10 | December | 2025

The first recording today is Pokemon Battle Dimension – Throwing the Track Switch.

Someone has a Glameow.

And there’s a Buizel.

Jessie hatches a plan to steal Aipom and Buizel by pretending to be a Pokemon au pair service. Somehow nobody recognises the person who’s been their enemy for hundreds of episodes.

But at least they’re doing it for James’ benefit, since he’s been miserable since giving up Cacnea. “Can’t you see we’re running this whole sham for you?” “We know you’ve been bummed, so we were catching you some new Pokemon to snap you out of it, Dig.” “New Pokemon? You did this for me?” “Of course we did. We wanted to see that clueless sparkle in your eyes again.” “We really missed our favourite happy sap.”

“We’re all touched by your emotional release, but you’re still just a bunch of thieves.” This programme is very strange.

Team Rocket get defeated, but at least James is back to his happy self.

Media Centre Description: Ash continues his quest to become the greatest Pokemon trainer ever. As the gang draw closer to the next Gym Battle, and Dawn’s next Pokemon Contest, they struggle with the idea of exchanging Pokemon.

Recorded from CITV on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 07:33

After this the recording ends with the start of Power Rangers Jungle Fury.

The next recording is a repeat of Space 1999 – Force of Life.

Media Centre Description: Intergalactic adventures of the Moonbase Alpha team. A terrifying force from outer space brings freezing death to Alpha personnel.

Recorded from ITV4 on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 10:18

After this the recording ends with the start of The Professionals.

The next recording is The Simpsons – Fraudcast News.

Homer accidentally destroys Geezer Rock, the local landmark.

Mr Burns is caught in the landslide and presumed dead.

Lisa publishes her poem for Geezer Rock as a local newspaper, and everyone’s reading it.

Mr Burns survived the rockfall.

When the media say horrible things about him, he buys every media outlet in town. He even makes Itchy and Scratchy. He doesn’t like wind turbines. Did Donald Trump watch this episode?

Only Lisa’s newspaper can tell the truth about Mr Burns.

He fights back with a smear campaign.

Lisa gives up.

But Homer does some good parenting for once.

And Lisa has encouraged everyone in town to publish their own news.

Media Centre Description: Reports of Mr Burns’s death are greatly exaggerated. When the obituaries tell the truth about him, he starts buying up the media to brainwash Springfield.

Recorded from Channel 4 on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 17:58

The recording ends with the start of Hollyoaks.

The final recording today is Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

I should remind readers of the rather amazing fact that the man who directed this film, and also Con Air, also directed the pop video for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up.

Anyway, when this movie was announced, I had played some of the Tomb Raider games, but movies based on video games tended to suck. I think I made a comment somewhere along the lines of “I can’t wait to watch Angelina Jolie take five minutes to get into the right position to press a button while saying “No” a lot”, as that was often my experience of playing the older games.

But I have to admit she does look the part.

Noah Taylor plays Bryce, her technical specialist.

Chris Barrie plays her butler. “Is that Rimmer?” asked my daughter. I’ve raised her well.

The Illuminati are after something or other, and they’ve got Iain Glen as Manfred Powell looking for it, assisted by Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mr Pimms.

Daniel Craig plays Alex West, another archaeologist.

There’s a cameo from Leslie Phillips as an antiquities expert.

There’s a lot of action, including an aerial ballet sequence when Croft Manor is attacked by soldiers looking for the artefact she found in her father’s things.

Jon Voight plays Lara’s father, and I spent most of his scenes wondering who dubbed him, but maybe I misjudged him and he can actually do a passable English accent.

This is not a bad film, but I admit it tends to leave me unengaged. There’s plenty of action, it looks very nice, but somehow it just doesn’t spark for me.

Media Centre Description: Action tale adapted from the popular video game in which the eponymous heroine races against time to find an ancient relic before it falls into the wrong hands. Leaving behind her life of luxury, the highly-trained adventurer travels to exotic and dangerous locales, where she battles a variety of fantastical creatures in the knowledge that the fate of mankind rests in her hands.

Recorded from BBC THREE on Wednesday 3rd June 2009 21:00

BBC Genome: BBC THREE Wednesday 3rd June 2009 21:00

After this there’s 60 Seconds of news.