useless magician and Tobias the never-nude ex-psychiatrist/useless aspiring actor. Even without their great lines these two actors are able to make you laugh with a look or simple gesture. The Bluth parents also have their moments.
• The Hangover - Actually lives up to the hype. A fun and surprisingly novel idea for an american "shock" comedy.
• The Once and future King - T.H.White's interpretation of the legend of King Arthur. The overall collection is flawed but there are some incredibly powerful segments not least of which is the story of Lancelot. A very dark look at the legend overall, although the love triangle is very well handled in such a way that no one comes off that badly. Not recomended for people who dislike tragic endings as this one revels in it.
• Batman: Reborn - The "killing" of Bruce Wayne was a complete mess but the fallout has breathed a lot of life into the franchise. We now have Dick Grayson (formerly nightwing and the first Robin) as Batman and Bruce Wayne's pyschotic son, Damien, as Robin. Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin is more in style with "All-Star superman" and already far more fun than his previous "Batman" run and Paul Dini's "Streets of Gotham" and "Gotham city Sirens" are doing a great job of exploring Gotham with the new status quo. If the titles remain this good I will be happy for Bruce Wayne to stay away for a while. Until another Batman film is announced I can't see the rush either.
• New casting decisions for A Game of Thrones - Anticipation for the series continues to grow with casting announcements that are inspired at best and competent at worst. In the inspired category is Tamzin Merchant as Danaerys and while Alfie Allen as Theon wasn't what I expected - I think it could still work well. HBO casting is usually excellent so I'm confident the unknowns will become knowns. Still eagerly awaiting the casting of Cersei who I still can't think of a good candidate for (I've waned on the tricia helfer idea).

Enj-nays

• John Adams. I'm really disappointed by the post "war of independence" episodes as they hold very little interest. Maybe you have to be american to fully enjoy it but it shouldn't have to rely solely on that. Superb acting and production though, despite a weird obsession with fly sounds by the sound editors.
• Munich - A film I've being meaning to watch and was therefore very disappointed when I finally got around to it. The main problem is that it is overly bloated and fails to emotionally connect, which I am still non-plussed at as the subject matter should have made it easy. Bana and co try their best with the script they have but the script and direction doesn't make the most out of the actors. A real shame as I suspect a great film is buried somewhere within it all,
• Music - I've failed to find anything new of interest this month - although "the antlers" album shows promise from the one listen I've had.
• Pitchfork top 500 singles of 2000-2010 - I just can't see the point in trying to determine the best singles of a decade. There's far too much personal influence on why a song connects, as well as the time when you hear it, for the exercise to have any meaning. Stick to reviewing albums - they are far easier to quantify.
• Naruto - I have 3 episodes to catch up on, which may be good but the fact I haven't watch them doesn't bode well.
• Trolls on "A game of thrones" casting forums - An actor may not be your personal image of a character but to start shouting how the entire show is going to be shit and worse how the actors in question are "Fugly" is just geek fandom at it's worse. If 1 in 10 of the trolls stood by their comments and refused to watch the show, I wouldn't mind so much, but I'm confident they'll be the first ones to watch/download previews and probably be the ones creating fan-sites for the actors they hated.
• Attack! on facebook - What could be an excellent Risk! emulator is almost ruined by the awful "random" dice which tend to decide that you will either win or lose every battle within a turn. This provides hollow victories and frustrating losses - the game also likes to crash a lot or randomly punish a single player. If they could sort the bugs out and add some more maps, I'd be far happier.