Sleepwalking to the Sematary

Some old films this week, and a new-ish one ... just depended what we saw as we trawled one of the discount DVD websites.

First up is Pet Sematary, based on the Stephen King novel of course, and starring Dale Midkiff (who?) as Louis Creed and Denise Crosby (fresh from playing Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation) as his wife Rachel, who move into a house which backs onto a spooky graveyard where pets have been buried ... and beyond the graveyard and on top of the mountain is a further burial place, where what is buried comes back.

The film stands up pretty well all told, though Midkiff lacks the presence of, say, Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Crosby does a better job at keeping it together when first their cat, and then their son, Gage (Miko Hughes), is killed by one of the oil trucks which barrel past their front door at a rate of knots. Given that they know this is the case, we could not understand why they didn't put a fence up the moment they moved in - an obvious thing to do given that they had a toddler and that the trucks went past at all hours of the day and night.

Helped by friendly neighbour Jud Crandall (played by The Munsters' Fred Gwynne), Louis takes his son up to the old burial place, and seems surprised when he comes back as a murderous Chucky-like presence, killing first Jed, and then Rachel. Given that the cat was hardly pleasant following its resurrection, poor Louis really wasn't thinking straight at all. The ending is pretty neat, with some good and gruesome effects, and a somewhat bleak outlook.

Watch out for a cameo from Stephen King as the vicar at the burial of Gage as well - one of those moments to make you smile.

King also cameos in the next film, Sleepwalkers, another tale scripted by himself, but not, as far as I remember (and I know people will correct me) not ever released in prose form. This time we have Alice Krige and Brian Krause as mother and son - the Bradys - but they are really monstrous werewolf-like creatures who drain the blood from humans in order to survive and stay young. There's an insestuous relationship between the two also which is fairly eye opening but it's all handled very well.

Charles Brady targets young Tanya (Madchen Amick off of Twin Peaks) as his next meal, but plans are thwarted by Sherrif Ira and his cat Clovis (probably the star of the film!). For it seems that the monstrous Sleepwalkers are scared of cats, and that their scratch can make the beings steam and die.

It's interesting to note the use of CGI in the film in some of the transformations and effects. This is 1992, and I find myself wondering what the first commercial film that used CGI was (Wikipedia tells me it might be Westworld in 1973 which is interesting). Jurassic Park was 1993 ... so what is on show here is actually very basic for the time.

It's an enjoyable film, well made and well acted by all concerned. I enjoyed spotting not only King, but author and director Clive Barker (Hellraiser), and directors Joe Dante (Gremlins) and John Landis (An American Werewolf in London) in bit parts as well.  Certainly one worth revisiting.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a film that perhaps is overlooked in favour of Bram Stoker's Dracula, coming as it did a couple of years later. Where the Dracula remake had a stand-out performance from Gary Oldman as the Count, so Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has an impressive turn by director Kenneth Branagh as the misguided Victor, and Robert deNiro excells as the monster. DeNiro actually manages to steal most of his scenes, turning in a sensitive and very well judged performance.

Letting the side down a little is Helena Bonham-Carter as Elizabeth who overacts somewhat and has the most incredible rats' nest of a hairdo. She does better when transformed into the Bride at the end, just before the whole place goes up in the traditional flames.

I enjoyed the film a lot, and there is much to appreciate in it. It's something of a shame that it seems a little overshadowed by other fare of the time.

Finally, a more recent offering comes with Boo, a haunted hospital tale which manages to be quite creepy and scary. The idea is fairly basic - a group of teenagers decide to play around in a deserted hospital one halloween, not realising that it is actually haunted by a fairly vengeful ghost who wants to escape by taking over the bodies of the teens.

The effects are good, and the acting is passable though not wonderful. What stands out most is the location - we're certain we saw the same building in an episode of Dexter recently, and that it's been used elsewhere too. Somewhere like that is a total gift to a filmmaker, and if used well can really reap rewards. I'm reminded of Session 9, where they had a similarly brilliant location, but the film itself was somewhat disappointing.

What you have to do with this sort of film is put your brain on idle and just go with it. If you try and think too hard it all falls apart - like what was with the dog which gets skinned? What was the relevance of the necklace the lead girl was wearing? And why did the bodies melt and explode once they died?  It's something of a gorefest with people melting all over, and there are some nice chills of ghosts appearing unexpectedly. The film references Halloween and other great shockers, and I suppose was intended a an homage to them as well as being fun in its own right.

It's not as effective as, for example, Trick R Treat, but it does a lot better on the scares and makes more of the location than other films I have seen. Well worth looking out for a boozy night of horror.

Time, Goblins, Ghosts and Bandits

Four more films watched recently, and this time they're all pretty different from each other.

First off, a new science fiction movie which could be referred to as 'high concept'. In Time presents a scenario where the world has moved to using time as currency. Everyone has a digital clock imprinted in their arm at birth, which only starts ticking down once you reach the age of 25 ... and then you have only one more year to live, unless you can earn more time through working. People can give each other their time - clasping hands can transfer time from one to the other - and this doesn't have to be willingly done, allowing various lowlife scum and gangsters to steal time from others. You pay for everything through time taken off your counter, and if your counter reaches zero, then you just drop dead there and then.

This is quite a hard concept to get your head around, and raises all manner of ethical questions, but the best way to approach a film like this is just to go with the concept and not worry too much about it. And the film is certainly worth the effort. Justin Timberlake (yes, the pop singer bloke who once went out with Britney Spears) stars, and he is superb as Will Salis, a down on his luck worker in the poor district, who unexpectedly finds himself the recipient of 100 years donated by a wealthy man who commits suicide. Will decides to try and change the system, and travels to the wealthy quarter where he meets the daughter of a millionaire businessman. Together they try and stay alive while sharing time with those who need it ... but the government has this covered - as the poor become wealthier, so their taxes and costs increase so that relatively, they are in exactly the same position. It's how they control the masses, and ensure that the rich stay rich, and the poor die in poverty. Millionaires live forever, and they want to keep it that way.

It is nice to see Johnny Galecki (Leonard in The Big Bang Theory) in a very different role, and Amanda Seyfried as Sylvia Weiss, millionaire daughter is also very good - believable in the role of a girl who 'goes native' with Will and totally buys into his cause.

The effects are well done and believable and overall the film is really enjoyable and thought provoking as to how using time as currency might really work, and what the downsides might be. I think we may add this to our collection (this was a rental watch) as we'll want to see it again someday.

Next up is a new horror called Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark. I didn't realise that this was based on a 1973 TV Movie of the same name, and doing a little research, it seems that the original film might be superior. The new one is produced and written by Guillermo del Toro because he saw the earlier film as a child and it made a big impact on him. Unfortunately putting Katie Holmes in as a lead is not a good idea as she comes over as wooden and unemotional throughout. Guy Pearce as the father does a little better, but the film is driven by the child, Bailee Madison as Sally. What is strange is that the film has a child lead, is pitched in part like a Disney feature with animated titles, and has a 15 certificate, but starts with a scene where a man trips a maid down some stairs and then uses a hammer and cold chisel in her mouth to knock out her teeth so that he can offer them to something which lives in a furnace in the cellar. The scene is hard to watch, and I had to look away when the chisel scraped across the girl's teeth as it's forced into her mouth ... hardly 15 year old fare I thought. Then at the end, when one of the characters is dragged into the furnace, we see (and hear) legs snapping backwards as they are bodily pulled in. I thought at first I had mis-seen this, but no, it is gruesome and gory and conceptially very nasty indeed.

But enough of my pondering on the acceptible age for someone to watch a film ... if I had my way, the Care Bears Movie would be Restricted for everyone! The plot follows this perfect family as they settle into the old pile they have bought to renovate. There is something nasty in the wainscotting though which turns out to be an unexplained infestation of little goblin creatures who are evil and vicious and who wield Stanley knives, razors and awls and attack people. They whisper about Sally joining them, and it seems they eat children's teeth as well ... they are excellently realised through CGI and are very creepy. Sally is initially quite taken with them (as she has no other friends and doesn't want to be in the house anyway) but soon realises that they are no good at all.

The film is enjoyable in a horror hokum sort of way, but eventually the characters start acting totally irrationally - your daughter has been attacked by what she claims are creatures in the house, she is crying and screaming, and you are also advised to get out of the house by someone else who was attacked ... so what do you do? Drug your daughter and take her back to the house to stay another night ... madness!

I also don't get the title at all. The creatures like the dark, and so if anything it should be Be Afraid Of the Dark ... or Don't Go In The Dark ... I cannot for the life of me see where Don't Be Afraid of the Dark comes from as that is exactly what you should be!

After a slew of goblins, next up are ghosts in The Awakening, an elegant ghost story in the tradition of The Devil's Backbone and The Orphanage, both of which it remixes into a tale of a boy's boarding school haunted by the spirit of one of the students. Enter intellectual and sceptic Florence Cathcart (played excellently by Rebecca Hall), who is encouraged to come and investigate a 'real' ghost by Robert Mallory (Dominic West). Overseeing the boys is Matron (Imelda Staunton), and Florence starts to figure out what is really going on - convinced that there are no real ghosts present and that the sightings and happenings are due to some human hand.

The film is very watchable, and the central performance from Hall is brilliant. There are a lot of touches which seem to come from other films - the snooker ball bouncing down the stairs echoes a similar moment with a child's ball in the 1980 George C Scott film The Changeling, and the aforementioned The Orphanage is recalled by the secret room behind the cupboard. The only scene which seems to make no sense in context is where Florence falls in the lake after losing her cigarette case and is rescued by Robert. The editing here is confusing - perhaps deliberately so - and the whole scene adds nothing to the narrative (save that the missing case strangely finds its way back to her room). The ending of the film is delightfully vague as to what has happened ... leaving it up to the viewer to decide.

I enjoyed it a lot. It has a style and approach which is excellently maintained, and the images of the screaming ghost boy are very well done and provide for some good jump scares. Certainly something to see if you like a more intelligent horror film.

The final film is a strange one. A Korean western called The Good The Bad The Weird. This stars Kang-ho Song (who played the priest in Thirst) as The Weird, a criminal who steals a treasure map. On his tail are The Good (Woo-sung Jung) - a bounty hunter out for the money on the Weird's head - and The Bad (Byung-hun Lee) - a brilliantly vicious and intense performance and probably the best in the film. The movie is certainly action packed, from a fight on a moving train, through various traders markets, and ending with a very lengthy chase across a desert with cavalry, bandits, and assorted others all on horses and motor bikes and cars with guns and arrows and mortars and machine guns, all firing at each other as they race across miles and miles of desert for what seems like hours. This section is certainly impressive but goes on way too long.

Overall it's a cinematic experience which mixes action/adventure with a Korean flavour and is fast and furious with the action. I liked the characters and the way they interact, plus the cinematography and the lighting design - very different from a Hollywood film. Definitely one to seek out.

Welcome to Twin Peaks

We recently watched the whole of the 1990-1991 Twin Peaks series from David Lynch and Mark Frost, including the 1992 film Fire Walk With Me at the end ... I had sort-of enjoyed the show when it was first aired, but remembered feeling at the time that it lost its way, and so I was interested to see how a proper re-watch would pan out. Sam had not seen it at all, only catching a couple of episodes on the initial run, so again she was intrigued by the whole idea and looking forward to watching it.

For those who haven't seen it, the show was basically a weekly soap opera, but one where there was an undercurrent of supernatural happenings throughout. There are a great many characters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Twin_Peaks_characters), and the show jumps from the stories of one to the other to the other. Sometimes characters will go weeks without appearing, sometimes they get just one scene as the show concentrates on someone elses' story for a time. If you're interested in a full rundown of the plot and other details then have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks.

For our re-watch, I decided to take notes, episode by episode, to try and remember some of the key elements as they happened ... the show is so detailed and complex, that to try and rely on memory alone would be near impossible. Be warned that some of this blog might not make total sense to anyone who has no idea what Twin Peaks was all about ... but to try and explain it all would take far longer than I have to write about it!

First off, I was surprised that Killer Bob actually makes an appearance in the very first episode! I had thought that this revelation would be kept back, but no, there he is ... The strangeness continues with Agent Cooper's dream at the end of episode two ... and this starts to suggest at the themes that will be explored as the series unfolds.

The show seems to be about the death of Laura Palmer, found wrapped in plastic on the shore of the local river. Who killed her and why forms the core of the initial set of episodes, and they are gripping and interesting as Cooper, an FBI agent brought in to investigate as there have been some similar killings elsewhere, gets to grips with the townsfolk of Twin Peaks, all of whom have secrets of their own which they do not wish to be made public. Cooper, played by Kyle MacLachlan, is a brilliant character, watchable and interesting, and he forms the lynchpin (excuse the pun) to the series.

Episode 8 has a different title sequence, and is longer than all the others at 130 minutes according to my DVD timer but 90 mins apparently (the rest are around 45 minutes). I guess this is because the episode opened Season Two of the show, but watching them back to back you get little evidence of this. The previous episode ends with Cooper being shot, which seems in reflection to be a 'season ending' act ...

Things ramp up and up as the series progresses, until episode 13, where we learn that 'Bob', the apparent killer of Laura, is a spirit which can inhabit a human body and control it. The 'Bob' spirit was a familar to 'Mike', which inhabits the body of the one-armed man, in order to help Cooper track down his former familiar and stop him. The question is, though, who did 'Bob' inhabit to kill Laura.

In the next episode, we learn the truth as Leland Palmer, Laura's father, brutally kills Maddy, Laura's cousin who looks just like her (and is played by the same actress). This is an incredible sequence, brutal and far above the somewhat cosy soap-opera trappings of the series. It brings you up short and leaves you desperate to find out more.

Episode 16 sees Leland brought to justice, but 'Bob' makes him dash his brains out in the cell ... leaving him dead, and Bob still on the loose. It's a brilliant end to the 'Laura Palmer' sequence of episodes and investigation.

Episode 17 picks up three days later as Leland is cremated. Unfortunately from this point onwards, the show really loses its impetus and drifts for episodes at a time, seemingly going nowhere. The episode feels directionless and marking time. Several plots drift on - the whole Nadine regressing to a teenager one feels like they didn't know what to do with that character, and we see the start of another pointless subplot where James is chatted up by a married blonde in a bar leading to another murder conspiracy in later episodes.

The series now goes into freefall, and apparently was losing viewers all the time. Which is not really surprising as the whole show had been about 'Who Killed Laura Palmer' and once you know ... it's all over. Apparently Lynch and Frost never wanted to reveal the answer - but I feel that too would have been a big mistake, leading to the show dragging on when all people wanted were answers. In a way, this is what happened to The X-Files ... continuing way past the point that it should have provided some closure and answers as to what was happening. Ideally, Lynch and Frost should have picked up the interesting 'Bob and Mike' plot, along with the Black and White Lodges, the backwards talking midget, the giant and the ancient man, and developed that, but instead that whole element is allowed to drift, backgrounded against the more petty and human concerns of the other characters. Windom Earle, Cooper's ex-partner, comes in as a new psychopath (they didn't really need him as they already had one body-hopping psycho) and starts killing more people in inventive Doctor Phibes-esque ways.

By episode 23, Josie Packard, who had started out as a strong businesswoman trying to keep the lumber mill alive, has become a weak subserviant nothing - completely unworked for and out of character with how she started out. Again, it's like they didn't know what to do with her. She ends up being killed, while Cooper again sees dwarfs and Bob, and inexplicably, her face then screams from a wooden drawer knob beside her bed!  This point is only returned to once (when someone seems to be talking to the walls of the hotel as he thinks she is trapped in the wood there) but is never developed or explained further.

The final episode at least attempts to draw some sort of closure to some of the characters' lives. It ends with Cooper having a nightmare chase through the red-curtained rooms of the Black Lodge, being confronted by visions, and having to bargain for Annie's life (a waitress he met and fell in love with during the latter episodes). When Cooper emerges, what we see in the mirror is Bob - Cooper has been inhabited by the parasitic creature. Cooper smashes his head against the mirror ...

Overall, the show has, I think, to sadly be judged a failure. Mainly because it seems apparent that Lynch and Frost really didn't know where to go with it once the initial Laura plot had played out. However, if you just watch the first 16 episodes, and then the final episode for the closure, then it is probably one of the finest pieces of supernatural television you will experience.

I love how it blindsides you all the time, presenting apparent clues and motivations which have no bearing on anything, how everyone is wearing a mask - no-one is quite who they appear to be - and this feeds into the underlying plot about body-hopping murderous parasites from another place. Watch out for David Duchovny (from The X-Files) playing a transvestite FBI agent, singer David Bowie in a cameo role, David Warner as Thomas Eckhardt later in the show and David Lynch himself as Cooper's deaf boss. Nothing quite like that had ever been done on television to that scale before, and I doubt ever will again.

It's easy to see why Twin Peaks gripped everyone on its first transmission ... the narrative is compelling and you want to watch next week to see how it develops. It's also easy to see why it lost audiences and was eventually cancelled - too much incidental prevarication, and not enough strong control of the overall themes and plot for people to be able to continue to connect and hook into it.

Watching the Fire Walk With Me film after seeing the series is an interesting experience. The film basically fills in a lot of what we already knew from the series - it's the final days of homecoming queen Laura Palmer - a butter-wouldn't-melt perfect girl to the world, but a drug-using, sexual predator to her close friends. It seems that Leland had been abusing her for years (or was it Bob?) until he finally kills her in a disused train carriage and dumps her body in the river ... it's not a great film to watch if you don't know the series, and doesn't add much to what the series has already revealed, but it's well made and entertaining.

I must give a final note to the music and title sequence. I loved the music from the moment I first heard it, and Angelo Badalamenti's score is still superb today. It's distinctive and really adds much to the cult feel of the show. Likewise the titles, which start with a varied thrush and then show the sawblades in the lumber mill working, and then shots of the scenery around Twin Peaks, the town sign, the mountains, waterfall and river. They are totally at odds with what the show was all about, and lead you into a false sense of calm before the storms which will unfold.

I'm glad we watched the series through, and as I say, it's certainly worth doing if you're a fan of supernatural and cult television ... just be warned about the latter half!

Blood and Bone China

I can't remember if I'd raved about this new vampire film before on the blog ... but even if I did, I'm going to do so again.

It all started life as a web series from a very talented and personable soul called Chris Stone ... the idea was to present a decent quality vampire story over several ten minute episodes. The result was Blood and Bone China.

The channel that the web series is on is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/BloodandBoneChina?ob=0, and there's a trailer as well:






The website for the production is here: http://bloodandbonechina.com/

Having completed the web series, obviously the next stage was world domination, and so Chris has edited the story into a single film presentation, and last night I was lucky enough to spot that Chris was offering free entry to people to see it ... so I duly added my name, and Sam and I then headed down to Stoke-on-Trent - where it is set - to watch the premiere of the film as the opening attraction to this year's Stoke film festival.

And it was worth the journey.

Chris has created something fascinating and original, which blends the old tropes of vampires with the tale of a man's hunt for his lost brother. Vampires are at large in Stoke, feeding on the unwary and dragging their bodies off to goodness knows where. Behind it all is Linus Hemlock (David Lemberg), the man behind the Hemlock pottery which makes perfect and strong bone china at knock down prices. His vampire slave, Victoria (Lara de Leuw), has been hunting, and her victims include Doctor ('I'm not a Doctor, I'm a vet!') Howell's (Anthony Miles) brother. Howell joins forces with feisty reporter Anna Fitzgerald (Rachel Shenton) to try and get to the bottom of the mystery. Along the way they are attacked by vampires, join forces with hunter Alexander Pyre (John James Woodward), meet up with a band of Steampunk Victorians, and battle creatures of the night in Hemlock's pottery. All great stuff.

What is incredible is that Chris has created this film on a micro budget - BUT IT DOESN'T SHOW! There is minimal CGI that I spotted (some neat eye effects towards the end), and some superb performances, great settings and location work. The camerawork is excellent, and the script which, while in places shows it's webcast roots with a little to much retelling of the plot, is generally first class.

There is a standout performance from - I think - Lewis Brindley as the young boy Aaron. He steals his scenes and gets the best laugh of the film. But everyone is really top notch. Kudos to Rachel Shenton as Anna, who manages to bring a modern girl kick ass sensibility to a Victorian reporter, and to John James Woodward for his creepy and yet brilliant vampire hunter.

I loved the final scenes - which I won't reveal here. They made me smile greatly, and for some reason reminded me of the Underworld franchise and the film Van Helsing for no reason that I can think of ...

Hearty congratulations to Chris and all his team for bringing this film to life. I can't wait to see what you turn your hands to next.

Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

Biographies can be a bit of a mixed bag ... sometimes they are gripping and revelatory, other times they seem to skim over lots of important stuff and deal with inconsequentials. Over the last few years we have seen a great many books by Doctor Who celebs coming out. Some have been great, some less so. But none was more anticipated than that of Elisabeth Sladen ... but then she passed away, and fandom heaved a great sigh of despair - perhaps the greatest outpouring of grief ever. Part of our childhood, taken far too soon. But this then put great expectations on the book ... would it even come out at all? And if it did, would it be a worthy testament?

The answers to these questions are all yes, thankfully, but in part, I have to say, the book disappointed me. The difficulty is that Lis, it seemed, didn't intend to write about Lis ... the book explains that Elisabeth Sladen the actress, and Elisabeth Miller, the wife and mother, were two totally different people. As her daughter Sadie states up front in the book: 'my mum ... who will not be shared with anyone'. This is a book about the actress, the stories that Lis thought her fans wanted to hear. She didn't want or intend to talk about her private life - though there are of course elements of that here as well - and so the book comes over as just catching a glimpse of Lis rather than getting to know her.

It's unfortunate that the hand of her co-author, Jeff Hudson, seems very apparent. There is far too much knowledge of Doctor Who here for it all to have come from Lis. This is a similar problem that plagued the John Nathan-Turner assisted memoirs of Nicholas Courtney. Every actor, whoever they are, and whenever they are mentioned, has to have their Doctor Who role mentioned as well. It's not necessary, and it spoils the story. Lis wouldn't have known that person X who she worked with in rep had a role in a Patrick Troughton episode of Who ... so why mention it? I found this element perhaps the most disappointing. It takes what is a great personal story, of interest to many, and casts it as something which is only of interest to Doctor Who fans ... and they already know which story person X appeared in, and so don't need to be told.

As I read through the book, I noted that there was a lot of fascinating material on Lis' early years. It's nice to hear how she met Brian, her husband, and of all the work she did leading to being cast in Doctor Who. I have a feeling though that some of the stories about Doctor Who are not her true memories, but are tales being reported from her co-author (or other source) and then retold by Lis. I guess this doesn't really matter too much, but I think people are, as this is an autobiography, looking for Lis' own words and thoughts rather than reportage on what she has been told.

And in Lis' own words, Jon Pertwee doesn't come over well at all. Although she seems to have tolerated him, he appears very conceited and self-centred here, a far cry from how he is usually remembered. But then Lis herself often rationalises things her own way, not apparently considering that from an outside viewpoint they might look different. So she explains that she is a private person and preferred to sit with the make-up girls in between takes rather than relax with the other actors. But to the other actors, this might look as though she was deliberately distancing herself from them, and taking some prima donna approach. Thus she comes over as a lovely person, trying to get through the day, but justifying all her actions when perhaps none was needed.

She loved Tom Baker though, and this shines through. His arrival must have been like a breath of fresh air after the somewhat dominant figure and personality of Pertwee. The stories about this period of her career seem fresher and more naturally told, and I suspect this is because she relished remembering them all, and perhaps has far more happy memories of the time.

You come away from the book feeling that you know Lis a little better. That although she could be hard work, she loved her job and her family, and was intensely private about them. She often kept her true feelings hidden from others, and presented a mask to those around her. An example is when she badly hurt her leg during the recording for the David Tennant episode, and went through an interview being very short in her answers because she was in such discomfort and pain - so the interviewer probably thought she was difficult to talk to, when in fact she was in great agony throughout. All she had to do was explain the issue to the interviewer and something would have been sorted out.

As a final coda to the book, the contributions from her daugher Sadie and husband Brian are truly lovely. They loved Lis very much indeed, and to have her taken from them must have been the worst thing ever. I admire their bravery and courage in allowing the book to be published, and to let everyone catch a glimpse of Lis as she crossed the timestreams and travelled through many different shows before ending up, once more, a kids heroine, adored by millions, thanks to the foresight and appreciation of Russell T Davies.

It's a great read, and contains much that was not previously known about Lis and her life. It stands as one of the best of the Doctor Who autobiographies, and the only regrets are that Lis chose not to really open up to her readers, and that she is no longer here to see how much she is loved and missed by everyone who watched her, grew up with her, and knew her.

Nothing At The End of the Lane

The third edition of this fascinating and pretty incredible Doctor Who fanzine is now available, and it lives up to the standards of the first two editions. Given that there has been six years between issue two and this one, and standard of research is pretty darn good, and the magazine sets out to answer some of those niggly questions which us Doctor Who fans ask every so often.

The issue kicks off with a very lovely pic of Peter Purves and Jackie Lane with Sheena Marshe during rehearsals for 'The Gunfighters', along with a selection of smaller shots. I won't keep saying that I have never seen the pictures before, but pretty much every photograph in the magazine is new, and for those fans who love photographs, they are worth the price of admission alone. Just one very minor gripe, and that is that some of them are printed quite small and I would have liked to have seen them larger.

Then we're into the written content and we kick off with a piece wondering (and answering) what happened to the Dalek props given away in the TV21 competition. Well now we know ... and at least one was auctioned in 1992 by Bonhams. We move on to the Quaker Oats competition as well ...

Way back in 1989, I printed information about a Peter Cushing Doctor Who radio show in my fanzine The Frame, and now we have all the available information about it, BBC memos, notes, background, and even the script for the pilot episode! It's an incredible piece of research, and wonderful to read.

Next up is a selection of colour photos from the location filming for 'The Smugglers', some of these are somewhat black and grainy, but they are lovely to see.

William Hartnell's stint in Panto after leaving Doctor Who is covered next with some nice vintage photographs and playbills, followed by some beautiful colour costume designs from 'The Space Pirates'. I'd never seen these before and they are superb. I especially like the designs for Zoe, and her outfit turned out pretty close to the design.

A long-running unknown is revealed next, with a piece all about just who was cast as the original actress to play Sarah Jane Smith ... this fact was recently revealed in the BBC DVD release of 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', but it looks like Richard Bignell actually had the scoop here and was pipped to it by the DVD ...  There's a nice recreated Radio Times cover to accompany the piece.

Black and white pics from 'The Enemy of the World' follow, and it's great to see some new shots from the filming here. Then we have some more random facts covering a third big screen movie, lost Scorpion Automotive Daleks, toys from 'Galaxy 4' which never appeared, and a selection of Louis Marx Dalek prototypes which never made it to production.

Continuing the Dalek theme, and the next piece investigates the Daleks given away in the 'Write Your Own Adventure' competition run in the Radio Times in 1972. More brilliant photographs and investigations here, revealing much about these enigmatic creations.

'The Living Planet' is a lost storyline from the early days of the show, written by Alan Wakeman and commissioned as part of the build up to the first season. Here we have the complete storyline reprinted as well as the script for part one.

Colour photographs from the filming of 'The Invasion' are next, and it's good to see some of the costumes in colour for the first time ...

Next up is an extensive section which explores all the story ideas and storylines submitted by writer Brian Hayles (he who created the Ice Warriors). There are loads of them from all eras of the show. Very interesting stuff indeed.

Next up are some lovely photographs from 'The Evil of the Daleks' from designer Chris Thompson, along with more telly snaps from fans which have come to light.

Finally, the magazine presents an indepth look at the background to the aborted anniversay story 'The Dark Dimension', revealing far more than had been previously known about it's development, who was involved, and why it was ultimately never made. It's another tour de force of research from Richard Bignell, and contains designs and photographs to illustrate it, as well as story outlines of the plot in its varying incarnations.

Overall Nothing At the End of the Lane represents fan research and writing at it's very best and Richard Bignell is to be congratulated for pulling together such an incredible array of images and facts, covering areas of the show which were previously unknown or little known.

For copies, head to the website at: http://www.endofthelane.co.uk/

Trolls and Aliens

Sometimes you go for new films on something of a whim, not really knowing if they will work for you or not, and thus sometimes the selections turn out to be not really what you wanted or to your taste. Thus it is with the latest two offerings, Troll Hunter and Cowboys and Aliens.

Having been impressed by many foreign language films, and not having any issue with subtitles, Troll Hunter was popped in the machine. Oh dear.  I had heard that it was a little like The Blair Witch Project in its conceit of presenting 'recovered' footage, but unfortunately this has resulted in a film which is almost unwatchable as the picture jumps and jounces all over the place.  After about 10 minutes I was feeling ill (I get motion sickness) and so had to give up on it.

We did zoom through the rest of the film to see how it developed and what we saw did not improve the opinion that this was a very very amateur hour production, nowhere near on the same par as Rare Exports, and really hardly worth bothering with.  I can't offer a full review as we didn't watch the full film, but it was disappointing.  The trolls look OK and reminded me of many book illstrations over the years, but the dreadful acting and rolling camera made this one very much a thumbs down for us.

Disappointed with Troll Hunter, we then turned to Cowboys and Aliens, hoping at least for a watchable film. Well, it is watchable, but someone involved with it forgot the 'and Aliens' bit and it concentrates way too much on the Cowboys and Indians ...

Daniel Craig is excellent as the loner Jake, and the rest of the cast is likewise pretty good, but it's a slow burn film, with lots of material which just drags.  I felt that the whole Harrison Ford and Son subplot could have been removed without hurting the main film at all, and it is way overlength at 119 minutes as well. If it was cut back to 90 minutes then it might be a much more interesting and exciting watch.

The basic plot is daft, a bunch of aliens arrive on Earth in 1873 in order to steal the gold from the ground (we don't know why) and a group of Cowboys and Indians, helped by another alien in the form of a beautiful woman (Olivia Wilde), have to send them packing.  Along the way the aliens kidnap loads of locals for no apparent reason - perhaps to experiment on them? - and leave them all standing in a room on their spaceship looking at the light. The aliens are fast moving insectoid things and are nicely designed, but there isn't much in the way of intelligence shown by them - which is odd given the high-tec of their ship, guns, gold collecting process and so on.  It's a very ragged film.

What should have been an action/adventure shoot em up with guns and lazers is instead a slow moving affair, with a fair degree of angst and a whole 'Indians don't get on with Cowboys but can work with them and respect them' subplot in there as well.

So a disappointing evening overall ... I hope the next ones we choose are better.

Fright Night and Kronos

Another two films to discuss this time ... one from ages ago, Hammer's Captain Kronos, and one current, the remake of Fright Night ...

Heading back in time first, and 1974's Captain Kronos is one of the better Hammer films, made even more special by the overall concept which was fully intended as a trial for a possible series of films (I hope I'm right saying that and it's not just an urban myth). Unfortunately the copy we got was very murky and degraded - no clean up whatsoever had been done on it and it had white marks down the screen for some of it ... and anything in the dark, well forget seeing anything much there!  Nevertheless it still stands today as a great take on the vampire myth - that here the vampire feeds on the youth of the victims and leaves them withered husks, while the vampire stays looking young and vibrant.  I suppose it's another twist on the Countess Dracula idea that bathing in the blood of virgins would keep you young.

The film contains some brilliant performances, and particularly of note are the leading triumbrate of Kronos (Horst Janson), Grost (John Cater) and Carla (Caroline Munro). These three manage to make for gripping viewing, and it's really nice to see in a film of this period that the hunchback servant (Grost) is not an unintelligent man, but a doctor and essential to Kronos in his work. Caroline Munro also brings great empathy to the role of Carla, who could have been nothing more than some pretty window dressing. But she manages to hold her own, to help Kronos in his battle, and even to dominate some of the scenes. It's a shame she is left behind at the end really, as I really wanted her to travel on to more adventures.

Other stand-out roles include the ever reliable John Carson, and Shane Briant as Paul Durward brings a baby-faced malevolence to every scene he is in. Lois Daine as Sara Durward has a cool modern short haired look which is very fetching indeed, and Wanda Ventham as Lady Durward does well with the limited material she is given.

Watching the film today, you can see that Hammer really pulled out all the stops for it, and the characters cry out for more adventures. If there was one film which could do with a remake and a reimagining then it is this ... and I wonder what a modern take and approach to the adventures of Captain Kronos would be like.

Which is totally the opposite to the way I feel about Fright Night. The original 1985 film has gone down in time as a quiet classic. Chris Sarandon's turn as a sexy vampire is memorable, and the characters of Charley Brewster, his girlfriend Amy, and best friend Evil Ed, all helped by TV Horror presenter Peter Vincent all gelled perfectly to create a film with many subtexts about sex and power, and how belief can win over against the odds.  It was a strange choice of film to decide to remake as there really isn't anything wrong at all with the original film.

But remake it they have, and in doing so they have managed to completely miss what it was that made the original so appealing. Which is strange as Tom Holland, who scripted the original, is also credited as providing the story for this ... maybe he didn't understand himself why the original became a cult classic. The actual script is by Marti Noxon, a name which seemed familiar, and IMDB confirms that she wrote several episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and was also script editor/producer/exec producer on many more ... which might explain why the new film feels more like an episode of that series than anything else.

In the new version Charley (Anton Yelchin) again finds himself living next door to a vampire (Colin Farrell) but here Jerry Dandridge doesn't seem to be hiding - he kills kids right outside his door, and makes no attempt to disguise what he is. His 'Renfield' is missing from the plot this time, and that's a shame as this element added much to the original plot. Rather than being a 'plain Jane', Amy here (played by Imogen Poots) is a stunner and acts in a very Buffy-like way throughout. The seduction of her by Dandridge is missing, and this led to some of the most powerful scenes in the original film (in the club for those who know it). Although they do recreate the club scene, it has little power as Amy is basically drugged by Jerry with his own blood and forced to become a vampire against her will - in the original film there was the subtext that Amy actually wanted this to happen, and that Jerry was more of a man than Charley could ever hope to be (even down to the sounds of Amy climaxing on the soundtrack as she is bitten in the 1985 version - something she never did with Charley).

But the biggest mis-step is in the reinvention of Peter Vincent from a small-time, washed out TV host who has something to prove (superbly played by Roddy McDowell) into a top-of-his-game arrogant stage magician played by David Tennant. In the new film, there is no reason at all for Vincent to help Charley, and indeed the idea that Charley would ever get to even meet him is laughable - there would be several layers of 'people' to get through before even the sniff of an interview was available.

I am a massive fan of David Tennant. Everything I have seen him in, he has been brilliant. Except here. This is played a little like a drunk tenth Doctor, all fast speaking, garbled dialogue, asides and mannerisms which are straight out of the TARDIS. Tennant even uses his 'Doctor' English voice for the part which adds to the feeling that he is just strolling through it. I'm so sorry if you are a big fan of Tennant in this role, but for me it just didn't work at all. I preferred him when he wore the wig and beard at the start, but when he strips it off, like the character, all the magic goes.

Overall I found the film boring and pointless. There was nothing to really interest or excite me. I did like the moment when the girl being rescued by Charley explodes as soon as she gets into sunlight, and I liked that Amy's vampire face echoed the same scene in the 1985 version. There's also a neat cameo from Chris Sarandon as a hapless driver who gets savaged by Dandridge ... but as I mentioned before, what was the point of remaking it?  The original version was and is much better, has more interesting characters who have proper motivations for what they are doing, and was made at a time when the prosthetic effects were of a standard to impress. My advice then, ignore this and get the DVD of the original film ... you won't regret it.

Cereal Killers

When I was a kid I used to love those cards you got with bubble gum in packs. There were a couple of series I collected and still have - all the Kung Fu cards from the TV series with David Carradine, a set of Universal Horrors cards and a set of Hammer Horror ones. The set I always wanted was the Outer Limits one and I did have a few cards from it (now lost), but sadly never managed to get a set of the cards - now they cost far too much to buy!

I mention these things as I recently came across a new company called Wax Eye who are doing a set of cards with the title Cereal Killers, and they are simple awesome. I just had to order a set from the US to see them for myself.

The art is by Joe Simko and the cards are all pastiches of popular breakfast cereals. Obviously the place of origin being the USA, there are several which I am not familiar with, but the conceit is good enough for the series to really work. So there are 'Frosted Freeks', 'Loco Puffs' and (probably my favourite of the punning titles) 'Chucky Harms' among many others. Each card has some crazy and impossible puzzles on the back - like match each card to it's silhouette (ie all the black rectangles are the same) - and other items of humour. I liked one which has a 'scratch and sniff' back which reveals that the cereal in question smells of standard grade card used to make trading cards ...

But the company isn't content to just leave it there with an amazing set of 56 cards ... oh no ... they come in little cereal boxes made to look like the ones on the cards - I got a set of three which are all shrink-wrapped together just like the little individual portion ones you get from Kellogs. Each box has 20 cards, and also an eyeball gum candy, and a premium which might be a magnet, skin transfer or black light stickers. There are also foil cards and original sketch cards included though I wasn't lucky enough to get any of those.

For anyone with a sense of humour, these are just amazing. The art is clever and all the details are right, so for 'Halloweeties' the box says 'The Breakfast of Maniacs' and proudly claims 'Made With 100% Real Pain'. The 'Exorcrisp' cereal claims it 'turns milk into pea green vomit colour' ... lovely.

If you are in the USA then the cards are apparently being stocked by Toys R Us, but in the UK, you might find them in specialist comic or genre stores, or they can be ordered direct from the manufacturers from their website.  The total cost for a pack of three boxes, plus shipping, came in at around £25 - perhaps a little steep for trading cards, but given the love and care that has gone into these, they really deserve to do well.

Wax Eye can be found online here: http://www.wax-eye.com/

Gorgon Boxing

Two films last night were anything but like each other. Different decades, totally different subjects, and yet both good and satisfying.

First up was Boxing Helena, a film from 1993 that I had never got to see before. The version we have on DVD has a strange Korean or Japanese cover which spells Julian Sands' name wrong (as Julian Sand) and has a typo in the tagline ('A deep dark obsession that bares a woman's body and a mas's soul') so this didn't bode well for the DVD, but it was fine. In English and not some incomprehensible tongue, and not something filmed on 8mm from the back of an auditorium in Shanghai.

As we're just watching through David Lynch's Twin Peaks at the moment, it was fascinating to see Sherilyn Fenn (who plays Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks) as Helena, a somewhat bitchy and self-obsessed young woman, who has the misfortune to have doctor Nick Cavenaugh, played by Julian Sands, as a stalker. He went out with her once, and cannot let her go. He climbs a tree outside her flat so he can watch her wander about in her undies, calls her on the phone but then cannot say anything, and invites her to his parties. He's a strange effete chap, but Sands plays Nick's obsession with Helena very well indeed. Then, after conspiring to keep her bag and address book, he lures Helena to his house, where she is hit by a car on leaving, which smashes her legs. So we cut forward to Helena, now with both legs amputated, an unwilling houseguest in Nick's residence ... now he has her just how he wanted, in a position that he can help her and tend to her ... but this is not enough, and so he amputates her arms as well ... leaving her only a head and torso, now totally dependent on him.

The film is written and directed by Jennifer Lynch - daughter of David - and you can see some of her father's influence in the style and approach the film takes. Helena is shown to be a complete bitch, and so you're not really feeling sorry for her, however Nick is just strange - as a stalker and obsessive, he professes his love for the girl, and yet she screams at him to look at what he has done to her! It's a disturbing film, and I recall it causing some ripples at the time of first release, though this might be the news of Kim Basinger pulling out at the last moment, and then being successfully sued for breach of verbal contract (though it seems that a court of appeal then overurned that ruling, and the case was settled out of court). It's strange to see singer Art Garfunkle in an acting role as well, though he is very good as Nick's friend Doctor Augustine.

Overall it's a memorable film, mainly for Sands and Fenn's performances, and also for the twisted nature of obsession and what it can lead people to do. One wonders what a remake might do with CGI-powered amputations ... a roomful of ex-girlfriends reduced to essential components perhaps?

The other film is one of the great Hammer titles, The Gorgon. I'd not seen this for an age, and so it was good to revisit it. The story follows the story of Doctor Namaroff (played with effortless style by Peter Cushing) who is puzzled by a number of local deaths where the bodies of the deceased have turned to stone. The latest victim is Paul Heitz's father, and Heitz (Richard Pasco) and Professor Meister (Christopher Lee) believe the deaths to be the work of the Gorgon, who walks among them every full moon ...

There's much to like about this Hammer horror. It's orginal for one thing, eschewing the traditional fare of vampires, patchwork monsters and mummies, for a mythical Gorgon, a creature with snakes for hair which can turn you to stone if it looks at you directly. There's a subtext that it's actually the bite from the snakes which does the work - the victims all have bite marks on their foreheads - but this seems to be glossed over. Barbara Shelley does a good job as Carla, Namaroff's assistant, and the Gorgon itself is a lovely piece of work from actress Prudence Hyman, combined with Roy Ashton's makeup and Syd Pearson's prosthetic snakes. She remains a spooky figure, shrouded in the distance until a couple of effective close shots in the climax ... lovely stuff.

The stone bodies are very well done, looking remarkably like the actors, and the interim grey make-up as the hapless victims turn to stone is also effective. One concern would be the length of time it takes to turn though - Heitz' father is able to get back from the castle to his home, and to write three pages of a letter before he succombs, wheras others collapse almost immediately. Maybe the venom (if that's what it is) takes longer to act on some people, or perhaps the dose is different.

Our copy of the film came with a superb little booklet by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn, and this is a great addition to the disk, revealing much about the making of the film, and containing some excellent photographs.

The Wonderful Book 1965

Now here's a thing ... inspired by the tremendous work done by everyone on The Brilliant Book 2010 and 2011, two fans have gone and created an equivalent work, but for 1965 ...

Paul Smith and Joe Cannon have done the most incredible job and have created The Wonderful Book 1965, and it deserves to go down in history as one of the best produced and funniest spoofs on the series yet. The book was originally produced as a PDF, free to download, but due to the interest, decided to make a very limited number available to buy using POD processes to create a lovely softcover book version. All copies are now sold out ...

The book covers the first season of Doctor Who, from '10,000 BC' through to 'The French Revolution', and follows the same layout and concept as The Brilliant Book with a mixture of interviews, comments, classic moments, all beautifully illustrated with photographs and artwork. But ... all the interviews here are made up, and all the facts have been delightfully mangled to produce a pastiche which treads the fine line between reality and fiction.

I love how in the 'interview' with Carole Ann Ford she is looking forward to Season 2 immensely ... that Barbara is a man-magnet, and how William Hartnell is grumpy. There's a lovely look at all the wigs which Hartnell tried for the part - of course representing all the hairstyles of the future Doctors ... and then there's the facts ...

That Reg Cranfield, who played the policeman at the start of the opening episode, was a real policeman (so cast because Fred Rawlings, who played the part in the Pilot was not convincing enough); how all the skulls in the Cave of Skulls were made by pupils at the Gum Lane primary school; how the Dalek actors were given LSD to make them act 'trippy'; how William Hartnell fell asleep on the floor at the start of 'Inside the Spaceship' ... and so on.  I loved these and there are many laugh out loud moments as the writers crash fiction with fact and come up with something better than both!

There's even a short story included which describes the events leading to the start of 'The Sensorites' ... nothing is left out, and the book contains so much detail - factual and fictional - that Smith deserves something of an Oscar for writing it all!  And the layout is professional and expertly done.

I have never seen a fan-produced spoof as lovingly and as carefully put together as this, and many, many people are now asking for a 'proper' Brilliant Book for all of the earlier seasons of the show as a result.

To enjoy The Wonderful Book yourself, then head for http://www.wonderfulbook.co.uk/ where the PDF is still available for free download.

Turks and Crusades

A couple of audios to talk about this blog. We don't often get the pleasure of being able to listen to CDs, but several long journeys over Christmas meant that we had the opportunity.

First off is the new Doctor Who CD from Big Finish. This one is called The Silver Turk and is by Marc Platt. Now, I have to give due acknowledgement here and say that Marc is one of my oldest friends, and one of the best writers around ... which meant that I was expecting a lot from this CD, especially as it doubly features the Cybermen, my favourite monster ...

The initial problem I had was that the Doctor (in his 8th Paul McGann guise) had as his companion Mary Shelley ... yes, that Mary Shelley, she of the Rights of Women and Frankenstein. Personally I think this is a step too far. I can see that Big Finish have to keep pushing the boat out and bringing in new companions and ideas, but to have such a famous historical figure grated with me.

The plot involves the Doctor and Mary arriving in Vienna in 1873, and straight into a strange situation with a 'silver Turk' - a game playing machine which actually turns out to be a Cyberman. Now here the next problem surfaced, as Sam asked me why the 'owner' was feeding the Cyberman with soup ... as far as she knew, the thing didn't eat food. But this wasn't explained, as the audio expects the listeners to be au fait with all the various Cyberman designs and versions and to have worked out from the cover that this was an early Cyberman, which was perhaps more man than cyber ... but this then led on to more continuity which listeners were expected to 'get' - advance scout parties from Mondas ... It was all a little confusing.

And then Marc starts to bring in all manner of allusions to Frankenstein, with the Cybermen rebuilding themselves from body parts, to being powered up by an electric storm, and Mary keeps banging on about how they should be pitied and so on ... it was all way too obvious a lead in to where she got her ideas for Frankenstein from.

There's another plot too, where a puppet maker called Drossel (inspired no doubt by The Nutcracker's Drosselmeyer) who makes realistic human automatons and then gives them human eyes - not quite sure why ... nor why there then needs to be a Cyberman as a chess-playing robot, when Drossel could build something to do that anyway ... the puppets all sound clattery too, explained by them wearing wooden clogs ... not sure why that should be though, except that it sounds good on audio.

Overall then, I found it disappointing. The Cyberman were somewhat wasted in the overall scheme of things, and they were also very hard to hear - the electronic distortion on their voices making the words impossible to make out. As with all the Big Finish audios, the production was very good, and the quality of the packaging and art superb. I think what let this down was the basic idea.  Sorry Marc.

The Silver Turk can be obtained from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/153-Doctor-Who-The-Silver-Turk

The other audio we listened to was one of Fantom Films' audio readings of the Time Hunter series. Again, my interest here is that Telos published the original novellas, and so I edited and worked with the writers on them. But Fantom are doing a cracking job at recreating them as audio books.

This one was Deus Le Volt by Jon de Burgh Miller, and was read by Terry Molloy.  The plot sees our time travelling heroes Honore and Emily, thrown back to 1098, to the siege of Antioch in the Crusades, where they find the Fendahl from Doctor Who is at large, killing the knights and growing in strength.

Molloy does a brilliant job with the reading. Every character (and there are a lot of them) has a separate and distinct 'voice' and the plot rattles along at a great pace. This was perhaps the closest that the Time Hunter series got to a pure historical - it's not until the last act when all sorts of wierdness starts happening - and it really works as an audio.  I'm looking forward to hearing more of these when we get the chance.

Deus Le Volt can be obtained from Fantom Films here: http://www.fantomfilms.co.uk/audiobooks/timehunter/timehunter9.htm

2011 Thoughts

It's that time of year when thoughts turn to what the New Year might bring. And so I thought I'd post a few thoughts here about 2011 ... not one of the best years for me personally, but one in which lots of lovely things happened too.

It was the year I turned 50! 50! That's almost ancient. And yet I feel the same as I did when I was 20! We had a lovely party down in Surbiton and lots of my friends and family came along to celebrate. It's events like that which show you who your real friends are.

My vast family extended again as my sister gave birth to a lovely daughter, bringing her family up to five children. I can see that I'm going to be a great-uncle before very long and probably multiple times. Also, my son James got married to Rachel, and they had a lovely wedding in Cambridge. It always feels strange when your own kids leave home, get married and lead lives of their own. Andrew is 18 next year too, and planning to head off to University - both James and Andrew are hardworking and intelligent and I am so, so proud of them both. I guess the next thing will be when I become a granddad ...

Other things happening over the mid-year period included Sam having to undergo a major operation. She had been suffering with chronic back pain for months and nothing seemed to be affecting or improving it, and eventually we realised that it was a side effect of other issues she was having, all of which resulted in her having to go to hospital in July for a hysterectomy to try and sort it all out. After several weeks of bedrest, followed by months of recovery time, she is now doing very well indeed, and is back to her old 'up and at em' ways.

All of this happened over the course of the summer, and the less than good news continued when I was released from my work contract with LTSB at the end of July, as I had worked the maximum duration with them in one stint. The work there was hectic and busy, involving lots of overnight support, and with what was happening to Sam, all this left me exhausted and drained to say the least.

Thus, heading into August (my 50th birthday party) and September, I was not in a good state. I was tired and worried about all sorts of things from finances to Sam's health, to my ongoing divorce ... too many things to try and juggle all at the same time.

Thus, what then happened at and after the annual British Fantasy Society, FantasyCon, hit me totally for six. I don't wish to dwell on it here, but I made some fundamental errors of judgement (described by one of my friends as me being a 'muppet' which is about right) which, in hindsight are very easy to see. But with my own mind being split many ways by everything else that was happening, I was relying on my friends in the BFS to ensure that everything was OK, and perhaps to have mentioned to me their concerns, or tried in advance to help out. But not a single person said a word beforehand, but a great many chipped in afterwards.

The convention was a success, but the fact that people connected with me and with Telos Publishing won some of the BFS Awards in the usual fair and democratic vote which has been used since the awards started in the seventies, caused some people to get so upset (starting with a grumpy rant by Stephen Jones in which he accused me of all manner of things, most of which he has done himself in the past), that without even talking to me to find out my side of the story, they petitioned the BFS' President to remove me as Chair and to replace me with an acting-Chair of their own choosing to try and sort 'it' all out. I had little choice in the matter, and found out I was standing down when the BFS announced that they had cleared me of any wrongdoing in the administration of the Awards.

Then, people who I had considered friends, and some of whom I had known for some twenty years or so, set out to try and destroy me and Sam online, making claims of corruption where there was none, insinuating wrong-doing when there was none, and perhaps worst of all, claiming that Sam's novel, Demon Dance, was not a worthy winner of the award for Best Novel. It had been voted on by the members of  the Society in a fair vote, but the fact that it won seemed to be a travesty in their eyes, a major blip that needed significant action to try and resolve. So they took control of the BFS themselves, put in place completely new rules for voting so that 'this can never happen again' ... what can never happen again? Sam win an Award? The whole thing was just awful. The worst part of all is that all these people that I looked up to and respected as friends stabbed me repeatedly in the back, never once trying to see it from my point of view, never once actually coming to me to ask what happened, never once stopping to think that there were real people at the other end of their barbed comments, put downs, and veiled accusations. I felt and still feel so betrayed and upset.

I shudder to think what might become of an organisation which purports to celebrate the whole of the fantasy and horror genre, but will only do so if it is the 'right' fantasy and horror, if a book has been written and published by those who are in with the 'right' people and cliques. The arrogance of these people astounds me, and their self-rightiousness over whatever they perceived to have been 'wrong' here - all without ever actually stating in public what was 'wrong' - beggars belief. They could have just talked to me. We could have sorted out the Award voting and rules in a civilised and friendly way, but they wanted blood. It was and is all just so nasty and unnecessary.

Sam and I won't be attending FantasyCon again, and at the moment I really don't want to see any of these people again. I still don't know what Sam and I actually did so wrong to be treated the way we have been treated. She wrote a book. It was published. People bought it and liked it. Members voted for it in the awards and it won ... isn't that something to celebrate rather than to pour scorn and hatred on? I admit in hindsight that the person administering the Awards should have no vested interest in who wins them (or even who is shortlisted), and apologise for not seeing this in advance - but the rules at the time did not bar this, and in any case, the BFS was several people down on helping out and so I did what I hoped was the right thing, and did what I could to ensure that everything that needed to be done was done, I also tried my best to ensure that the voting was above reproach and had someone independent check everything and do the final counts and tallies. I realise now that I should have just told the rest of the BFS committee that there would be no awards unless someone else came forward to do everything - as I say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I would like to thank the very few people who publically supported me and Sam, and to note that there were many, many more who offered support in private emails, phone calls and notes, but who didn't want to go public because they were worried about what those 'in charge' would then do to them ... a climate of fear is not a good one in which to run a society.

As Stan Lee would say ... 'nuff said'.

Writing and selling books is a hard, hard thing to do though, influenced by many factors, and the most important thing is to stay positive, stay focussed, and to keep on moving forward. So despite the rocking that our confidence took, we are doing just that, and looking forward to a positive and productive 2012.

My own collection of fiction, talespinning, came out in September, and I'm very proud of it. It collects just about every piece of fiction that I have written over the last thirty years or so - including some unfinished novels and a couple of screenplays. It has had some brilliant reviews, and is selling very well indeed. Hopefully we'll get a digital edition up at some point in 2012.

Sam and I have been invited to several conventions and events next year as guests, which is fabulous. We both love travelling and meeting people, and so are looking forward to doing that next year. One problem that this gave us though was that we realised that we simply couldn't fit in or afford our annual trip to LA for the big Gallifrey convention in 2012 ... and so we reluctantly made the hard decision to miss it next year, and to try and save our pennies for the 2013 event - which, as this is the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, should be the biggest and best yet. We can't wait to see all our
friends there then.

I have enjoyed writing more to this blog over the year - sharing my thoughts on Doctor Who toys, films, television, and the occasional diversion from all of these things and I hope I can keep it going. Part of the reason why I have been able to do this is the lack of paid work, and obviously I am hoping that 2012 will bring another job with someone to whom I can bring my experience and expertise to bear.

So to everyone who has enjoyed reading this blog in 2011, to all my friends, I'd like to wish you all a happy and prosperous new year!

The Time Tunnel

[opening narration for most episodes]

'Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project, the Time Tunnel. Tony Newman and Doug Phillips now tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time.'

Having just finished a mammoth run of watching all of the sixties Irwin Allen show The Time Tunnel from beginning to end, I had to write something about it ...

When I was a kid, I loved watching Doctor Who (natch) but also my other favourite show was Lost In Space. This was on ITV and we saw it in black and white (not having a colour telly until 1972). I remember being out one Christmas and catching sight of an episode of Lost In Space in full colour on a television in a TV shop - what a revelation that was. I suspect my parents had to drag me kicking and screaming away from it!

Anyway, as well as Lost in Space, Irwin Allen also made some other shows. There was Land of the Giants which I could never quite get into, and also Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea which was better, but the one which I really liked was The Time Tunnel.

The premise is pretty simple, two scientists, Doug Phillips (Robert Colbert) and Tony Newman (James Darren), get themselves thrown about in time via the Time Tunnel, which is operated from 1968 by General Kirk (Whit Bissell),  Dr Raymond Swain (John Zaremba) and Dr Ann MacGregor (Lee Meriwether), sometimes assisted in the early episodes by Jerry (Sam Groom). They seem unable to bring the scientists back home, but at the end of each episode throw them off and onwards somewhere else.

I have always considered that The Time Tunnel is what Doctor Who could have been if the latter show hadn't discovered the Daleks early on, and realised that the science fiction element was the way to go forward. For the best part of its 30 episodes, The Time Tunnel stays resolutely rooted in the past, with every significant moment in the history books being the location in which poor Doug and Tony get dumped. Each episode follows a similar pattern, they arrive (tumbling head over heels into whatever place it is), are immediately set upon by whoever the natives are, whether pirates or cavalry or indians or townsfolk or whoever, as a result of which Doug and Tony are split up, and the remainder of the episode is them trying to figure out where they are and what's happening, while the folk in the Time Tunnel back in 1968 have to locate them in order to get them out of there before whatever historical event it is happens.

One of the big problems with the series is that it is inconsistent. The production team obviously made a decision that each episode would be stand alone - there is never anything carried from one to the next, and even Tony and Doug's clothes inexplicably 'reset' each time. But this is carried over into the scripting, with random mcguffins being introduced one week and then forgotten about the next. For example in the Billy the Kid episode, we're told that if the Time Tunnel in 1968 tries to talk to Doug and Tony in the past, then this drains the energy to the extent that a switch cannot then be attempted for another 3 hours, but in the very next episode, Kirk is merrily chatting away to them without a care in the world.

They also seem able to send whatever they want through to whatever time the travellers are in - a ring, detonators, a sort of flashing rod thing - and even people can be sent there, like a doctor. Others can be transported back to 1968 with ease - a pirate, a kid with a bomb - and yet despite all this they are totally unable to bring Doug and Tony back no matter how hard they try.

It all gets a little laughable when you watch the episodes in succession, as these elements are highlighted and made very obvious.

It's also brilliant how Dr Swain is so negative all the time. Whenever he's asked to do anything, it can't be done, there's not enough power, we need to check ... and then when Kirk insists, it's all carried out with no problem at all. Then there's Ann, who fawns over Doug and Tony, and yet who sometimes can't get a fix on them at all - 'Let me try,' says Swain, and of course the man can achieve what the woman found impossible.

There is a story editor credited on the show, but I've no idea what he was doing as the scripts vary wildly in all regards. Bob and Wanda Duncan have the idea that for the Time Tunnel to get a fix on Doug and Tony, they need to know the precise date and location to do that. Other writers don't worry about such things. Sometimes there needs to be a 10 second countdown to switching them out, other times it's done instantly ... all these things are little niggles in the wider enjoyment of the show. There's one episode where someone steals a component from their equipment to stop them interfering ... and they have no replacements!  So the whole of this complex under the Nevada desert has no replacement parts at all? That if something goes wrong, then, they are totally stuffed! It beggars belief really.

As the series progresses, so the historical situations start to become more and more random ... and Doug and Tony seem to know everything about every time period. It's common for them to observe a rampaging battle (presumably nicked from another film or TV production) and to be able to tell where and when they are from the outfits and guns in use. Other settings are more esoteric, as when they join Robin Hood and his merrie men, or Joshua as he prepares to attack the city of Jericho... even Merlin and King Arthur get a look in - myth or real seems to make no difference to the Time Tunnel.

However it is some of these episodes which work the best - possibly because they are not strictly tied to historical fact. The Merlin episode is nice as the magician is powerful and can pop back and forth between the Time Tunnel and the events in the past.

It does become apparent, though, that the series is working with a small number of sets and locations, and that they crop up time and time again. There's the Western Town, the jungle, the beach, the tent, the rocky desert area, and various house and hotel interiors. After a time, it seems that the travellers repeatedly arrive in the same place! The stock footage is always well integrated though, and whichever films they took it from, they always try to ensure that it matches what the show is doing, even down to the right costumes and settings for the stock to be included into.

Then there's the final two episodes, where the series finally properly discovered science fiction. There is an earlier episode featuring aliens, and one where they head off on a chase through time which breaks the mold a little. However the last two are perhaps the best of this format. The penultimate one features some fly-headed aliens in the desert preparing to destroy the Earth as part of a 'rite of passage' for the alien leader (who strangely has a human face rather than a fly-like one). At least the alien make-up is better than a couple of the earlier episodes where aliens all had silver faces and wore silver suits. I liked that the explanations here were a little out of the norm - not conquoring or anything, just as a 'point' in becoming an alien commander. The episode also has 'drone' aliens, and I like that the ideas have been thought through at least in principle that this alien society has several levels.

The final episode is perhaps the best of all of them, featuring some crystalline aliens in black cloaks who are intent on stealing all the oxygen from the Earth. This was one I remembered as a child, their shakey hand outstretched to touch you, and if they did, then you could be turned into an alien yourself. it's well done and very creepy. It's a great shame that this is the final episode, and moreso that there is no ending - Doug and Tony just get thrown on somewhere else.  I do wonder why they didn't take the opportunity to film a sequence where they do get back, where the people in 1968 greet them, and it's the end of their journey. This could then have been tagged onto whichever was the final episode made, whenever that was ... but this sort of forethought tended not to happen unfortunately.

A lot of the alien 'tech' seen as the episodes progress is stolen from Lost in Space, as are some of the sound effects and musical cues, but this doesn't seem to matter. Overall, for me, the episodes which feature some fantastical element work better than the purely historical. And this brings me back to the comparison with Doctor Who. Subjects covered by both shows include the French Revolution, the Aztecs, the Trojan War and Marco Polo, and yet despite the high production values of The Time Tunnel, Doctor Who seemed to have the edge on the scripts and apporoach taken to the historical events. And, as mentioned, the fact that Doctor Who delved far more into the science fiction element meant that that series thrived and diversified, wheras The Time Tunnel became somewhat stale and samey, even though the historical events were different each time.

Despite all these observations and comments, I have really enjoyed revisiting the show. It has a charm, and is always well made and watchable. The explosions and fights are all really nicely done, and some of the ideas and concepts are just brilliant.

A list of all The Time Tunnel episodes is on IMDB here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060036/episodes