(With apologies to Bargearse.)

Like most technology, DVDs rarely do anything other than drop in price. I just found The Late Show — Best Bits: Champagne Edition for $19.95 in Dymocks. According to the ABC Shop Online and that wondrous assistant to DVD shopping, DVD Plaza’s Pricecrawler, it’s widely available at that price. 6 hours of 90s-era hilarity for $20? Woo hoo!

A few brief snippets:

Okay, so it’s December now. And I’ve sent precisely zero Christmas cards. Really should get into action, shouldn’t I — I’ve already got some from overseas.

Who Do You Think You Are with Stephen Fry on Sunday night was gripping, fascinating, poignant television. Looking forward to the rest of the episodes.

I didn’t know this before: A character in one of my favourite all-time TV series Edge of Darkness was based on Lyndon LaRouche, who is the leader of the Citizen’s Electoral Council.

I’ve written about this before, and the other day Danny Katz wrote a column on the wimpyness of air conditioning.

Booked tickets to Spamalot in a couple of weeks. Cost a small fortune, but hopefully very funny — it seems to be getting good reviews, and given the kids want to see it and I’m the sort of person who spent years quoting bits of the movie (and other Python scripts), I thought I should take a look.

I got my sausage at the polling place sausage sizzle, so I was happy.

There seemed to be a few wedding parties about during the afternoon. I guess they’d managed to find church halls that weren’t being used for polling. (One wedding party on the steps of St Paul’s in Bentleigh were memorably sipping from stubbies. Steeling the groom’s nerves perhaps?)

By 6:30pm we tuned into the ABC, but occasionally flicked over to 7 (Mel and Kochie), 9 (Laurie et al) and 10 (The Empire Strikes Back, which might have been an omen for some people).

Frankly I didn’t believe it when Stephen Smith from the ALP declared early on that he reckoned they’d gain 20 to 25 seats. He turned out to be right on the money.

Very funny moment when Kerry was talking about Maxine McKew and accidentally said “ABC gain” instead of “ALP gain”. Kerry also seemed to try to calm Antony down when his computer crashed, and started to get a bit hot under the collar when rowdy ALP supporters in the Tally Room started to get noisy.

Channel 7 was going overboard on the flashy graphics and that set of knick-knacks — what was that about? The little caricatures of Rudd and Howard as they showed the various seats. Not to be out-done, Channel 9 put MPs losing their seats through a little “Into the shredder” animation. This is why we tuned to the ABC… to avoid the ads and lame jokes… and indeed they won the ratings for the night.

Channel 7 did show us the grinning Peter Beattie and the very sad looking Joe Hockey during the PM’s concession speech though.

And so following his ascension to power, now the glorious prime ministership of the mighty Rudd begins. Kyoto ratification? Bring it on, Kevvy-baby!

“My father Sydney was a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was - well, she was a nurse, actually.” — John Smith/The Doctor, in the episode Human Nature, 2007.

For all you did, thank you, Verity.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the short Doctor Who charity scene just released…

You can also watch it and find out more detail at the BBC’s web site.

And don’t forget to donate here to Children In Need.

My response (after you’ve watched it — spoilers!)
(more…)

Most bizarre thing seen in the shops recently: DVD Fireplace, $19.99.

Clive James used to show this kind of thing on his TV show. Video fish tanks, fireplaces, washing machines… does anybody really buy this stuff?

So there we go, the series has ended. Some great episodes.

The Runaway Bride: Enjoyable enough. Loved the highway chase scene — and the way it captured the excitement of the TV audience in the little kids in the other car. One day the ABC programming people will learn to programme Christmas specials at Christmas, instead of six months later. (Though it could be worse… in Canada the CBC put this episode on after the following one.)

Smith and Jones: Some fun moments, but obviously it’s mostly to introduce the new companion. Some of us who have been watching for a while thought the Judoon were Sontarans when they first appeared.

The Shakespeare Code: Oh, good stuff. Some very funny moments (I really liked the barely noted “No you can’t have yourself sketched with me”), and an interesting concept, the power of words.

Gridlock: I was put off by the concept of the multi-decade traffic jam, which just seemed a little too ridiculous. But as the episode went on, it grew on me a lot.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: It was all going well for me until SquidMan appeared. After that it just seemed a little bit silly. But Solomon’s demise was a good antidote to the kind of “inspiring hero miraculously escapes” plotlines you sometimes see.

The Lazarus Experiment: Nothing too challenging.

42: I found this one really exciting. In space, noone can hear you shouting “I’ll save you!” Okay, so the plot was lifted from the second half of Planet Of Evil (circa 1975), but still very enjoyable.

Human Nature/Family of Blood: *sniffffff* Very clever, and one of those plots that had you wondering what’s happening. Nice touches in John Smith’s journal. (Some people freeze-framed it and noted pictures of past Doctors and numerous other series references.)

Blink: Oh great stuff from Stephen Moffat, once again making great use of time in his stories. No wonder he won a Hugo for last year’s effort. The weeping angels were superb. I wish I’d watched this episode in the dark the first time I saw it.

Utopia: Ooooh yeah. Derek Jacobi! John Simm! Captain Jack’s back, and so is… you know who! Superb, with just niggling doubts about the apparent re-appearance of 20th century technology in the year 50 trillion. Best line? “…and you two are BLOGGING!”

Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords: Wrapping it all up nicely, though I’m getting a little weary of Russell T Davies and his mega-CGI-massed-alien-invasions at the end of every season. But it did all neatly use bits from the rest of the season: the watch/Chameleon Arch, the mysterious Harry Saxon, The Face Of Boe’s final utterance, the power of words, and more about the last great time war.

And Torchwood? Well, you’ve gotta love a spinoff. It ranged from the excellent (”Random Shoes”) to the pointlessly horrifically mundane (”Countrycide”), and not forgetting Fight Club With Aliens (”Combat”). But I can’t help thinking they could have done it almost as well without the gore, swearing and sex, and then I could have let the kids watch it. Ultimately while Doctor Who manages to include secondary themes and some deep thinking in many of its plots, Torchwood seemed a lot more superficial.

The forthcoming Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff looks interesting, too.