Strike Back

Erk. Busy, busy, busy. But I have had time to watch the following:

• Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations: An old ep of Anthony Bourdain’s globe-trotting cookery show that went to a couple of Greek Islands. He’s a lippy git – I wouldn’t want him there if I’d seen the programme beforehand. All the same, very educational and looked a whole slew of Greek dishes most people would never see because they’re not the standard tourist dishes. Actually beat Keith Floyd’s similar efforts, I thought.
• Chris Ryan’s Strike Back: Haven’t seen this week’s yet, but episodes three and four from last week were a bit of a drop-off from the first two. Really very silly, but still action-packed and tense. And was that an Other Boleyn Girl homage I spotted?
• Cougar Town: One real laugh-out-loud moment in last week’s episode (Courtney Cox’s high school photo), but generally a bit blah.
• Doctor Who: I honestly didn’t have time to do a full review for this, so here’s a brief one. On the whole, I liked it, but I guessed both twists, so that left me feeling a little let down, but the general insights into the Doctor, the dialogue, etc, were very good. Amy/Rory almost started working for me, mainly thanks to Karen Gillan’s acting, but you can’t help but think Rusty would have given Amy Pond a bit more of an emotional scene when she sees her fiancé get killed in front of her eyes. Toby Jones was great, Matt Smith did well too (this was the last episode to be filmed, so clearly he just needed a little time). Still not liking Rory as a character though, and although I’ve seen arguments that Amy-Rory are a realistic couple, Amy is a damaged character, etc, it’s just feeling a little bit too slippery, like I can’t really get a handle on them. I wonder if I’m getting old, because the information deluge was such, this episode, that it was really hard to keep up and process everything.
• House: Sigh. I was hoping for a really good ending to this, but got a rubbish one (which given that this was the season finale makes me wonder how much I’ll want to watch next season). The whole season’s been something of a letdown though, after the initial heights of the first few episodes.
• Lost: Thank goodness. This episode was a decent return to form, the flashes sideways are looking very interesting now, and it even managed to make last week’s episode not look so rubbish.
• Stargate Universe: Bit of a nothing episode, this one. One of the usual “people start to hallucinate important things” you get in genre shows from time to time. Still, of all the “people start to hallucinate important things” episodes, this has to be one of the best, since there were actual repercussions of sorts.
• Touching Evil: I’ve already praised it once, but I rewatched in glorious HD this week and it seemed even better. Every time I watch it, I see new things. Next ep’s tonight everyone – watch on ITV1 HD if you can, because the Freeview version has BSL signing. Unless you’re a BSL signer, of course.
• 24: Good to see this has essentially become “what if Jack Bauer became one of the bad guys – just how much trouble would we be in then?” Nothing can stop this one man army. Loved the bit with Jack in a mask, too.
• 30 Rock: Last week’s, not this week’s. That was actually very funny. Not quite sure about the uproar in the US against Tina Fey, saying she’s putting down single women and saying women should ‘settle’. Does anything think Liz Lemon is actually supposed to be a role model and someone to look up to?

But what have you been watching?

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).