State of the Blog: TV anemia, RSS, Blogroll & future
As predicted, great TV is thin on the ground in August. That's why there's been another frenzy of film reviews (Valkyrie, Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Punisher 2) with more to come if I have time (The Wrestler, Let The Right One In, Dark City Director's Cut). I still have the weekly Chuck reviews every Tuesday (although I'm still disappointed the response has been, well, non-existent*), my revisits to Twin Peaks (which took a break last week, but a new one should be up at the weekend) and the continually entertaining True Blood (at HBO's pace, sorry FX-following Brits.)
I had meant to review Louis Theroux's latest documentary on crystal meth, but I missed it last Sunday and haven't had time to catch-up. I will definitely TRY to, though. God love the iPlayer...
A bit of blog business: I haven't mentioned it before now, but the site's main banner has been restyled. It's now a TV Test Card with a different TV show/movie featured in the centre circle. Occasionally, the surrounding box images will also change. I know many people read DMD using a RSS feedreader where such things aren't part of the "experience", so it would be nice to know those people still visit DMD itself to see these redesigns and similar. I sometimes put polls, links and other goodies in my sidebar (as well as a Twitter widget), which can only be seen if you visit the blog itself.
Which leads me on to the RSS feed. As suggested by Tom last week, my feed now displays entire posts (instead of brief previews). The preview form was intended to funnel people to the main site for web-traffic reasons, but I understand that's a pain for people who enjoy getting their blog updates more immediately and in one place. I'm still unsure if someone reading a post via RSS constitutes a "page hit" for my stats, though -- anyone know for sure? While I'm not a slave to page-hits, if my traffic drops significantly, I may revert to the preview format again, so enjoy it while it lasts.
There's also a new addition to my Blogroll -- FilmFilosopher, run by MaryAnn Johnson, a US critic who writes entertaining reviews and is a particular fan of Doctor Who (which should be encouraged). Anyway, I've enjoyed browsing her extensive archives, so I recommend you give her site a look-see.
A brief eye on the future: I got Virgin+ this week, so I'll have a hardware review of my V+ HD digibox online soon, and I've nearly completed a retrospective review of Doctor Who's series 1 box-set -- which I thought would be an appropriate look-back as Russell T. Davies' tenure draws to a close this year. I've never reviewed the "Ecclestone era" here before, so hopefully Who fans will enjoy that.
* Is it because it's been clashing with Sci-Fi Channel's Dollhouse, or did everyone just torrent Chuck last year? Or, surely not, Brits hate it?
