All new!

Basically the same!

Yes, I am back from outer space (well technically just The BBC, Waitrose, Up North and John Lewis) with a sad look upon my face because I am a year older and shall blame those stoopid locks. Anyway, enough with the Gloria Gaynors, I have a new Word Press (or is Wordpress one word?) version of my blogs as Blogger was becoming as reliable as a Sugababes line up (of the musical not criminal kind). So what to do with it now? Er…

Did that on Friday, as seen on The Other Blog. Full report over there as usual.

Did this over the last month or so and very nice it is too… a truly geeky lounge now completed. Now for all the other rooms of our house to be sorted out, which may take us up to the debut of the 13th Doctor.

Worst tabloid headline of the day award goes to this:

It’s funny because his character is called Potter which they have changed to Botter because Bot is short for Bottom which is what those gays like putting their penises into. Oh my sides have split. Ouch.

Obligatory Doctor Who nerdgasm:

Big Finish kept Doctor Who alive through the wilderness years before Russell “Tea?” Davies jizzed his magical gay space love all over it and made it the merchandising opportunity it is today, and they are having a fine 2010 so far. These two plays are part of a current fashion for interesting old-yet-not-quite-as-before teamings of Docctors and companions of yesteryear and are just two of the reasons why I have re-subscribed. Great for tube journeys where I cannot be distracted by visual stimulation and highly recommended. Also: Tegan bloody Jovanka, which has still not become official Cockernee rhyming slang to the best of my knowledge .

And finally, to test out this new YouTube embedding function, a music video from We Have Band:

They do indeed have a band and a very fine band it is too.

As a great big geek I just had to mention this:

She battled the Argentine army abroad (I must have missed Private Thatcher) and the unions at home. But Margaret Thatcher never knew she was also under attack from outer space.
Left-wing scriptwriters hired by the BBC during the 1980s tried to inspire a ‘Tardis revolution’ by using Doctor Who as propaganda to undermine the Tory prime minister. In one serial they caricatured her as a vicious and egotistical alien ruler who banned outward displays of unhappiness among her downtrodden people and used a secret police to oppress dissidents… In the adventure, screened in November 1988, the Doctor persuaded the oppressed drones, who toiled in factories and mines, to revolt in a deliberate echo of the miners’ and printers’ strikes.

This was hardly a secret in 1988. I was 15 and fully aware of the Thatcher influence. How is this news? Oh yeah, because the BBC is a disgrace and the licence fee is an unfair tax and boo hoo hoo…

In a serial the following year the Doctor gave an impassioned speech about the evils of nuclear weapons, which borrowed heavily from material obtained from CND.

The Doctor? Being all anti-war? Whatever next? That never would have happened in the good old days: William Hartnell’s Doctor was infamous for breaking up miners’ strikes (scab!) and shit-stirring on alien worlds.

This shocking non-news caused Mail readers to set their outrage mode to BBC Bash setting:

Oh poor poor Mister Griffin. Neo-Nazis were also in that season (and I mean that in the season 25 of Doctor Who sense, not in fashion).

The Mail blatantly nicked this story from The Times as a lot of it was practically identical.

Sylvester McCoy, from The Times:
“We were a group of politically motivated people and it seemed the right thing to do. At the time Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia. Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Those who wanted to see the messages saw them; others, including one producer, didn’t.”

(Script editor Andrew Cartmel) assembled a number of “angry young writers” to produce storylines that they hoped would foment anti-Thatcher dissent. They included Ben Aaronovitch, son of the late Marxist intellectual Sam Aaronovitch, and Rona Munro, who went on to become a scriptwriter for Ken Loach, the socialist film-maker.

I think there may have been a lot more to it that that but never mind. The Times had a further bombshell:

A spin-off Doctor Who children’s novel called Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma, which was published under licence by the BBC in 1987, featured a despotic villain called Rehctaht — Thatcher spelt backwards.

Gasp! I now have something to blame for my loony leftiness. Damn you, Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma, you ruined my childhood.

I think the Times commenters surpassed the Mail’s for once:

Twat.

Wanker.

The story (about the so-called scandal) even featured on Newsnight last night where Terrance Dicks’ massive face appeared and said that stories inspired by politics were a bad idea for Doctor Who. Hundreds (thousands?) of geeks then shouted at their tellys about all the stories in the 1970s that did precisely that. Oh shame.

A full version of the Newsnight story, including a rather pointless studio discussion is on the Blogtor Who site. No complaints as yet from men made of sweets, OAP cannibals or 1950s Welsh holiday camps…

I’ve been busy doing interiors stuff at home, as well as discovering old things in boxes to delight and baffle (blogs on that to follow at some pojnt) but for now here’s a nice new homagey comic cover coming in May:

Oh yeah, it’s X-Men 138 all over again. That was the first issue I ever bought, albeit in a black and white Marvel UK reprint form. This one is from the following release:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #35
Brad Meltzer (W), Georges Jeanty (P, Cover), Andy Owens (I), Michelle Madsen (C), and Jo Chen (Cover)
On sale May 5
FC, 40 pages
$2.99
Ongoing

Brad Meltzer concludes his blockbuster run on Buffy Season Eight! After last issue’s climactic encounter between Buffy and the unmasked Twilight, the Slayer army’s entire mission has been altered and the true nature of the threat they face has been revealed.
Everyone is in place to confront the Big Bad once and for all as Buffy’s most epic season races toward the final arc, written by Joss Whedon!
• Executive produced by Buffy creator Joss Whedon!
• Final issue of Brad Meltzer’s game-changing arc on Season Eight!

I am such a geek.

I finally watched the Caprica pilot (it’s a TV show ‘premiere’ episode, not a man who works in planes) and it was rather good. What a brilliant reviewer I am!

Obviously there was more to it than this, as it comes from the same place as Battlestar Galactica (but it’s not its Torchwood, oh no) so features a world we have visited before only a bit further back in time. The prequel to a complex not-just-sci-fi show whose main themes were what humanity is capable of in order to survive, terrorism seen from both sides, how different types of religion can live together and of course Fighting! In space! is going to be an interesting proposition and Caprica lived up to my expectations. This show is closer to our world in its technology so there are versions of early artificial intelligence, virtual reality group player games (with better avatars than my Wii Mii), religion-based terrorism and faith schools (ooh), plus some good old fashioned family bickering thrown in for good measure. No space stuff though, so it’s just kind of sci-fi. Hmmm… I like a nice dollop of philosophy in my entertainment for I am slightly pretentious and Caprica gives you a fair bit to think about (simple plot: rich boffin’s stroppy daughter gets involved with monotheistic terror group while working on a genius level AI version of herself. Shit hits fan. Another family are affected and their lives overlap) although this never becomes too technical or talk-downy. The whole thing looks really pretty, with good music which comes as no surprise to fans of Galactica. Good stuff which would work well on BBC Four (lazy Mad Men comparison, apologies).

Talking of sci-fi-y stuff based around issues of identity, technology and ‘what makes a human human?’ I also watched the final Dollhouse. This finale goes back to the futuristic 10 years later world (Echo had a grey streak to show this) last seen at the end of season one in the episode that Fox never showed in America. It may have been shown over here, I know it was on the DVD. Anyway, it was a good ending as it actually ended the story which is a rarity in these axe-happy telly times, but the whole project has never felt all that brilliant. Maybe I’m being tough on Joss Whedon and co as they have a great body of work and I expected too much, maybe it was a bit ropey. The crapness of the first half of season one certainly did not help and it really needed to be a serial in the format of 24 rather than a ‘job of the week’ show like some other thing that I don’t watch. The premise was shaky at best and choosing an actress with a limted range to play the main character who gets through a lot of different peronalities may not have helped. She does a good Faith From Buffy though. Dollhouse was always better as an ensemble piece and had a handful of great episodes but as one big saga it is far too erratic.

The other talky thinky sci-fi I liked this week, and in fact only listened to as it is a play, was A Thousand Tiny Wings. This was a Doctor Who audio and an excellent one at that, showing how to do a scary Sylvester McCoy story right. Set in 1950s Kenya, it manages to mix an unhappy reunion between the Doctor and an old enemy who happens to be from a Nazi timeline (see old play Colditz for that story. Co-starring David ‘Who?’ Tennant), a group of women living in fear of the Mau Mau in a farm house, a mysterious injured non-human found in the jungle and something sinister involving groups of tiny dangerous birds… hence the title. I’m not giving anything else away except to say that it is a particularly good example of how to use the audio format for suspense and drama, with a nice amount of philosophy and politics thrown in (not in a dull way, I promise, even the whole debate about Nazism is interesting and fits the story) to the mix. Big Finish have been on top form recently and this one kept me gripped, like my 16 year old self watching Ghost Light all those years ago but with a story that is easier to understand.

Busy week featuring a crashed mail server, a deceased CD-ROM drive, too many Excel spread sheets (which weren’t all that bad really), a bit of lurgey (I refuse to call it man flu) and then a lovely relaxing day today… so here are some videoey things that piqued my interests this week:

Marina did Hollywood in an acoustic style:

Ellie’s new video was quite nice:

There was also a lot of telly too. Big Love series 4 started in America and it followed the goodness of series 3. The previous one seemed to lack a bit of oomph and there may have been too many plotines (HBO style) but this hard-to-get-into show is currently in smashing form:

New theme tune and title sequence: Excellent. Clips trailer:

Whatshername who is now more famous since being in that bloody Abba film is leaving but at least she had some scenes with Mac From Veronica Mars and Jesse From Breaking Bad, finishing off her storyline. I don’t think I can recomend starting watching it from the current episodes as too much has happened but investing in the box sets is a good idea. Mac From Veronica Mars is also in a new ABC mainstream legal drama called The Deep End which I watched purely for that reason but it was all too cliched and mainstream like “real” popular telly:

I imagine this will appeal to ‘normal’ people though as it is full of cliche speeches and office romances.

24 is back and just as mad as ever:

It has Starbuck hunting for Leoben at one point, how very Battlestar Galactica of them. Those Cylons get everywhere, and the first few episodes of the new series also include familiar faces from The Shield and The Wire.

I finally started on Heroes season 4 today and was pleasantly surprised:

Liking the new ‘Carnivale’ plot (the baddie of that show is in The Deep End) and characters, and even the ‘Undeclared’ plot is ok. I predict some kind of lesbionic tendencies in Clare Bear’s mate, how very modern. The double length first episode was good stuff, with only some of the Hiro and Ando stuff grating but then the ‘comic relief’ aspect of the show never really did it for me.

Also continued to enjoy Ed & Oucho’s Excellent Inventions, Being Human and Nurse Jackie, and found Bellamy’s People (new BBC2 comedy) to be worth my time:

No I have not had poison injected into my face. Nor have I had stuff stuffed into my upper lip to make it look all pouty and wibbly wobbly. That would be silly. I’m talking about The Doctor and his new thang going on in that trailer:

Pretty pictures for you. I love my Paint Shop Pro screen grab function, so modern:

Bow tie, tweed, big hair and shades? I doubt I call pull that look off.

Sea Devil and Silurian? But ‘Silurian’ has a string vest fetish and one of those whooshy round guns those devilish lot love so much. Where’s the Myrkah?

Monstercam is back!

I love Amy Pond just from the trailer. Maybe even as much as I love Romana 1.0. We’ll see.

Logo. Nice.

What about the 10 finale then? Well… I loved the sentimental claptrap of course. A fitting end to the RTD era with lots of running around and crazy speeches, a few bits of McGuffin that made little sense, some lovely human scenes (two old blokes talking about guns and sacrifice and wars and that sort of thing), silly mad ideas that don’t want to be analysed (the Master race was fun but potty), “racist” use of the word cactus, Donna finally getting to use that wedding dress, lovely little tribute to the actor who played Donna’s dad, the final RTD Gay Agenda moment which will probably inspire some truly awful fan fiction…. anyway, it was a mad fun adventure. Not going to dwell on Super Master with his zappy hands and flight, New Smith & Jones or the rather pointless Rassilon Resurrection. He has certainly had a make over since his last appearance, much less pantomimey. Looking forward to the new regime though as it’s time for change with English villages, vampires, weeping angels, WW2 Daleks and that Magpie Electricals from Mark Gattis’ old story by the looks of it.

Matt Smith was rather good in the excellent Party Animals, in case you had forgotten:

Oh yeah.

I had been ‘reviewing’ the classic Doctor Who DVDs but then I got busy with life and forgot about the Dalek War box set which contains Frontier In Space and Planet of the Daleks. These two 1973 stories are linked together in the most obvious way by being one bloody long spacey wobbly set romp adventure and are mostly a lot of fun. The Dalek story is good but I’m going to focus on Frontier as it was on telly when I was born and I have more to say about it…

Frontier In Space is six episodes of The Doctor and Jo getting kidnapped, locked up, released, interrogated, locked up, escaping and so on, which makes it sound crappy but it’s great fun to watch, especially with the always-reliable production notes function. In a nutshell, there’s these sibilant lizard types called Draconians (my description sounds more like Brett Anderson from Suede) whose actors wear detailed ruber masks if playing main characters but less so if background artissstesss who get caught up in a massive scheme of The Master’s (when he was still great fun and not a randomly super-powered loon) to cause a massive kerfuffley war drama with the big boys aka Earth. The human big cheeses there are your typical good old 70s supporting characters with funky clothes and snappy dialogue. Not so snappy are those pesky Ogrons who are The Master’s hired help and are a rather dim lot. Inbetween being locked up and unlocked our intrepid travellers try to sort out what the hell is going on with various parties’ perceptions of who is responsible for all the bad behaviour which is, it transpires, down to a handy device which makes people see their fear and therefore creates loads of bloody hassle and tension until this is sorted out and both sides in the potential galactic war pull themselves together. Phew. There’s a moral in there somewhere about paranoia and not reading too much Daily Mail.

Highlights for me include the monster that the Ogrons are scared of turning out to be utterly rubbish in a great way, a weird continuity error where Jo gains a pair of tights between episodes and a trip to the South Bank (not to go to the Tate but to get involved in the umpteenth prison break). Jolly good fun!

One of the first prisons for our dynamic duo. Looks uncannily similar to a later one.

A brief trip out of the studio to the South Bank where Jo’s wide mouth potential scares away the guards.

Not the mind probe! Human big cheeses in big collars for big fun times.

The Master eventually joins our heroes when they are imprisoned once again but decides to ignore their whining.

Daleks turn up, ready for the next story, and have the usual technical issues. They sort themselves out just in time as Planet of the Daleks has an army of thousands of Daleks (allegedly) and a silly plot about invisibility in a studio-bound angry forest.

I am now watching the mammoth Key To Time box set which may take some time (no not really a proper pun intended).

It is/was Christmas Day (depending on when you read this) and we went to Sexy Brentwood for Day One of Famerlee Christmas. Day Two is Boxing Day in/on Canvey Island but that hasn’t happened yet. I took a few photos there and a few at home so here they are. I warn you, they are not thrilling as they do not adequately capture things like not watching any telly because it is rubbish, eating/drinking four bowls of soup for a starter, receiving (and giving) some lovely presents, wondering why my sister had gift wrapped loads of bananas (maybe for a celebrity cactus?), teasing my mother about the lack of grand children supplied by gay sons, slightly zoning out every time Belgium was mentioned, getting that too much wine feeling or the surprisingly easy M25 journey…

At home: As our lounge is a decoratingesque mess the cards live on the fridge this year, held in place by Doctor Who fridge magnets.

Also at home: One of my lovely new cacti got some bananas from the Torchwood Deaceased Action Figures. Bannakaffalatta sounds a bit like a banana but is not. He is, however, a bit like those coincidental aliens who cropped up later in Doctor Who.

My mother loves her apron and posed with the wok I bought her but that photo was shit so here is a different one.

Lovely table set for dinner in the conservatory. I want one (conservatory not table).

The Goth Archaeologist and her assistant dug some presents out of the wrapping paper. Lots of glasses (of the drinking out of variety).

I got Wii Fit Plus and a big cake, which should cancel each other out nicely.

We got home in plenty of time for Doctor Who. It may have been an after effect of the wine (I may have had mini dozes) but I felt the episode didn’t gel all that well. Too many new plot strands and coincidences for my liking but the big dramatic bits (no spoilers here) were fun, silly and dramatic and I look forward to part two next week.

Eastenders was amusingly Eastendersy where you could play along at home with your Eastenders Cliche Tick Sheet. As is the rule when somebody is going to get murdered off, you have to set up a dozen suspects by having them all get rather annoyed with the vistom then pay him a visit one at a time and go grrr at him. Lots of angry faces, lots of crying acting (except from Westbrook who cannot do the crying face dur to having no nose) and some great slaps. It was full of potential TV Burp clip moments of joy. Also: the Everyone in soap can fit all of their belongings into one average sized bag rule was used brilliantly once more, as was the Pregnant actress can disguise it with big all-weathers coat and permanent massive shoulder bag rule. So many rules.

So… what were my telly moments of 2009?

Battlestar Galactica surprising me by wrapping everything up in a mostly awesome way but with a few nice vagueries to keep people tutting. Top quality and more deserving of hype than The Bloody Wire.

Breaking Bad continuing to be rather great, bought by Five USA then shoved in a midnight-y timeslot.

Curb Your Enthusiasm doing more of the usual great stuff with me becoming even more worried when I agree with almost everything Larry says.

Doctor Who giving the Doctor his long-awaited (not in an evil way) nervous breakdown.

Dollhouse series 2 being not as crap as we thought and then getting cancelled after it had barely started.

Ed & Oucho supplying most of my biggest laughs of the year across the several different shows they made. Kids’ TV is great when not dumbed down.

Lost came back once again and maintained the general air of geeky brillance, which was nice. One season left to go!

Miranda Hart surprising me by having an old fashioned sitcom that (for me) had a shaky start but became very loveable indeed.

Nurse Jackie debuted in America and was like a non-schmaltzy version of E.R with better plots, actors and less soppy montages.

Parks and Recreation turning out to be a cracking good sitcom that I had previously lost interest in as I am a fool.

Sarah Jane Adventures continuing to be damn good fun for the kids and all the adults who love a bit of Who spin-off.

Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle featuring some of the best cleverest stand up seen on telly in a long time, getting relatively poor ratings due to the public prefering Michael McIntyre’s lazy tedium.

That Mitchell & Webb Look continuing to offer a nice range of comedy sketches sometimes based on a very funny radio series.

The Thick Of It returning with a fresh style that had a lot more drama than before but was still rather smashing.

Torchwood coming back and being not only not mostly shite like before but also incredibly gripping. Must not laugh at crying fangirls.