Start the week @ RD/KA!: Meanwhile... just last week

Badger and my ongoing effort to play all the Combat Commander scenarios continued in a marathon 7-game session which took us into the new Battle Pack scenarios.

Before that though I lazed a day away watching all 13 episodes of The Wire, Season 4, which I'd been given for my birthday last month. Pure unadulterated TV heaven. Watching it, I was made vividly aware of how DVD's radically change the way we consume TV, enabling us to watch the TV we want at our leisure, the way we're familiar with from books. This strikes me as something more than just a matter of convenience, a notion which for me was underlined by the oft-cited 'novelistic' style of The Wire, a feature of the show which I'd warrant works better for the DVD viewer than the weekly TV viewer.

Speaking of TV heaven, I'm keeping up with the new Doctor Who season too, naturally enough. I know some people weren't too happy at the thought of Katherine Tate as the new assistant. No fan of her comedy sketch show myself, I've been reserving my judgement. Three episodes in, I'm quite happy. The essential relationship between the Doctor and Donna follows logically enough from those of Rose and Martha- true love, unrequited love, and now no love at all. This projects a nice line of character development for the Doctor and his assistants (all of whom we know are to appear in this series). The comedy aspect, which would be expected from a writing team playing to Katherine Tate's strength, has been handled well.

Something I'm finding particularly intriguing is the sense that, in the new series, everything is simultaneously familiar and different. Familiar: it's the Doctor we've come to love all over again. Different: I can't really say for sure. I just feel that the new kind of relationship between the Doctor and Donna gives the episodes a dynamic subtly different from those featuring Rose or Martha. Whatever, I'm liking it.

Incidentally, Doctor Who is one of those shows which just has to be watched each week. The eager anticipation, the hook of the prologue, the thrill of the theme, these features of the episodic format are irresistable essentials of the pleasure of Doctor Who for me. There's no substitute for that Saturday moment! ;)