Monday 26 November 2012

TV

1001 Things You Should Know
1x07 (20/11/12 edition)
Gooood riddance.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Elementary
1x04 The Rat Race

Never Mind the Buzzcocks
26x08 Episode 8
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Stephen Fry: Gadget Man
1x01 Super Commuter
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Comics

The Amazing Spider-Man #698 by Dan Slott & Richard Elson

It's the beginning of the end for Peter Parker as Spider-Man: ASM comes to a close with next month's #700, before a new series with a new Spidey launches in 2013. Naturally this has some fans up in arms, as if Slott were the devil himself. Of course, there's also the climax of this issue, which has some pretty shocking developments. But c'mon, it's a story, and it's far from done.

And it's in comics -- even if something terrible happens, it'll be undone within a few years at most. How do comics fans not get that by now?


Dial H #2 by China MiƩville & Mateus Santolouco

The Iron Snail! Awesome.


Judge Dredd #1 by Duane Swierczynski
featuring Ripe with art by Nelson Daniel
and Protection Racket with art by Paul Gulacy

The new US Dredd comic from IDW. I wasn't going to bother (regular readers know how well my reading of 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine is going), but it has a rather cool foil-stamped alternate cover of Dredd's badge (still available here) which was hard to resist.

And the content is good stuff too, thank Grud. Swierczynski seems to have a handle on the action, humour and ideas that are inherent to Dredd. A promising beginning.

Articles

Merlin to end after series five
by Andy Joannou (from Digital Spy)

The internet flooded with moaning and wailing Merlin fans at midnight on Sunday/Monday when it was announced that the currently-running fifth series would be Merlin's last. Which is funny, because they've said since the start that they have a five year plan, and as the series has remained successful that's surely the reason they've chosen to end it now. Pay attention, 'fans'.


Seitz on Liz & Dick: A Retro-Bad TV Biopic
by Matt Zoller Seitz (from Vulture)

Ladies and gentlemen, behold Liz & Dick, the worst reviewed program of 2012.

As the Telegraph put it, it's been "savaged by American critics". More here.