What did you watch last week (w/e December 5)?

Time for “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case we’ve missed them.

The A-Team: Misfits, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Homeland, Suburgatory and Community.

The B-Team: Dexter, House, Rev and Ringer.

It’s at this point I have to fess up and say I really haven’t watched that much TV this week, since I was away at the weekend, the new stuff I wanted to watch I’ve already reviewed and the new stuff I didn’t want to watch – well, I didn’t watch it. Also, almost everything good is now being shown on Sundays. That’s not helpful. I might have to move this back to Fridays.

But I will say that Community was great last week (anime!) as was Homeland; Dexter is frustratingly daft and poor; and Ringer didn’t have a bad mid-season finale.

No new movies. No new books. Sorry, again. Not been doing too well, have I? Sorry.

“What did you watch last 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?

Competitions

Competition time: win the Complete Torchwood Collection on DVD!

The Complete Torchwood

Howdy, happy people. No sooner is the last competition over, then a new one begins, this time courtesy of those good people at the BBC Shop. Look, I’m an official reviewer:

BBC Shop Badge

They send me things that they think I’d like to review, based on the content of this ‘ere blog, and then I review them (editorially independently, of course). And then I’m free to dispose with them as I wish. And I wish to give them away to you happy people. So as we lead up to Christmas, I’ll be giving away all kinds of lovely goodies at the rate of one a week (maybe even more).

This week, I’m giving away The Complete Torchwood Collection – yes, every single episode of Torchwood from all four series on 18 DVDs, complete with all manner of extras. Normally, it’ll cost you £61.27, at the BBC Shop it’ll cost you £40.50, but if you win the competition, it’ll be free!

And yes, long-time readers, they looked at the blog and thought I’d love me some Torchwood. Seems implausible, doesn’t it?

Now, I’ve reviewed pretty much every episode already, so rather than rehash all those reviews, I’m simply going to list them all. Feel free to relive my growing frustration, dismay and sarcasm during season 1! Enjoy my slight surprise when it gets better in the second season – then experience again the frustration when it goes bad again, usually when Chris Chibnall is let loose on the scripts. Relive my bemusement at Children of Earth and surprise at how good it is… in places! And then watch as I decide enough’s enough and the first episode of Miracle Day is simply too bad to be watchable… and I’m proven right in countries around the world where Pro-Celebrity Cat Shampooing beats it in the ratings by the final episode.

Anyway, assuming my reviews and sarcasm haven’t put you off the entire series – or the series itself for that matter – the entire box set of Torchwood episodes will be sent to the UK reader who responds with the best (not insulting) answer to the following question:

Why did my reviews not put you off wanting the box set?

Don’t forget to include a valid email address when you leave your reply. You’ve until 11.59pm GMT on Friday to leave your response and I’ll let you all know who won on Monday when I’ll announce the next competition… your chance to win series six of Doctor Who DVD, so stay tuned.

Really Lost Gems: The Adventures of Don Quick (1970)

Adapting the classics is something that science-fiction does a lot of. The Forbidden Planet is Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for example, while (if you squint a bit) Gene Rodenberry always claimed that Star Trek was based on the Hornblower books.

Cervantes’ Spanish-language classic The Adventures of Don Quixote doesn’t get a whole lot of adapting these days, but way back in 1970, ITV decided to do it as a science-fiction series called The Adventures of Don Quick. Starring Ian Hendry (the original star of The Avengers), this saw intergalactic maintenance man Don Quick, together with his second-in-command Sam Czopanzer (Ronald Lacey) – can you see what they did there? – travel from planet to planet each week. On landing, Quick would proceed to interfere with the way the planet was run, because he knew best.

The planets were varied – and symbolic. The Higher The Fewer sees a population that lives in 2,000 storey skyscrapers organised by class; The Love Reflector has a planet of beautiful women – and one six-inch male astronaut; and The Quick and The Dead sees Aphrodite, Hera and Zeus (Graham Crowden) saving Sam and Quick from a volcano.

Lasting all of six one-hour episodes, Don Quick saw guest stars including Roy Marsden, Leigh Lawson, Patricia Haines, Yutte Stensgard, Madeline Smith, Gay Soper, James Hayter, Kate O’Mara, Bryan Mosley, Colin Baker and Anouska Hempel. Mike Newell even directed an episode.

However, only one episode of the show survives and it’s not on YouTube, so I’m only going to be able to give you the theme tune, as preserved on the album “Top T.V. Soundtrack Themes”. Sorry about that – blame ITV.

Friday’s “First Day of Advent” news

Film

Comics

British TV

  • BBC3 commissions and re-commissions series including Him & Her
  • The South Bank Show to return on Sky Arts
  • DCI Banks to get a second series [subscription required]
  • David Morrissey to star in C4 riots drama [subscription required]
  • Sue Perkins developing a comedy-drama [subscription required]

Canadian TV

  • YTV developing Dark Horse
  • Netflix acquires The Hour

US TV