"Spearhead from Space" launched Doctor Who into the 1970s with not only a new Doctor, Jon Pertwee, but a new assistant, the scientist Liz Shaw (Caroline John) and a regular place in the show for UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney). It also marked the debut of the programme in colour and saw the Doctor stranded on Earth after Patrick Troughton's last adventure, "The War Games" (1969). Not only that, but it proved the only serial in the show's history to be entirely shot both on film and location, giving it a uniquely cinematic feel. Regenerating in a country hospital, the Doctor finds himself helping the Brigadier investigate an unusual meteorite and its links with a sinister doll factory. The Autons are cybernetic killers-anticipating The Terminator by some 15 years-and the sequence in which they break through high-street shop windows to slaughter pedestrians remains a chilling highpoint of Doctor Who's entire history. Things do turn silly with a subplot involving a waxworks museum, while the ultimate battle with the Nestine consciousness is more likely to induce laughter than fear, but as vintage television nostalgia this is fast-moving splendidly characterised entertainment. -Gary S. DalkinOn the DVD: The remastered picture and sound are exceptional for a 1970 TV show. Obviously in 4:3 and mono, this DVD offers technical quality easily as good as many feature films. There is a very friendly, if not especially informative, commentary from Nicholas Courtney and Caroline John, and subtitles that offer background facts and figures. [+]

In the sitcom The King of Queens, comedian Kevin James has created a new archetype: the sensitive lug. This deceptively simple comedy bounces along because delivery man Doug Heffernen (James), though completely a guy's guy, constantly struggles to keep the world around him in a delicate emotional balance. Meanwhile, his wife Carrie (Leah Remini), though utterly feminine (and one of the sexiest women on television), uses the kind of no-nonsense rational approach that's usually a man's province. Add to this mix Carrie's father Arthur (Jerry Stiller), whose life as a fussy, self-absorbed retiree makes him more like their child than an adult, and you've got the building blocks for an excellent and durable show. The first season of The King of Queens quickly found its voice with stories firmly rooted in the everyday world, rarely spinning off into absurdity-and why should it, when there's such a wealth of humor to be found in petty neuroses (when Doug gets assigned an attractive young woman as a trainee at work, he gets hurt when Carrie isn't remotely jealous), ill-advised scheming (to weasel out of a traffic ticket, Carrie agrees to go out on a date with the cop who pulled her over), and juggling obligations to friends and family (just about every episode). Brilliant comic bits abound; one classic moment features Doug and Carrie having a furious argument in absolute silence at a cello concert-a scene that fuses deft physicality, well-developed characters, and sheer silliness. The King of Queens is a delight. -Bret Fetzer.

This 1988 comedy starred and was scripted by John Cleese and directed by Charles Crichton, veteran Ealing Comedy director. After 1986's Clockwise-in which he played a manic loser similar to Basil Fawlty-A Fish Called Wanda saw Cleese opting for a more sympathetic lead role. Cleese plays Archie Leach (Cary Grant's real name), a barrister living a typically English life of quiet desperation, who falls prey to the American charms of Jamie Lee Curtis. Posing as a law student, she's actually involved in a diamond robbery with psychotic but occasionally clueless Kevin Kline ("The London Underground is not a revolutionary movement!") and Michael Palin, an animal rights' activist. A Fish Called Wanda is, typically of Cleese, well constructed but the romantic heart of the movie softens it a little. It was intended as a satire on Anglo-American differences but most people remember it for a running joke involving squashed dogs, the chips up Palin's nose and the scene where Cleese is hung out of a window by his ankles. The same cast reassembled for 1997's vastly inferior Fierce Creatures. -David Stubbs A Fish Called Wanda was the blockbuster which proved that John Cleese could be a movie star in his own right. Directed by the Veteran Charles Crichton, who made the 1951 Ealing Comedies classic The Lavender Hill Mob, Wanda combined Ealing-comedy capers and Basil Fawlty-esque farce with contemporary big-screen swearing and black comedy. The plot develops in classic film noir style as Cleese's lawyer, Archie Leech, gets sucked into the double-crossing aftermath of a London diamond heist. [+]

Freddy Got Fingered, a quite astonishingly tasteless comedy from director-writer-star Tom Green, is especially for those audiences who feel that there's something stuffily restrained and fuddy-duddyish about the Farrelly Brothers and South Park and that Chris Morris treats controversial subjects with a tactfulness that borders on the overly fastidious. A gawky, goateed 28-year-old who still lives at home, Gordo (Green) wants to be an animator but mostly goofs around in a strangely hysterical manner that goes beyond the expected Jim Carrey style cut-up to become disturbingly like complete dementia. Gordo's main clash is with his tyrannical but also semi-insane father (Rip Torn), but his life also includes a wheelchair-bound girlfriend (Marisa Coughlan) who likes having her paralysed legs caned and a smug younger brother (the Freddy of the title) who lands up in a home for sexually abused kids (they all sit around watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on video) when Gordo casually accuses Dad of child abuse during a family counselling session. Typical gags include: Green dressed up in a fresh deerskin being hit by a truck; Green masturbating an elephant to spray Torn with a firehose gusher. Guest appearances: the star's spouse Drew Barrymore (who featured Green in Charlie's Angels), baseball star Shaquille O'Neal, Anthony Michael Hall, Julie Hagerty from Airplane!. It's more horrible than funny, though there is something almost refreshing about its absolute ruthlessness, which is only abandoned in an out-of-place father-son bonding scene near the end. The film also has an interesting 1970s soundtrack, mostly of punk standards that fit the anything-to-irritate-you attitude. -Kim Newman.

The old saying that the more things change, the more things stay the same seems almost custom-built for the seventh series of the popular sitcom That '70s Show. Not only did the 2004-2005 season mark the departure of its two biggest stars-Topher Grace and Ashton Kutcher, who left to embark on their movie careers-but Hyde (Danny Masterson) meets his biological father (Tim Reid) and sister (Megalyn Echikunwoke); Red (Kurtwood Smith) ends his financial worries by opening a muffler shop; and Fez (Wilmer Valderamma) moves in with Kelso (Kutcher) to provide a "safe" home for his baby. Old faces make return engagements as well, including Midge Pinciotti (Tanya Roberts), Kelso's brother Casey (Luke Wilson), who coaches Eric through a remedial gym course, and Leo (Tommy Chong), who offers to help Kelso with his daughter. There's also a new member of the gang (Bret Harrison), a new blonde look for Donna, and plenty of fun guest stars (Lindsay Lohan as a potential love interest for Fez, Eliza Dushku as a scheming intern at Hyde's father's radio station, and Brooke Shields, The Office: An American Workplace's Jenna Fischer, and Bob Newhart Show vet Jack Riley). And if the show's loose and bawdy charm seems to have dimmed a bit in these episodes, the comfortable interplay between the cast members still feels the banter of real friends and family, which remains the key to the show's long-running appeal. The four-disc Season 7 set includes light-hearted commentary by director David Trainor, who waxes effusively about his cast on three episodes (season opener "Time Is On My Side," "Angie," and season finale "Till the Next Goodbye"). Behind the Polyester is a short chat with the show's executive producers on developing the seventh season, and there's a capsule review of the season's shenanigans, as well as promos for all of its episodes. Finally, the underpraised Don Stark (perennially clueless Bob Pinciotti) reminiscences about his favorite moments from the show, especially his garish outfits and headgear. - Paul Gaita, Amazon. com.

The team behind Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary-two really stupid, gross-out films that worked and were quite funny-also made King Pin, a really stupid, gross-out comedy that doesn't work and isn't funny at all. Woody Harrelson stars as a former bowling phenomenon with a hook for a hand, and Randy Quaid is an Amish farmer with a hidden talent for pins. The two join forces and get a sexy business partner (Vanessa Angel), and the film starts looking more and more like a jokey variation of The Colour of Money. The Colour of Money, however, didn't feature jokes about having oral sex with a hideous landlady or defecating in a sink or dragging disgusting stuff out of one's teeth with a length of floss. Bill Murray provides some much-needed relief as Harrelson's ex-partner turned rival. How come this stuff is obnoxious while the equally perverse punch lines of There's Something About Mary are a riot? It's a great mystery, all right, but there it is. -Tom Keogh.