Definitely will watch Sons of Anarchy S:4, Grimm S:1. And I really want to watch Farscape.

I have an arbitration question... Stargate SG-1 is TV, so it counts; Stargate the film is directly related so it counts, too. Then given that Saturday Night Live is TV, and counts, do expansions/spin-off movies based on sketches - e.g. Wayne's World and Coneheads - count too? (And presumably Life of Brian counts as being directly-releated to Flying Circus..?)

I was thinking I may focus on currently-on-TV programmes (since I've gotten very behind thanks to Horror, Comedy and Christmas), but this is nominally a DVD forum/challenge, and I have many to watch... but then Amazon Instant Video is a so much handier method to watch by. Ah, modern "problems"!

Sure. Just remember that while connected movies are welcome, we do encourage participants to focus more on TV series and specials. It's not a rule, per se; you could watch movies exclusively and that's fine, but we do feel that it sort of sidesteps the spirit of the challenge.

Last year I did SNL 1975-1980 and included movies based on sketches from that era

But Life Of Brian isn't based on sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Life Of Brian is directly related to Monty Python's Flying Circus like Back To The Future is directly related to Family Ties.

And Now For Something Completely Different is the only movie directly related to that TV show.

Oh, quite. I just wondered out loud (on page) because I'd been meaning to watch Coneheads for the comedy challenge and ran out of time, so I thought it worth a query.

Similarly, I've been having a personal wrangle over whether using Amazon Instant Video so much is sort of against the spirit of a challenge on the DVDTalk website. Particularly when I've got a pile of discs to watch...!

Good call. How did it hold up...?

It's hardly that tenuous - Holy Grail and Life are little more than a series of loosely-connected sketches (Brian is more of a coherent film) which makes them a direct continuation of the TV show, even if they aren't directly expanded/inspired-by particular sketches. Future shares nothing with Family Ties but a cast member (so far as I'm aware), and Family Ties wasn't unconnected sketches.

It's all academic, really, since I wasn't thinking about lining them up - they just popped into my head when I was trying to think of other films "based" on sketches rather than being direct prequels/sequels/specials like Stargate, Porridge, Curse of the Were-Rabbit, etc.

And Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Not at all, since this site and its users have been shifting our discussion and viewing to more and more digital. That's why this challenge has an asterisk on the "DVD" in its title.

I haven't missed the list thread, have I? Will it be posted this week?

Merry Christmas Eve, David.

That direct connection is necessary for our purposes. This is why not all of the direct-to-video DC Comics animated movies are eligible for our challenge. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is, because it was a direct part of Batman: The Animated Series, but Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is not, despite being produced by the same people and also starring Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly as Batman and Superman, respectively.

It's story continuity, not the production credits, that determine eligibility.

I knew insisting on that asterisk would pay off...!

I still secretly hope the rules will change so the challenge starts at dusk instead of midnight/new year.

Check the list thread rules.

I thought it did start at dusk?


Per the rules stated on the list thead:

This challenge straddles the entire month of January, beginning at dusk on New Year's Eve and concluding at dawn 1 February 2013.

For clarity's sake, I will be carrying over the easy-count method from the comedy challenge here.

Could you please clarify that method here? Thanks.

There are various counting methods for TV content, converting to movie equivalency, etc. As a participant and as a host, I just can't say I care. If you want to count each episode as an entry, great. If you want to be uniform with other, movie-centric challenges and convert TV time to movie time, knock yourself out.

I'm much more interested in the discussion thread being lively and thoughtful than I am in viewing counts.

Thanks, Min!

1 episode= 1 entry

I plan to do the same easy count method.

So what about shows like Virginian and Columbo? They are 1.5 hr usually...is that still 1 episode?

That's why I'm going for 1 hour equivalences. It doesn't make sense to me to count an episode of FRIENDS as the same as a TV-movie.

I watched last year's Christmas episode of OUTNUMBERED last night which was 38 minutes. It's a BBC show but I guess it was that length to fit into 45 minute with adverts slot when it is sold on to other channels? I'm assuming so so if we were in January I'd be counting that as 0.75

I get that we're not meant to be competing, but I want to get a total so that I have something to beat next year!

Happy Christmas to all by the way! :-)

Same here. It's also "traditional" for this challenge.
Considering modern commercial loads if that were a US series it'd be in a one hour time slot. In the past BBC series tended to run a bit longer than US counterparts (mainly due to the way commercial blocks were scheduled, which has changed conserably) but I'd still suspect that episode originally aired in a one hour slot. Were it to air on US cable that 38 minutes would be almost too long for a one hour slot!

Merry Christmas!

Santa's come and gone but no one is stirring... well... other than Grandma and me!

Didn't check those rules, just checked the out of date ones here.

Saw The West Wing just got added to Netflix streaming...

Since I'm not as much a fan of New Years specials as I am Christmas and Thanksgiving specials, I may start the tv challenge a little early, and kind of leave off gradually on the holiday challenge.