I’ve just enjoyed the second episode of the new modern version of Sherlock Holmes. All very nicely done indeed, with the plot revolving around a cypher that Sherlock really needs to solve. Good job that he’s twenty times smarter than everyone else, really…

Something I hadn’t noticed before was that this is yet another BBC Cymru Wales production. Apparently the 221B set is next to the TARDIS. And it was good to see more of the National Museum of Wales again…

Oh, and when Matt Smith eventually decides to move on from being the Doctor, I think he and Benedict Cumberbatch should simply swap jobs. Benedict would be a quite superb Doctor, and Matt, when he’s a wee bit older, would be brilliant as Sherlock Holmes, contemporary or original. So there.

Oh, and if you’re in the UK and missed it, it’s on the BBC iPlayer now

It’s a long wait until the next new Doctor Who material appears, but at least we’re getting regular releases of the surviving classic episodes[1]. This is the latest, and it’s one of the depressingly rare intact Second Doctor stories, starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, Frazer Hines as Jamie an Wendy Padbury as Zoe. First shown in August and September 1968, it was intended to introduce a new monster that would replace the Daleks, following Terry Nation’s decision to withdraw the rights while he planned their own TV show, which never actually materialised. But more of that later…

Dulkis is a planet known for being peaceful in the extreme. So why is there a an island showing all the signs of having been blasted with a nuclear weapon? And who are the quite unpleasant Dominators, and what do they want? And how nasty are their robot servants, the Quarks?

Well, the Quarks, intended as Dalek substitutes, don’t quite make it. Yes, they’re quite deadly, but their constant need to recharge and their squeaky voices mean they lack the creeping menace of the Skaro Psychos. And being relatively stupid robotic servants rather than autonomous, intelligent villains in their own right makes them a bit naff really. They never did return, though they made a lot of appearances in the comic strip in TV Comic in the late 60s, of which I have vague memories.

The story is not one of the strongest or most memorable, and suffered from what are generally termed production problems. Problems that led to the writers having their names taken off the credits, in fact. Still, it’s worth watching at least once, if only for the odd costumes of the Dominators and the slightly nasty Quarks.

Special features are quite light on this release. Apart from the usual commentary, production subtitles, photo gallery and Radio Times Listings, there are just two items:

• Recharge and equalise – a quite nicely done “making of”, with contributions from cast and crew
• Tomorrow’s Times – The Second Doctor What the papers had to say during Patrick Troughton’s era, presented by Caroline John, who played Liz Shaw in Jon Pertwee’s first year on the job.

[1] Though at the current rate, they’re going to run out of material in the next few years. But there will be some reissues of some of the earliest DVD releases, with improved pictures and loads of new extras. And yes, of course I’ll buy them all again.

You know, I had so much fun with Charlie’s latest book, The Hell of it All that I felt compelled to get hold of his previous two books of collected Guardian columns. This is the first of them, which includes a couple of earlier items, then the collected Screen Burn columns from 2000 to 2004.

And yes, it’s more of the same. Vitriol, spleen, sarcasm, some of the most developed swearing this side of Stephen Fry, and more laughs than you’d get from a very funny thing. Reality TV and hideous “talent” shows are eviscerated for your entertainment and enlightenment. Sport is disdained in terms that I heartily agree with, though Charlie shows quite impressive prescience in a May 2004 column in which he talks about what he’d do if he was in charge of the BBC. He suggests that in future football will only be shown

in a form that’ll deliberately enrage the fans – by superimposing an obtuse East European cartoon over the footage, accompanied by the sound of loud, atonal trumpets

OK, we’re still waiting for the cartoons, but I do believe those vuvuzela thingies could be described in that way. So, the question has to be asked: did Charlie manage the World Cup coverage? Eh? Eh? I think we should be told.

And apart from all that, this is TV criticism of the best kind – having watched, or having any intention of watching, the victims subjects of these columns is entirely optional. Or, as Graham Linehan puts it in the introduction:

He watches these things so we don’t have to. Bless him for that.

Good stuff, lots of fun. Read it.

Shock, horror, sensation, etc. Down a bit today.

Here’s another highlight from last weekend’s airshow. Back after an absence of a few years, and still flying in a manner that looks as impossible as it did the first time I saw it, which must have been in the 1970s or thereabouts, it’s a Harrier, taking a bow in this shot:

Harrier