Cruise of the Gods - why did it take us so long to watch this?

Cruise of the Gods originally aired back at Xmas 2002, with a DVD release the following year.

How did we miss that?

We meant to watch it; we've meant to watch it on re-runs: yet somehow we kept missing it. As the years passed, its potential amusement quotient rose in direct proportion to the number of DVD boxsets I purchased and the range of academic research / fan-fiction I was reading. And I really should have taken my reading 'Wiffle Lever to Full' as a sign to watch Cruise of the Gods immediately.

I failed.

But, many things will arrive at their appropriate destination eventually and so it was that last night we watched Brydon and Coogan and Corden et al bring all-too-deftly to screen some of the excruciatingly familiar tropes of (sci-fi/cult TV/cult movie) fandom such as:

• banal questioning of guests
• costume wearing
• attention to detail by fans beyond that of even most methodical continuity checking of writers, actors, directors etc.

It was all done with incredible affection though - or at least I felt so - and as such it made us laugh and appreciate its targets all the more.

And, despite the fact that no doubt 'Children of Castor' was rubbish, I couldn't help wanting to have watched more of it. Which probably says everything about me you need to know.

Genre meme - belated and shaming

Via lovely EineKleineRob whom I have been shamefully neglecting on my blog visits. In defence he's on a long list of 'I feel guilty' blogs I keep meaning to read each day. So he is in extensive company.

Anyway: this is a list of genre fiction that has been doing the rounds and I thought I would respond to it (as you all know I like a list)

* - read it
Bold - would re-read.
Italics - started / read once
Plain - didn't bother / haven't yet got a round tuit


1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien - seriously, I've never even bothered. LOVED seeing the films in a single day on a big screen though.
2. *The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien - I was 10.
3. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien - thought about it. Changed my mind.
4. *Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
5. *Robot series, Isaac Asimov - hey, I can read classic SF
6. Dune, Frank Herbert - life is short
7. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein - I know, I really should have
8. *The Earthsea series, Ursula le Guin - vividly remembered from childhood, I now have a copy in a single volume that I keep meaning to re-read
9. *Neuromancer, William Gibson - didn't really get on with it
10. *Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury - will re-read
11. *The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham - oh yes! Why no Midwich Cuckoos?
12. A Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe
13. Discworld series, Terry Pratchett - (whistles casually, hoping no-one will notice)
14. *Sandman series, Neil Gaiman - am due my annual/bi-annual rereading. LOVE 'EM.
15. *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams - brilliant, but the radio was what bought it to life
16. *Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey - should go back to this as I'm pretty certain I enjoyed what I read.
17. *Interview with the Vampire series, Anne Rice - tried, just couldn't be arsed.
18. The Shining, Stephen King - nope, but freaked by flims and TV, I have generally avoided most SK writing.
19. *The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin - A while back. Must re-read.
20. The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny - for shame...
21. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke - loathed the film with passion. Wouldn't feel able to read the book with interest.
22. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
23. Ringworld, Larry Niven.
24. Elric of Melnibone series, Michael Moorcock
25. The Dying Earth series, Jack Vance
26. Lyonesse series, Jack Vance
27. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson.
28. A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin
29. The Worm Ourobouros, E.R. Eddison
30. Conan series, Robert E. Howard
31. Lankhmar series, Fritz Leiber
32. *Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick. - preferred the film, but could see the point of the (very different) novel that inspired it.
33. *The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
34. *The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells
35. *The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells - I had a period of borrowing classic SF from the library way back and read several times over.
36. Eon, Greg Bear
37. Book of the First Law series, Joe Abercrombie - on my 'to read' list
38. *Miss Marple stories, Agatha Christie - lost track of how many I read...
39. *Hercule Poirot stories, Agatha Christie - ditto...
40. *Lord Peter Wimsey stories, Dorothy L. Sayers - much preferred to AC
41. *The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett - brilliant
42. *The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan - delightful
43. *Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Often re-read these (just missing one volume from the same edition of the books by Penguin)
44. Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft. - sorry...
45. Inspector Wexford stories, Ruth Rendell - tv only I'm afraid
46. *Adam Dalgliesh stories, P.D. James - read several
47. *Philip Marlowe stories, Raymond Chandler - classics of the genre
48. The Godfather, Mario Puzo - friend Helen swears by the book, but I really only know the film version
49. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth - adore the film, never bothered with the book
50. The Fourth Protocol, Frederick Forsyth
51. Smiley series, John le Carre
52. Gentleman Bastard series, Scott Lynch
53. The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson
54. *Watchmen series, Alan Moore - read the initial release
55. *Maus, Art Spiegelman - one of the best ever graphic novels
56. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Miller
57. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi - its on the shelf of 'stuff to read'
58. *Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling.
59. Chrestomanci series, Diana Wynne-Jones
60. Ryhope Wood series, Robert Holdstock
61. Wilt series, Tom Sharpe.
62. Riftwar Cycle, Raymond E. Feist
63. Temeraire series, Naomi Novik .
64. *Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis. - charming writing (though it loses something in the perspective of atheistic adulthood)
65. *His Dark Materials series, Phillip Pullman - wonderful and intelligent writing, and also *SOB!* mucho tears
66. Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
67. Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer - wouldn't spit on them to put out a fire.
68. The Night's Dawn trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton
69. *Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer. - Neil has read some of these to me, which has been lovely, but I have read all for myself. Very good fun and Holly rocks!
70. Honor Harrington series, David Weber
71. Hannibal Lecter series, Thomas Harris
72. The Dark Tower series, Stephen King
73. It, Stephen King
74. The Rats series, James Herbert
75. Dirk Gently series, Douglas Adams
76. Jeeves and Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse - please do not hate me
77. *The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown - hokum with knobs on. Dreadful prose. Still a page-turner though!
78. The Culture Series, Iain M. Banks
79. The Duncton series, William Horwood
80. The Illuminatus! trilogy, Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
81. The Aberystwyth series, Malcom Pryce. - on the long list of things to read
82. Morse stories, Colin Dexter
83. Navajo Tribal Police stories, Tony Hillerman
84. *The Ipcress File, Len Deighton - many years ago
85. Enigma, Robert Harris
86. Fatherland, Robert Harris
87. The Constant Gardener, John le Carre
88. *The House of Cards trilogy, Michael Dobbs - read in the wake of the TV series, but highly enjoyable froth
89. *The Dark is Rising saga, Susan Cooper - hell yes! Grew up on these
90. Psychotechnic League and Polesotechnic League series, Poul Anderson
91. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
92. Star Wars: Thrawn trilogy, Timothy Zahn
93. Ender's Game series, Orson Scott Card
94. *Gormenghast series, Meryvn Peake - read the whole lot, but got very bored on the finale
95. Miles Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold
96. *The Once and Future King, T.H. White -definitely a favourite for Arthurian fans
97. Fighting Fantasy books, Ian Livingston & Steve Jackson .
98. The Stainless Steel Rat series, Harry Harrison .
99. The Lensman series, E.E. 'Doc' Smith
100. *The Cadfael stories, Ellis Peters - read several a good number of years ago (inspired by Jacobi)


It strikes me there are a lot of recommended series here, perhaps saying a lot about the nature of genre fiction: revisiting narratives with a twist, creating large worlds with many different aspects generating volumes within the series, even repetition dare I say... Moreover, in many instances these series are made up of a substantial number of volumes or are even ongoing series with no particular 'end in sight'. Keeping up with this list would be hard going for anyone, even before the realisation that 'genre' as a defining term for fiction is incredibly broad. Horror, SF, crime, fantasy... definitions are fraught and several genres seem a little absent here.

Mostly, I'm a bit disappointed that Jasper Fforde doesn't get a look in, and that there are no Laurence Block novels, or Chris Brookmyres. Gaiman is only represented by the Sandman novels, and that overall it's lighter on graphic novels than I might expect a modern list to be. For example, The Preacher series of graphic novels would work very well the straddle the gap in representing Westerns on the list.

Nevertheless, it remains an interesting list with lots to provoke my reading tastes and remind me of things I have been intending to read for some time (I've hovered on picking up the Temeraire series, and the Abercrombie books on several occasions). More to add to the reading pile!

Things that have been happening over this week

No, not the obvious political and economic things (though we have been laughing heartily at the expected - and indeed actually stated - "Oh Despair!" of our esteemed pal Nick Matthews at Mandy's in Cabinet part III). These are more the everyday, conversational things that by and large occupy the mind of this blog:

Like Wongablog hitting FIVE years of blogging service to the public: my that's impressive!

Like it being 'Buy a Friend a Book Week' (found via Wongablog!)

Like Marie's pean to not heckling at comedy gigs and, by extension, not talking throughout music performances

Like the animated video for the Elements Song by the god of satirical song Tom Lehrer (found via lovely EineKleine Rob)

Like the forthcoming - okay, it's a long time till it comes but - focus on Science Fiction on the BBC Radio

And trying to sort out getting my pictures from my camera to my computer now that I can't find the discs to allow me to connect to a mac after using it on a PC. Grrr....

Book Review: Wiffle Lever to Full by Bob Fischer

Neil Perryman has already done a review of Wiffle Lever to Full over at Behind the Sofa, but here I am doing my stint anyway.

I have to say I laughed like a drain through most of this book: it is, above and beyond any nostalgia trips it provides, utterly hilarious.

Or, maybe, you have to have been of that time and have at least enough of an interest in sci-fi/fantasy to connect with the narrative.

Whatever.

Now I have to confess that despite Cloud's belief that I am a geek of high order, I am in fact merely a fringe-geek. For a start I have never been to a fan convention/event (tempted many times but way too shy and way too aware of the higher geek quotient I would encounter). You see, I'm actually terrified that I would be found out for not actually being as informed as some pretend me to be. Sure, I'm a fair bit over the level of geek-ness in my immediate circle and can reasonably stand my ground in certain company. But in amongst the hardcore I would be a lightweight. A feather duster of shallow and faux geekness that would have me drummed out before I could say, well anything remotely amusing really.

So although I really enjoyed reading this book it was a rather strange experience as well. One reason for this is that I am clearly just that little bit older than the author: blimey, nostalgia written by those younger than me. So I come into the game with a different Doctor regeneration and a little more proximity to some of the earlier works discussed.

The book is also resolutely blokey, despite the intermittent presence of author Bob Fischer's partner Sorcha and muttered stunned comments of "there are a lot of women here" (from the Blake's 7 convention). Now this is not a criticism since the humour is that of the fan as much as anything else. Nevertheless I'm unsure how a female version of this book would play out and it did keep crossing my mind to think about my own life with sci-fi [indeed, Cloud suggested I write my own 'woman on the edge of time, space and all things geek' companion book].

Still, as I say, it is very funny. It's also a very quick read, enjoyable digested over the weekend (I finished reading it in Trafalgar Square in the hot sun of Monday late morning). Recommended for anyone with childhood/youth memories and semi-suppressed obsessions with Doctor Who, Star Wars, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, The Prisoner and much more.

Bob Fischer's MySpace book page

Bob Fischer's Wordpress book blog

A Derby day with Deliciousness and the Doctor

What a lovely day Cloud and I had yesterday: the building work is approaching a stage 1 completion with most of our current activities approaching a finale. So we headed for Derby and started off a pretty brilliant day.

1) the magazine stall
Derby has an indoor market and a magazine stall that I swear can rival WHS: picked up the latest set of fridge magnets for Doctor Who in SFX and began the trundle round the city, enjoying the goth/emo/nu-rave kids on the block that always hang out by the square.

2) Haze
Venue of choice for said goth/emo/nu-rave under-17 year olds and women over 30 seeking hippy clothes and fulfillment of their own goth fantasies.

I picked up a very nice smock dress that I think will do lovely for a friend's wedding in the summer. Though knowing me I will wear it before the end of the week.

3) Oxfam
Always makes me happy to ply trade in an Oxfam. Bought three amusing cards and a CD of poetry. Felt reasonably well with the world considering.

4) Derby Westfield Shopping Centre
Yes, I know these beasts are evil and everywhere and that it has been KILLING the local small shop trade to have a spiffy new mall in the city centre to incorporate the old Eagle Market. But as we've always wandered the little streets anyway in each of our visits to Derby, and paid our money to lovely selective stores (Haze, Mustard shoes and more), I wanted to just SEE what the new place looked it. Okay, it IS a mall, but it is quite shiny. And...

5) razcherries
OH GOD. I thought I would never find these outside the London markets. Finding razcherries on a stall in the Westfield of Derby pretty much set me for the day.

6) European Restaurant and Bistro
On our last visit we were very taken with finding the staff coming out to eat their own lunch in the restaurant as they closed for the afternoon. It may have sinking floors and characterfully un-even ceilings but the food is divine. A very nice 2 courses (goats cheese tartlet and then salmon for me; mushrooms and then meatballs for him) plus wine for just over £30, followed again by the delight of seeing the staff come and sit down for their own grub. I do like the idea of the staff enjoying their own food.

7) Bennett's Department Store
A very old fashioned home and clothes store where we got a safe-cracking style analogue kitchen timer like this.

8) Westfield Shopping Centre (again)
Pro-Cook supplied us with a very nifty old-style bread bin for the new kitchen. Very nice.

9) Forbidden Planet
Ah so shoot me. Picked up the 2008 Doctor Who story book (since my copy got lost in Amazon/PO hell when we had the NZ trip earlier this year -- NB DO NOT TRUST the PO's offer to repost mail to an alternative address). Cloud insisted I enquire about the availability of Primeval figures: only the online and London store sell them. But I happily got the painted cover of a Buffy comic I had missed getting from Page 45. Yeah!

10) Doctor Who on the TV!
Ah, bliss. My sofa, razcherries and the Doctor. And blimey, is it just me or was that just fabulous? I mean I know I have a low threshold for happiness when it comes to the Doctor (I can get delight from just having it on the screen!) but I really enjoyed this. I thought Donna was great, taking the Doctor to task and being far more adult in a crisis than it was appropriate for either Rose or Martha to be; I thought the Doctor was great: bitter, reluctantly merciful, angry, mindful of his awesome awareness of time. The plot worked - the seers were creepy, their occupation by the pyro-wotsits suitably 'yuk' - and the supporting cast was top-notch. And I did enjoy watching Confidential afterwards: David at large in Pompeii and at Vesuvius, suitably awed by the experience.

So yeah, a good day.

Today we painted the pantry: ah well, at least we did it to music.

"Today is a lovely day"...: Mark Everett and parallel worlds

Thanks to the wonders of - say it quietly - a moderately well functioning Freeview box, we finally caught up with the absolute gem "Parallel Worlds, parallel lives" - a BBC4 programme on Mark Everett of the Eels and his father, Hugh Everett III, who developed the parallel world theory. As a topic that I love in Science Fiction, and as a musician I have several albums by, this combined the best of all worlds in one show.

Nicely reviewed by doyen Nancy, it was a really charming piece of work. It even drew Cloud away from resolving problems with his laptop for the hour (he spent the first 30 mins in the doorway hovering to leave before saying "fuck it" and sitting down). It was also very watchable by non-scientists. I certainly felt much better informed about physics and quantum mechanics by the end, and that is no mean feat!

If you get chance to see it on a repeat, do watch it.

Blink on the Nebula list

I knew it was on the long shortlist (I think), but this morning the news confirmed that Steven Moffatt has been nominated for the screenplay for Blink.

The script for the 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink" by Steven Moffat has been nominated for a Nebula Award. The Nebula Awards are awarded yearly by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for the best science fiction written in the previous two years, using a system of "rolling eligibility". Moffat was nominated last year for his script for "The Girl in the Fireplace", but lost to the Hayao Miyazaki animated film "Howl's Moving Castle".

This year, the other nominees for Best Script are the screenplays for the films "Children of Men", "The Prestige", "Pan's Labrynth" and "V for Vendetta"; an episode of the television anthology "Masters of Science Fiction" written by Harlan Ellison; and an episode of the fan-produced Internet series "Star Trek: The New Voyages".

(Thanks to Alex Frazer-Harrison.)

Go Steven!!!

SFX magazine Feb 2008 issue 166 - did anyone just hear me squee?

Primeval as the lead feature in SFX Feb 2008 issue!

Primeval POSTERS: a double sided 'how do I decide' with the team on one side and holy heck of hotness Dougie Henshall with fighting creatures on the other!

I think I have fainted and gone to squee-land.

Did someone hear my pleas for some nice things to happen to me following a start to the year that has so far included TWO bouts of illness?

Seems so! Hurrah!!

(I need to scan to get some pics of this but Woo-Hoo! Take my word for how excited I am!)

Primeval Series 2 - a completely personal view

Marie liked it - even if she was viewing it between flips with The One and Only (me, I was full on concentration).

What do you think I thought?


That wasn't hard was it?!

If someone had said to me a few years ago that one of the actors I most love and have followed for many years would be on my TV in a prime-time slot on a Saturday I would scarcely have believed them.* Sure, Henshall deserved the success, but this level of public profile and familiarity? Whoah: that's just awesome.

Primeval Season 1, as you know, started as it meant to go on and settled in to being rather HAWT enjoyable and even thrilling fun. You could say that the presence of Douglas Henshall as Nick Cutter created an unbalanced view for me, but heck I don't care. There is always something wonderfully wry, charming, attentive, charismatic and thoughtful about his portrayals - and Cutter is no different (with an extra dose of academic-forced-to-be-heroic on top: always appealing for me!)

Anyway, less of Cutter - sigh (only in the sense of I have to write a review). If you haven't seen s1 but are intending to catch up, or want to watch s2 but haven't gotten around to last night's episode, then sorry folks but there are ***SPOILERS*** in this review FOR THE STORY SO FAR.

Characters (excluding Nick Cutter):
Last year, I really hated Ben Miller's character - perhaps rewatching s1 so often on the DVD has tempered that reaction but I certainly groaned less often in response to his characterisation (which is admittedly still a tad one-dimensional). Perhaps with the changes wrought by Cutter's re-emergence from the anomoly into... well, something which thus far is at least subtely different, the James Lester figure came across trying less hard to be the pantomime villain. Still the most rubbish character though. Shame, as I'm rather fond of Ben Miller as a comedian/actor.

It was also a pity that Abby had so little to do this episode - dammit boys/girls, you didn't even get to see her in her panties this time (or out of them). I do hope they're not going to diminish her active contributions to the team - but I am intrigued how much they will have changed of her background / experience / purpose in this alt.verse.

Stephen continues to be something of a cipher: last season he was clearly the admiring foil to Cutter (heck, he so wanted to be him - or with him if you follow the slash writings! - that he'd even shagged Helen, Cutter's errant wife). This year, following that revelation of adultery, there's a more begrudging and wary spark between them. I did like the touch about the tranquilizer gun not going off for each of them...

For me the most improved character was Connor: in s1 he was a more simplistic comic character. Resident geek in unrequited lust for Abby, he could hardly compete with the stoic macho/metro sexuality of Stephen. This year, I liked the fact that the show's team seem to have beefed up how Cutter (semi-reluctantly) likes having him around. I loved that it was Connor who makes the the first step to believing the possibility that the world has changed [it probably comes from watching all that sci-fi] and that Cutter isn't entirely mad. From last year's first episode to this year's Connor seems the one who has been rounded out the best.

So what of the changes and newbies? Claudia Brown has been erased by the paradoxes of the s1 finale anomoly trip: the actress is back, but as a new character. This kinda makes sense. If I have one reservation about it, it's this: poor Lucy Brown having to wear that GOD-AWFUL amount of eye-make-up! Blimey, what did she do to piss the show team off that they put her into that level of we-have-to-make-her-look-totally-different make-up?! Claudia was efficient but soft at the edges. Jenny Lewis looks like a refugee from a bad 80s band. She'll probably not even immediately fall for Cutter. Pah: that shows how much of a rubbish character she'll be... [Actually, I'm being prejudicially harsh there: I think its rather smart what they've done since it avoids the issue of Nick and Claudia getting together and any possible reaction from Helen-back-in-the-anomoly-Cutter. After all, the fan-fiction will more than compensate for the what-might-have-been narratives of Nick and Claudia]

Oliver Leek - Lester's right hand man - is a new character completely. As he is played by the genius that is Karl Theobald from Green Wing, we're currently prepared to forgive him a lot. Even the fact that he's pretty certain to turn out to be evil (or at least on the side of Helen Cutter...)

Helen, at present, isn't back. But since gorgeous Juliet remains in the titles we can reasonably assume she will be. Personally, I'm scarcely forgiving her for taking up with Stephen (or was she perversely relishing how Stephen was really thinking about Nick?) and thinking that spending 8 years away from Nick Cutter was a nice thing to do. Bitca.

Rating last year: 3.5/5
Rating for S2: 3.8/5 - still work to do, but better. Not quite a 4 mind, as Cutter remains the most nuanced character in the show (a factor I feel is not unconnected to the quality of the actor portraying him).

Character - Nick Cutter:
Still frayed as a perfect character, but Henshall makes it work. Add in the blue eyes, quirky clothing (come on: that Arthur Daley beige coat at the end suited him but made me smirk something wicked!), nice arse... [yes, I am shallow] AND the accent... sigh. Nick Cutter is still the best thing about the programme.
Rating last year: 4.5/5
Rating for S2: 4.7/5 - because he's back dammit, he's back.

Script/Direction:
Last year saw some howlingly clunky lines and duff decisions on the early direction of the show. This year, they seem to have fixed a fair bit of the worst parts. This probably reflects that as the show developed last year it DID find its feet a bit more in structuring its narratives. Sure, they had to have the fill-in-the-gaps story section at the start of the episode for late-comers or those who haven't watched the DVDs repeatedly since last season (ahem). But overall there was a consistent quality of tension and delight in the story structure. Still some weird blanks in the storyline mind - they missed a trick having the team find the bloodied handprints of the eaten security guard, and the throat attacked cleaner would have been better handled. The idea of using the intereference on radios as a tracking mechanism for when/where the anomolies appear was brilliant and elegant solution to how Helen could know when they appeared. Not sure Marie caught that in her channel hopping, but that was a really nicely handled bit of the epiosode. It will be interesting to see how the series progresses with slightly different participants on board this time around (e.g. Paul Cornell...)

Rating last year: 2/5
Rating for S2: 3.4/5 - perhaps I'm feeling more sympathetic.

Effects/locations:
The fact remains that all effects date really quickly. As I said last year "That's why you need good character, direction, script and substance. You need those to help you suspend the disbelief that comes into play in fantasy TV/film." There is no getting away from the fact that this show just does not get the movie level budget that is thrown at NewWho etc. I still like the anomoly imagery itself: I can certainly agree with Cutter that it never fails to impress. In long shot - and this year even in some of the close ups - the monsters/dinos did look good. Generally they kept them moving faster, and as Marie said, when Daddy dino ate the human-throat-gashing-baby-dino in one smart mouthful, that was fabulous. It's a shame that they couldn't afford more extras for additional ramp up the tension - it also begs the question why they really need a PR person to quash public concern if there are hardly ever any public about to be eaten... Still, they had to find something for Jenny-not-Claudia-Brown-with-extra-rubbish-overloaded-eye-make-up-Lewis to do... And in terms of locations, the chasing in the car-park was especially neat...

...

Sorry, I drifted slightly there at the wholely indulgent delight I took in Nick Cutter's glance over the shoulder saying "chase me". Shudder.

And I'm back.

Rating last year (pre-suspension of disbelief and in some dodgy mid-shots): 3/5 - rising (once suspension kicks in) to 4/5
Rating for S2: overall 4/5 - apart from some dodgy stunt double shots [still, this dogs many series and given that I've just been laughing my head off at how bad the stunt doubling remained on Angel right through to its final season I'm prepared to overlook that matter]

Music:
A bit less on the pop cheese soundtrack this year? Either way, I noticed it less. Good thing?
Rating last year: 3.5/5
Rating for S2: 3.5/5 - though more because I paid less mind to it, so maybe it was a tad less OTT.

Other issues:
This is one for this year, but can I just say I felt like BITING MY HANDS OFF WITH AGONY every f-ing time that shite awful parody of the show comes on to promote f-ing Haven Holidays either side of the Ad breaks. Roll on the DVD.

Overall rating last year (excluding Dr Cutter): 3.5/5
Overall rating for S2 (excluding Dr Cutter): 3.8/5 - as long as I block from my mind those awful sponsored ads...

Overall rating last year (including Dr Cutter): 4/5
Overall rating for S2 (including Dr Cutter): 4.2/5 - still some work to do to hit full on perfection, but this remains a highly enjoyable romp of primetime tv. My blue eyed boy is back and I can't ask for more than that.

SIX more weeks to go! Yippee!



* A certain raffish youth hailing from a similar part of Scotland may have got a Saturday night slot first, but lovely DH with his intensity and talent stole my heart first. I'm just lucky enough that with Primeval and Doctor Who I now get a rolling provision of loveliness on winter-spring Saturday evenings to charm me...

Sapphire and Steel - follow this up!

Anna asked a very reasonable question and got the best sort of answer(s) possible.

Yes: Sapphire and Steel IS worth watching

It's on my to-buy list!

Star Wars and Doctor Who

The fan's view of Star Wars inspires another fan's view of Doctor Who.

Both UTTERLY brilliant and hilarious in equal measure.

Daleks! Daleks! Daleks!

Okay, let me lay my cards on the table so you all know where I'm coming from. I love Doctor Who. I have been enjoying the programme since childhood - like so many of us - and I probably see myself as straddling both classic Whovian fandom and NewWho fandom.

[Of course, I could also see myself straddling the TARDIS's current incumbent but perhaps the less said about that the better, eh? For one, Marie would possibly kick me out the way first..., glasses flying off centre-right...]

Anyway, it's probably fair to say I love the entertainment of it and being a child at heart I'm prepared to overlook most of its worst failings from both the past and the present. (It's far too easy to see one or the other as somehow the perfect world, whether that's the days of black and white shuddery cameras and model effects, the more confident shift to colour filming and slightly less miniscule budgets with a long-term doctor to boot, the Eccles-cake return with budgets ahoy and a more mid-evening family slot, or the rising romance of Ten/Rose last season: each have ardent fans and their loathers who see one or more of the more recent incarnations coming after their own personal favourite - even if that was just the last series - as 'the end of Who' as they know and love it).

Which brings me to the latest two-parter and the latest season. So far the series has not yet failed to give me enjoyment and despite accusations of dullness, I have found it still thrilling and pleasurable. Mock me all you like, tell me I'm wrong (I know you think it), but I have enjoyed all the current series, including the most recent and largely reviled two-parter. I'm no slave to the concept of RTD is perfect and that New Who is perfect. I absolutely accept that there are flaws, some quite major and needing resolution fast, and that it has had some horrid frustrating weaknesses - made all the more infuriating by any sense of either history or love for its high points so far.

Neil accuses me of often living in a 'permanent present': he usually means in relation to food since I can rarely think beyond "what do I want to eat now?" But the idea possibly transfers to other consumption. Perhaps it comes from me having made my academic subject career out of being acutely and seriously critically analytical of culture. Explore strengths and weaknesses; make a case using evidence to back it up; take nothing for granted; be questioning at all times: all of these are laudable ideals. But somehow along the way I learnt a lesson from some of my colleagues and peers. They found that they could too easily lose their facility to just enjoy a text in the here and now for what it was (not what it could or should have been, or what it all signified). I think this reinforced me watching films and TV with a greater sense of trying to be entertained (if that was the appropriate response - although there is perhaps a whole different post developing Neil Postman's argument that TV is at its most dangerous when it takes itself seriously: see his still fascinating book "Amusing Ourselves to Death").

ANYWAY.

Back to Daleks.

I think that the internal dialogue of Stuart Ian Burns with 'Martha' over at Behind the Sofa summed up several of my points: we're all just a little bit over-Whoed. Even though actually we really LIKE being over-Whoed, our critical faculties are just a tad jaded by it all. All the information, the discussion, the expectations, the awareness of the past and the spoilers of the future. It's all just too much.

What worked: I liked the idea of going to New York, and - with their Deco-esque construction/visuals - the Cult of Skaro worked in that environment: shiny Daleks in that setting certainly worked for me. I liked the time link thing with Caan being, possibly, the lone Dalek survivor for the NewWho season 1 museum of Van Statten. I liked Martha doing the pig-electrocution thang, and I even liked the non-Dalek humans turning to say 'why'. I especially liked Daleks conspiring against each other. I liked brain-thingies being found on the floor, green and abandoned. And even if the resolution was specious non-science nonsense, I actually liked that the Doctor didn't immediately know what green brain jelly thang was. I liked that the Doctor took Martha somewhere he hadn't took Rose and I liked his (unintentionally?) wounding retort of 'maybe' (I'm torn between thinking he's just blind to Martha's interest or that he's deliberately retreated into himself to not make the same connection again. As if the writers/producers think that way). I also liked the Dalekanium references. I thought Mr Diagoras in his human state was fascinatingly more scary than in his Dalek state: more Dalek-like when fully human than when combined with Dalek Sec, so maybe something went more interestingly wrong when the two were added together? - a kinda double negative ending up creating a more positive, self-critical hybrid...?

Areas of forgiveness: I can forgive wobbly sets (jeez, when I think back...) and I can forgive even wobblier accents/dialects/verbals (sorry Talllluhhhhallejuah, or whatever the hell she was called) because Who isn't coming fresh to either of those. (And those who point out that the show has bigger, fabby budgets nowadays simply can't have it both ways on how money is used/not used and reliance on imagination is diminished these days). I can also forgive some of the weird leaps of events - like the 'lost' scene of resolving Laszlo's pig heart failure - because it clearly jars more obviously nowadays due to the shorter episode lengths. Meandering multi-part episodes, and let's be honest some of the FOUR-part stories felt like drawn out crucifixtions, never help a story and some of the jumps and narrative leaps here were at least intended to keep the story moving (even if they ended up making some of the story make no sense). I think there could have been a tight single 45 min episode in here, though it would probably have needed a different writer, and a different team not driven to the 'early series two-part requirement'.

Which brings me to ...

What annoyed: this list could end up being longer than either of the above. And I don't want that. Others have put their comments in and have said it far more wittily and eloquently than I ever could. As I have often said, I can read a bad review that is written with wit and panache and even if I totally disagree, I can still enjoy and respect it for what it is. I can totally see where much of the criticism is coming from (and I especially thought that Ian Hocking's comment in Marie's post on DiM that as a kid's show the audience is more forgiving than it was for Torchwood was very telling. It probably also says something again about my mentality being immaturedly prepared to 'go-with-the-flow')

Still. First off, let's say that the Radio Times cover really didn't help. I wasn't entirely against it by the end of the DinM episode, but by the conclusion of the EoftD, I safely believed it had meant the show shot its bolt.
Music - what in parts has been a delight in the new series (the Xmas Invasion song remains the pinnacle of Murray Gold's work for me) has now become such a parody, it's hard not to believe that the National Orchestra of Wales are not intent on multi-handedly bringing Who into disrepute. One more choral over-drive of 'Daleks' and I may be forced to find a way to listen to the dialogue and special effects sounds without the bloody music channel kicking in.
Dialogue - there was some clunking lines that the cast had to deliver. They're well documented elsewhere. I prefer non-shouty Doctor direction/dialogue and I'm sorry but DT is capable of more than fun versus shouty. But he has to have both the words and the direction to make that possible. More crucially though, if Martha keeps being given little more than mopey dialogue about the Doctor not noticing her then someone will be getting a sharp letter. I know they probably think her quick (sonic speed?) falling for the Doctor reflects how quickly some people fell for Le Tennant, but really that's just lazy. Pay attention to the character you're working with: Rose's intense feelings for the Doctor at least took some time to develop. At first Rose was just travelling for the heck of it. And anyway, you can't displace mopiness onto a new character just because you're tetchy about the Doctor being seen to be missing Rose. And Martha might be training to be a Doctor, but that least means some A level sciences: the conducting of electricity aside, we've scarcely seen recognition of her education and training. Use it please!

An aside point: I know it's not going to happen but I wish this was being broadcast in the winter months. A dark bleak winter's evening as opposed to - literally - the glare of summer sun - would provide a much more conducive backdrop for watching this programme, even in its full-on faults zone.

So that's my remarks. Again, like my feminism rant below it possibly wasn't worth waiting for. I'm knackered from writing and I STILL owe a serious amount of writing up to lovely Chrissie. And each day I keep thinking of new posts I want to write. I'll try and get onto them asap folks, really I will try. But you're all doing such a good job without me.

Okay people, I'm going to stop faffing with tags on old posts (so here's a catch up of what you may have missed)

Realising that my 'work' yesterday on randomly tagging old posts with labels has probably caused irreparable damage to those checking me through an RSS feed I will try and fix things by giving you a run down on the new posts you may have missed as I tagged multiple oldies.

• Comments on The Twang (channelling the spirit of Northside)


• Praise for a moment of Grey's Anatomy - yes, I know, hard to believe but I will give credit where its due


• Me and SciFi magazines - a problematic relationship

And we're done.

Next post will be on how TV is making me very happy....

SciFi Now and other Sci-Fi magazines

It's probably not a shock to discover I buy Sci-Fi magazines. I'm not a consistent buyer - heck, I don't even have Doctor Who magazine on subscription - but I do buy a large and random number of magazines on a regular basis. In fact, apart from rare forays into "In Style" (I like the occasional bit of fashion lusting), if I'm in a magazine store I'm most likely to purchase Sci-Fi magazine above anything else: Cult Times, Buffy/Angel magazine, SFX, Starburst, the late lamented (print edition) DreamWatch, and of course DWM - all have walked through my door in my sticky paws, eagerly allowing me to devour opinion and information on this world.

But here's the thing.

I often end up not reading whole sections until several months after purchase.

Why?

'Cos I've retained a desire to avoid spoilers.

Stupid isn't it, in this age of mega-internet spoilerage at every turn, that I should still take a "la-la-la, I'm not listening!" approach (even when it's well signposted at some of my favourite spaces it can be hard to completely avoid). But it is true... and it can lead to some strange reading practices such as trying to glance only at pictures and ignore text (and sometimes even captions); spotting the paragraphs that look 'safe' and only reading those; or skipping whole articles even though I'm desparate to read them.

So why buy another sci-fi magazine: SciFi Now? Sure, it has that nice spiffy Ten/Martha picture on the front cover that's doing the rounds on all the mags at the moment, but I can scarcely bring myself to read the Who article as it identifies the best episodes for scares etc. Remember, if I could manage it, I'd keep myself from even knowing the damn episode titles! So why was I still tempted? Well I have to say I dis quite like the TimeWarp section with its overviews of past series and films serials; and the Fanboys* section had a neat collation of convention news plus a nice summary of the history of sci-fi literature. Additionally, the overall layout is very plush and readable. And it is the first issue. So of course I had to try it out. Will it last in this now somewhat busy marketplace for this material? Who knows? Especially if it wants to maintain its scale (140+ pages), it will need to pull in considerable and comparable readership. What may work in its favour is that unlike some areas of magazines, this is one that lends itself to multiple buying regardless of overlap (in that respect I'm probably fairly typical).

Watch this space to see how it fares long-term.



*sic - please, I know its an accepted stereotype but could you at least acknowledge the existence of equally geeky female fans?!