As you know, owing to the sheer amount of telly that's around, I have decided to stop reviewing Pushing Daisies and Damages. It saves me time, effort and a certain amount of weekend hassle. I may still find time to comment on various episodes (as I will still be watching them) -- but nothing as detailed as usual.
Speaking of detail, I'm trying to pull back on the length of reviews, too. Not that my reviews are too long, imo, but some reviews will now be closer to 500 words instead of the usual 800 average. Of course, shows that often justify a big word-count won't be affected.
I am adjusting my intention to write reviews for ALL the Star Trek movies before J. J Abrams' reboot arrives in May. I will aim to review the first six that starred the original cast, but only move onto the Next Generation movies if I have the time. TNG reviews could follow later in the summer, perhaps.
Movie reviews in general; I'm trying to review one per week on Friday or Saturday, but this still means I get a huge backlog. I typically watch two or three movies a week, see. RocknRolla, The Escapist, House Bunny, Get Smart, Death Race, etc, are all to come. Do expect a review of Watchmen sometime in March when I get the chance to see it. Feel free to let me know what you're prefer to see reviewed from that list.
In an effort to keep on top of my regular, popular reviews (Lost, 24, Heroes, et al), I lose the time to write reviews for specials or mini-series -- particularly British ones. Recently, Whitechapel and Red Riding have suffered from me being overburdened with regular review obligations. Sometimes I filter them through to a brief review in Sunday's Newslite column, but not always. So, I may start reviewing in a less formal way -- with bullet points, quick comments, etc. This seemed to work okay for Red Riding. I'd prefer to do a "proper" review, but this is better than nothing.
If there's interest, I'd like to start a few "open thread" reviews (perhaps for Daisies and Damages to begin with), but only if I feel there's enough comments to make it worthwhile. There's not much point if only a few people are going to give their opinion. Thoughts?
Sorry, I would dearly love to continue reviewing The Prisoner (and I actually re-watched three mid-season episodes for that reason a few weeks back!), but I don't have the time. I'm still hoping things will calm down by April for me to resume them. Certainly summer tends to be a lot quieter! Fingers crossed.
Another reason for the lack of time to blog is some magazine articles that needed my attention. It's PAID work with deadlines (shudder), so they take precedent -- especially a few days before said deadline! I'm sure you understand. I need to eat.
Anyway, I'm always a bit anxious when I scale back my blogging, or ditch certain reviews, as I would hate it to impact negatively on hits. I'm not driven by stats, but I have put a lot of work into DMD over the past 3 years and I'm proud that it's now attracting so many visitors and is linked to by popular/influential websites, blogs and forums.
Finally, I can't stress enough how important comments are to this blog -- and to me! It's not just flattering when someone takes the time and effort to respond, but also helps me ascertain how much readers care about a particular show, review or feature. And it's fun for other readers, and I encourage heated debates! I do read all the comments, try to respond in most cases, and it does influence how quickly I write reviews, or which ones face the chop. If you don't like to leave a negative comment about something, that's fine -- but please use posts like this one to let me know which shows you're less keen to see reviewed, or just don't watch. It all helps.
Speaking of detail, I'm trying to pull back on the length of reviews, too. Not that my reviews are too long, imo, but some reviews will now be closer to 500 words instead of the usual 800 average. Of course, shows that often justify a big word-count won't be affected.
I am adjusting my intention to write reviews for ALL the Star Trek movies before J. J Abrams' reboot arrives in May. I will aim to review the first six that starred the original cast, but only move onto the Next Generation movies if I have the time. TNG reviews could follow later in the summer, perhaps.
Movie reviews in general; I'm trying to review one per week on Friday or Saturday, but this still means I get a huge backlog. I typically watch two or three movies a week, see. RocknRolla, The Escapist, House Bunny, Get Smart, Death Race, etc, are all to come. Do expect a review of Watchmen sometime in March when I get the chance to see it. Feel free to let me know what you're prefer to see reviewed from that list.
In an effort to keep on top of my regular, popular reviews (Lost, 24, Heroes, et al), I lose the time to write reviews for specials or mini-series -- particularly British ones. Recently, Whitechapel and Red Riding have suffered from me being overburdened with regular review obligations. Sometimes I filter them through to a brief review in Sunday's Newslite column, but not always. So, I may start reviewing in a less formal way -- with bullet points, quick comments, etc. This seemed to work okay for Red Riding. I'd prefer to do a "proper" review, but this is better than nothing.
If there's interest, I'd like to start a few "open thread" reviews (perhaps for Daisies and Damages to begin with), but only if I feel there's enough comments to make it worthwhile. There's not much point if only a few people are going to give their opinion. Thoughts?
Sorry, I would dearly love to continue reviewing The Prisoner (and I actually re-watched three mid-season episodes for that reason a few weeks back!), but I don't have the time. I'm still hoping things will calm down by April for me to resume them. Certainly summer tends to be a lot quieter! Fingers crossed.
Another reason for the lack of time to blog is some magazine articles that needed my attention. It's PAID work with deadlines (shudder), so they take precedent -- especially a few days before said deadline! I'm sure you understand. I need to eat.
Anyway, I'm always a bit anxious when I scale back my blogging, or ditch certain reviews, as I would hate it to impact negatively on hits. I'm not driven by stats, but I have put a lot of work into DMD over the past 3 years and I'm proud that it's now attracting so many visitors and is linked to by popular/influential websites, blogs and forums.
Finally, I can't stress enough how important comments are to this blog -- and to me! It's not just flattering when someone takes the time and effort to respond, but also helps me ascertain how much readers care about a particular show, review or feature. And it's fun for other readers, and I encourage heated debates! I do read all the comments, try to respond in most cases, and it does influence how quickly I write reviews, or which ones face the chop. If you don't like to leave a negative comment about something, that's fine -- but please use posts like this one to let me know which shows you're less keen to see reviewed, or just don't watch. It all helps.
