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SFX Blogger Steven Ellis needs snother holiday after his Sky box went into overload during his last one…

I’ve been away on holiday. Two weeks in Majorca. The weather was great, but it was my son’s first holiday so we didn’t have a very relaxing time; we had a baby wrangling time. But fun was had, the pools were great, the hotel was good and we all got a decent tan. What has my holiday got to do with SFX or sci-fi I hear you ask? Well, not that much. But on my return it was a different matter…

We left in the early hours of Tuesday 14 June and returned mid afternoon on Tuesday 28 June and while I’d been away, both the Sky+ box and my postman had been busy…

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This sort of ties in with what my fellow blogger Laura wrote, about technology letting you watching stuff when you want instead of the old days of sitting down at the time the TV guide told you to. For better or worse, it makes returning from holiday a special treat or a big chore depending on how you look at it.

The Sky+ box had over 20 hours worth of watching to catch up on. I retuned to three episodes of Primeval , two episodes of Human Target , the last two episodes of Game Of Thrones , nine episodes of Enterprise (what? I never watched it first time round and Sky have been putting it on in the afternoons – it’s got space ship in it!) and two episodes of Supernatural . There was also the final episode of season three of Fringe . I’ve already moaned in the SFX forum Fringe thread about the fact that I was leaving for my holiday the day before the Fringe season finale aired and wouldn’t get to watch it for two whole weeks. There was also a fair chunk of non sci-fi TV as well; Dexter , Lie To Me and Castle .

Plus the post man delivered two (three by the time I got round to reading them) issues of 2000AD and issue 211 of SFX . What a great thing to come home to. More sci-fi than you can shake a stick at and all there for me to watch on my own schedule.

As you can imagine I’ve spent quite a bit of the last two weeks being a slave to my Sky+ box. But what a geek overload I’ve had. Being able to sit and watch multiple episodes of programs in one sitting has been a blast.

The Fringe finale was a little bit of a disappointment – not that it wasn’t good, just that the two weeks I was forced to wait was a little too much of a build up I think. It’s still better than a lot of stuff out there. The end of the first GoT (episode nine) made me jump straight into the next one. Thank God I didn’t have to wait a week like everybody else after that ending. The episodes of Enterprise were all great; they really seem to have improved their game right up until that terrible finale. Stupid bloody tacked-on TNG Riker and Troy holodeck episodes. What a disappointment.

The last three episodes of Primeval in one go too. Cracking stuff. Don’t you just love Lester? The other shows were all great, solid entertaining stuff. As I said; getting to watch multiple episodes in one sitting was great, like a mini boxed set watch but with all new stuff. The one drawback was feeling like a bit of a slave to the Sky box. I have to get this stuff watched because the Sky box is busy recording new stuff for me all the time, I might never catch up and be forever stuck as its slave… But it worked out in the end and I am no longer stuck.

And then we come to what the postman delivered: three whole 2000AD progs in one sitting, including one that finished off all the current stories with the next one starting a whole load of new thrills, my thrill power levels were off the scale. The return of Zombo and the gift of part one of a Wagner/MacNeil Dredd story featuring P.J. Maybe were both a real treat. The issue of SFX was a little disappointing; it was the first issue without a letter or comment from one Steven Ellis, or his online persona Kudos, in about four years. I sense a drop in quality, maybe a letter writing campaign should be in order. Who’s with me? Nah, it was a great issue really; as you’d expect from SFX (they let me waffle on here, I have to say nice things about them.)

But the Sky box is almost empty now and I’m almost caught up. I’m back to watching stuff when the telly tells me to. And as I write this my next 2000AD prog will be on the door mat five days from now and its about two weeks until the next SFX .

So it’s back to normality; for a while there I was watching and reading stuff when ever the hell I wanted and it was great fun.

And I didn’t even mention all the catching up I’ve had to do on the various forums and sites right here on the interweb. Coming back from going on holiday really does take it out of you in this digital age doesn’t it? Sure, it’s great having all that stuff to watch and read, but maybe just a week away next year…