Doctor Who - The Empty Child

After the intense emotional wrangling of Father's Day, The Empty Child had a lot riding on it. As each episode of this new Doctor Who series seems to top the earlier ones, so the pressure is mounting for the series to deliver, and with this week's episode, the terror factor was turned up to the fore. If earlier, the series seemed to be playing to a childish denominator with farting aliens, burping wheelie bins and jokes about Michael Jackson, this now seems to be well behind us as the show ventures into a story which touches on a number of common horror elements. There's the horror of War of course, in this case the Second World War as we are in 1941, in the middle of the blitzing of London by the Germans. Then we have a spooky child who seems to be everywhere, watching through his gas mask and plaintively calling for his mummy ... finally there's the terror of infection and the body-horror of losing ones own individuality through a virus which, well, according to the Doctor is rewriting human DNA and turning them into gasmasked zombies ... literally. As to why - well this is the first part of the story and so I suspect we have to wait for the answers. The story so far follows two main threads. First the Doctor meets up with a girl called Nancy who is using the air raids as a means of feeding the homeless children. When a family hurries to their rather ramshackle and flimsy air raid shelter (although these were usually underground in the back garden, as far from the house as possible and not a tin shed), so Nancy and the kids enter the house to feast on their uneaten meals. The Doctor joins them and starts to get a sense of what is happening. However the gas-masked child comes a-calling and Nancy warns the Doctor away, not to let the child touch him, and also reveals that it can make phones ring. When the Doctor answers all that is heard is the child calling for his mummy. This is all very eerie and unsettling stuff, especially as there are no answers forthcoming at this time. Nancy tells the Doctor about the capsule that fell a month earlier and its location - they go there to investigate and the Doctor breaks into Albion Hospital and meets the sick and aged Doctor Constantine who is able to add some more clues into the mix - that all the 'patients' are not dead, and that they all have the same injuries and gas masks fused to their faces - this is physical injury as plague ... The cameo by Richard Wilson as Constantine is brilliant and although he's not on screen for long, adds a lot of presence to the character. The other plot thread is Rose's. She is distracted in the opening moments by seeing a gas-masked child calling for his mummy and leaves the Doctor to investigate herself. Before long she is hanging from a rope under a barrage balloon in the middle of a German attack. These scenes are very impressive, with Rose swinging there over London as planes fly past, searchlights roam and explosions go off all over. However this is so totally at odds with the truth that it's dramatic license taken to the extreme. Barrage balloons were tethered with steel hawsers to the ground so that planes could not fly below them. This forced any attacking aircraft too high to be able to accurately target their bombs. The balloons themselves also acted as a distraction and a physical barrier to seeing what was below them - and as there was a blackout as well, this meant that the pilots were taking pot shots rather than anything properly targetted. However here we have rope tethers and formations of planes flying under the balloons ... Rose is rescued by hi-tek Captain Jack Harkness (through total coincidence) whom she instantly takes a shine to (although to be honest he is far more likable and fun than Mickey or Adam) He seems to think she's a time agent and he has a deal on the table to sell her a Tula Warship he has hidden on Earth at this time. But after enjoying some Champagne and flirting on top of his space craft (which is invisible and tethered to the Big Ben clock tower), they go off searching for the Doctor as Rose claims he needs to give is okay to the deal. Bizarrely Rose seems to have developed something of an obsession with 'Spock' here, and mentions him on several occasions, as well as telling Jack that this is the Doctor's name - Mr Spock - I have no idea what that is all about or whether has been secretly watching old Star Trek episodes on board the TARDIS. Rose and Jack eventually meet up with the Doctor at Albion Hospital where, unnervingly, Constantine has just morphed into a gas-masked zombie (I would have loved to have seen the extended version of this, complete with cracking bone sounds which the BBC felt too graphic for the timeslot ... roll on the DVD extras) as he finally succombed to the same infection. Because this is now nearly the end of the episode (there seems to be no other reason for it to happen), all the zombies come alive and start shambling towards the Doctor, Rose and Jack calling for their mummy ... At the same time, Nancy is trapped in the house by the gas-masked boy who approaches her ... And the credits run ... and there is no 'Next Episode' preview. At least not crashing in and ruining the effectiveness of the cliffhanger. I have no idea whether this was changed due to the adverse reaction the 'Next Week' trailer had after the end of Aliens of London, but I'd like to think that in some way the Doctor Who Production Office had listened to the concerns expressed and took appropriate action. Bravo whichever way it was because this way we get the great cliff hanger, there is also a preview of next week, but before it an announcer warning to look away ... best of all worlds. The Empty Child was a brilliant episode. A terrifying slice of Doctor Who which touched on many fears, and which was in places genuinely unnerving and spooky. Captain Jack Harkness seems an interesting new character and the interplay between him and Rose was well done. Likewise the relationship between the Doctor and Nancy was nicely drawn, and the understanding/realisation that the child is/was her young brother added much to understanding her actions. On the negative side, there do seem to be a lot of plot coincidences - getting Rose flying from a barrage balloon being one, Jack seeing and rescuing her, Nancy finding the Doctor early on (and vanishing afterwards), and the Doctor being able to follow her anywhere ... also some of the wartime trappings - there would have been a lights out ban, so Jack would not have been at a lit window to see Rose in the first place, the clock tower's time did not change while Jack and Rose were talking (and they seemed to be there for some time) but the clock was not turned off during the War, only the lights were extinguished ... lots of small things, none of which detract from the overall impressive nature of the piece, but which in part niggle slightly. Maybe some of these will be covered off next week ... The Empty Child scores very high again for me both as a good and engaging piece of drama and of course as an episode of this incredible smorgasboard of treats which the 2005 series of Doctor Who is turning out to be. And of course, as luck would have it, I'm going to miss next week's episode as I'm away on a much needed break!! So I won't get to see it until mid-week after - you'll have to wait until then before I can share my thoughts on the episode.

Doctor Who - Father's Day

Well I wasn't expecting that ... One of the things that Doctor Who has always done is to subvert expectations. Just as you think you might have the show worked out, along comes a story like The Celestial Toymaker or The Mind Robber ... Warriors' Gate or even Battlefield ... and you're plunged into a different world and a different take on events. Father's Day, for me at least, fell into this category. Thinking about it afterwards, it is very surprising that Doctor Who has never done a story like this before, where the implications of changing past events become very apparent to those involved. Previously we have heard a lot of talk about the fact that you can't change history (The Aztecs, Earthshock/Time-Flight) and a couple of tentative attempts to explore it (in particular Mawdryn Undead) but nothing of the richness or complexity of Father's Day. But the whole changing time thing does bother me a little. Rose says at one point in the episode that it's OK for the Doctor to wade in and change things but not for her, and the Doctor replies by saying that he knows what he's doing ... but there are complex issues here which aren't really explored by Paul Cornell's accomplished teleplay. If Rose's changing history by saving the life of her dad causes a 'wound in time', then why hasn't this ever happened before when the Doctor or any of his companions did something to change history - which is pretty much in every story ever transmitted, right from giving the cavemen the secret of fire up to defeating the Jagrafess the previous week. From the Doctor's comment, it implies that perhaps history is fixed, it is immutable and cannot be changed, and so when the Doctor arrives somewhere, all his actions (and by association, the actions of his companions) already form a part of history ... in other words, they are destined to do whatever they do so that history can remain on track ... and yet in stories like Day of the Daleks, the Doctor actually does change history, likewise in Pyramids of Mars we see the results if he doesn't get involved ... ... and what about the other time travelling races like the Daleks? How does time work then? I can hardly see the Daleks taking care over making sure they know when and how to interfere. Cornell handles all this by, for the most part, ignoring it. Which is perhaps for the best, because otherwise the episode would have degenerated into incomprehensibility. What we get instead, is a love story about Rose finding her dad, realising that he is not the hero she wanted him to be, but who ends up saving the world anyway. There are so many great moments in Father's Day, but all the plaudits and praise from me go to Billie Piper. Her performance here us awesome. Emotionally rich and demanding, totally believable (with one scripted slip up) and bringing the audience along with her. The one scene which didn't work for me was where her dad, Pete, said she was pretty and she launches off into a rambling tirade about 'not going there' ending with her offering him her arm as she leaves the flat ... Pete even comments that this is a 'mixed message' and it so totally is ... Apart from this, Piper makes Rose come alive in a way that I don't think I have ever seen on TV before. Her performance was so well judged that it made the tears flow freely, and the overall emotional impact of this episode was unlike any other I can recall. The only time I can remember crying at Doctor Who before was at the end of Earthshock, but this surpassed that earlier milestone. The rest of the cast were pretty good, perhaps with the exception of Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, who a) didn't look young enough and b) was too lippy and demeaning of Pete - they would never have got together I feel, and their bickering was both realistic (plaudits to the writer) but also embarrassing to watch. I liked Shaun Dingwell's Pete Tyler immensely - a man well aware of his own shortcomings and who knows that Rose is lying to him about his future as he cannot recognise himself in the person she describes. Even the minor parts of Stuart (Christopher Llewellyn) and Sarah (Natalie Jones) were well realised, and the scene with them and the Doctor is beautifully played - showing that the Doctor's values on human life are somewhat different to ours, and that every life is special, even those which seem simple and happy rather than complex and significant. The incidental music is brilliant. It complements every scene, and I loved the wavering notes as the time distortions started to happen. There's a couple of snatches of other music as well - with 'Never Can Say Goodbye' by The Communards playing at the start as Rose and the Doctor first arrive in 1987, and then, I think it was 'Don't Mug Yourself' by The Streets (aka Mike Skinner) on the car radio as time starts to go awry (of course this is a track from a 2002 album). On the Doctor Who Confidential show afterwards, they talked about the design of the Reapers and how they didn't want to go for something like a more traditional spectral figure ... I have to say I think this was a mistake. The Reapers were passable ... but more and more I'm wanting to see real monsters and not CGI ones. In common with many CGI created monsters, they moved too fast to really see them in detail and work out what you were seeing in the first place, and the combination of flying mantis/eagle/dragon didn't work for me and looked too derivative of other things. I would have liked to have seen something original and alien ... or just hellishly scary. I feel that silent, slow, hooded figures approaching people and then snatching them away in the folds of their cloaks would have been far more terrifying than giant monster birds ... but that's just my opinion. Overall this episode was simply awesome. It hit all the right emotions and made me cry like a baby at the end. The script was accomplished and clever, with only a few avenues of slight confusion along the way (like the TARDIS interior vanishing, why the car which was meant to hit Pete was still circling in a time loop and so on). It's hard to say whether this is my favourite episode to date, as they have all been so good in different ways. However I think that along with The Unquiet Dead and Dalek, this episode sets the bar for the future of the show. ... and from the trailer, next week's episode looks like something which might just raise the bar still further.

Doctor Who - The Long Game

The TARDIS arrives in the year 200,000 on a space station orbiting Earth. This is Satellite 5 (which implies at least 4 others, or perhaps that this is the 5th and the earlier ones have been decommissioned) and its purpose appears to be to monitor transmissions from everywhere and to add them to some vast database of information. The folks on the Satellite are journalists and have chips in their heads to aid them in their task. Among them are Cathica and Suki. Cathica is some sort of information node (she has what is described as an info-spike chip which allows her access to all the information, wheras the others just have a small chip in the back of their heads which lets them use the computers) and the journalists pump their information through her brain into the main computers. The first question I had here was that assuming the journalists never leave their own alotted floor of the Satellite (we are on floor 139 of 500) then what are they providing news and information on exactly? Cronk burger riots perhaps? The state of the air conditioning? There are screens telling them what is being reported elsewhere (including a network intriguingly called 'Bad Wolf TV' which reports that the Face of Boe - who we met in The End of the World - is pregnant with Baby Boemina) so are they then some sort of critic on the news ... reporting on the reporting perhaps? It's very unclear what the purpose of all this is. And then there's the Editor, a human representative of the financial banks who are running the operation on the Satellite ... he seems to live alone, on the 500th floor, which is freezing cold, and talks to himself a lot. He 'edits' the information, but with 499 floors and goodness knows how many people living on them, how does one man, and a group of immobile zombies, manage to keep track of it all? Does he sleep or rest? And what happens when he does? Does the news gathering/transmission stop? And how can apparently dead zombie-like humans continue to process information after their death? The Doctor says their chips keep working, but their brains would atrophy, surely ... Anyway, back to the plot, and the Doctor, Rose and Adam (who, after a promising introduction in Dalek is totally useless here - worse than Mickey, and that's saying something) faff about a little and get the jist of what is going on before the Doctor decides to find out what is really happening and hacks into the computer in order to check out the air conditioning systems (it is hot on the 139th floor despite the total lack of any visible evidence of this fact - no-one sweats or wears less clothing as a result, but maybe they're all used to it) and finds that all the hot air is being vented down from above. He and Rose then get the access codes for a lift to take them to the 500th floor. Meanwhile Suki has been identified by the Editor as a terrorist named Eva san Julienne and 'promoted' up, only to meet the Editor's boss - which attacks and zombifies her. The 500th floor is freezing cold and it's snowing there too (interesting as the rooms don't seem large enough to have their own climates which you'd need to generate snow). Again, despite any steaming breath or such like, Rose and the Doctor (and indeed the Editor) don't seem to mind the cold, and we finally get to meet the Boss ourselves - it's a huge monster thing which seems to be living in the roof, and which goes by the unlikely (and unpronouncable) name of The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (or 'Max' as the Editor says he calls him). Once again the creature is achieved through CGI but this time it looks awful and even more rubbery than if it had been made of rubber. I would have far preferred to have seen a real creature for this effect, and the CGI made it all seem so unreal somehow on this occasion, and a far removed threat. Maybe if its saliva had been spattering the Editor all the time it might have seemed more 'real'. Cathica, having seen the Doctor and Rose questionning just about everything (something which she and her fellow workers don't do, which is odd for journalists) and taking the lift up, decides to do the same and follows them. She finds out the truth: that the Jagrafess has been manipulating and holding back humanity for 90 years and decides to reveal this information to everyone else ... and/or to disrupt the air conditioning systems to heat up the 500th floor. The heat causes the Jagrafess to explode with a messy pop and humanity is back on track again. What is it with this series of Who and exploding monsters anyway? The Nestene Consciousness was a sort of already-exploded gloopy alien thing in Rose, then Cassandra exploded in The End of the World, and a Slitheen exploded in World War III ... I almost wonder why the Dalek creature didn't explode in Dalek ... The denoument all seems so simplistic ... the Doctor leaves without a thought as to how the inhabitants of Satellite 5 will manage. What about the Editor ... was he killed? And how did the dead Suki hold on to him to prevent his escape? What happens to the news feeds to Earth now? The whole plot with Adam feels tacked on, and while Tamsin Greig is great as the nurse, none of her scenes add anything to the overall story, and she ends up in the same 'familar face in cameo' position as Ken Dodd was in Delta and the Bannermen. In fact all the cast are brilliant, especially Christine Adams as Cathica and Anna Maxwell-Martin as Suki. Overall, while I enjoyed this episode a lot, it left far too many unanswered questions in my mind, and really felt rushed. Adam was a waste of time and Rose did nothing (again). The incidental music was a mixture of the brilliant (where Suki explores the 500th floor for the first time) and the dire (when the Cronk-burger man is selling his wares). The CGI effects were a similar mix of the inspired and the pedestrian (brilliant for the forhead opening info-spike and the shots of Satellite 5 in space, and awful for the Jagrafess monster at the end). For me this was the weakest episode so far, and I wonder if this is why it's hidden away in the middle of the run. However it's still miles ahead of anything else on television at the moment, and with such high standards set already, it's almost inevitable that some episodes will fare better than others. But why is it called The Long Game? I suppose we have to wait and see, and maybe this refers to the succession of clues we're being given along the way as to some deeper mystery ... The trailer for next week looks intriguing. A sort of 'what happens if you change time' idea ...

The pweor of the mnid

I fnoud tihs at wrok the ohetr day ... fisanntaicg ... The phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearcr at Cmagbride Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers of a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Doctor Who - Dalek

So we come to the episode that the press have been waiting for. With their obsessions with the Daleks, sofa, stairs and 'Exterminate', it was perhaps up to this single episode to redeem Doctor Who in their eyes ... so did it succeed? From my point of view it most definitely did. Robert Shearman delivered a script that was intelligent, tense, exciting and very watchable, and which also fitted the 45 minute duration perfectly. The cast were all suberb, and the main characters gelled together excellently, providing an episode which held my household at least glued to the television for the duration. The TARDIS arrives in an underground museum - rows of cases hold alien artefacts of all sorts. I think I saw one of the Alien eggs from the film Alien in the background, and there's also a Slitheen arm, and a Cyberman head (though the head is of the style from Revenge of the Cybermen, and as far as we know this particular variant never visited the Earth, so there's either a slight continuity glitch there, or an implication that these Cybermen did visit Earth somehow). The Doctor and Rose are promptly arrested and taken to meet Henry van Statten, owner of the museum (and also, apparently, 'owner' of the Internet) who wants to know how they got into his complex which is buried under the sands in Utah. Shortly, van Statten takes the Doctor to see his only living specimen ... which turns out to be the Dalek of the title, battered and chained. This triggers some sort of death-wish in the Doctor and he starts raving about Time Wars and how all the Daleks were wiped out along with his race - this is the final Dalek to still be alive, just as he is the final Time Lord. Quite how the Doctor leaps to this conclusion is unclear ... he says later on that the Dalek must have come back through time, and so presumably at this point there could well be lots of other Daleks around. However the Dalek can find no mention of them on the Internet. Obviously it wasn't using the right search engine! The Dalek itself is a masterpiece of retro-redesign. It looks battered and war-weary, but is also strong and effective looking. Despite its chains, it is still dangerous - the last man to touch it burst into flames apparently - and the Doctor snaps and tries to kill it with electricity, but to no avail. Meanwhile Rose is chatting with Englishman Adam, van Statten's procurer of Alien Artefacts, and here we get a sense that he and Rose like each other. In fact, it's more than a sense as the music over this scene is intrusive and schmaltsy and hammers home the romantic interest - incidental music should not be noticed if it is working, but this stands out like a sore thumb and is perhaps the weakest aspect of this episode. Realising that the Doctor is also the last of his race, van Statten tortures him with some sort of laser beam x-ray device thingy and finds that he has two hearts. But before he can start cutting the Doctor up, Rose and Adam go to find the Dalek as Rose sees it on a monitor being drilled by one of van Statten's henchmen and crying out in pain. Rose talks to and then touches the Dalek as she feels sorry for it, and it immediately draws some of her DNA and uses it to regenerate itself. It quickly breaks its bonds, escapes from the cell and draws more power from America generally (as well as absorbing the entire content of 'the internet' into itself). This makes it gleam and shine, becoming a new soldier Dalek rather than the battle-scarred relic, and it goes off on a rampage. These are easily the best scenes of Dalek mayhem we have ever seen. The Dalek's movements are slow and precise, with not a jerk to be seen. Its gun fries victims to a crisp, revealing their contorting skeletons in the process, and it can even turn its middle section around to fire behind it, as well as ... wait for it ... being able to elevate up a flight of stairs. I bet the newspaper people were wetting themselves with excitement at this point. The scenes are superb, and the Dalek manages to wipe out all the opposing forces easily, with cunning and intelligence before the Doctor and van Statten, watching from the top level, decide to shut the bulkhead doors and trap it ... but of course Rose cannot run fast enough and is trapped with the creature. I do wonder why van Statten has so many armed troops at his disposal though, and, it seems, only a handful of scientists and other workers. Given that his facility is just for the storage of these artifacts which he is buying from around the world, why would he feel the need for his own private army ... but then maybe this is just his nature - he is certainly a man who likes to get his own way. Despite the Dalek crying 'Exterminate' (more new trousers for the newspaper people please who would be wetting themselves by this point) and us hearing its gun fire, the creature does not kill Rose, preferring instead to have a chat about fear as it seems to have absorbed more than just DNA from Rose. This is really the aspect which wins the Pip and Jane Award for meaningless gobbledegook. Apparently Rose's DNA was different because she had been travelling in time ... quite how or why this is, is not explained ... perhaps the TARDIS does more than just attune itself to your brain. I wonder why she didn't burst into flames as well, or why the Dalek couldn't use plain old human DNA to regenerate itself. The Doctor is forced to allow the Dalek to escape again, but while he's waiting for it to arrive, he decides to get tooled up with the biggest gun he can find in Adam's storeroom. Rose, meanwhile stops the Dalek from killing van Statten, and instead discovers that all the metal meanie wants is 'freedom'. So the Dalek and Rose take a walk to another area, where the Dalek shoots a hole in the ceiling to allow the sunlight to flood in. It then wants to know what it feels like and so opens its casing to reveal the mutant within, so that it can indulge in a spot of sunbathing. The effects here are simply awesome. The Dalek casing opening is impressive enough, but the mutant creature is both horrifying and sympathy inducing at the same time. The little tentacled creature seeming hardly dangerous enough to warrant the Doctor arriving with his big gun, wanting to blast it to pieces himself. Rose won't let him, though, and the Doctor, it seems, realises at last that he was becoming as bad as the Daleks. As Rose says, the Dalek wasn't the one pointing a gun at her. The Dalek finally asks Rose to order him to die, and this she does. The Dalek releases its balls and they form a ring around it and it vanishes ... presumably in a puff of its own logic. There seems to be no other reason for this final effect than to show off the CGI work, but it's impressive enough. The audience breathes freely once more as the Dalek is destroyed, but along the way, Shearman's story has offered hints of all manner of themes and ideas, some which might go against what we think we know about the series, others which explore the nature of survival, and the idea that a soldier without a war and without orders to follow might as well not exist. It's all powerful stuff, and Shearman's script manages to get it right pretty much all of the time. I can't let this review finish without giving special mention to perhaps the most important and siginiciant contributor to this story ... Nick Briggs. I have known and been friends with Nick for many years and his vocal talents lend this Dalek the most alien and yet human qualities I have yet seen in Doctor Who. He manages to catch the inflections just right, and adds pathos and believability to a role which could have descended into the rantings of a madman (Ok, mad Dalek). It's an extraordinary achievement, making this Dalek seem alive and dangerous and yet still make it sympathetic and Briggs manages all this with just his voice. When you add up everything that this episode has going for it: the cast, some superb direction, innovative ideas, a great script, a brilliant Dalek prop, some superb set pieces, and state of the art effects both mechanical and CGI, then it's not surprising that a simple story about a lone Dalek survivor has turned out to be the highlight of the series to date. I'd give this 10/10 if it wasn't for the slightly overbearing and in places just plain wrong music. But it's a delight from beginning to end, and I hope that the series can continue in this darker vein and start to really plumb the depths of our emotions in weeks to come.

Doctor Who - World War Three

The second part of the story started in Aliens of London, and we pick up where we left the Doctor and co at the end of last week's episode ... the electrification thingy used by the Slitheen doesn't affect the Doctor (as he's not human of course) and instead he jams the ID pass into the throat-device of the revealed Slitheen creature which makes all of them crackle with electricity allowing everyone to escape from their various cliff-hanger predicaments ... quite how this works isn't explained, but the assumption is that all the creatures are perhaps linked together and that if you were to kill one, then the others would also be affected. This is a nice idea, but obviously not correct as when the policeman-Slitheen threatening Jackie (whose name seems to be Welsh ... something like Sic-Fel-Foch) is killed with vinegar, the others don't die as well ... but they do sense that their compatriot has been killed. The plot starts to resolve itself: the Slitheen aren't an alien race invading the world ... they are an alien family (Slitheen is their second name - their first names are fairly unpronouncable and hyphenated - and they come from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius - full marks to Eccleston for pronouncing that one) here to destroy the Earth and then sell it on the black market as chunks of radioactive clinker ... so the Doctor has to stop them of course. To do this, he cunningly traps himself, Rose and Harriet in the cabinet room behind reinforced metal walls with no communication and no way out ... hmm. Perhaps not the best at forethought is the ninth Doctor. It's eventually down to Mickey, Rose's erstwhile boyfriend, to save the day and to text her a picture of one of the monsters on her mobile ... hardly the first thing I'd do if I was intent on escaping from a rampaging green alien. Nevertheless, this outside contact allows the Doctor to talk Mickey through hacking into the UNIT website, which has to be one of the most insecure websites in the world - www.unit.org.uk - just one password allows Mickey to launch a missile to destroy 10 Downing Street. The password is, for some strange reason 'buffalo' and allows access to pretty much everything on the website. I like the way that the site does actually exist, and that the password does work ... even if the missile launching simulation thing there is a little naff. Meanwile, the Slitheen family call in their brothers and sisters (including Group Captain Tennant James of the RAF, Ewen McAllister, Deputy Sectretary for the Scottish Parliament; and Sylvia Delaine, Chairman of the North Sea Boating Club) and make a plea via a television broadcast to the UN to release the codes to launch a nuclear strike on the invading aliens ... all of which is a ruse of course to enable them to use the missiles themselves to secure the destruction of the world. But with Mickey's help the Doctor blows Downing Street and everyone in it sky high with a missile and the day is saved. Luckily, the steel-shutter protected cabinet room is unscathed and the Doctor, Rose and Harriet emerge safely from the crater which is all that remains of Downing Street ... I guess we have to suspend our disbelief a little here and believe that the potential death toll incurred by the Doctor's actions was minimised by the strangely Welsh police officers clearing the entire area with about 10 seconds notice. The Slitheen are presented on screen as both CGI creatures, which leap and bound gracefully after the Doctor, and as costumed actors, who lumber around like ... men in rubber suits. It's a shame that the aspirations of the CGI didn't more closely match the reality of the costumes ... but the overall presentation of the monsters is a good and valiant attempt to do something different and original. The conclusion that the Slitheen can be killed with vinegar is arrived at by the Doctor when he realises that they are a living calcium-based life form, and the one splashed by Jackie and Mickey explodes in an impressive riot of green gunge ... great for Saturday tea time. There are some other areas of light humour here as well ... aside from the farting which continues , there's the female Slitheen's hunt for Rose and Harriet which is disconcertingly like the 'big bad wolf' from the fairy tale (it's that Wolf motif again folks), when attacking the little pigs (and it's therefore interesting that it was a pig that was chosen as the decoy in the first episode). Then there's the final words spoken by the Slitheen as they realise they're about to be blown to smithereens: 'Oh bol ...!' As to what that second word might have been is left to the minds of the viewers ... and I think we can guess at what conclusion the majority might come to in this regard. Overall I found this episode a little hard going. I enjoyed it a lot more on a second viewing, though, and I suspect that watching the entire story in one go would give better results ... for me there was again way too much 'Doctor Soap', as I mentioned in an earlier entry. The material with Rose and Jackie and Mickey (though he redeems himself here from his pretty useless showing in Rose) is somewhat tedious in places, and I really hope that we might have seen the last of Rose's family and the 'domestics' as the Doctor puts it. The ending of the story felt like a final 'goodbye' between the characters, and that's how I'd like it to stay. One piece of dialogue of note here, and as usual it is Billie Piper being brilliant as Rose ... it's the 'You're stuck wiv me ...' line, followed by a silent laugh and a pointing figure at the Doctor ... genius. She's acting Eccleston off the screen most of the time, and is by far the most watchable and consistently entertaining companion ever. I think in summation, the two parter worked, allowing enough time to develop the characters (though the team from UNIT never said a word as far as I remember, and were all killed at the end of the first episode. And what happened to the dishy Dr Sato?) while also developing a decent story with a reasonable twist. There are, however, some tricky questions emerging about the story. Why would an advanced race with space travel and the technology to convert a pig into a sentient creature, let alone being able to impersonate humans by using their hollowed out skins - and come to think of it, why don't the skins rot and decay? - why would such a race need to use Earth's own missiles? Wouldn't they have their own? Or the technology to destroy the Earth themselves? And why pick on the Earth? Wouldn't any of the planets have done? And why bother with all the subterfuge and the nonsense with the pig? If they wanted to terrify humanity, then the Slitheen themselves looked pretty scary in a way that a pig in a space suit doesn't quite match. Never mind. The episodes were jolly good fun, with some neat effects, some scary monsters, and some ideas and concepts way beyond normal television shows. Not to mention the ironic winks at fat-cat politicians and the Weapons of Mass Destruction debates. Next week ... Dalek!!!!

The Claws of Axos

The latest WHO DVD from the BBC is a favourite story of mine: The Claws of Axos, first transmitted in 1971. The DVD is as usual packed with extra goodies. This time there's a tremendous selection of material from a studio tape from the story (this is the material recorded by the cameras in the studio, unedited and with all the retakes and so on intact. This footage is presented with optional captions which explain what is going on, and these are really helpful in understanding and appreciating the reasons for retakes and so on. We get to see a variety of goofs and fluffs, and also the recording of various different parts of the story. Of particular interest is the sequence in the UNIT lorry where the driver is hypnotised by the Master ... recorded in a studio and faked to look like it's all in the lorry ... very effective it is too. There's a mini-documentary about the locations, which is impressive for the time and effort that the makers have gone to in order to duplicate exact camera angles and pans so that the picture can be faded from the original footage to the location today ... very impressive indeed. The tapes of The Claws of Axos were recovered from America and so had to be converted from NTSC back to PAL in order to release them, and there's a very technical documentary about Reverse Standards Conversion here which explains all the gubbins which goes into the process and what they did. The results speak for themselves and the split-screen sections showing the normal conversions verses the RSC conversions highlight the superb quality of the DVD presentation. Unfortunately this little documentary goes a little insane at the end and starts going on about aliens and the like, rather spoiling the technical nature of the rest of it. Interesting too that the man who pioneered Standards Conversion from PAL to NTSC in the first place was a Mr Axon ... The photo gallery contains numerous new shots and is accompanied by some great background and sound effects from the story. There's even a piece with the director, Michael Ferguson, on the story and it's always nice to see the behind the scenes people talking about their work. Oh, the DVD even includes the actual story as well ... so you can watch four episodes of Pertwee mastery at your leisure.

Doctor Who - Aliens of London

After two episodes of danger and excitement and far flung times it's something of a disappointment that the Doctor and Rose land up back in contemporary London for this fourth episode. There are some nice ideas here ... the handling of Rose's twelve month departure (rather than the twelve hours the Doctor claims at the start) is well done, although the lack of any credible explanations from Rose to her mum and to the police seemed somewhat strange. I also feel that the Doctor would at least have been strenuously questioned or even arrested by the police as a potential suspect to kidnapping rather than sitting in Rose's mum's flat drinking tea! But after the initial reunions, we are treated to the best piece of effects work I have yet seen ... probably anywhere! A spacecraft comes down low over Rose and the Doctor's heads ... leaking black smoke and on its way to central London. The shots of it flying through the air, as well as the point of view shots are exceptional, and it's initial clipping of a building before taking out the top of the Big Ben clock tower are amazing. I loved this sequence ... it's awe inspiring and breathtaking and blows everything else out of the window. I feel that this sequence sets the standard for the series - the space station in The End of the World was good, but this is awesome. Of course the Doctor's reaction to it ... one of a child setting off to chase the ice cream van ... is likewise very typical of this Doctor, and brings an air of giddy excitement to the whole scene. Some of the ensuing news footage, although well done, did not ring as true as I would have liked - we don't put dramatic music over live reportage news footage in the UK, and the main reporter seemed a little false to me. Good to see Andrew Marr there though as he is an increasingly familiar face on television, and has even been parodied on Dead Ringers. Unfortunately the phone number to contact if you have any information on aliens does not work (it was 08081 570 980 if you're interested). I half expected this to be a number with a recorded message on it about the 'alien invasion'. A shame that this minor element was not carried through. We're then introduced to the main characters in the ensuing drama: the portly politicians Green (he of the chronic flatulence), Blaine and Charles; the nervy Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North); General Askwith (presumably of UNIT although I don't think this was stated); and the nervy secretary Strickland. Something is obviously amiss with the three overweight honourable Members of Parliament as no sooner are they in a room together that they start giggling and laughing and metaphorically rubbing their hands together like Doctor Evil. Unfortunately, we switch back to the emerging soap opera as Rose has to contend with her mum and Mickey, her erstwhile boyfriend, as the Doctor heads off in the TARDIS to do some investigating into the strange alien body retrieved from the wreckage. The lead up to the revelation of this creature is very well handled, and its escape from the morgue seems to be a sly nod to the Doctor Who television movie where the Doctor does the same thing after regenerating. Doctor Sato (played by Naoko Mori) is very good, and everyone plays it dead straight as the alien is revealed to be a somewhat amusing pig in a spacesuit (played by Jimmy Vee - he seems to have drawn the short straw to play alien creatures who end up dead ...) More scary are our portly politicians who seem to have zippers in their foreheads and blue light hidden within - but why do all the lights go out when they unzip? Is one of the aliens perhaps standing by the light switches ready for the unveiling? I guess one explanation could be that the effort of shedding the human skin draws energy from the local power supply, thus causing the lights to fail. It would in part explain the crackling blue energy that is seen as the skins are shed. But then we're back to Doctor Soap and Rose's mum and Mickey enter the TARDIS to the dismay of the Doctor who does not want a 'domestic' ... and nor did I. I can understand in part why the series is focussing on Rose and her family, but these aspects tended to drag everything down for me. I almost wish they hadn't been in the episode and that Rose and the Doctor could have got on with the bigger plot without the weight of human relationships to contend with as well. But then Rose's mum reports the Doctor as another alien and the government are alerted to the fact that the Doctor is there ... so they send what seems like the whole army, including a helecopter, to get him. Back at number 10 Downing Street, we rapidly approach the end-game. Rose, Harriet and Strickland are trapped in an office by Blaine who unzips herself before them ... meanwhile Rose's mum has a visit from a strangely corpulent and flatulent policeman who sheds his skin in her living room ... while the Doctor and all the visiting UNIT officials (none of whom say a word, even to the Doctor) witness the revealing of Askwith (whose body had been taken by the alien previously posing as Charles) before Green starts to electricute them all with something hidden in their ID badges ... ... and cue the closing credit scream and we have our first proper cliff hanger of the series ... but then they go and spoil it all with a 'Next Time' preview ... no, no, no! This was not necessary. Now, having seen that, we all know that the Doctor escapes, more of what the monsters look like and so on. The whole point of a cliff hanger is that you don't know what happens next, and the joy is to wait a week to find out, discussing possible resolutions with friends. I would far rather they had left the 'Next Time' section off this episode altogether. My whole family cheered at the cliffhanger, and then simultaneously erupted in dismay at the 'Next Time' section - this including an 11 year old who hid his eyes during the hunt for the pig-alien in the lab, and who also hid when the Slitheen were unmasked at the end ... great reactions and exactly what was needed from the series. Even my brother's 4-year old son loved the monsters at the end - having been a little bored during the lead up to their revelation. The Slitheen - as they revealed themselves to be - are a classic monster. A brilliant vocal performance (sounding like a belch), great nictitating eyes, some neat squishy sound effects and more impressive CGI as they reveal themselves as powerful, green and large, and somehow hidden within the hollowed out skin of human hosts (there was talk of compression fields and gas exchanges to explain this ... at least they looked far more believable than the Foamasi). So on to next week's episode, where hopefully there'll be more explanations, more monsters and more death and mayhem at number 10 Downing Street. I suspect, however, that we'll have to wait for more explanation of the boy who spray paints 'Bad Wolf' on the side of the TARDIS ...

Cabin Fever

2004's surprise hit horror movie was a little film called Cabin Fever. I've just managed to see it on DVD ... as usual with this sort of film, it's hard to know quite what to expect. Its antecedents would appear to be things like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Evil Dead and The Blair Witch Project, but it comes over as a ppor relation to these and also somewhat confused in which direction it wants to take. The main problem is the script. The idea is great: an isolated cabin in the woods, and five horny teenagers arrive there intent on partying (three boys, two girls) but then a sick-looking hermit comes calling, and soon the water is infected and the kids start to succumb to a flesh-eating sickness one by one. There's some interesting concepts here: the girl who first gets sick is being fondled by her boyfriend when he discovers that she has blood on her leg ... as her leg is dissolving. The same girl then gets the best make-up effect in the film when we see her eaten-away face at the end. The claustrophobia of the cabin setting starts off well, but then there seem to be hundreds of people within walking distance of the place, so it's perhaps not quite so isolated after all. Then there's the locals - deliberately played as Chainsaw-like sub-intelligent types - who go after the kids once they discover they are sick ... The problem is that the film loses its focus quite quickly. It takes a long time to get going, for the kids to arrive at the cabin and for the loony, infected hermit to vomit blood all over their jeep. Then the sickness starts slowly and takes forever to get anywhere. Finally, when what we really want is for all the kids barring one to have become crazed zombie-types, it doesn't happen. Instead the film veers off into the police coming to take over the situation, a random car ride and collision with a deer, one of the kids being taken to hospital ... and finally an ending snatched straight out of Night of the Living Dead. It's a fun and undemanding watch, and not really scary. There are some nice moments, and some gross outs with vomiting blood and crazed dogs, but overall the the film tends not to hang together coherently in the final half hour or so. It's a shame as the two girls are very watchable (and manage to get their clothes off several times along the way) and the boys are likewise good looking and affable types. Certainly, watching the making-of feature, you get the impression that these folks all had their hearts in the right place, and the homages to the films of the 70s are certainly there. I think what it needed was a firmer hand on the script to make sure the focus remained steady, and perhaps greater attention to the ending - for my money always the most critical part of a film. In summary, it's not a bad little film, but in some ways it's not downright awful enough to be true drunken Friday night hilarity fare, but also it's not quite good enough to stand alongside the classics of the genre.

The Mind Robber

In with all the excitement of the new series of Who, it can be easy to forget some of the gems that have gone before, and I was delighted to see the release of one of my favourite Troughton adventures, The Mind Robber, on DVD. The Mind Robber is a story that I remember watching when it was first transmitted ... in particular the scene where Zoe is found in the jar (after the riddle: when is a door not a door? When it's ajar.) but also the creepy White Robots which made an eerie creaking sound as they moved. The story is a great blend of SF and fantasy, with the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe becoming trapped in the Land of Fiction as the Land's current master wishes to stand down and wants the Doctor to take his place. The first episode is a tour de force, with only the regular cast, a handful of robot costumes salvaged from an old episode of Out of the Unknown and the TARDIS set, the production team crafted something spooky and memorable and which provides an excellent lead in to Peter Ling's story proper which starts with episode two. Of course that Jamie changes his face is well known, but that Frazer Hines' chickenpox came during the recording of this story allowed his absence to be dealt with in a way which is both imaginative and in keeping with the story as a whole. Hamish Wilson provides a great substitute Jamie for an episode though, and it's impressive that he has been tracked down to be interviewed on the DVD and to contribute to the commentary track. Troughton is on exemplary form here, as is Wendy Padbury as Zoe - and her glittery catsuit gets its first outing here as well, something for the older viewers to appreciate. The story rollicks along throwing in schoolchildren, clockwork soldiers, the Medusa, a unicorn and a comic strip hero called the Karkus (and Christopher Robbie who played him is also interviewed in the documentary) until we finally get to meet the master ... and in a neat post-modern way, this isn't the Master, but a master - nothing to do with renegade time lords and tissue compression eliminators at all. The master here is a somewhat doddery old man who is in thrall to the computer. Of course the Doctor manages to save the day and the White Robots are ordered to destroy everything and so they do ... including the computer. It all ends rather rushed, with our heroes standing in a black void wondering what will happen next ... of course next is one of my all time favourite stories, Invasion ... The DVD is, as with all the BBC's vintage Doctor Who releases, packed with extras. There's a rather good 'making of' documentary, and a slightly unusually placed biography feature on Frazer Hines. More surreal is a lengthy sketch from The Basil Brush Show, included, it seems, as it features a yeti monster comprised of hybrid bits of costume from the two Troughton yeti stories ... odd that it appears on this disc, but I'd rather it was here than nowhere. The commentary on the story this time is provided by Frazer Hines (Jamie), Wendy Padbury (Zoe), David Maloney (the director) and Hamish Wilson (Jamie again). All this release serves really to demonstrate how wonderful and versatile Doctor Who always was, and that what the 2005 series is achieving is in no small part to the format and efforts of the earlier generations of the show.

Doctor Who - The Unquiet Dead

Before I start ... here be spoilers. You have been warned. Mark Gatiss' The Unquiet Dead is, for me at least, the best thing I've seen on television for such a long time. The fact that it is also Doctor Who is a massive bonus, and it firmly cements the diversity and effectiveness of the Doctor Who format. So far in the 2005 season we have seen the Doctor and Rose enjoy an adventure on contemporary Earth, and then travel into the far future to witness the destruction of said planet. Now we travel back into the past - the Doctor is aiming for Naples, December 24th 1860 but arrives in Cardiff, 1869, instead. But as usual the TARDIS seems to have chosen this period as no sooner have the Doctor and Rose started enjoying the wintry atmosphere than screams and shouts from a local theatre alert them to the fact that something is up. 'That's more like it!' exclaims the Doctor with familiar enthusiasm and the time travellers are thrown into the mystery of the walking corpses. The handling of the themes of this episode are very cleverly carried out. Gatiss has ensured that there is a high quotient of horror here, and the opening scenes where Mr Redpath is killed by his reanimated 86 year old grandmother are very spooky. As is the shot leading to the opening credits where she walks towards the camera moaning and glowing with internal light. Other moments of terror include where the Gelth manifests behind Gwyneth at the 'seance' and also where the reanimated dead stalk, first Rose in the locked room, and then the Doctor, Rose and Dickens in the morgue. The make up and CGI effects for the zombies is very effective indeed, and evokes a chill down the spine. Mr Sneed's death is unexpected and somewhat brutal, as is his immediate reanimation as a walking corpse ... overall the horrific elements of the story work very well indeed and provide for some impressive moments. Of the cast, all are uniformly superb. From the somewhat bemused Mr Sneed to Gwyneth, and especially to Dickens - a role which Simon Callow plays with relish and which is supremely watchable and enjoyable. Gwyneth has 'the Sight' as Sneed puts it, and can sense the minds of others. This leads to some brilliant performances as Gwyneth senses that Rose has 'come such a long way' before seeing some hidden terror in 'the Darkness ... and the Big Bad Wolf ...' which leaves Rose confused. Gwyneth is a fabulous creation. Simple and yet sensitive ... someone who you feel sorry for, and yet who manages to steal every scene she is in through underplaying the role and simply by being honest and caring to all those she meets. As Rose says at the end: 'She saved the world ... a servant girl no one will ever know.' Callow's Dickens is likewise a masterful creation, being world-weary and depressed at the start, to being given a new infusion of life and joy de vivre at the end. I loved his 'What the Shakespeare's going on?' line (even though it is a little corny), and using him to realise that the Gelth can be drawn from the corpses by filling the house with gas was a nice idea. As for the Gelth ... they seem somewhat underused here, and the twist that they are actually evil was pretty predictable. Interesting that they know about the Time War (referred to in The End of the World) and that they claim that this wiped them out (which would seem to be a blatant lie). Other things I loved about this episode included Rose's leaving the TARDIS for the first time, hesitating to step out into another time, and then leaving a hesitant footprint in the snow ... Rose's accepting 'Okay' when the Doctor tells her that their companion is Charles Dickens (I am growing to love Rose more and more, and her natural asides and almost resigned accepting of what the Doctor explains and shows her are very endearing) ... I even appreciated the small detail of the fallen snow being left behind when the TARDIS dematerialises at the end, being blown in the wind ... it's the small things which make it all so enjoyable and perfect, and I for one really appreciate them. The episode ends with a superb explosion ... a fitting end to a superb story. Generally the lighting and direction throughout has been exemplary. I loved the use of muted colours, and the warm oranges and reds used for the humans compared with the cold blues and violent reds of the Gelf. Moreover, The Unquiet Dead has a good, linear plot which can be easily followed. It doesn't seem too rushed, and everything hangs together perfectly. My only gripe - and this is a very minor comment - is that the Doctor never saw Rose being chloroformed by Sneed and placed in the hearse ... so when he leaves the theatre with Dickens, how does he know she is in the vehicle being driven away? The Unquiet Dead has an excellent plot, and when combined with top-rate acting, some dazzling dialogue, and impressive and atmospheric effects, it is quite the best way to spend 45 minutes that I can think of.

Doctor Who - The End of the World

Before we start ... these reviews are full of spoilers ... so if you don't want to be spoiled, look away now :) From Earth circa 2005 to the far, far future - 5.5/apple/26, according to the Doctor - where he and Rose find themselves on board an observation station - Platform 1 - in space, about to be witness to the final destruction of the Earth as the Sun expands. The End of the World could not really be more different from Rose. From the homely surroundings of familiar London we are plunged into the far future to meet up with alien races aplenty all gathering to be witness to the end of the Earth. In quick succession we are introduced to these creatures: Jabe, Lute and Coffa who are Trees from the Forest of Cheem; The Moxx of Balhoon from the solicitors' firm of Jolco and Jolco; delegates from Financial Family Five - the Adherents of the Repeated Meme; the Brothers Hop Pyleen; Mr and Mrs Pakoo; Cal 'Sparkplug' MacNannovich (who appears to be two beings); Ambassadors from the City State of Binding Light; the face of Boe; and finally Lady Cassandra O'Brien dot Delta Seventeen ... plus of course assorted blue-faced people. I was reminded a little of The Curse of Peladon with its panoply of alien creatures: the Pels, Aggedor, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus and the Martians, but unlike in that earlier story, here we get to learn very little (in fact for the most part it's just their names) about the creatures. Coming off best is Jabe the Tree and Lady Cassandra of the 708 operations, both of who get a fair amount of screen time and, especially in Jabe's case, are very well realised and characterised. Yasmin Bannerman is a wonder and a delight as Jabe. She exudes regal sexuality, and I can well understand why the Doctor seems attracted to her. It is a shame though that she takes the place of Rose as 'surrogate companion' for the best part of the episode, and one wonders why writer Russell T Davies chose to do this, and to give Rose next to nothing to do in this episode. It seems a strange decision this early on in the series to sideline one of your main characters in favour of another, ultimately one-off, character. Billie Piper's Rose shines throughout though, despite her being wandering on her own or trapped in a room for most of the episode. She gets all the best lines from 'I'm talking to a twig!' through to her summation of Lady Cassandra as a 'bitchy trampoline'. I'm not sure how she escapes from the room at the end though - the Doctor had pronounced the doors to be jammed, and yet Rose wanders into the main hall at the conclusion having got out somehow ... maybe, along with the apparent automatic mending of the damaged glass, the doors were repaired as well. However, if the Platform is able to automatically repair itself, I wonder why we need a 'plumber' to perform routine inspections. However if this function was not needed, then we would have missed Beccy Armory's superb and scene-stealing role as Raffalo, surely the cutest blue-faced alien from Crespallion ever to appear. As with Rose, the episode suffers from a need to tell a coherent story in 45 minutes, and it is all very rushed. This is not quite so pronounced here, but there are some areas where the events seem to take precidence over the plot and characterisation. We end up with a series of 'things that happen' rather than a plot. The scenes where the Doctor has to navigate the spinning air conditioning blades is straight out of the Tomb Raider games, and whoever designed this Platform obviously has a wicked sense of humour: placing the computer reset switch on the far side of the blades; making the sun shields - which are the only things keeping the occupants alive - lowerable, and making them able to be lowered from a single depression of a key on a keyboard ... most PCs won't even let you delete a file without confirming the action, so this lack of foresight on the part of the system designers seems somewhat curious. Of course, perhaps this was all a part of the sabotage caused by the spiders, but then they (or their programmer) must have had pretty expert knowledge of how the Platform worked. The effects are magnificent, and I can well appreciate the work that The Mill put into this episode. From the spiders to the external shots of the Platform, to the Sun streaming in, Cassandra, and the ventilator shaft, their work is exemplary and hard to fault. It lends everything a wide and expansive feel, which given the claustrophobic nature of the inside of the Platform is probably a good thing. In other areas, however, there are questions raised. The main aspect is the lashings of continuity (or apparent continuity) that we are handed. I have long advocated that the programme makers don't need to worry about the internal continuity of the series as it's the fans' job to make it all fit together (and also Terrance Dicks' assertion that the definition of continuity is 'as much as you can remember'). However the revelations about Gallifrey having been destroyed, a war that the Time Lords lost, and that the Doctor is now the last Time Lord all come over as being quite significant, and yet no hint of these has ever appeared in the series before. Now I am well aware that these things are part and parcel of the BBC's book range, and yet the books were bought and read by what ... 6 - 10 thousand people at most? Now we have 10 million viewers, and less than 0.1 percent will nod their heads sagely and believe to themselves that this all ties up ... Whatever background the new series is developing for the Doctor, the handling of the relevant scenes by Bannerman and Eccleston was superb, and the single tear falling from the Doctor's eye a masterstroke. I wonder if this is also referring to some underlying plotline for the series as a whole as well, and that as we reach the end, maybe we'll find out more about the war, who it was against, and how the Doctor is faring as the last of his race left alive. It's a nice idea, and proves if nothing else that to the majority of the audience, 'new' continuity can be just as valid as 'existing' continuity as they know nothing about either. Other areas of amusement: the use of the records 'Tainted Love' by Soft Cell and 'Toxic' by Brittany Spears stood out as amusing and perhaps relevant for the audience. Though I hope that they won't cause any challenges in the future with clearance rights for repeats, or date the episode too badly. One final comment: the character of the Doctor. I suspect we're starting to see some depth to him, but he's also not really like the Doctor I know from the series in the past. Would the Doctor ignore the plea of his companion and watch another being die without lifting a finger to try and help? There seemed no reason for the Doctor not to try and help Cassandra at the end, and his just standing and watching comes across as callous when the same end could have been achieved by his not realising that bringing her back to the Platform would result in her death. Likewise when Rose is asking him who he is, he seems to go off into a little sulky tantrum and won't answer her, forcing her to take the moral high ground and extend a hand of peace to him. These isolated incidents concern me a little, as perhaps they send a message to viewers that the Doctor is willing to let people die for no reason, and I feel we need to trust that the Doctor takes action to preserve life where he can, but sometimes fails because the outcomes are perhaps inevitable. This feeling also spills over into Jabe's death, which would have been avoidable if the Doctor had got Rose to help him in the ventilator duct rather than seemingly forgetting all about her. It's this lack of thought which can be seen as callousness which bothered me. Perhaps it can be explained as a by-product of the way the Doctor feels alone and adrift in the universe (as he alludes to at one point) rather than any intrinsic part of his character. Overall, The End of the World is a nice little slice of pure SF. It has some interesting characters, some of which are superbly realised (Jabe, Cassandra) and others which are just hanging as potentials (the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, the Moxx of Balhoon and most of the others). I enjoyed the episode a lot more on a second viewing. First time through it seemed to drag somewhat in the first half, but then picked up as we progressed to the end-game. Compared to Rose it's very different and overall I did enjoy it, but with reservations. But viva la difference ... I think I could have written two reviews of the episode. One wholly positive and one wholly negative ... The End of the World is very different indeed to Rose, and it looks like next week's offering, The Unquiet Dead, is different again ...

More WHO and Eccleston Quits

What a week ... After the total heady excitement that was Rose so we moved into the rest of the week to learn on Wednesday that the BBC have commissioned what they describe as a Doctor Who Christmas Special, and also a second series is on for 2006 ... Wow. I mean ... WOW. But then on Thursday the news breaks that Chris Eccleston won't be continuing as the Doctor for a variety of media speculative reasons ... shame. And then Outpost Gallifrey explodes and Shaun has to shut down the forum for a time because people are apparently getting silly about the whole situation and can't get a sense of perspective on it. Personally I stopped reading the OG threads about the new series ages ago as they seemed to be full of people complaining and talking about such minutae as I could not believe - one person even complained about the 'spinning on Earth' line from Rose as, apparently, the Earth only spins at 1000 miles a second at the Equator and it's different in England ... crikey! Talk about needing to get a grip. But then the whole new series thing ... a Christmas Special ... in which Eccleston will star and which *might* give us a regeneration. But I don't know if I want one. I'd be happy with not seeing it happen. Just start the second season with a new Doctor the same way as this season did. What I'm hoping and praying that they won't do is to make a seasonal episode with all snow and Christmas themes, carols and Santa revealed to be the Master and so on ... yeuch. Not sure I want that at all. Just a great, rollicking episode with loads of thrills, spills and excitement please. Oh, and great monsters. We need more great monsters. But another 13 episodes in 2006 :) That's some announcement. And who plays the Doctor ...? Sheesh, I don't mind. Actors do a job and move on ... that's their lives ... so someone else will come in and then they'll want to move on ... and so on and so on and so on. Oh, and in case you're reading this thinking that you need to complain to the OG forum about the Doctor using up his lives too quickly, here's a bit of dialogue cut from Survival ... recently discovered in a shoe box in the basement of TV Centre in London (honest ... would I lie to you?): *** ACE: But Doctor, if you don't defeat the Master, won't you have to change again ... regenerate? DOCTOR: It's always a possibility Ace. ACE: You can only do that ... what ... twelve times? Can't you? And you're on your seventh body now ... won't this use them up too quickly? DOCTOR: Ah ... Ace ... (THE DOCTOR TAPS THE SIDE OF HIS NOSE) ... Sometimes I can be economical with the truth ... 12 times is just the primary regenerative sequence for a Time Lord ... we can go on forever ... *** So I don't mind if we have 13, 15, 27 or even 150 Doctors ... just as long as they don't all meet up together, along with all their companions, in a haunted and sentient Church with a mysterious bearded Vicar one Christmas ...

Printer Update

So Epson finally managed to get out to me on Tuesday after the Easter hols, and they replaced the entire printer as it had a 'laser fault' - whatever that means. So I am now the proud owner of a spiffy colour laser printer. Expect lots of nice full colour Press Releases for Telos and other colour goodies if you ever write to me or order books :)

Doctor Who - Rose (the review)

So after months of waiting, finally the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who has been transmitted (properly this time and not watched on a PC from the version of the episode leaked onto the internet). I was one of the millions watching last night, and I saw it again this morning. So what's the verdict? I loved it to pieces, basically. It had all the hallmarks of Who as I know and love from the past, but remixed and reimagined for a 2005 audience. It was very clever in a great many ways, managing to appeal to children (the belching wheelie bin being the most obvious example of that) but also to adults (with the Doctor being both mysterious and engaging all at the same time). My 11 year old son loved it, as did my brother, and even some friends enjoyed it, along with their young kids (who were scared by Mickey being eaten by the wheelie bin). The dialogue sparkled, with many, many moments of laugh out loud humour, and impressive visuals. Favourites for me are the 'many planets have a North' moment, the point where the Doctor realises that the London Eye is the transmitter and smiles broadly, plus of course a lot of Clives' explanations to Rose (where I think Russell must have been reading Daniel O'Mahony's Telos Novella THE CABINET OF LIGHT before writing it). Plotwise, I thought it was very clever the way that the story was sketched in using a shorthand form of narrative and editing which gave all the information without labouring the point: we get to see Rose, get a sense of her mundane day to day existance through the opening scenes (mum, work, boyfriend, London and so on), and we immediately know and understand her as a character as a result. I was reminded in the direction of shows like Daniel Peacock's What If which uses a similar shorthand in the editing to get as much information over as possible in the shortest time. I also loved the idea that this is the tail end of a much longer adventure for the Doctor - the story of his involvement with the Nestene Consciousness in some far flung wars, in which the Doctor tried to help but failed, and now the Consciousness has ended up on Earth, hoping to feed and recoup its strength, only to find the Doctor there again armed with 'anti plastic' - whatever that may be. I loved the opening title sequence which was both reminiscent of the old slit scan process but refreshingly modern - but I have to say that I don't think the actual 'Doctor Who' logo works in the sequence ... it's for me far too 'normal' a logo and is fairly unmemorable. I would have preferred a reworking of the old diamond logo personally. But the title music was excellent, retaining all the great elements of the original with a modern twist, as was the incidental music - I appreciated the more upbeat score, again, redolent of children's TV drama of today. Christopher Eccleston was simply suberb as the Doctor. He seemed to have the right mix of the old and the new, and for all the hype about his 'costume', I don't think of it as a costume at all, in just the same way as I never considered the first four Doctors to be wearing a 'costume'. It all really went wrong in my opinion when the 'costume' started to overshadow the Doctor, and to be a statement in its own right: the cricketer, the bright and loud, question marks everywhere ... The idea should be that the Doctor wears whatever he feels comfortable in and that the outfit simply works in whichever adventure or environment he is enjoying at the time. I smiled a lot at his dialogue too: the exchanges with Rose's mum, though somewhat strange and awkward (she seems to be a very desperate woman, poor thing) worked so well with the Doctor's final 'Naaa' reposte; the speech to Rose about spinning through space captured some of that elusive magic for me; and the later exchange with Rose in the TARDIS about being an alien ... lovely. Expecially when she comes back so quickly with not minding that he is an alien. Billie Piper is a revelation. She is so, so good in the role of Rose. Even the cockney/London accent didn't upset me and sounded fairly natural. I liked her very naturalistic interaction with the Doctor a lot, and their partnership bodes well for the rest of the episodes. My only reservation perhaps was that her leaving with the Doctor at the end seemed a little ... forced. After not going with him the first time, why does knowing that he can travel in time as well tip the scales ...? I feel maybe we were missing a line or two from the no-hoper boyfriend Mickey in the interim which set her mind to realising that she should have gone with the Doctor after all ... and then she gets offered a second chance. The Autons were fairly effective as a menace, though the fannish side of me missed the whine which should have accompanied their appearance. I loved the fact that their guns made the same sound as in the '70s though. But again the creatures seemed a little too jerky and uncoordinated for my liking. I think I would have preferred them to be smooth and in control ... but this is a minor thing. As is that I would have liked to have seen the child-Autons shooting at people, and also to have seen bodies falling with the smoke hits billowing from them ... it's very telling that in 1970 we were allowed to see people collapsing when hit, but not in 2005 ... not a single person was actually seen to die as a result of the dummies coming to life. What did amuse me was that when discussing the episode with my son, I referred to the dummies as Autons, and he didn't know what I meant, because of course they're not called that in the episode itself. Curse this prior knowledge ... The large Nestene Consciousness at the end was a neat piece of CGI work, and I liked the sounds it made - a pig squealing noise for the most part, but interspersed with some recognisable words as well. The Doctor talking to it when we couldn't hear (or understand) its side of the discussion did seem to be a little strange, but Rose's acrobatics saved the day, and all ended well. The TARDIS interior was superbly realised, and very well introduced with Rose's initial reaction being to run back outside again. She then does the checking all around the blue box thing, before realising that there is nowhere else to go and heading back in again. But what a console room ... very impressive indeed, if lacking in some of the more homely touches which perhaps should have been there. I'm still quite a fan of the console room from the McGann TV movie, and missed the comfy chairs and library aspects of the room. It all seemed very large, clean and sterile, apart from the console itself which had an organic aspect to it. Maybe later in the episodes we'll see more of the TARDIS and some of the creature comforts which one might expect the Doctor to enjoy will be revealed. Overall I absolutely adored the episode. After sixteen years, the production team had a lot to live up to, and I for one was not disappointed. They managed to recapture the magic of the show in a way which I hope is reflected in the ratings and in people coming back week on week for their 'fix'. One thing which was missing, and which I did regret, was the good old cliff hanger ending. Several others commented on this to me, that they would have liked to have left the episode on a knife edge ... there is no other show which regularly does this (of course most of the American series do this for season ends) and it would have been nice to have included it each time. I hope the lack of a 'key' into next week's episode does not have the adverse effect of discouraging people to watch (or whatever the opposite of leaving them wanting more is). 'Rose' was fast moving and at times almost too fast - explanations came thick and fast, and I missed Rose's comment about 'breast implants' at first because I didn't hear what she said. The editing was frantic, and there was a palpable sense of urgency about the whole thing, which only really subsided in the long sequence where Rose and the Doctor walk to the TARDIS talking about what has happened and who the Doctor is. I can't wait until next week to see the next instalment, and I applauded the little teaser at the end of this episode. So we get to meet Cassandra, the Trees, the Moxx of Balhoon and the Face of Boe ... all at the end of the World ... I've got my seat booked already.

Doctor Who - Rose

Well ... that was an amazing 45 minutes. Just finished watching the first episode of the new series of WHO and I'm totally blown away. More words tomorrow, but if you want to leave your own thoughts on it here, then just click on the COMMENTS section below this post.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

An honour indeed. I got this email today from the very nice people at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: *** Dear Mr Howe As you may know, the online edition of the Oxford DNB offers a 'Day of the Life' free to anyone as part of its public homepage; we store seven lives at once which allows for a gallery of 'Lives of the Week' with every subject available to all for a week in total. You can see the current selection by clicking on: www.oxforddnb.com I'm just writing to let you know that, to mark the return of Dr Who on Saturday 26th, we will be using your entry on Jon Pertwee as our 'Life of the Day' with the caption 'The doctor returns'. Of course, if there's anyone else you think would like to know about this then please do email them the homepage URL www.oxforddnb.com. The article will be available for seven days. Articles chosen as 'life of the day' are emailed to people who have signed up to the free mailing service and they are read worldwide by many thousands more each day who visit the site. Best wishes Dr Philip Carter Publication Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography *** So what are you waiting for? Go and check it out.

Doctor Who Night

Well that was fun ... a pre-new series night of Doctor Who type stuff. I'd not really seen the documentary before, and thought it was well done. I realise it was a repeat, but I think I let my video watch it before and never got around to seeing it until now. Everyone aquitted themselves well - and it was nice to see Tom Baker appearing alongside everyone else as well. It's a shame they didn't factor in any archive footage of Troughton (maybe from Pebble Mill) or Pertwee (from any number of interviews he did) to represent them, but nevertheless it was a great slice of vintage WHO. John Culshaw was cool ... and I always smile when he slips into Tom Baker, and around the TV we were all doing Baker impressions as well ... big smiles and exclamations of 'Weeeeelllll' and 'Aaaahhhhhh' all the time. The facts were amusing and I guess this was a cheap way of adding to the 'night' without actually spending any more money on anything other than John in a crypt somewhere ... The MASTERMIND show was also well done, with John Humphreys managing to be not quite as patronising as he has been in the past towards the contestants. I was very amused by the quip from one of the contestants about him having regenerated from Magnus though. The questions were good I thought, not too hard, but with some stinkers in there as well. I didn't do too badly on the WHO, though it's debateble whether I would have bettered the 22-24 marks got by the contestants. However I stink on general knowledge, and so I would have failed there totally. It was great to see Christopher Eccleston at the end, and Karen looked suitably impressed/embarrassed to have won. All in all it was a good evening's entertainment. A prelude if you like to the first of thirteen main courses starting next Saturday night. Be there.

Printer Problems

I bought a new printer yesterday ... sounds simple enough, but no ... nothing could be so easy really. I wanted a new laser printer because the toner had run out on my old one which I've had for 5 years or so, and the replacement cost was immense. So it seemed to make sense to buy a new printer which has cheaper consumables. So off to PC World we go, and browse through their Printers ... and there's one which is a Which Best Buy - a neat colour laser from Epson which, as it was ex-display, I got some more money off as well, bringing it down to less than the other black and white ones which we were looking at. So we get it home, and of course it doesn't work. The thing just flashes red and green lights at me when you turn it on. I poked and prodded it a lot but nothing could make the thing work. So I phone PC World ... not a single one of their stores has this model in stock so they can't get another from somewhere else ... so I check Epson online and find a local store which does repairs ... but they don't do lasers ... so I phone Epson and after about 15 minutes get through to their helpline ... to find that I'd chosen the wrong option ... but that the laser helpline isn't open at weekends anyway so I need to call back on Monday. The good news is that hopefully Epson do on-site maintenance for the warranty period so they can just come and take this one away and bring me one that works. Otherwise it's back to PC World next weekend to take this one back and to see which other ones they might have which would be good ... It seems to be a factor of life that nothing you ever buy ever works right first time, and that you always have to mess around phoning people, taking things back to shops and whatever before you get what you wanted. Oh well ... for the next week then, all my printing will have to be on the back-up HP deskjet printer ... still going strong after about 8 years now I think.

New Who

As I write it's just over a week before Doctor Who returns to UK TV with the first episode of the new series. And I cannot wait. No, I don't want to download it from the Internet and watch it on my poky PC screen (this is always assuming I can be bothered to wait the hours and hours it would take to download on my dial up connection). I want to be watching it for the first time with everyone else on the 26th March ... But this week we saw the trailers. Proper trailers. With Daleks in. And spaceships. And fireballs. And a TARDIS interior which is awesome. And a Doctor who I already adore. I cannot wait. Did I say that already? And then there's the wall to wall newspaper coverage ... something in the papers every day. Granted some of it is made up (thank you the Sun and the Star for your ongoing efforts here) but most genunine. And then there's the billboard adverts. I was impressed to see one at Waterloo Station in London, and then this morning, my train stopped at Clapham Junction and there it is again, bigger than I have ever seen ... wow. However ... one note of warning. I asked my 11 year old son if they were talking about the Doctor and the new show at school, whether they were looking forward to it in the playground. And his response was no. If you mentioned it, you'd be called a sad freak ... hmmm. So it's fine to collect beyblades, to watch incomprehensible Pokemon cartoons and to be able to quote The Simpsons verbatim ... but to talk about Doctor Who in the playground makes you a sad freak. I wonder if the attitudes will change as the series rolls out. I'll be asking my man on the spot what he thinks and whether his friends have changed their tune. But for the moment ... I really cannot wait ...