146 / 29th Jan 2017

THING: Sherlock
QUESTION: How would you commit the perfect murder?

CONTAINS: What Top Gear would be if it were a story, how to define the triad of the British psyche, the always awful BBC orchestra, and which one of us has met a murderer

LINKS: Sherlock / Strange Pilgrims Gabriel Garcia Marquez / Train to Busan Official Trailer #1 (2016) Yoo Gong Korean Zombie Movie HD / Sherlockian.​Net / Sherlock: How To Film Thought / Sherlock’s Mark Gatiss hits back at criticism with an excellent poem When literary beef gets real / A Brief Look at Texting and the Internet in Film / Young Sherlock Holmes - Trailer / Confessions of a wife who got away with the perfect murder: How the fantasist who abandoned her five children hid husband's body in attic for 18 years - and couldn't keep quiet about it, but no one took her seriously

144 / 15th Jan 2017

THING: Planet Earth 2
QUESTION: What animal would you kill off?

CONTAINS: Suitcases full of cobras, yelling at evolution, when you fight with dice and David Attenborough's things for tadpoles

LINKS: Planet Earth II / The Good Soldier Švejk: Jaroslav Hašek's comic masterpiece / Is BBC Question Time’s audience producer really a fascist? / Watch the Most Painfully Awkward Interview of 2016: 7 Minutes With Jerry Lewis / Iguana chased by snakes - Planet Earth II: Islands - BBC One / Great White Shark Attack On Seal / Planet Earth II more popular than X Factor with young viewers / Blue whale penis / The Planet Earth 2 crew put every turtle hatchling it saw or filmed back in the sea / Why can't we just kill all mosquitoes? / Crazy Koala Fight / Beware of the Weever fish! / Man punches a kangaroo in the face to rescue his dog (Original HD) / The Scary Door - The most evil creature of them all / Horniman / New Research Suggests Monogamy Killed the Penis Bone in Humans

139 / 4th Dec 2016

THING: Black Mirror
QUESTION: Is technology a trap?

CONTAINS: What porkies are to furries, the decline of Film Crit Hulk, racist Short Circuit, and the effluvium of the modern world

LINKS:  Black Mirror / Leonard Cohen’s Language of Symbolism: The Book of Mercy, Various Positions, And The Unified Heart / Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea (2014) by Adam Roberts – Pincher Verne / Buckethead - Soothsayer (Best Live Version) / Film Crit Hulk Smash: BLACK MIRROR Is Kinda Bullshit / IN CONVERSATION: CHARLIE BROOKER The Black Mirror creator on predicting Trump, Brexit, and how the internet is making us crazy. / Eight Takes on ‘Black Mirror’ Opinions, complaints, and recommendations for Season 3 / Afraid of Technology / Charlie Brooker 2014 Wipe - Reasons To Be Fearful '14

THING: Lizzie and Sarah QUESTION: Why is British TV so lame?

CONTAINS: Spaced revisited, Hollywood sexism, why Ceefax is hell, and what Frenchmen do when walking around in long coats

LINKS: Lizzie and Sarah / Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany on Rejecting Hollywood Beauty Standards: 'I Refused to Wax My Mustache' / You May Know Me from Such Roles as Terrorist #4 / Limmy's Show - Yes or No? / Paul Trailer - Paul Movie Trailer / The Singing Detective / Christopher Eccleston and writer Peter Flannery: how we made Our Friends in the North / The Teletext Museum / ‘Auntie Mabel doesn’t give a toss about Serbia’ Jo Glanville on the future of the World Service / Blue Jam

THING: Game of Thrones QUESTION: How far is too far?

CONTAINS: Poltergeist's pretentious cousin, allergic Pokemon, which meme always dies, and a pair of Grant Moccasins

LINKS: Game of Thrones / Game of Thrones, Season 5: "Mother's Mercy" by Sarah Mesle What Happened and What Should Have Happened / DavidIcke.com Headline Meme Thread / Too Many Kings - A Game of Thrones version of Too Many Cooks / We Will No Longer Be Promoting HBO’s Game of Thrones / ‘Game Of Thrones’ Fans Shocked After Some Little Goblin Or Something Killed Off In Last Night’s Episode / GG Allin.com / The Philosopher and the Student Was the saga of Colin McGinn really a clear-cut case of sexual harassment? / Pádraig Ó Méalóid AKA Slovobooks Last Alan Moore Interview? / Gormenghast (novel) / Moorcock's Miscellany

THING: The Simpsons QUESTION: Is it better to burn out than to fade away?

CONTAINS: Some East End magic, what the robots really find at the end of A.I., how Super Hans shoots first, and William Shatner as a counter-example to entropy

LINKS: Simpsons Wiki / Simpsons World / The Pervert's Guide to Ideology: HD Theatrical Trailer / RedLetterMedia / James Holden The Inheritors / Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast Episode 8 - Stewart Lee / "The Odyssey" 1x12 with Ryan Reynolds / Rick and Morty Simpsons Couch Gag / Emil Gilels - Beethoven - Piano Sonata No 28 in A major, Op 101

THING: Doctor Who QUESTION: Where are all the English superheroes?

CONTAINS: Against Space Jesus, the monster as fundamental metaphor, the superpower of Sherlock Holmes, and being raised as a child on Judge Death

LINKS: Doctor Who Themes (All of Them) / Philip Sandifer TARDIS Eruditorum Aka "A Psychochronography in Blue." / Sherlock Holmes, Victorian Gentleman / Remember, Remember the Fifth of November... / Alan Moore: 'Why shouldn't you have a bit of fun while dealing with the deepest issues of the mind?' /Judge Death: Young Death, Boyhood of a Superfiend review / Where are all the British superheroes?

THING: Breaking Bad QUESTION: Why does everything always end so badly?

CONTAINS: Tex-Mex from Mexas, the call of Deadwood, American endings, and the corporate terror of socio-political themes

LINKS: The Closure-Happy “Breaking Bad” Finale / Breaking Bad Series Finale: A Man Becomes a Legend in 'Felina' / Damon Lindelof on Why 'Breaking Bad's' Finale Let Him Say Goodbye to 'Lost' (Guest Column) / After "Breaking Bad": What Now? / The 16 Best And Worst TV Series Finales / Sony's Embarrassing Powerpoints Are Even Worse Than Their Shitty Movies 

THING: The Sopranos QUESTION: Should you make moral judgements about fictional characters?

CONTAINS: Offensive Banksy cartoons, the South London accent as the worst London accent, and finding your momma with Google Earth

LINKS: AV Club The Sopranos / The Sopranos: Definitive Explanation of “The END” / Fictionalism / Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality

THING: Adventure Time QUESTION: Are we becoming a culture of children?

CONTAINS: Talking like an Orange ad, the subversion of twee, and Aversion-Therapy from playing Doom 

LINKS: Castles in the Air / Too cool for school / 'Adventure Time': The Trippiest Show on Television

THING: Steve Coogan QUESTION: What don’t you find funny?

CONTAINS: Ping Pong slaves, Ian’s Cricket Bat Bar, Mancunian headgear, the Ian Alright Scale, and Mazin’s Thai green chili paste recipe 

LINKS: Brazil referee decapitated after stabbing player / Steve Coogan: I'm a huge fan of Top Gear. But this time I've had enough

THING: Chris Morris QUESTION: Comedy - harmless funny, or borderline sociopathy?

CONTAINS: Why babies laugh, the death of BBC3 and Self-facilitating Media Nodes 

LINKS: Why Bother? - Christ / Endor Holocaust / The twisted mind behind “La La Land”

THING: Soylent QUESTION: Is food over-rated?

CONTAINS: The Holy Mountain, Silicon Valley and The Evil Power of the Snooze Button 

LINKS: The End of Food / We Drank Soylent, The Weird Food of The Future

THING: Community QUESTION: Are sitcoms comfort food and does it matter?

CONTAINS: Samuel Beckett, the dread of Red Dwarf, and how to fake a laugh 

LINKS: YOU ARE OUT OF FUCKING EXCUSES. HULK COMMAND YOU TO WATCH COMMUNITY… RIGHT NOW. / How Dan Harmon Drives Himself Crazy Making Community / Mega 'Community' interview with Dan Harmon / Young blood can reverse some effects of ageing, study finds 

THING: Lost QUESTION: What constitutes a waste of time in experiencing art?

CONTAINS: The Bitter Taste of Disappointment, Church-flavoured wrapping, Super Mario Brother and Dune

LINKS: Dune - The Art of Navigation / LOST In 3 Minutes / HULK FINALLY READY TO POINT ON THE DOLL AND SHOW WHERE THE LOST FINALE TOUCHED HULK / 108 Answers to LOST's Supposedly Unanswered Questions / 'Sexual depravity' of penguins that Antarctic scientist dared not reveal