Been a bit busy with working, eating and a little bit of exercising (worked out that it’s more quantity than quality that causes me too look like an expectant mother but still off the bad i.e. nice stuff for now) so here’s a simple lazy tv comedy score card mini review thing:

The Office: Back for a sixth season and still enjoyable with a good mix of humorous styles. Mostly character-based which is nice, and not too soap opera-ish which helps. When it’s great it’s really great so it keeps its 7.

Parks & Recreation: I didn’t get into this initially but revisited the tiny 6 episode first season a while back and grew to love it. Series 2 has eclipsed The Office in my affections ever so slightly so it gets an 8.

Community is the third show in the current NBC triple comedy bill and the only new Amercian network show I am currently watching more than one episode of. Not a bad start with a good mix of character types (a few cliches but that can’t be helped, including the typical man/woman love/hate plot) so I am giving this one a go. Episode 2′s B plot was a bit like something from Undeclared which is kind of inevitable giving the similar setting (community college vs university). Good stuff with potential so scores a 6. Trailer link!

Off The Hook is a BBC Three sitcom about university freshers and therefore I thought it would be a bit too broad for me and I was right. Like The Inbetweeners season 4 without any of the charm and one of the cast. The Hollyoaks / Skins of sitcoms. Scores a 2.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is now into its 5th series and the opening episode didn’t score too well with me. The previous series was rather patchy and got stuck in a rut, with the unpleasantness of the characters becoming a bit grating. Better than the How I Met Your Mother style of cheesy niceness but maybe time to put this one to bed/sleep. Scores 4, but might improve.

Bored To Death is not strictly a sitcom as it is one of those HBO shows I like which blends comic moments with drama but it has loads of charm and good performances so I am including it here. I hate to say “quirky” but if I had to be a lazy reviewer that word would be used as it involves an unlicensed private detective played by Jason Schwartzman off the films doing what he does well. I’ll give it a 7 as it worked well and made me want to watch more episodes. Trailer link!

How Not To Live Your Life is another BBC Three sitcom whose first series passed me by as I assumed it was the usual kind of lowbrow (I sound like a snob now) thing that channel shows but I watched the first episode of the second series and enjoyed it. Influenced by the ‘loser character with voice over’ style but it gets away with it by being quite fun and it has a good supporting cast. I watched the first series this week with the now no longer in it Larry Nightingale from Blink and Dead Wooden Incest Girl from Hollyoaks and am quite glad the new episodes are not going over the same ground. I give it an amusing 7.

Cougartown co-stars Kim Kelly from Freaks and Geeks so I had a peek. It’s one of those unfunny American shows where everyone lives in a massive house in a quiet yet massive street, knows people called Chad or Chuck, and stars whatshername from Friends (the annoying one. Does that narrow it down? Oh yeah Courtney Cox) as a 40-something with ‘that face’ they all have (for examples see either Minogue and most famous Hollywood women in their 40s) as a divorced woman who will inevitably have ‘hilarious’ misadventures on weekly basis involving younger men or not having a man or having the wrong man or some other man-based plot because 40-something divorced women only care about fucking. Or something. It confused the hell out of me but I imagine women and the more poofy gays will love it. I was not gay enough. Shame.

Peep Show is now on its sixth series and I love it… but I guess you already knew that I was a big old Mitchell & Webb fan, right?

What an odd few days. We now have an extra bit of space in the lounge which needs sorting aaahhht and before that project we have a ceiling and skirting to paint after I move a bookcase full of graphic novels to another room but who knows where? Bloody DIY when living in a house is not in my repetroire. Moving my Tardis playset upstairs was enough of a trauma what with most of the action figures flinging themselves onto the floor as I carried it slowly up the stairs. Sarah Jane almost lost her sonic lipstick! The new uber-TV is a sexy beast and we can actually see things now which helps when Jamie tries to do the boffin wall on Only Connect. Watched Caves of Androzani and Blink again, the former was a bit stretched as I am too mush of a luddite to work out how to put the black bars on either end of the picture when watching ye olde format. The magma beast looked decidedly unfearsome but Peri’s boobs impressed. Next up is the DVD of The Keys of Marinus. There are six episodes of this stuff? Bloody hell. Watched part one this evening and there were two great Hartnell fluffs in the first two minutes. Brilliant. I mean no offence, I love this old stuff. Susan appears to have been to 1985 and is channelling the spirit of Jennifer Saunders’ character in Girls On Top, which is nice. All the child geniuses end up being idiots in Who. Might review the disc when I get through the other five episodes… oh the horror.

In other news, a nice surprise happened and I don’t usually like surprises. Let’s just say that a plotline involving someone I care about has been fast-tracked and I am pleased and proud.

If only some of my family could stop living in the bloody 1950s (was that decade really so good that the Daily Mail wish to preserve it forever?) they might actually have some fun and be proud of how most of their children turned out. Even the goth archeologist (joke, she is lovely).

I have been given the honour of being a wedding witness next month and am thrilled by this as long as I don’t have to do a speech later as I don’t really have a clue how to act like a normal person. Some say that is part of my charm. Let’s see…

Along those lines, here’s this week’s Shut The F**k Up moment on the Mail comments:

Sorted.

Jamie has been making me watch How I Met Your Mother which he insists is not like Friends but it is really. It’s a sitcom about five friends who are alcoholics which is handy as they spend most of their time in the pub. The main character is single because he has no charisma (and probably is shit in bed. No, not defecating in the bed but…) and always wears a t-shirt/shirt combo. He hangs around with Dr Horrible from the Emmy award winning Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog who plays a ‘hilarious’ sex pest who his pals think is endearing but in reality would probably get put on the sex offenders register by the premiere of season two. Main character’s other friends are Willow from Buffy doing a face and too much skapstick and Nick from Freaks & Geeks playing Nick from Freaks and Geeks who owns some books. They have a another friend who is a lady and er… I am told it impproves but it didn’t win a comedy Emmy unlike 30 Rock, United States of Tara, Pushing Daisies or, er, Two And A Half Men. Huh?

Damn him, Chris was right and Parks & Recreation is indeed very funny. The first episode of the second series was rather special, unlike the new episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia which was relatively mirth-free.

See?

I bloody love a good read, I do.

For instance James Robinson’s Starman, which I will never stop wittering on about to anyone who will listen. The perfect self contained 80-odd issue series about family legacies, the value of old ‘junk’ and a trip into space featuring some brand new characters alongside classic DC ones from the last 60 years and set in a city that was as much a character as any of the humans. Well Robinson is currently writing Superman (which is merely alright, I was never a massive fan) and Justice League of America which is coming along just lovely…

Robinson has brought back the 1970s Starman Mikaal Tomas only to have his life pretty much destroyed by the villain of the piece. He’s made friends with a bloke who is now a super intelligent and strong gorilla though so he might get through this. The latest issue has a little appearance by one of those classic DC characters that Robinson made his own: it’s only the bloody Shade! :

This got me super excited. Justice League: Cry For Justice is a mini series with beautiful painted art and once this ends Robinson is on the main book. There’s a nice video interview with him over at Comic Book Resources that I recommend.

The other mainstream-yet-smashing team book for me right now has to be X-Factor. Not the tedious telly talent sap-fest but a rather dysfunctional ‘family’ of mutants (and ex-mutants) who run a detective agency when they’re not getting their friends pregnant, being trapped in an apocalyptic future, pitching in during alien invasions or other scrapes. The current volume is about to reach its 50th issue and then its numbering does that old chestnut of incorporating the old volume and jumping to issue 200:

There’s an interview with writer Peter David over here for any interested parties.

In non-graphic books, Douglas Coupland has a new book out and I hope I can get through it when I buy it. I’m a bit fussy and won’t waste my time if they don’t grab me after the first 50 or so pages which I think is fair enough. Bonus point for his odd grumpiness in a recent Guardian interview:

When a mobile phone in a far corner of the room sets off a twinkly ring tone, he freezes again. “Oh, sometimes I really don’t like 2009. Use your indoors voice, not your outdoors voice!” he exhorts under his breath, as the phone’s owner begins to talk. A pair of guests pass by on the landing, talking quietly together as they walk; Coupland tenses, then relaxes in relief. “That’s good,” he murmurs approvingly. “They’re using their indoor voices. Good.”

Oh yes. I bloody hate outdoors voices used indoors, on public transport and even outdoors. Meh.

I’m currently reading Dexter By Design which is the quite recent fourth book in the series and it’s coming along quite nicely. Non-spoiler: There’s been a murder!

This week’s musical delights are as follows:

Music Go Music are all over the place, musichronologically. I just made that word up but it’s fitting. Jamie thinks they’ve been listening to Mamas & Papas & ABBA and I would have to agree and so can you with the video for Warm In The Shadows. Their album is on my list.

Dragonette did good last time round and their new single has been around ofr a while in the bloggy blog world as a remix. The real version of Pick Up The Phone is a blinder and has a good video too, which always helps. Another one for the album list.

Meanwhile, a good reason not to buy Mika’s very annoying single, via Digital Spy: Mika has told fans that he will film a naked video blog if his song reaches number three in the iTunes chart. The popstar, who has just released ‘We Are Golden’, made the promise on social networking site Twitter. He wrote: “Tonight between 4&7pm on The Big Top 40 on ur Favourite Local Radio Station, if you get my single into top 3 on iTunes I’LL DO A NAKED VBLOG!”

Please…. no more! My advice to the Mekon is to stick to going out drinking with his new pal the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker for non-geeks)’s trousers, as seen in the photo below:

Has he actually come out as a gay yet? It’s almost the 10′s, damnit, which is a crap name for the forthcoming decade that I feel I should apologise for typing.

Cheesey bonus video:

Basement Jaxx + Sam Sparro + peroxide + space + puppetry = oh yes. Someone’s been listening to Stand By Me…

We had a nice one day holiday trip to Rutland, saw no Rutles but saw lots of water, gnats and sky. The accomodation (a lovely pub with lovely grub and some rooms upstairs) was nice apart from the rattling noise whenever large vehicles went past but then I am a bloody light sleeper anyway…

We were on the road to nowhere so went for a walk and found more blue skies, green shrubbery and blue water. No sunburn saga this time as I was smothered in cream (missus) and wore my ridiculous hat.

Silly faces! Big hat! Grass! Achey legs on old men!

The view from the lie down, later in the day at another location with lots of water, a cafe named after a fox and some people sitting about.

Baaa! etc.

I did not fall through the cattle grid.

But is it art? This thing was at another almost identical location (there’s a pattern emerging here). We had a kiss and cuddle behind it where no innocent members of the public could be horrified by such things.

I look smug here but I am in fact merely squinty.

So now you know.

It’s Doctor Who DVD review time again! The latest release is the one that has an interesting production story including a wobbly character arc direction, awful costume choices, a writer who was out of his depth (and even tried to use the old “my typewriter exploded” excuse to explain one of his many delays), lots of re-writes, a studio strike, an appalling monster costume, dodgy child actors … and so on. It’s the Twin bleedin’ Dilemma!

Not many photos exist of Mestor, as seen from the covers of the Target novelisation, VHS and DVD.

Our story begins with a freshly regenerated Doctor 6.0 still in his predecessor’s mucky cricket outfit and Peri in her weirdly spotless pink and white blouse and shorts. Which is odd considering all the mucky crap they have just been rolling about in (in a quarry, probably in Buckinghamshire). This loony tune regeneration leads to some shouting and a bit of horseplay/attempted strangulation, as well as a tedious obligatory dressing up scene nowhere near as bad as the one for his replacement. The oh so subtle question marks remain on the collars though.

The dynamic duo meet The Actor Kevin McNally who is a space police sort (on the trail of the titular missing lisping bowl cut twins) wearing one of the old Casualty costumes customised by a fashion student, and overpower him during a misunderstanding. Peri nicks the power pack for Hugo’s gun and hides it in a futuristic colourblind bacofoil man-blouse in the Tardis wardrobe room that just happens to be the outfit he chooses to wear a little bit later. What are the chances?

There are some Twins (identical boy geniuses in the tradition of Adric) but the Dilemma escapes me. They are kidnapped because their massive boffin brains are needed for the evil slug Mestor’s plan to do some bad science with Joconda’s neighbouring planets’ orbit or something. It makes no sense but that’s never stopped Doctor Who writers before. The Doctor’s previously unmentioned (as is the tradition) old mate Azmael is involved too but this just complicates matters so let’s not dwell on it apart from pointing out that he has some big flasks of slug killing liquid on the table in his laboratory in another one of those spooky coincidences.

Other characters of note include the Jocondans who look like horny birds (quite literally. I am not calling them slags) who have been at the silver face paint, especially the Chamberlain who is a prissy old queen with lots of white feathers (subtle reference to cowardice there), the fat Jocondan whose name I forgot, and the one who The Actor Kevin McNally punches in episode 4 when he becomes hysterical. Well it made me laugh anyway.

This story has a lousy reputation (the terrible twins, Mestor being all-powerful yet unable to move unaided, the whole Mad Doctor thing) but watching it again 25 years later I found a lot of it to be quite fun. So there. The extras on the DVD were as good as usual, and any documentary about the old comic strips is always appreciated by this geek. It’s also where the rot began to set in on the series due to stupid production decisions across the board, problems with scripts (and script editors not getting on with the ‘eccentric’ producer), bad costumes, and generally not being good enough by the impression of a lack of care and consideration more so than before. Which is a shame because when they get it right it’s very good.

I’ve already seen Attack of the Cybermen and refuse to watch it again.

A little moment of fame for me last night with the spooky amount of Mail reader comments in favour of the BNP while at the same time bleating about how they are discriminated against and not actual racists. How do their tiny minds work? Do their tiny violins come in proud British colours? When do they find the time to skew vote results on tedious nespaper websites when they are always busy tripping over all them immigrants coming over here taking all our biscuits?

As usual, read from the bottom upwards (missus):

Half of my brain looks forward to seeing that awful fascist toad Griffin making a big old racist arse of himself on Question Time while the other half of my brain thinks that any publicity will give them more opportunity to play the victim card. They’ve got a whole bloody deck of those.

Or maybe I should “be more free thinking” like the poster said?

I hate the beauty halls in department stores. The way they try to Taser you with perfume as you innocently walk by. The way they say: ‘Would you like a free sample?’ And you say: ‘Yes, please.’ And then they rummage around in drawers for four hours before returning with a teeny tiny envelope the size of a postage stamp.

I detest, too, the doll-size products in even the most expensive hotel rooms. Stop it, stop it, stop it *SNIIIIIP!*

The witterings above are not me taking the mick and putting on a silly voice, they are in fact something called ‘journalism’ by somebody called Liz Jones who is paid money to create things like this by squatting over a blank Daily Mail page and moving her bowels about a bit.

I wish I could get paid what she does to basically list irrational hatreds in what she imagines is a witty and amusing style that her readers will love. Except they don’t:

When not whingeing about expensive shops not being expensive enough, having to put petrol in her car or how she is not frigid she spends her time moaning about her move to the countryside and how unfair it is that everyone there hates her for calling the locals inbred smelly cunts or something along those lines.

Mail website readers can be so gloriously mean…

The Daily Quail’s spoof of her is uncanny, by the way.

From my other place aka That Mitchell & Webb Log :

In an exciting role-reversal of my day job a very nice publisher sent me a sample copy of a new book and some publicity shots. Can you guess what it is yet?

Clue:

(Not actual size. Obviously. But a very nice cover nonetheless)

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you have heard of David Mitchell and Robert Webb and have also probably laughed at something they have said or an action they have done with their bodies. Well now you can add laughing (or at least smirking) at something they have written on paper to the list because they have made a book and it is available to buy in shops (please support your local book shop instead of supermaket because I have a thing about that) right now. You would imagine it would be called That Mitchell & Webb Book and you’d almost be correct because they have cunningly swopped a That for a This to keep us on our toes but have had the courtesy to keep the highly descriptive term Book in the title.

The usual subjects get their attention: pointless newspaper columnists who have just had babies and feel the need to prattle on and on about it, showbiz magazines’ circles of shame (here given a new funny twist), trivial micro-celebrities’ love lives, baldness, bad backs, disgraceful things you can learn from the internet (please do not actually stab The Queen or even A Queen) and the witless crap that is found anywhere the public are encouraged to share what they reckon about current events.

Highlights of the book include the ‘coping with’ mini essays that were previewed in The Guardian a few weeks back on subjects ranging from coffee to the smoking ban (that makes it sound like the book revolves around using stimulants in public which would be nice but is sadly untrue). Unlike some other comedy books this is not just material from their television and radio sketches transcribed and recycled for a new format, oh no. All new!

There are some rather familiar-looking magazine features focusing on Ted and Peter the snooker commentators, a series of post-it note conversations from unlikely famous (and fictional) flatmates, Alan Bennett (not the real Alan Bennett)’s Clarksonesque newspaper column rantings, and a nice diary of David’s stalker which is probably scarily near to the truth of someone’s life. They might even read this blog so “hello” stalker if you’re glaring at these words.

If you’re a fan of the comedies like I would imagine you might be you’ll also enjoy the bit where they spoof another (some might say tediously whimsical) comedy duo’s book but even if you’re only after photographs of Rob in his Flashdance leotard you’ll be pleasantly surprised, if a little bit creepy.

All in all it’s a nice package full of amusing original material (always good) so I would recommend acquiring this book by hook or by crook (but not by nicking) and not just because I like rhyming words. An easy Christmas list present for a lazy relative to buy you (better than getting a racist stand-up comedy DVD like I did a few years back) if you can wait that long or maybe you have some long-forgotten book tokens in a dusty drawer somewhere? Go and check, they have no expiry date. The RRP is £18.99 but due to the Net Book Agreement (don’t get me started) you’ll probably be able to find it for £12.99 in most places that sell this sort of thing. A bloody bargain!

This Mitchell & Webb Book is out now from 4th Estate and if you can read and laugh at the same time you’ll enjoy it.