Hey, exciting though my current current affairs news is at the moment, life in TV World is far more exciting.Your old mate Sis is proud to announce he has a (maybe) direct link to - wait for it - Steven Moffett himself.!! It might just be that my various wild Who ramblings might be able to get through to our shiney new head writer. One of my chatty friends in the library who (bizaarely) shares a name with grumpy genius (and Sam admirer) McKay of Stargate: Atlantis fame used to work for BBC Wales and saw the writer on a daily basis. Together, we've had a little chinwag regarding the Big Bad in the 2010 Season and he seems to think there's some mileage with the Evil High Council arc and possibly bringing back Omega. However, another side of my head says that Moffett will come up with some totally wild new ideas for the new regular series - Steven is definitely on a parallel with Robert Holmes from the cla$$ic series as opposed to RTD's JNT - who was always stomping about going "Wouldn't it be great if so& so came back - find some way to make it happen" . Indeed, Moffett has now gone on record to say that under his tenure, there will be some all new monsters and frightening stuff going on.

So much telly ground to cover this blog with season reviews - and so many lost opportunities, unfortunately - you can't blame it all on the US Writers Strike - there's just too much retread ground, poor concepts and all-round sloppyness. For all-round sloppyness, I really don't want to, but I have to mention the recent Bionic Woman flop. The satellite channels must be really up against it because this seems to be on wall-2-wall - and my God, it's awful. Eight episodes is seven too many here - sixty minutes of my life I will never get back, no matter how hard I try to recreate the creation of black holes in my front room. I'm already three experiments in debt from being dragged to see Rocky Balboa - trust me, the same mistake will not be made with the movie of Mamma Mia - as Jon Stewart mentioned to Pierce Brosnan on the Daily Show, " If all the guys I see at a bachelor party are singing Abba, I somehow don't hold very much hope for the wedding....".

Plus I start to see now why Tim Kring was so worried about Season 2 of Heroes and publicly decided to apologise. It's nowhere near in the Bionic Woman category of awful , but it did seem a little rushed. But there are little flashes of excellence through the eleven episodes - Matts dads' illusion sequence in Fight Or Flight, The immunities in the blood which save Nathan in Four Months Ago and Noah in Cautionary Tales and David Anders (the best character this year). Having six months to polish before The Butterfly effect in September for Series Three should help - and the Beebs decision to showcase a week or so after US transmission is fantastic. Should bridge the gap neatly between now and Jan 2009 for the long-awaited return of 24 Day Seven !!

Obviously, being Summer, the blockbusters are here at the flicks to make up for telly mediocrity - WALL-E, the Dark Knight, I Want to Believe (x-files2) & Hellboy: Golden Army. Reports on them in upcoming blogs. But a library cloud has a silver lining - end of July, the city lost its supplier of new DVDs so we have to cast around for a new company. ( No new Heroes Series2 Discs for the moment). This gives me the chance to catch up on some films I had missed - 3.10 To Yuma , Bee Movie , American Gangster, , No Country For Old Men, The Assassination Of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford.

No matter how anyone slags this last film off , find out for yourself. It's a real Marmite film - you hate it or love it with a passion. Mark Kermode (the Uks only film critic that matters) stood up and defended this when no-one else would - and , of course, he's right. A gorgeous sweeping film with great music, lush rolling fields, great narration and two towering central performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck - another great case of how the main character (James) being killed off doesn't mean the end of the film, it just develops it further.

And - finally - I got round to seeing The Prestige. (Like to think I'm catching up on films with Christian Bale in directed by Chris Nolan). Think at the start , I said to myself "It's a Victorian magic show - whats the interest in that?" But it's a huge huge film - the cast list is impressive and then some - Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlet Johansson, Michael Caine , Andy Serkis (off LoTR & King Kong), David Bowie (??!) - and what a twist. Nolan pulls off the impossible here. They say a magic trick -when you know the secret- loses its magic - its not so with this film. It stands up to repeated viewings - must have seen it three times over the weekend and was still impressed. If there's a 2 or 3-disc spec edition out there , my moneys on that one - no wonder everyones gaga about how good the Dark Knight is when Nolan has such a quality back catalog (Memento, Batman Begins and now this). Why so serious ,people? Don't worry, my popcorns booked soon...

Resident Evil Update

Even managing to progress with some seriously ace evenings of zombie blasting. RE3 - Nemesis was re-finished end of June (finally managed to put pay to that growling "STARRRRRRS" horror, thank God) and also just put pay to Code Veronica X!

(Thank you , thank you - its too much!)

A slightly different setup on this game because of the fact it first came out on the unlamented Dreamcast before swopping format.This game was huge - two discs , dodging back and forth between five different locations with items you need for Locations 5 right back at Location2 for instance - God, it was tough. I thought maybe the fact it originally came out on a different format meant there might be some loss of familiar element, but no, the gangs all here. Chris & Claire, Wesker and some nasssty creatures. Liked the fact that swopping between Chris and Claire throughout the game meant you had to think carefully about weapons to use (since if Chris has the Shotgun for instance, when you were playing Claire for a considerable time, you couldn't use it - major drawback). Also the improved graphics where the third person scene shifts when you go around a corner - its far more fluid than just one scene to next.

Some major CG Cutscenes here as well deserve special mention - Alexia transforming to the Ant mutant looks the bomb and the final faceoff between Chris and Wesker again is tense. The hardest boss by far is Claire vs Nosferatu on the Antarctica heliport - hitting a moving target DEAD on the heart with a sniper rifle that only has 7 shots available needed a tricky combo of range (and a frustrating evening to figure out). So in contrast , it was great just to let loose on the final mutant with submachine gun , magnums and launcher blazing.

So a bit of change of focus coming up - RE0 (the prequel) has an interesting twist where you control two characters at once -one dead and its game over. As for RE4 that ditches survival horror completely - can't wait. That's the game that the temptation works on - but I thought "no have to go through 1, 2, 3, CVX and 0 " first. Its getting closer.. also RE4 on the Wii which allows me to start all over again with the Umbrella Chronicles before RE5 in 2009/2010.

Did you know also you can buy a PS2 for 50 quid??? How crazy is that? I can feel a major Grand Theft Auto quest starting soon as well....

And finally.....

It's no question that sometimes I wish some of the library customers would turn mouldy and start groaning so I can blast their heads off. Recently, as some of you may know, the council services took a two-day strike over pay - so I was down to work being relief and then all of a sudden, I was told I wasn't needed. Its quite unrefreshing when coming back to work on Friday , folks decide to take the fact that their bins haven't been collected out on you - as we are suffering from a worldwide credit crunch , the idea of my colleagues wanting more money isn't that appealing - indeed , we were accused of being - wait for it - "Over-Reaching Greedy Money-grabbing Scum". See, it was worth reading through all that praise and moaning for that little ray of light, wasn't it?

Looking to carry on liking being liked...

Enjoy the sun, Sis x

"If you're an alien, how come you sound like you come from the north?"

"Lots of planets have a North!" - Rose + the Ninth Doctor, "Rose" (A1) -2005

I'm afraid its with North America that I have to start my latest blog/rant. Hello again, by the way everyone - welcome back if you're an old mate, if you're new, this is a good place to start. I'm one of those that like the US electorial system - I suppose it comes from watching my favorite season of The West Wing, Season 6. A very brave experiment to devote a whole season and a half of a telly show to an almost real time search for Martin Sheens successor. I love the fact you see Jimmy Smits right at the start of the process - scratching around in the depths of winter after deciding to run for nomination looking for any hustings, any chance to get some publicity. And slowly but surely, the profile grows, through the conference and nomination, through the famous Season 7 debate (both East and West coast versions), and the show surviving the tragic death of John Spencer as Leo to a triumphant election 2-parter and through to inaguration and those great final episodes where you see the end of the old team and the start of the new.

And now it seems its happening for real with Barack Obama. Seriously, where was he five years ago? And now it's the heart vs the head for early November. But I get the distinct impression that this long haul is not everyone's cup of tea. So I thank God that a sardonic savior is around to put the daily struggle in perspective - yes, its Jon Stewart.This assault on the funnybone is definitely one of the highlights of my new digital satellite future. Whats that, you say? Sis hasn't finally sorted himself out and got some extra channels?

YES!!!!! It's finally happened!!! Just before May Day (May 5th), I took decisive action and plugged a sleek black box in for some cracking new shows. And The Daily Show is worth being around for any day of the week - don't know how America survived during the writers strike. It's actually put to bed quite a number of famous urban myths - as well as destroying the concept that the American censors are the strictest in the world, I can discount the fact that most Americans supported the war in Iraq. Am I right in thinking that us Brits came out against the invasion and government first and the Americans have followed suit with Bush? The open fury that Stewart has for the whole process is quite astonishing - regularly getting ex White House staff on to press questions of corporate malpractise and homicide based on the apparent lies we were told.

Throughout the long-drawn out struggle between Clinton and Obama, Stewart has carried a torch of mania and outright giggling where no subject is safe. It gives me a unique balanced view of a fascinating process - and recently on June 3rd, one "guest" drew parallels with the campaign and another long drawn out affair, Lost.Referring to the campaign, the quote was "How has something this boring not been cancelled?" followed by the legendary "Where's the polar bear, man? Come on - it's a polar bear!! On a tropical island !!!".

Genius. Just genius. On the subject of Lost, just briefly, is what I'm hearing about "There's No Place Like Home" true? They haven't done what I think they've done? Bloody hell - talk about jumping the shark.....

Let me put my librarian hat on now -its Reader Recommends time.

Three choices this time around - two (OK, three books) and a truly odd film. I've got everything Bill Bryson has written (apart from his slightly tedious "deconstruction of language" tomes) - and two of the three books has a definite northern feel. Oddly , both the writers are current Radio 2 DJ's and shared a show together - its Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe (the latter of legendary Mark+Lard fame on Radio 1). Radcliffe's saga is an epic story of power struggles , fame and scarves set in the dynamic and shifting world of folk music. Being a current DJ, Radcliffe should know and this experience shows through in the text of "Northern Sky"- all the right questions are asked, some at the wrong time leading to some tasty confrontations. Maconie prefers the real atmosphere of northern towns and townsfolk in his "Pies and Prejudice: In Search Of The North" - again , very lyrical passages and glorious descriptions of places and people both oddball, hilarious and deadly serious. Well worth searching out.

The film in question is Perfume: Story of a Murderer. From the opening five minutes with a quick-cut and brutal birth, you know this is going to be something different from your usual run-of-the-mill romcom or search for hidden treasure. Cut faithfully from the novel by Patrick Suskind (which I also completely recommend - very florid and lovely prose - almost scent on the printed page), the brutal story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille , the most gifted procurer of scents ever born, is told from filthy birth through to his outrageous and flaming death by way of a twist the likes of which you have Never seen before. Trust me, if you want an original way to avoid the gallows, this is the way to do it. You know from a French/German co-effort, no quarter is going to be given - and some sterling support from Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman make this one of the most original films of the decade so far.

Finally, I can put a ten-year struggle to bed. Resident Evil 2 is finally complete - I have always hated the fact that I walked away at the final battle a long time ago thinking this is unbeatable - but last month I returned to Raccoon City older and wiser and finally the Birkin beast bit the dust!!! Plus with an added extra - the true end after you beat the game as Leon and Claire with the slimy train finish. I was so happy to finally put the game to bed thought I was going to fall at the last - but just managed to hang on and catch the oohh- so- Guitar Hero credits. Very funky.

So at the moment , I'm running at full speed from an annoying beast who smashes through doors, grumbles "STARRRRS" at me and smacks me over the head with iron bars - yes, it's the Nemesis. Responsible for my biggest shock of the series yet back in the day when I completed the game, it's a little test of just how much I remember. And that's before the little diversions of Code Veronica X and the prequel 0..... blasting heads has never been so much fun....

Summertime...... and the zombies are easy........,

Regards, Sis .x

Being in a job in the libraries has its notable perks - one of which is free issue of CD's and DVD's. OK ,you have to wait for them to come out on DVD - come on, I haven't got that fast a system to tackle program downloads just yet - future dreams - but providing you give the paying public first option on the popular releases , you do eventually get the chance to see a hell of a lot of stuff for no pence at all. This is why my yearly media review looks like it will come in two parts because there's just so much good stuff to watch. And as usual no time to type it all up. So this is why its x weeks late. I was never very good with deadlines.

One of the categories that has impressed me this year has been documentaries.The noughties for some reason are turning out to be a cracking time for docs. Or maybe I never noticed them before. Anyway the list is certainly impressive :

Bowling For Columbine, Farenheit 9/11 and Sicko (the Michael Moore trilogy - whether you think he is Anti-American or not, whether you agree with his views or not, the fact still remains that he's a damn good filmmaker and cuts like a devil.)

Supersize Me and the 30 Days series from Morgan Spurlock.

Capturing The Friedmans (both astonishing and controversial showing the costs of alleged child abuse).

The Falling Man (media fallout in the wake of 9/11)

That Spelling Bee national competition where all the kids cry when they lose.

The latest title to join these leaders of their field is The Bridge.It's amazing all the time you think of these world famous sights and you never hear the darker side and the true stories surrounding them - in this case the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a sobering sight to watch real time footage of jumpers and people who have taken the so called "easy" way out. There's a staggering shot five minutes in of a wide shot of the bridge - suddenly your eyes are drawn to a splash , one minute there the next gone - and you're thinking " Did I just see that?" Very disturbing. Just like the ripples it causes in the circle of family and friends. "Could I have done this differently?", "If I could have been there" etc. There's also a first hand account from the one person who survived the drop and the water - strong subject matter, but a story that needs telling - all the best documentaries deal with such stories.

Of course it would be much easier if I only preferred one particular genre , but that's just the problem - there's so much good stuff that one day I'll be watching true life horror stories and the next day I can turn my brain off completely and watch 24.

As you may or may not know, there's been a lot of criticism chucked at S6. They say it's a series that goes nowhere new in plot development- they say the finale lacks any cohesion and they say that Jack is weakened by his family constantly getting in the way. These people are the sort of people that view Jack Bauer as an indestructible no mercy USA killing machine and for the producers to write in any sign of emotion is somehow un-American. From my point of view, the season suffered from having to ditch the baggage of - boo hiss - Audrey Raines. You've gotta say that Seasons Four and Five are garbage - both have weak villains throughout; (Mandy, plus the characters played by Arnold Vosloo, Julian Sands and "Robocop" are all terrible) and/or weak bosses (Erin Driscoll anyone>?). Plus that useless tub of lard Edgar - it was a party in our house when the virus got him.

My seasons ranking of 3,1,6,2,5,4 comes in for a bit of stick.

But Surnow, Loceff and Cochran had to clear the decks this last season - get rid of the dead wood. And Audrey and her dad were top of the tree. Chucking out CTU as well is an unexpected bonus for S7 (when we finally see it after the Writers Strike is sorted).When you look past Sourpuss Raines and Dad, there's a lot to like about Season Six. Let me count the ways:

•i) Unexpected deaths: Curtis was a kick in the teeth - and Milo getting a bullet I did not see coming at all. Very powerful stuff.

•ii) Great guest stars: Peter MacNicol was terrific all year - a huge performance - plus great turns from Alex Siddig, Ricky Schroder and Rena Sofer (very nice as Jack's sis in law)

•iii) Greg Itzin: having the spotlight off Logan this year was wonderful and you could see Greg was having a whale of a time trying to wind his way back using Jack as a bargaining chip. Lovely scenes between Kiefer and Greg - it was just a shame it ended when it did.

•iv) Weak President Palmer: after David was such a massive presence during Seasons 1-3 , it's understandable that Wayne was under such pressure to perform. So it was a shock when we discover that he's not destined to succeed.

•v) And finally: huge episodes. The opening episode is just fantastic - to find Jack in the state he's in after the Chinese problems is such a departure. And it's good to know they don't cut any corners with the mini-nuke - the fallout (both political and radioactive) hangs over the rest of the day from 10am onwards.

So in honor of the extended 24 break, I present: THE FIVE BEST 24 VILLIANS .

5/ira gaines(Michael masee) - A honorable mention for 24's first villain only lasting twelve hours. It is said you are only as good as the team around you and Ira stands out from the team of fools like a diamond. I still quote his eternally genius line about the end of times around pubs and clubs "You're either dead or not dead. Here. Let me show you.....". A brilliant little cat and mouse sequence from the hospital and when Gaines realizes "its either Bauer or us" as to which one gets the bullet when Andre brings in team B, you feel for our doomed number 2 nasty. A great face off with Jack to end as well - nice one Ira.

4/cheng zhi (tzi ma) - Whether you think 24's later seasons sparkle or suck, you have to appreciate in the land of heightened drama where nasties come and go in three hours, a reoccurring villain is a rare thing. That's why Cheng has to be on this list - he's responsible for a major shift in the 24 timeline where Jack spends all that time in a Chinese cell. The continuity works as well - picking up the thread from the embassy attack in Season 4 and working all through Jack on the run through the release and the family connection with the Chinese politician. So Cheng is a villain by association - the story behind the scenes makes him a major player.

3/Stephen saunders (paul Blackthorne) - OK, I will defend Season 3 to the hilt, it's a fantastic year despite all the moaning about Jack not supposed to show any emotion, betraying his superman roots etc etc. But again the continuity works here - Saunders being a part of Jacks team on the Drazen mission who was left for dead. Here, however, being English, Stephen isn't capable of being truly nasty, especially when CTU slightly declaw him once they grab his daughter.

This time its all about the setpieces - Saunders is responsible for some of the best sequences up on screen in 24's history. The virus in the hotel is just brutal and then you have three final episodes from heaven - Jack pursuing Tony where Saunders is pulling his strings after kidnapping Michelle - the exchange under 6th street bridge - the F-16 attack - all at such a high level. You think things can't get any better when Jack threatens to chuck Jane into the doomed hotel. And then the writers top it all with that terrific final - a throwaway death , but helping to identify the rogue agent leading to the final battle in the school. Fantastic stuff.

2/victor drazen (dennis hopper) - I, like many people, watched Victor in the Saugus cells and thought "24 has truly arrived". It was a major major coup to get such a big movie name like Hopper to star as the big bad for the year. He may just be around for four hours, but what an impression. Again, it's the history between the two that makes the scenes sparkle - a player returning from the dead out for revenge. Victor (or Victors family) being behind the whole events of Day One - the Saugus scenes are wonderful, the Jack as a bomb hour from 10pm is great - and you have the best final hour in 24's history , just shading Day Three. They have recruited many other famous actors since, but none bigger than Dennis.

1/nina myers (sarah Clarke) - Well, there's no contest, is there? The queen beeyatch from Hell. Nina Myers was trouble with a capital T. You don't need me to catalog all the ways this slippery snake has brought trouble and pain to the 24 universe - being a former agent turned traitor, Nina knows everything. The writers tell you there's a mole all the way through Day One and knowing its Nina puts a completely different slant on the events at the pit head. Does Ira tell Jack to shoot Nina knowing shes the mole? Whether that's true or not, Jack's mercy comes back in a big way to bite him at midnight on Day One.

It's also the wonderful little asides Nina has with the other cast - the pitying look Tony gives her after the capture in CTU's parking lot and the slow mo sequence in Day Three when Kim sees Nina finally dragged through CTU ( in a great reverse from Day Two when she's interviewed after the old CTU's bombing with Jack). In a way, the subplot with Kim wanting payback for mum Teri's death makes up for all that terrible filler with the leopard and the baby. Just when you think that maybe Kim isn't strong enough to pull the trigger or the writers aren't brave enough to get rid of a major story asset, up steps heroic Jack - and Bang! Bang! the beeyatch is dead.

-----------------------------------

Of course, with a certain former CTU agent coming back from the dead(?) in Season Seven , we might have a new leader , but is it a big bad or just a supporting role... we wait and we wonder....

Events just written occurred in realtime.

Be careful out there, Sis x