Marathon

No! Not that sort of marathon, it would be nice to say I was running a marathon but being exercise averse (as I like to put it)I opted for the other type of marathon, the TV marathon. After the air now seems to have cleared after the outburst the other day, I took the time out to catch up on the six hours or so of TV sat waiting for me on the Sky+ box.

The first lucky show to get my attention was FlashForward and its special follow up episode, FlashForward revealed. For once, we are in front of the US who will get to see this next episode on Thursday night (so I believe) and you are in for a treat. Mark and Demitri ignore their bosses instructions (like you didn't see that on coming) and head off for Hong Kong to track down the Persian woman who told Demetri he was going to be murdered to find out how she knew that information and if she knew anything else that might help prevent it happening. After finally tracking her down, using the usual violent and threatening techniques, they find her - surrounded by body guards - and convince her to tell them some more. We then find out that Mark is responsible for his death and it is his gun (matching serial numbers) that delivers the final three blows in a deliberate attempt to kill him. Unconvinced by her story, they try and take her captive but are confronted by a large number of men with guns when they try to leave. It later transpires that they are CIA and Mark gets his badge confiscated but protects Demitri, claiming it was his idea and that he said that the boss had changed his mind.

On the other - non policy side of things, Lloyd convinces Simon that they should go public and they hold a press conference where they reveal that they were the cause of the blackout. Simon still believes that they were not and that the only way to prove it would be by gathering empirical evidence however, Lloyd's emotions take over and ends up confessing all. Now that their faces are both well known, they try to keep a low profile and so Lloyd attempts to move Dylan (his son) to a more secure location. Olivia helps him with this but as Dylan is being put in the ambulance, they kidnap his dad and leave him screaming in the car park with Olivia. Meanwhile, we get to see that Persian lady is in cahoots with the real evil genius behind the blackouts and when Simon comes in to talk to the FBI team about the photo in Somalia he seems genuinely shocked that the structure there is not only real, but matches his exact plans for a device a year before they were drawn up and he claims that the technology to build it is still a long way off.

Going behind the scenes of the show didn't reveal all that much other than that Joseph Finnes - who plays the part of Mark - is another Brit. He had me totally convinced with the Amercian accent and I didn't even spot the connection to his famous relatives. What did surprise me more was that Olivia was apparently using an American accent - which I hadn't noticed - although I knew she was a Brit after she played Penelope in Lost so perhaps that clouded my judgement. No other secrets were revealed unfortunately as the show seems to keep to a very strict secret keeping rule where scripts are shredded just in case people go digging in the bins for clues. We did find out that the shows producer has mapped out the course of events well into the fourth series, which if it gets recommissioned - and lets face it, it will - then we have a decent story line to look forward to without all the stalling as with Lost.

Very nice start to Top Gear this week, with an impressive but equally ridiculous new way to get around in a caravan. James's usual engineering disasters came about and how he ended up at Norwich Airport without being taken out is frankly amazing. He could have done some real damage there - assuming it wasn't all a stunt (and I like to think it wasn't). I'm starting to think that the reason why I like the show has absolutely nothing to do with the cars but simply the ingenuity of the three presenters. James is still my favourite and gained an even bigger lead over the other two this week after the balloon stunt, Jeremy comes in second place because he is just funny to listen to - regardless of what he is talking about. His crazy and often controversial metaphors and views rarely fail to make me chuckle although his suggestion this week for milling heads into cubes was more disturbing than clever.

Radio time now and I didn't do so well on the Chris Moyles Show's What's the Name of That Tune Called? game this morning (well this afternoon really). I only score 0.5 out of 3 which is slightly disappointing. I very nearly got the Cheryl Cole one but couldn't quite place it and I got the name of the Take That song wrong. I had no idea about the last one other than it rang a bell, better luck again tomorrow perhaps.

Moving up three channels to Radio 4 now and a new show I discovered thanks to a nice tweet from Mr O'Briain who was on the show this week. Not sure if he is a regular or a guest (the latter I assume). Still, an interesting mix of physics and comedy which is funny enough to keep me interested and doesn't go off the scale so much as to boggle my mind but simply satisfy my curiosity. I quite like the abstracts of physics but as soon as you get too technical I lose interest and my head starts to hurt. It's a shame really because I find it really interesting but could never study any of it in much detail. The show by the way is called Infinite Monkey Cage, no idea why and by the comment at the end of the show, neither do they. Here is the link, go and listen and occupy yourself for 25 minutes.

Finally on the agenda, it's Tuesday so that means it's ISIHAC time. David Mitchell was the guest this week and I am loving his recent work at the moment, his outbursts are always hilarious and I have started following his Observer column which always proves to be a nice read. Another pat on the back to Twitter as the source of that discovery. This weeks highlight was the Programme Titles section but I also enjoyed their adaptation of the traditional Who am I? party game although I think they slightly missed the point having the names on the side they could read. Once again, the link is here I would have quoted some lines but they are much funnier heard than read and I wouldn't want to spoil it for you.