• Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel – Didn’t know much about it before wathcing, seemed not have had a hype machine, but it’s very good. They do a lot with a little. Worth watching.
• Zombieland – fun, kinda slick in places, great turns from Woody Harrelson and a cool cameo from Bill Murray. Plus, zombies!
• Titan A.E. – awesome. I’d forgotten how scary the bad guys are. A bit electric blue, but very creepy. I suppose electric blue is creepy all by itself.
• Time Trumpet – funny, but since it’s satire, very political and celeb-based, it has aged quite quickly. Cool premise, though: it’s a show from the year, looking back betwen then and 2005ish. Lots of appearances from older versions of people who are on the screens at the moment. The very large Jamie Oliver was particularly good .
• The Peter Serafinowicz Show – very groovy. Great skits, some clever sets of skits and original ideas. He’s funny on Twitter, if you swing that way.
• Southland Tales – oh dear. I wanted to like it from an “it’s so bad it’s good” angle, but I couldn’t even do that. It was too all over the place. Lacks coherence. Must try harder/
• Zack and Miri make a Porno – surprisingly sweet for a pr0n rom com. There are a few private parts swinging about, but it’s more about the rom com than the pr0n. Brandon Long has a five minute piece of awesome near the beginning.
• Dr Who (episode 1 of latest season). Me like! I am very excited about the rest of the season! Of course I miss The Tennant, but I like the new Doctor. Yes, he’s young, but I didn’t get the feeling that he’s Too Young. The episode started off a little “Davies” (crashes and bashes and smashes), but the Moffication caught up quickly. Fab.

Things I’ve read recently

• The Children’s Hospital – good, some interesting ideas, nice take on the end of the world, but I found it overly long. I struggled about 2/3 of the way through. Could’ve been half as long and I would’ve been happier.
• FreakAngels 1 to 3 – this has made me want to get back into comics. Love the art, love the story, love the characters. LOL, squee, etc.
• Gunnerkrigg Court 1 – great to read this curled up on the couch, under the beam of floor lamp light. Much nicer than on screen.
• Fray issues 1 to 3 – cool. I like supporting independent thingies, and this one is quality. Great stories, fab art and design. Not cheap for non-US peeps, though.
• Asimov’s SF – is it just me, or has the quality become much more patchy of late? There are still some gooduns, but they’re fewer and farther betweener than they used to be-er.

The main reason I stopped watching is that the episodes are too formulaic.
The last four or so episodes we watched had the same template, set out below.

Episode opens on strange, scary / gross thing.
Olivia Dunham dispatched to scene with The Bishops in tow.
Bishop Snr: “I think I recognise this, but I must take it back to… my lab! Also: [something mad, non sequitur].”
*cut to Lab*
Bishop Snr: “Ah, yes, this is like the experiment I did in the 70s. But that was all theoretical. Also: [something mad, non sequitur]. To fix this, I must do [dodgy / immoral / unethical thing].”
Bishop Jnr: “No! That’s [dodgy / immoral / unethical].”
Dunham: *runs around, chases people*
Bishop Snr: *does [dodgy / immoral / unethical thing] anyway, saves day at last minute* “[something mad, non sequitur]“.
Broyles: “[ominous Rambaldi Pattern-related statement].”
*fin*

I liked the cow.

It’s tricky to explain why it’s so good.
On the face of it, it’s just a cop show set in Baltimore, about the cops vs the drug dealers.
It’s very believable, and about the people, and the messed-up-ness of the world and life (but not in a depressing way).
The best thing I can say is that it has and is quality.
It’s dense and layered and is very well shot, acted, scripted and paced.

We finished Season 3 during Sunday, and went off to the Waterfront to watch Inglourious Basterds. As I was loosening my collar at the strangely high heat in the ticket hall, I noticed a little sign on the desk saying that the air con in the whole mall (and therefore also the small, packed, theatre) was off for maintenance. So we changed our minds (we will try again another day). We happened to pass a Musica on the way back to the car, and they happened to have one copy of one season of The Wire: season 4. We bought, we droved, we watched…