Watching - June 2026

Tom Scott: England (season/"part" 1, 2026)

Tom Scott, having taken a break from YouTube after ten years of constant activity, returned this year with what is, to all intents and purposes, a broadcast quality documentary series (presumably self-financed and independently produced) covering all the counties in England. The episodes are short, very varied in subject matter and, assuming you like Tom Scott, interesting. Luckily, I do like him. "Season 1" contains the first ten episodes on Nebula, which I signed up to for this. I'm not sure I'm finding anything on Nebula I couldn't find on YouTube, but it wasn't expensive.

Taskmaster (season 18, 2024)

As always, plenty of laughs to be had. It's so impressive that they've kept the standard this high for so many seasons.

Scrubs (season 1, 2001)

Where it all started! In preparation for watching the return of Scrubs, I thought I'd have a quick cruise through all eight seasons (we're not counting season 9), but as usual I'd forgotten how long a season of US sitcoms actually is. Still very funny, sometimes very moving and sometimes a little over-reaching.

F1: The Movie (2025)

Watching this again reminds me of, firstly, how implausible the whole thing is, and secondly, what an amazing publicity coup by the F1 organisation the film is.

Boomerang (1992)

I can't find where now, but I read somewhere that this was both an underrated romcom and an underrated Eddie Murphy film. Marcus (Murphy's character) is a womanizer who doesn't understand why the girls he loves and leaves get upset when he walks away, only to get all possessive and clingy when he comes across Jacqueline (Robin Givens), who treats him the same. Luckily, sweet Angela (Halle Berry) is there to show him what real love is. There's mileage in the idea but the way it's played is slightly clumsy (you can't tell me a player wouldn't realise he's being played, and the role reversal is too pat), and there seems to be a slice missing from the film near the end, where Marcus and Angela fall in love. But Murphy is as watchable as always while being pleasingly more subtle than usual, and a mainstream comedy film populated almost entirely by black characters is still a rare thing.

Ted Lasso (season 1, 2020)

I knew little about this other than it was supposed to be good, but there it was on my free Apple TV subscription, so I gave it a go. When I saw that the credits mentioned Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs, I knew I was in for a good time, and so it proved. There's plenty of laughs of course, but plenty of pathos too. What pleases me most is how English the whole thing is - albeit slightly cleaned up, of course - in a way that surprises me in a US sitcom that is, presumably, primarily intended for a US audience.

Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson (2021)

Mark Ronson has got to be one of the coolest people on the planet and obviously his contact list is unparalleled, but this was a bit of miss for me. I suppose it's possible that's because I already know most of the information being presented here, so although it's interesting to see some things, most of it's labouring the point for me. Might be worth it if you like music but have never wondered about some of the mechanics of making it before.

Minority Report (2002)

Yet another Philip K. Dick novella transplanted onto the screen and slightly bowdlerised as a result, this is nevertheless a satisfying techno-thriller with an enjoyable frosting of "what is reality anyway" (although not too much because that would get in the way).