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 ...

LA Story

February saw my annual sojurn to the sun to join a pile of friends for the superb Gallifrey convention in Los Angeles ... this year was no different and I had a whale of a time running around LA with friends, buying too many DVDs, and catching up with all manner of people. Shaun Lyon, the convention organiser, as usual pulled out all the stops and the incredible guest list included Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney, Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, Elisabeth Sladen ... plus more writers, artists and other creative people than I have ever seen in one place together. The LA weather did it's best to dampen spirits - it was apparently the worst rain for 100 years - but undaunted, we braved the torrents dashing between the blocks in the hotel, and I even went on trips in the rain. One to Universal was especially fun where the place was unexpectedly packed out, everyone looked the same in canary yellow rain ponchos, and where we didn't mind how wet we got on the Jurassic Park ride as it was wet enough outside anyway ... Back at the convention, and the Telos panel was small but perfectly formed, with myself, Arnold T Blumberg, Shaun Lyon and Jill Sherwin talking about the forthcoming books, and my revealing the line up for the rest of the year, including covers and other snippets of information. With the exchange rate being favourable to us Brits, the annual DVD binge was undertaken, and I stocked up on several titles I had been waiting to get hold of, and several which were the usual impulse buys. Roll on next year ...

Horror of Fang Rock

It's been a while since I blogged here, so there's a few things to talk about ... First off, the new DVD of Horror of Fang Rock ... what a wonderful story. I always liked this one, even from when it was first transmitted way back when. A simple concept: people stranded on a lighthouse being picked off one by one by an alien nasty. But it's so well executed. Tom Baker is at his manic, mysterious best here, and Louise Jameson gives her all as Leela, with some wonderful lines and moments: undressing in front of Vince; 'I'm not a Lady ...'; 'You are a Time Lord ...' and many more. The guest cast are also superb (I love Rueben, but Vince is also very well played), and the sense of terror which is built up is tangible. The scenes set outside the lighthouse work superbly and the fog and mist rolling around, not to mention the strange green light, crackling electricity sounds and the view from the alien's eye all serve to heighten the tension which is being generated. I still adore the episode ending where the Doctor realises he's locked the menace in with them ... and the scenes of him verbally sparring with the alien Rutan are simply superb. As with much vintage WHO, it's such a shame it's all a little bit let down by the toy ship crashing on the rocks (though even this is quite effective) and the jelly-fish like Rutan which seems to prefer it's natural form, when that of Rueben would seem to be far better suited to wandering up and down stairs in a lighthouse... It's a wonderful package, and no small wonder that this story is so highly regarded and has been used as an example of just how good WHO could get. The extras on the DVD are, as usual, worthy of mention. An excellent look at writer Terrance Dicks' DOCTOR WHO career, a piece on director Paddy Russell, plus the usual commentarys, easter eggs and so on ... oh, and a strangely placed piece called The Antique Doctor Who Show which features yours truly wittering on about WHO merchandise. I have no idea why it's on this DVD ... but I hope you enjoy it anyway ...

Delia Derbyshire

On New Year's eve, I managed to catch the transmission on Radio 4 of an Afternoon Play called BLUE VEILS AND GOLDEN SANDS. The subject was Delia Derbyshire, one of the pioneers of Radiophonic Music through her work for the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. The play was first transmitted in December 2002. The play by Martyn Wade, covers her latter years, with flashbacks to points in her life when she felt she was achieving something. The play was very well done, and Sophie Thompson as Delia painted a very convincing picture of someone who only wanted to be recognised for what she had done. It took a 'Doctor Who Fan' by the name of Peter Kember (who played himself in the play) to 'find' her after many years living as a recluse, and to allow her to realise that her music and creativity was recognised and had inspired a generation of musicians. The play was both sad and, from my experience, fairly typical of many of the stars of the BBC from the 50s and 60s - the backroom boys and girls who gained no recognition for their work, but who brought us images and sounds which many still remember to this day. Among the many archive clips used, was the Doctor Who theme (of course) but also sections from a collage of voices against 'The Delian Mode' music which was very disturbing indeed, and other excerpts from her work through the years. If the play is repeated again, then it's worth trying to catch, as for once the Doctor Who connection is handled as the element which gave Delia back her dignity and made her realise she was a true inspiration to people before her death on 3rd July 2001. There's lots more about Delia at http://www.delia-derbyshire.org/

Site Update

Happy New Year! As 2005 starts, so I thought I ought to sort out a few more updates on this site, and so I've updated and revamped the REFERENCE ARCHIVE side of the site, and the link on the left now takes you to the spiffy new pages. I want to thank Steve Hill for very kindly hosting these areas for me for the last howevermany years. So let me know if you like the new format ... not all the books have additional pages attached to them, but hopefully over time I'll get around to penning some words and adding some new images and so on to more of them. The section for THE COMPANIONS has some additional images in it as the first book I checked my files for and scanned in whatever seemed of interest there.

Merry Christmas

I can't believe that I promised updates back at the start of December and nothing has happened since ... all I can say is that I am *still* suffering from this cold which flared up again last week - at least today, Christmas Eve, it seems to be finally getting better, though I still have a bit of a cough. Over the Christmas break I want to try and take stock of all the bits and pieces that need sorting, and hopefully I'll get a chance to post some thoughts here about random subjects. Until then, I'd like to wish my regular readers (if there are any :)) a very merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year.

Atishoo

Just a quick note ... I was going to post some comments on some WHO stuff here, but came down with a wicked cold at the weekend ... all sneezing, coughing, muzzy head stuffed with cotton and blocked ears ... not nice. So I'm dosed up to the eyeballs and slobbing around at home until I feel better. Until then

London Locations

Just a quick note ... I've just (re)added the London Location Tour to the site - see the links on the left hand side.

Doctor Who Magazine 25th Anniversary Party

It's hard to believe that it's the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who Magazine. I still remember getting the weekly issues way back in 1979, and I have every issue since. It's certainly grown and expanded since then, and today is an impressive magazine, well designed and put together and still containing some fabulous writing. To celebrate the 25th anniversary, which coincided with the 350th issue, we had a party last night up in London at the Motion Club on the banks of the Thames by Embankment Tube. It seemed that anyone who had ever had anything to do with the Magazine were invited and the smallish venue soon filled up to oxygen depravation levels. It was an amazing assortment of people who all started out as Doctor Who fans in some sense, but who had moved onwards and upwards and who were now influencing and creating their own visions or working on the show itself. The roll call is far too many to mention everyone, but here's a few of the people I remember seeing there (and sorry in advance if I miss anyone as I'm bound to do so). Clayton Hickman, the current editor was there of course, as was Gary Russell, Jason Haigh-Ellery, India Fisher, Stephen James Walker, James Goss, Rob Francis, Ann Kelly (who I called Jane for some reason when I first saw her there - I was having a lot of problems with names all night), Stephen Payne, Jan Vincent-Rudzki, Mark Wyman, Peter Darvill-Evans, Rebecca Levene, Alister Pearson, Daniel O'Mahony, Paul and Caroline Cornell, Rob Shearman, Steve Roberts, Sue Cowley, Paul Vanesis, Ed Stradling, Steve Lyons, Chris Howarth, Michele and Colin Howard, Dicky Howitt, Jeremy and Paula Bentham, Kevin Davies, Peter and Jo Ware, Tom Spilsbury, Gordon Blows, Andrew Cartmel, Marcus Hearn, Mark Ayres, Richard Landen, Richard Marson, Patrick Mulkern, Nick Briggs, Robin Pritchard, Steve Cook ... and many, many more. The drink was free, the music was loud, and it was a superb evening. I met so many people from my life in the last 25 years it was untrue ... and slightly scary ... There was a massive cake that I couldn't see for people, and the celebrations were led by Nicholas Courtney, looking as dapper as ever - we all sang 'Happy Birthday' to Doctor Who Magazine and then downed glasses of Champagne to celebrate. Here's to the next 25 years.

Sutton Film Festival 2004

Sunday last (which was also Halloween) I spent a very pleasant evening at the annual Sutton Film Festival, organised by Marq English. Marq had invited me along as he was showing DAEMOS RISING (the Doctor Who/Daemons spin off film I scripted for Reeltime Pictures). The venue was the UCI Cinema in Sutton - one of the big multiplexes and we had Screen 3 for the duration. The films on show ranged from the short (3 minutes was the shortest) to the long (at 52 minutes, DAEMOS RISING was the longest) and everything in between. What impressed me the most was the sheer quality of the films. The direction, lighting, camerawork, editing and acting in practically all of them was top notch, and the ideas were also inspiring. Among my favourites was HOLLY BOLLY - hard to explain, but it's sort of the story of two filmmakers who want to make a film, but the only finance they can get is from some porn film distributor who wants a sort of Hollywood/Bollywood blockbuster but has no idea how to go about it. The laugh out loud scenes included hard-men dancing Bangra style, and the realisation that songs were needed! THE OTHER SHOE is one of those deceptively simple ideas: a woman at a bus stop has just one shoe on, and so the other people at the bus stop imagine how this might be (including a theory from a dog!). The actual reason is inspired. F.I.S.T. was a trailer for a full length science fiction action blockbuster which looks very impressive indeed - apparently it's nearly complete now. THE DAY BIFFO WOULDN'T WAKE UP is an achingly funny cartoon about a boy and his dog, who dies one day and comes back as a zombie. Done in the style of the old 'Charlie Says' road safety adverts of the 70s, this was inspired lunacy. I also loved GOODBYE, a tale of a man trying to move on to date other women, all the time egged on by his girlfriend who he really loves ... it's a poignant film and certainly brought a lump to my throat. Finally of mention is THE CAVENDISH PRINCIPLE, a clever, clever little drama about police investigating child abduction with a wicked twist. Extremely professionally put together, this one featured top actor Julian Glover in a cameo. There were some spoofs, some Doctor Who related tomfoolery, some films which were unsettling (one about an evil landlord certainly had some moments of effective terror) some which were just plain strange (one about a woman made of cheese and officious MIB-like officials who clamp your feet together in a forest!). There was even a sex comedy about a man who is subjected to a sex ray and becomes instantly attractive to all sexes. Overall, there were 21 films on show, and the cinema was packed out for most of them. If this is the quality of film making we can expect from the next generation, then it's in safe hands indeed. For more information on the festival, check out the website at http://www.mevproductions.co.uk/filmfestival.html

Cons and Books and Paris and stuff

Apologies for the long time between updates ... there's been a lot going on and so finding/making time to pen some words here has sort of taken a back seat. So what's been happening. FANTASYCON I attended the annual FantasyCon event as usual in September ... a good line-up with Muriel Gray and Robert Holdstock as GOHs, plus a load of other editors and writers and artists crammed into a soulless hotel in Walsall (literally just off the M6). The event was good - well attended - and the folks seemed to have a good time. Unfortunately the hotel couldn't seem to organise anything and Saturday night food was a disaster (queuing to book in, no bookable tables, no way of ensuring that everyone had their food at the same time ... sort of like trying to organise a sit-down meal in a motorway cafe!). We had a Telos launch there but a panel overran and so no-one came, and the book room was dead. We did manage to get a little awareness of our titles there, but it really wasn't what I had hoped for. Never mind. At least some people left with copies of some books. PARIS Straight after FantasyCon was my 20th wedding anniversary, and as a surprise I booked up for a weekend in Paris for me and the wife. It was a really nice break - we had a meal in London friday evening, and then off on the Eurostar to Paris and then to the hotel ... except that the map on the internet site for the hotel was wrong and we ended up in Bastille with no map and no way of finding where the hotel really was. All praise to the Parisian taxis, and at 11pm we ended up getting a taxi to the hotel - which was on the other side of the city up by Opera and the Moulin Rouge! However once ensconced in the hotel, things were fine. We walked all over the place, and Metroed when not walking. I don't know why, in hindsight, but outside Notre Dame, I was amazed to spot some people I knew!!! John and Phil along with some friends. We said hi, and they assumed we were in Paris for the same reason they were - it was the 25th anniversary of the transmission of the DOCTOR WHO story CITY OF DEATH, which was of course filmed in Paris! But no, we had to disappoint them ... Talk about small world though. I usually see John at the annual Gallifrey convention, and I hadn't seen Phil for an age. Rosemary and I went up Notre Dame this time and the views were very nice indeed. Several good meals and lots of touristy stuff, and we were on the train back on Sunday. Totally worn out but having had a good time. BOOKS Of course in the middle of all this running about to Walsall and Paris, piles of books arrived: we got the hardcovers of ALICE, and then the final shipment of paperbacks of four other titles we had been waiting on and which had been delayed in port strikes in India for a month or so ... so this week we've been knee deep in books and bubble wrap getting them all packed and despatched to everyone that wanted copies ... publishing isn't too glamourous at times, I can tell you. And that's pretty much what's been keeping me from the keyboard for the last few weeks, that and finishing off the outline for another DOCTOR WHO related drama for Reeltime, and the editing and finalising Telos' catalogue for next year, and the sorting of books for Jan and Feb next year ... and ... so on and so on. Hopefully I'll be back before long with some views and comments on some of the new WHO merchandise that I've been picking up as and when I see it.

Ghost Light

Just been looking through the new BBC DVD of the Doctor Who adventure Ghost Light ... and it's well up to the usual standards. For folks that might not know, this was the last Doctor Who adventure recorded at the BBC before the show was cancelled, and it's certainly one of my favourite stories. It's so rich in content, both script-wise, in the Victorian sets and characters, and in the performances ... it's hard to single anyone out as being stand-out as they are all stand out. The DVD comes as usual with a host of extras, this time including a pile (about 15 - I lost count) of deleted scenes, a documentary about the story which interviews most of the cast and crew (which is competently edited, but perhaps lacking a little of the flair of other releases), some sequences of the story being recorded in studio, an interview with author Marc Platt from a 1990 convention as well as the usual commentary track, a couple of easter eggs and stills and so on. It's always amazing to me that BBC Video and a team of people calling themselves the Restoration Team can come up with so much to pack out the CD with. The Doctor Who DVDs put most commercial releases to shame with their content, most of which has been especially created or uncovered for the releases - none of reusing material from earlier laser disk or video releases here. The story itself is also pretty good. At the time I remember thinking/saying/writing that this was Doctor Who for the video age as it is actually really hard to figure out what is going on from just one viewing - Ghost Light is an adventure which stands up to repeated showings, and each time you hear/see something which adds another piece to the puzzle for you. It's a great little production all told, and, if you hadn't guessed, comes highly recommended.

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

I managed to pick up a DVD of this Hammer title recently and watching it I realised how much you forget, just how good the old Hammer films were. I think I must have seen this one before, but to be honest I couldn't remember that much about it. However it's a cracking mix of Hong Kong Kung Fu style action, vampires, Dracula and ladies with their tops off. I was impressed with the fights, fast and furious, and the idea that this rag-tag band of people could cross the wilderness to battle seven decaying zombified vampires was somewhat hilarious. I loved the make-ups for the risen dead - all skeletal and decaying - but I wondered how they got back to their graves ... when they first rise, they are all but fricaseed by Cushing and pals, and yet next time, they all rise from the same graves again ... obviously something clever going on there. Unfortunately John Forbes-Robertson as Dracula at the start and end looks as though he has just been playing the part on stage - his make up is simply dreadfully overdone. He's also really chatty, but it's a blessing when Shen Chan takes over for the bulk of the film as he's just so much better. When the zombie-vampires rise, I was interested to see that some of them seem to be hopping - hopping Vampires is a Chinese phenomenon that I know about from films like Mr Vampire, and I guess that the Chinese extras roped in for the sequence either weren't told what to do and some just made it up, or that the director knew about the differing mythologies and asked some of them to move like that. Whatever the reason, the pack of jogging/hopping/running corpses is really quite impressive. The ending rather lets it all down, when Dracula turns back into Forbes-Robertson in the hallway, and Cushing manages to spear him first time. Some good disintegration effects ensue. But what on earth is that (very small) vat of boiling blood doing in the lair ... and why does one of the vampires seem to emit steam when it's bat medallion is taken near the start ...? The great thing about these films is that even the bits that don't make sense add to the whole, and overall the film is just great fun. Even Julie Ege gets to do something, even if her death at the end is somewhat gory and nasty.

Reviews

Some people out there might know that for the last 20 years or so I've been reviewing books for a variety of places, but mainly for Starburst and Shivers magazines. It's a strange life being a reviewer, you get to pen about 100-300 words on something which might have taken years of someone's life to create, and in those words you can destroy it completely. To be honest I often think that some reviewers take great pleasure in doing just that, and that they are unbearably smug with it (and I know that some magazines actually ask their reviewers to submit bad reviews and actively give books to people they hope won't like them). Me, I try and find something nice to say if I can, and if I really can't find anything nice then I'll probably not cover that book. Why spend space saying that something is awful when you could be helping to spread the word about something that is good. It's also worth noting that as with any other sort of writing, sometimes you get things wrong in a review: you spell a name incorrectly, or get some other detail wrong, and of course then the author comes down on you like a ton of bricks, especially if you're daring to criticise their masterpiece. I mention all this as I had an email today from an author, basically having a right old go at me for a recent review of his book ... seems that because I had not praised it to the skies like others apparently had, and because I callously (and unprofessionally of course) gave away the ending of one of the short stories, and because I couldn't tell from the book whether it was self-published or not, and because I dared to have an opinion as to the type of story I like ... it all amused me more than anything. As if being accused of not knowing what I was doing, of getting more experience before I reviewed short stories, and being described as 'simple minded' is really going to endear me to this author and his work in the future. I'd like to share with you his closing line: "In short, this inaccurate, incomplete, superficial treatment of a very strong story collection is an injustice. This book is receiving rave reviews, often five star reviews, in longer, more comprehensive treatments by other reviewers. Your review, as written, is amateurish drek." Thank you and goodnight. I think that every writer would benefit from being a reviewer, to try and exercise tact and diplomacy when discussing works which they then may appreciate the effort that went into creating. And that every reviewer should have a piece of their work that they're proud of reviewed by someone else at some point, so that they can see how it feels to be on the receiving end of criticism. Maybe if this happened, then people would be perhaps a little more tolerant of criticism, and perhaps not be so keen to slag off and put down works based on their own agendas.

New Who

I've been thinking about the new series of Doctor Who quite a bit (as you might expect) and having seen the coverage being given to it by the various magazines, I'm finding it amusing how they're all trying to outdo each other with the coverage, while trying terribly hard not to 'spoil' anything. One of the magazines has a sealed section wherein there are 7 pages of photographs and a location report. Others have interviews with the designers and of course with Russell T Davis ... it's all very interesting. Now cast your minds back ... I'm old enough (!) to remember when Season 12 was on, and I still remember the continuity announcer at the end of The Ark In Space saying that the next episode was called The Sontaran Experiment. I have to admit that at the time I had no idea what a Sontaran was ... the name hadn't 'stuck' from The Time Warrior at all ... and then after Genesis of the Daleks, they announced that next week would be Revenge of the Cybermen ... I still remember that as I knew what/who the Cybermen were and this was *so* exciting. My memories of Invasion were there for me, and of being terrified witless by the Cybermen in that story ... Flash forward to today, and I wonder if this new series will retain that excitement. I really hope it will, and that the feeding frenzy of each magazine trying to top the one before will tail off and that some real surprises will be had by viewers. There's a part of me who wishes already that I didn't know that the ------- were in the first episode, or that the -------- were going to appear ... and I'm concerned that I'll come to the episodes already expecting a lot when perhaps my expectations will never be met. Of course there's also a rabid Doctor Who fan side of me which wants all the scripts now, as many photographs as I can assemble, and copies of all the merchandise :) However experience from 1996 tells me that this won't happen. Fans won't get scripts in advance this time around. There won't be photographs galore until afterwards (and even then there might be actually not that many). There won't be actor interviews in which things are given away ... in many senses fandom is a *very* different place than it was even in 1996. The Internet has changed it all considerably - any news can be read instantly by millions of people within seconds of it happening - so trying to keep things quiet becomes something of an impossibility. Print media must therefore concentrate on what has not got online, and so we have a culture of secrecy emerging again which all but made Doctor Who fandom impossibly insular and unfriendly in the seventies and early eighties - the 'I've got/know something you don't know' attitude where photographs/videos were hoarded and only a select few had any access to anything at all. I like the modern fandom where virtually nothing is secret - episodes can be bought on VHS or on DVD or even downloaded from the Internet for free if people have a good connection and a lot of patience. I hope the concern that the production team has not to let anything out about the new series doesn't end up breeding secrecy and lack of trust ... I hope people appreciate new WHO for what it is, and don't try and spoil it all before it's even started.