So this is it. The last episode of The Wire ever. What are we going to do with ourselves now?
Possibly the best TV series in the world ever, The Wire has spent five seasons changing the nature of television itself – all with minimal viewing figures. It’s examined the nature of institutions and society. It’s created characters that will last in the memory for years to come.
It’s made us think.
And now it’s over.
In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, ITV1
In the US: Not yet acquired
Once upon a time, ITV ruled the roost of action TV. With the classic shows of ITC such as The Adventures of Robin Hood, Danger Man and The Avengers, ITV pretty much dominated the 50s and 60s. Then there was The Sweeney, The Professionals, Out et al during the 70s and Robin of Sherwood in the 80s, as well as all those glorious US action imports that almost always ended up on ITV first.
In the 90s, post-franchise change, it all went pear-shaped. Now ITV1 is a bit of a gamble when it comes to action shows. You might get lucky and find a show like Sharpe’s Progress/Plimsolls/Whatever that starts off well and continues to be good. Or you might find a show that starts off well then becomes a bit of a turkey (eg Ultimate Force). Most of the time, though, you’ll come across something dismal like The Outsiders that’s so bad it has a biohazard warning next to it in the Radio Times.
But ITV1’s turned over a new leaf. It wants to be known for quality programmes. Can it do quality action TV? The Fixer, which started last night, is actually a very good attempt at a quality action show.
Doctor Who
Film
British TV
US TV
Well, I’ve been round the back with my mallet again, tinkering away with the blog, so there are a few new things to play with.
The Reviews A-Z
As mentioned a little while ago, I’ve set up an A-Z list of all the reviews on the blog. Now, I’ve spent a good few hours renaming a load of old entries and tinkering with the sorting algorithm and pretty much everything is semi-standardised, in proper order, etc. They’re all in one big list, though, so let me know if you want them divided out in audio play reviews, TV reviews, film reviews and DVD reviews, or whether you like them as is. I’ve also updated the banner at the top so you can now access the Reviews A-Z by mousing over the “Reviews” bit in the menu and clicking on “Reviews A-Z” when it appears.
Asides
On the right, you should now be getting pithy little observations that don’t merit blog entries. They’ll be about anything, including the occasional “oops, I was tinkering and now I’ve cocked something up but it’s fixed now” messages, holiday messages, what I’ll be reviewing, etc, over the coming week and so on. Think of it as a sort of Facebook profile status for the blog or a meaningful Twitter. At some point, I’ll get round to setting up an RSS feed for it.
Icons
So you can quickly spot the types of articles you want to read, there are now category icons next to each article on the front page and on their individual entries. You can mouseover the icon to reveal the category as a tooltip or click on it to be taken to the category listing.
Hollywood Reporter news
I’ve added the annoyingly shaped Hollywood Reporter news widget to the bottom of the sidebar so you can see the very latest news all the time.
Popular articles
The Popular tab now includes the top ten entries that people have been reading as well as the most commented entries. The stats only go back a month or so, but it’s interesting to know that people only give a monkey’s about pictures of Stewie Griffin, rather than anything I’ve written.
Commenting
I’ve disabled a couple of anti-spam plug-ins that did more harm than good. That means you’ll now be able to leave comments with as many links as you like in them and they’ll show up immediately, rather than when I’ve got round to approving them. I’ve also enabled the comment confirmation page, which you’ll be taken to when you’ve submitted your comment so you know that your comments haven’t gone into the ether or if there’s been a problem. Let me know if that becomes irritating and I’ll disable it again.
Doctor Who
Film
Canadian TV
German TV
British TV
US TV
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