First, the usual recommendations, which are somewhat dwindling now 'summer' has arrived:

• Continuum (Showcase/SyFy)
  
• The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
• Don't Trust The B---- (ABC)
• The Fall (BBC2/Netflix)
• Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living)

These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can't be sure which.

I tried a few new shows this week. I'll save my thoughts on NBC's Save Me for a full review, but here's what I thought of the others:

The Fall (BBC2/Netflix)
Gillian Anderson in what is essentially Prime Suspect 20 years on – writer Allan Cubitt also wrote Prime Suspect 2 – and, for my money, almost as good. Anderson plays a Met police detective superintendent who goes to Belfast to audit an investigation into a murder. However, she quickly realises that she's chasing a serial killer (Jamie Dornan). Rather than this being a whodunnit, we know from the beginning of Dornan's culpability – instead, this a dual character piece that examines the equally cool, equally focused killer and cop. The investigation, which also touches on the different and highly political nature of policing in Northern Ireland (the police are all armed and the police station is more like a fort), is handled as realistically and as sensitively as can be, but there are disturbing scenes, despite the overall lack of any blood or violence.

Anderson is great as the cop, who unlike Helen Mirren's Jane Tennison, doesn't need to convince anyone of her abilities and is happy to have casual sex with whomever she pleases without apology, rather than agonise over relationships; Dornan's equally good as the killer, who blends right in and even has a young daughter to care after. The writing's first rate, although there are a few slaps-forehead moments and obviously, it's yet another serial killer show. There's also lots of good roles for both men and women. Weirdly, Archie Punjab from The Good Wife shows up as a motorcycle-riding pathologist.

Definitely one to watch – it's going on the recommended list. American readers – this has been acquired by Netflix and shoot be available from the 28th of this month, but you can watch the first episode below.

Harry (TV3)
A six-part New Zealand series about a widowered cop with a teenage daughter and who's doing his best to hunt down some violent robbers in a poor community. He has to work against the higher-ups, who are more concerned by headlines that the communities they police and against the demands of his job in raising his daughter. So far, so ordinary, you might think, and largely it is, despite the presence of Sam Neill (Jurassic Park) as Harry's boss, complete with his normal NZ/Australian accent. What's more interesting is that Harry is co-written by the star, Oscar Kightley, a Maori actor, and the show is bilingual and set largely in the Maori community. It's got more in common with UK police shows than with US shows, although there are interesting differences, but beyond the cultural issues and twists, there's not much here that you won't have seen before.

Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars and some of the shows I'm still trying:

• Arrested Development (Netflix): In preparation for the fourth Netflix-exclusive season, I'm trying once again to get into the original series. I'm up to about episode 13 and there have been a couple of episodes where I've 'got' what everyone loves about the show, but it's not as funny as it should be.
• Don't Trust The B---- (ABC): The final batch of episodes are now available to stream from the ABC web site. Such a disappointment that the show was cancelled, since there's some real dark originality in these episodes.
• Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living): Superbly featuring a cameo by Lance Henriksen (Millennium), this week's episode minimised the normal body horror slightly in favour of one of its other themes: the horror of madness, with Will becoming increasingly unhinged and worried for his own sanity. However, the most disturbing revelations are another character's and left until last. I'm still deeply impressed by the show, and if NBC cancel it, they deserve everything they're going to get. I've also just realised that Caroline Dhavernas (Dr Bloom) was the star of Bryan Fuller's Wonderfalls, which shows you just what a loyal guy he is.

And in movies:

The Rum Diary
Directed by Bruce Robinson (Withnail and I), based on a novel by Hunter S Thompson, starring Johnny Depp, Amber Heard and Aaron Eckhart, it should all be great, huh? The novel certainly has an interesting story: Thompson wrote it in the 60s but it was never published until Depp found it lying around and persuaded Thompson to unleash it on the world. To be honest, it's not a great novel: set on Puerto Rico, it lacks voice, although you get some of the hints of Thompson's future themes (substance abuse, misogyny), and is really a mood piece about a journalist finding his way on the island.

The film, however, takes all of that and runs with it. Sharing little of the plot or dialogue, and losing a lot of the characters, it's essentially a prequel to Thompson's line, reconstructing the whole story so that it's about how a journalist finds his voice in fighting against rich interests. With minor elements of the novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and even Withnail and I, it's a whole lot better than the book, too, ditching the misogyny and aimlessness in favour of a much stronger narrative drive, although it still shares some unwelcome elements, including a rape scene (mercifully different from the book's deeply unpleasant version). Johnny Depp returns to form as Paul Kemp, while Heard is clearly a little out of her depth at this stage in her career. There are some funny moments, but it's not a movie to go out of your way to see, and doesn't come close to the best of any of those involved.

"What did you watch this week?" is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid - and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I've watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you've seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

• Evans Peters joins X-Men: Days of Future Past as Quicksilver
• Paddy Considine joins Child 44

Trailers

• Trailer for Ron Howard's Rush with Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde

• Kudos signs first-look deal with Chris Chibnall
• ITV green lights: Tommy Cooper drama with David Threlfall
• BBC4 acquires: Belgium's Salamander

US TV

• ABC, CBS and Fox tie in May sweeps
• Wednesday ratings

New US TV shows

• Steven Soderbergh developing The Knick for Cinemax, Clive Owen to star

• David Boreanaz, Minka Kelly, Kate Walsh, Julian McMahon et al to star in DirecTV/Neil LaBute's Full Circle

Writer Damon Lindelof has already apologised on Twitter…

…but JJ Abrams has just been on Conan O'Brien's show and tried to apologise, too. He also tried to make up for it a little by bringing along a deleted scene of Benedict Cumberbatch in the shower.

• Time Cop reboot planned

Trailers

• Trailer for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon, with Scarlett Johansson
• Trailer for We're The Millers, with Jennifer Aniston, Ed Helms, Jason Sudeikis et al
  
• Trailer for Delivery Man with Vince Vaughn

Canadian TV

• CBC green lights The Best Laid Plans, renews Cracked, Republic Of Doyle, Murdoch Mysteries…
• …and Crossing Lines

• BBC3 renews: In The Flesh
• BBC to charge Sky for content?
• Tuesday ratings

US TV

• Tuesday's ratings

US TV casting

• Billy Baldwin to recur on Copper
• Emma Roberts join American Horror Story
• Rumer Willis to guest on Pretty Little Liars
• Casting on Homeland

• CBS green lights: Bad Teacher
• FX green lights: The Comedians, with Billy Crystal
• USA green lights: Divide & Conquer

New US TV show casting

• Logan Marshall-Green to star in Cinemax's Quarry

Good work by Benedict Cumberbatch, just as filming on Sherlock finishes. But what's up with Martin Freeman's fingers, hey? Click on the pic to see what I mean.

[via]

• Kate Hudson joins Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here
• Liam Hemsworth to star in Aurora Rising
• Anthony Hopkins joins Gotti

Trailers

• Trailer for Cool As I Am with Claire Danes, James Marsden and Sarah Bolger

• Daniel Mays et al join BBC1's Common

US TV

• Clip from Holliston, season 2
• Trailer for Teen Wolf, season 3
• Trailer for The Glades, season 4

New US TV shows

• NBC green lights: Siberia
• Trailer for Showtime's Ray Donovan

• Mia Maestro to star in FX's The Strain

• Scarlett Johansson to direct adaptation of Truman Capote's Summer Crossing

• Amber Heard and Zac Efron to star in Autobahn
• Michelle Yeoh joins Crouching Tiger 2
• Anna Kendrick joins Wish I Was Here

Trailers

• Trailer for Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim
• Trailer for Last Vegas, with Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas

UK TV

• BBC2 working on Cold War season

US TV

• SyFy red lights: Warehouse 13 with six-episode final season
• The CW red lights: Nikita with six-episode final season
• BSG's David Eick joins Falling Skies as new show runner
• Amazon gets streaming rights to NBCU shows
• Samantha to appear in second season of The Carrie Diaries
• Wednesday ratings

• USA green lights: Sirens remake and Playing House to series, pilot of Love Is Dead
• HBO green lights: Mike Judge comedy
• Amazon red lights: Zombieland
• Aron Eli Coleite replaces Allan Heinberg on The CW's Amazon
• Josh Friedman joins Crossbones
• Teaser for CBS's Under The Dome

• Bradley Cooper joins Chef, Scarlett Johansson joins Jon Favreau's Chef, Jon Favreau's Chef gets a cease-and-desist notice
• Peggy Carter to be focus of Marvel short

Film casting

• Philip Seymour Hoffman joins God's Pocket
• Josh Gad joins Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here
• Michelle Williams, Joel Edgerton to star in remake of The Double Hour
• Chris Pine, Amanda Seyfried, Chiwetel Ejifor to star in Z for Zachariah adaptation

• Trailer for Riddick with Vin Diesel and Katee Sackhoff

• Australian government gives ABC and SBS an extra A$120m

UK TV

• BBC1 developing detective series based on Anne Holt's books [subscription required]
• Casting on BBC1's Truckers
• Tuesday's ratings: Frankie gets 4.6m viewers

US TV

• TBS and TNT to offer live streaming
• Tuesday ratings

• Sarah Shahi to be a regular on Person of Interest

New US TV shows

• CBS red lights: NCIS: Red

New US TV show casting

• Michael Rapaport and Mary Elizabeth Ellis leave CBS's The Millers

Yet there were pioneers of colour film working at the time, including William Friese-Greene, who allowed his son Claude to shoot a series of travelogues using the colour film techniques he was experimenting with. And here below is the London travelogue. Weirdly, despite the obvious huge changes in terms of transport, traffic, etc, by being in colour, suddenly 1927 doesn't seem so remote anymore. In fact, it's sobering to think that the footage shot here is about as distant from us in time as the construction of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar's Square was when William Friese-Greene went passed it.

[via @thejimsmith]

• Mandy Patinkin joins Zach Braff's Wish I Was Here
• Catalina Denis to star in Banlieue 13 remake Brick Mansions
• Chris Pine joins Joe Carnahan's Stretch

Trailers

• Trailer for The Congress, with Robin Wright, based on Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress
• Trailer for Richard Curtis's About Time, with Domhnall Green, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy et al

UK TV

• Paul Abbott writing Victorian cop show No Offence for Channel 4
• Monday's ratings: The Fall has biggest BBC2 drama debut for five years

• Monday ratings
• Sunday cable ratings: Family Tree starts low

• Lauren Tom to recur on The Newsroom
• Michael Raymond-James promoted to series regular on Once Upon A Time

New US TV shows

• HBO green lights: Michael Lannan gay friends dramedy

• Don't spoil the finale and win a Matt Smith/David Tennant clip

Film casting

• Noomi Rapace and Matthias Schoenaerts to star in Alive Alone
• Olivia Wilde to star in Reawakening
• Billy Crystal to star in Winter's Discontent
• Hailee Steinfeld to star in For The Dogs
• Jennifer Garner and Michael Caine join Imagine

• Trailer for Now You See Me, with Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman et al [US only]

UK TV

• Mark Bonnar to replace Robert Lindsay on Line of Duty
• Meera Syal and David Schaal join Bollywood Carmen
• BBC2 picks up Murder to series
• BBC3 acquires Orphan Black

• 24 to return as limited series in 2014
• Sunday ratings

US TV casting

• Michelle Ryan to recur on Covert Affairs
• Angela Bassett and Patti LuPone join American Horror Story

New US TV shows

• HBO green lights: Criminal Justice limited series
• Trailer for ABC Family's Twisted

New US TV show casting

• Matt Dillon to star in M Night Shyamalan's Wayward Pines for Fox
• Britne Oldford joins ABC Family's Ravenswood

• New Star Wars to shoot in the UK

Film casting

• Chloe Moertz to star in The Equalizer, Michael Sloan to write novels
• Sami Gayle, Cameron Manghan et al join Vampire Academy

• David Tennant and Rosamund Pike to star in What We Did On Our Holiday
• Universal acquires CTV's Motive
• Lovefilm acquires History's Vikings
• Friday ratings: Life of Crime gets 3.9m viewers

US TV

• ABC renews: The Neighbors, The Middle, Last Man Standing, Modern Family, Once Upon A Time, Revenge, Suburgatory, Scandal, Grey's Anatomy, Castle and Nashville
• ABC cancels: Family Tools…
• …and How To Live With Your Parents, Body of Proof, Red Widow and Malibu Country
• NBC renews: Community
• NBC cancels: Smash, The New Normal and Go On
• CBS cancels: CSI: NY, Golden Boy, Vegas and Rules of Engagement
• TNT cancels: Monday Mornings and Southland
• USA cancels: Burn Notice
• SyFy renews: Defiance
• Thursday ratings: Scandal hits series high
• Friday ratings: Blue Bloods, Touch down

New US TV shows

• CBS green lights: Crazy Ones, Mom, Hostages, Intelligence, The Millers and We Are Men
• …Reckless…
• …and Friends With Better Lives
• CBS red lights: Advocates and Beverly Hills Cop
• ABC green lights: Once Upon A Time spin-off, Mixology, The Returned, Killer Women, Lucky 7, Betrayal, Trophy Wife, Influence, The Goldbergs, Super Fun Night, Cullen Brothers comedy and SHIELD
• NBC green lights: Blacklist, Night Shift, Welcome To The Family…
• …and Chicago PD, Ironside and Undateable
• TBS green lights: Ground Floor
• USA developing Matt Nix's Complications

New US TV show casting

• Alex Kapp Horner off Fox's Surviving Jack
• Lindsay Sloane off NBC's Sean Saves The World
• Parker Posey off NBC's The Family Guide
• Casting on TNT's Murder In The First and ABC Family's Ravenswood

First, the usual recommendations:

• Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
  
• Continuum (Showcase/SyFy)
  
• The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
• Doctor Who (BBC1/BBC America)
• Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
• Endeavour (ITV1)
• Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living)
  
• Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
• Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic)

These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can't be sure which.

Still in the viewing queue: Netflix's Hemlock Grove, which still doesn't look appealing and last night's Elementary.

I have tried a couple of new shows, though:

Vicious
Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi camp it up something as a pair of 'vicious old queens' (that was the working title of the show, anyway). They've been living together for years, when a fit but clueless young man (Iwan Rheon from Misfits) moves into their building. If you're in your 60s, this would probably be entertaining, since it's the kind of studio-shot show that used to be made in the 70s and entirely consists of obvious and somewhat feeble jokes - it's almost "call and response" TV - lightened by how the cast perform them. Rheon is wasted as the straight man to the jokes (ho, ho), but it's entirely awful for anyone under 60.

The Job Lot
ITV's other new sitcom, this is more in the modern vein of comedy, with single camera shooting and no laugh track. Starring Russell Tovey and Sarah Hadland, it's set in a West Midlands job centre and is a combination of The Office and any of the interactions with support desk customers in The IT Crowd. It's also about as funny as unemployment.

Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars and some of the shows I'm still trying

• The Americans (FX/ITV): Not an entirely surprising finale, but it's interesting how you can find yourself rooting for the KGB, this episode being an inversion of the usual "staff back at HQ come up with desperate last ditch plan to help the agents in the field". Looking forward to the next season.
• Arrow (The CW/Sky 1): A definite pick-up this week, although the show is now not just tonally Batman Begins, it actually is Batman Begins. If it doesn't turn out next week that The Dark Archer was trained by Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows, I'll be very surprised. Didn't quite buy John Barrowman as King Karate, but hey ho.
• Continuum (Showcase/SyFy): Starting to meander a bit, now. Despite the occasional shoot out to try to lift the pace, this is more about setting up ideas than plot. Basically, more budget, needs to be bigger and more cool things need to happen.
  
• Elementary (CBS/Sky Living): Excellent episode last week, as we once more return to the serial plot involving Moriarty, and Vinnie Jones returns. I think they're now torturing him deliberately by getting him to sing Arsenal chants.
  
• Endeavour (ITV1): All very nicely done, and the break away from pure murder-mystery procedural to look at 1960s London gangsterism and the somewhat "making it up as we go along" approach to policing violent crime was welcome. But the whodunnit was somewhat daft.
• Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living): Last week, we got into the strange situation of a prequel to Silence of the Lambs actually mining most of the plot of Silence of the Lambs to the extent that Silence of the Lambs couldn't really happen as a movie without someone in-story wondering about cosmic coincidences. It also took on a vital scene from Red Dragon and gave it to another character, to the extent that the back story will have to change significantly by the time season 3 rolls round (season 4 being Red Dragon). Nice to see Veep's Anna Chlumsky and The X-Files' Gillian Anderson back on US TV, not so nice to see Eddie Izzard trying to be a serial killer.
• Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic): It's all gearing up well for the finale, but this clearly isn't the show it was when it started and all the life seems to have drained out of it. Looking forward to a big confrontation with Michael Ironside tonight.

And in movies:

Syrup
Based on the cult Max Barry novel of the same name, this sees Shiloh Fernandez come up with the idea for a marketing-driven soft drink called Fukk, which he pitches to young marketing executive Amber Heard, who promptly tries to steal his idea. He stops her, but they're both outsmarted by Fernandez's pal Kellan Lutz. Cue a battle of the cola companies. Unfortunately, while the book had a kind of young energy and largely revolved around Heard's character guiding Fernandez's through the moves and counter-moves of office politics, this becomes a more conventional romance with few funny moments and almost no real wit, beyond demonstrating the emptiness of marketing. Indeed, the filmmakers (including Barry who co-scripted it) unfortunately decided that the movie's message had to be "Marketing Bad" and the entire plot, right down to the conclusion, is switched to reflect that. Obviously they were never going to be able to adapt the book 100% faithfully (not unless Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow, Coke and others had jumped on board to create a sci-fi blockbuster within the movie), but in the adaption, too much was ripped out.

Fernandez is a bit too fey for 'Scat', Amber Heard gives one of her best performances as '6' but lacks confidence in some scenes, while Lutz is silent for the majority of the movie. Weirdly, Kate Nash cameos as a receptionist.

Iron Man 3
Weirdly, a better movie than both of its predecessors, particularly Iron Man 2, but I didn't love it as much. It's a strange amalgam of the Extremis comic strip, James Bond and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with Robert Downey Jr running around by himself, almost like a secret agent, for big chunks of the movie. Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle get less screen time, but what they do get gives them more to do than before. As well as a lot of wit and laugh out loud scenes, the story also features top racist Iron Man villain (Ben Kingsley), yet cleverly manages to flip the character around to play on that (no, no spoilers). Despite the inevitable descent into a CGI finale, the film still managed largely to retain its humanity throughout, and the ending serves as a good potential ending for the whole Iron Man franchise, if necessary. Yet, somehow, despite all this - and perhaps because of its more adult themes of - it just wasn't as much fun or as enjoyable as the first.

Star Trek: Into Darkness
Can't say too much without spoiling it, but it's actually very good. Drags a bit in the middle, there's a tragic death, and there's a clever inversion of a previous movie - as well as an entertaining moment where (spoiler) Spock calls up his older self and asks for spoilers. Benedict Cumberbatch edges over into hammy in a couple of places and doesn't look as buff as he needs to be for the role, the leery male gaze of the first movie is slightly downplayed but still present, and everybody gets something to do, although largely individually rather than together. Some very cool moments too, and the movie does diverge from its predecessor in saying that vengeance and warfare aren't things that Starfleet should be involved in. Worth seeing, even if again, it doesn't quite have the energy of the first movie.

"What did you watch this fortnight?" is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid - and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I've watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you've seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

• Missing Chinese Iron Man 3 footage to be turned into a movie

Film casting

• William Fichtner joins Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Karen Gillan joins The List
• John Noble joins The Mule

Trailers

• Trailer for Gravity with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney

UK TV

• BBC1 green lights: Our Zoo, Poldark remake, Dickensian and From There To Here
• Channel 4 renews: Friday Night Dinner
• Patrick Baladi joins Stella

US TV

• 24 to return as a mini-series?
• Elementary to film in London for season 2 premiere
• CBS renews: Criminal Minds
• NBC renews: Parks and Recreation…
• …cancels: Guys With Kids, Up All Night, Whitney, 1600 Penn
• Fox cancels: Touch
• The CW renews: The Carrie Diaries, Nikita
• Trailer for season 3 of Franklin & Bash
• Ovation acquires: Sky's A Young Doctor's Notebook
• Wednesday ratings: Modern Family hits season low

US TV casting

• F Murray Abraham and Sarita Choudhury to be regulars on Homeland
• Cary Elwes and Kristy Swanson to return to Psych

New US TV shows

• NBC green lights: The Family Guide, Sean Saves The World, Believe, Crisis and About A Boy
• The CW green lights: The Tomorrow People, The 100, Reign and Oxygen…
• …red lights: The Selection (again)
• ABC red lights: Murder in Manhattan, Gothica, King John and Keep Calm and Karey On
• Trailer for CBS's Under The Dome

• Guy Ritchie to direct, Alicia Vikander to star in The Man From UNCLE

Film casting

• Richard Madden to star in Cinderella
• Michael Shannon to star in Midnight Special
• Pierce Brosnan, Jessica Alba and Kristin Scott Thomas to star in How To Make Love Like An Englishman

Trailers

• Trailer for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis, with Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, F Murray Abraham et al
• Trailer for Paul Greengrass's Captain Phillips, with Tom Hanks
• Trailer for Edgar Wright's World's End, with Simon Pegg, Martin Freeman, Reece Shearsmith et al

Canadian TV

• CTV renews: Motive

French TV

• Fuse to launch Entourage-like The Hustle

• Sweden's TV4 green lights: Amy and Greg Poehler comedy Welcome To Sweden

• Lee Mack and Catherine Tate to star in BBC1 remake of Everybody Loves Raymond
• ITV renews: The Bletchley Circle
• Tamzin Outhwaite joins New Tricks
• Casting on Atlantis, Breathless and The Smoke
• Casting on Mr Selfridge and The Widower

US TV

• NBC cancels: Deception
• Trailer for season 2 of Copper
• Tuesday ratings

US TV show casting

• Colin Ferguson joins Haven

New US TV shows

• Piers Morgan developing Fleet Street for Starz
• Fox green lights: dramas Rake, Gang Related, Sleepy Hollow and Almost Human…
• …and comedies Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Surviving Jack, Enlisted and Us and Them
• Fox red lights: Delirium
• NBC red lights: Bloodline, The Sixth Gun, The Gates, Joe & Jane, Brenda Forever, Hatfields & McCoys, Holding Patterns and The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives
• TNT green lights: Legends (trailer)

• Omar Miller to co-star with The Rock in HBO dramedy