Month: August 2010

US TV

What have you been watching this August?

5 August 2010 Rob Buckley 23 Comments

Dark Blue - Season 2

This is going to be the last entry on the blog for most of (if not all of) August, so it’s going to be an open-ended thread for y’all to chat about what you’ve been watching on TV this month – assuming you want to, of course. I’ve a few things in my queue that I’m going to be watching on planes, including Rubicon, ep 2 of Mad Men (which is already looking better than ep 1) and the first two eps of the new Tricia Helfer-enhanced Dark Blue (I’m unsure if this is a good thing or not, but I remain open-minded).

But this week, I’ve been watching:

  • Burn Notice: Reasonably fun, but in the scheme of things, a throwaway ep, bookended with a couple of interesting character scenes.
  • Covert Affairs: The first really good ep of the series, with Oded Fehr as a Mossad agent. It had a real Bourne Identity feel to it, and the activities back at Langley seemed to be more coherent. Fingers crossed the rest of the season will be like this.
  • The Gates: Vampire fun! A good ep, but when will Nick find out about the rest of the Gates’s secrets?
  • The IT Crowd: Nice cameo by that bloke off The Mighty Boosh and as funny as always.
  • Persons Unknown: Silly. But could it all be in their heads?
  • Rev: A nice way to end this series. Not many belly laughs since the first ep, but surprisingly deep with a knowing humour. Fingers crossed for a second series.
  • Royal Pains: Slightly interesting playing around with time and Fringe-esque graphics. Some decent character moments, but I’m missing Hank-Jill and the general edge the show had in season one, even if it’s nice to have Anastasia Griffith around.
  • Scoundrels: Moderately amusing at best, but it does seem to be settling down and working out a vibe for itself.
  • Top Gear: A so-so season over all. It’s definitely losing its appeal now it’s trying to be more serious.

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

Sitting Tennant

Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant (August 2010)

3 August 2010 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Erin C's Sitting Tennant

Ms Rullsenberg's Sitting Tennant

Sister Chastity's Sitting Tennant

Can you cope? Can you bear it? Will you be flying your flags at half-mast? It’s the first – and last – Sitting Tennant for August. Darn those vacations, getting in the way of things and stopping all us from going postal.

So to keep those happy few of you keeping the dream alive, here are not one, not two but three Sitting Tennants, all of them equally captionable. Usual rules apply to all three. You can thank Erin C, Ms Rullsenberg and Sister Chastity for providing them.

  1. Erin C, Rullsenberg, Sister Chastity: 205
  2. Toby: 140
  3. Rachel: 90
  4. Sabine: 65
  5. Karen: 35
  6. dreamer-easy: 25
  7. Dawn: 10
  8. kellyann06: 5

In Sitting Tennant captionland, Dani and whogal got 10 points each for their most entertaining efforts, while everyone else got five points because I love them so much.

Good luck everyone and have a nice August captioning – Sitting Tennant will return on Friday 3rd September and you’ll have until the following Tuesday to caption these three, with the best ones for each Tennant getting the 10 points.

  1. Electric Dragon, Rullsenberg: 160
  2. Marie: 145
  3. Toby: 140
  4. Dani: 75
  5. Jane Henry: 70
  6. SK: 65
  7. ecg: 50
  8. Rachel: 45
  9. Sabine: 25
  10. whogal: 20
  11. kellyann06, Sister Chastity, Alex, Paul Ebbs: 10
  12. George, Joe B: 5

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. Don’t forget to include your name in the filename so I don’t get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

August on TMINE

2 August 2010 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

It’s that time of the year – summer holidays/vacations (delete as appropriate). Pretty much for the rest of this month, one of two things can be guaranteed. Either:

  1. You’ll be on holiday or
  2. I’ll be on holiday

Certainly:

  1. There’s not going to be a huge amount of new shows to be watched or reviewed
  2. Most people in TV and film land are going to be on holiday, too, so there won’t be much news

As a result, we’re going to be on reduced output on TMINE during August with the following results:

  • The first and last Daily News will be today, and won’t be back until September 2nd.
  • There may be a few reviews and the like this week.
  • There definitely won’t be anything new on the blog between the 6th and the 22nd, and the 26th to 31st.
  • Tomorrow’s Sitting Tennant will be the last captionable Tennant of August.
  • I might be around between the 23rd and 25th, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
  • If anyone comes along and leaves a spam comment, kill them.

However, feel free to talk among yourselves. I’ll try to leave an open thread on Thursday for general discussion.

I will leave you with the following Question of the Month, too:

What books would you recommend for my or anyone else’s holiday reading?

You can, of course, nominate your own books. 😉

Enjoy your holidays!