Right Royle let-down

Dear Royles,

No more please. Stop spoiling it.

Thanks.


Christmas Day 2012 has given us a new Royle Family Christmas Special: Barbara's Old Ring. I wasn't impressed, and neither were those around me who have loved this series for years. If material of this quality is all that Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash can write these days, and if the regular actors involved can't be sufficiently bothered, then why should the viewing public be presented with any more of these?

It's a shame, because The Royle Family used to be a well-observed, amusing and, at times, bitter-sweet sitcom about 'real' people. But the actual series are long since past and it's now stuck in that 'Christmas Special' world, where special is rarely an apposite description. Given characters I've previously believed in, and whom the writers, actors and directors have developed as realistically as possible, it's very annoying do find them doing stupid or silly unrealistic things purely for the sake of a laugh in the script: the upshot is these moments are rarely funny because they break that fourth wall, and turn a realistic show into Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

The Royle Family, on the whole, managed to avoid any of that all the way through three excellent series and the first 'special' The Queen of Sheba. That would have been a great place to end it all, to quit on a high - but because it went well and was popular the producers obviously thought (and still think?) there's further mileage in more Christmas editions. So next up in 2008 we had The New Sofa where we find that Denise & Dave's two young kids have been conveniently packed off somewhere (social services would be best, alas) and the couple have lost all grasp of reality in trying to prepare the Christmas lunch they're hosting. It's a pretty awful episode, frankly, and impossible to believe in.

The Golden Egg Cup followed in 2009. This time we're expected to believe that Jim and Barbara have been married for 50 years. 50?! So what were they, twelve when they got married? Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson just didn't look old enough to have been married that long, and nothing about the Royles suggests they'd be the sort of couple who'd have waited ten years or so to start a family (neither of them being career people). Denise may be 40ish but she's not 50ish. So, we can assume the producers had an idea and made the characters fit around it. Great.

2010 and by now a 'special' has become an annual event. This episode, Joe's Crackers, was something of a return to form, but possibly only because it focused a lot more on neighbour Joe and his inability to come to terms with the death of his wife Mary. Could it be that the Royle's themselves have lost their charm? I think it was probably worth considering.

2011, if the Internet is to be believed, was missed because Aherne & Cash couldn't finish the script in time. If 2012 has given us the script they couldn't finish last year maybe they should have held back another year, or scrapped it completely and tried again?

Barbara's Old Ring. Is this a crude joke? Or is it just offered up in case anyone wants to make it a crude joke? It's unnecessary either way, and unfortunately sets the tone for the episode as a whole. With Geoffrey Hughes having passed away earlier this year we're given a replacement for Twiggy in 'Cadging' Carol from next door - a ferocious and appalling woman played brilliantly by Lorraine Bruce. She is the only source of energy in the whole thing, and one of only two actors who look like they really want to be there (the other is Joe, the other neighbour, played by Peter Martin.)

Other than introducing Carol we're presented this time with a collection of disparate half-baked ideas that fade in and out as their time comes and goes but don't go anywhere or work cohesively as a whole: Dave's got erectile problems - ho ho ho - cue what seemed like hours of appalling cheap gags at his expense and a brief reprise towards the end with a pair of puddings that look too much like breasts to be actual Christmas puddings. Dave also has a terrible Dragon's Den idea which is wheeled in, delivered and then features no more. It has a vague connection to Barbara's lost wedding ring, which is mentioned from time to time but doesn't appear to be causing her or anyone else much in the way of concern. Then Jim wins £100 on an old scratch card which was found down the back of the sofa with some random comedy items that could have been there for up to 30 years. We have to assume the scratch card isn't that old, since it would have expired long ago. Jim then keeps his winnings down his Y-fronts for nothing more than comedy horror value. On top of all this Joe next door decides he wants to put an entry in a local lonely hearts column.
All through this collection of 'sketches' Tomlinson, Johnston, Cash and Aherne sit there like they're about to fall asleep through boredom, giving the emptiest, soulless, laziest performances you're likely to see on TV this Christmas. There's no sense of connection or affection between the characters any more; they're no longer a family, just a group of people talking to each other. They're running purely on auto-pilot, that's all, and with Aherne directing from in front of the camera there's no one to remind the actors that they do still need to work to connect as characters on screen. It's an insult to those faithful fans and viewers who still want to see more of this family that they should be given material this poor as a reward.

Things perk up a bit when - surprise surprise - Joe pops in from next door and tells us about his search for a new partner via a lonely hearts advert. Some of this was really very funny, but a poor pay-off for what had gone before and nowhere near enough to lift the episode above dreadful.

Basically the show has lost the grip on authenticity which was the root of its original charm: Jim sits there in his Y-fronts while his trousers are washed for nothing more than shock value - yes, he only has one pair of trousers (except the smart trousers he wears later on). It's gross but it's not funny. Barbara was always someone with a bit more of a grip on normal life than the others, even if she did very easily put up with her 'lot', but she's now lost that: she doesn't comment on Jim sitting around with no trousers on when they have company, she talks to Joe's dates about Jim's drying Y-fronts and their skid marks: shock comedy, minus the comedy. What would have been funnier is if Joe's date had found the underpants discarded on her chair, and Barbara had to rescue them and explain. Denise's self-centred concept of life has now spread so that even the grandparents don't ask where her kids are anymore - either that or Cash and Aherne have forgotten they're supposed to have them. That kind of fatuous 'family chat' they did so well in front of the TV years ago lends itself to enquiries after kids and work and general health, so there's no exuse for leaving the kids out and we can only assume the writers couldn't think of what to say about them.

Denise, Dave, Jim and Barbara have now become a bog standard 'comedy quartet' instead of being real people. You might as well have them running Rene's cafe in Allo Allo. They do and say whatever the episode needs them to; they've lost any consistency. The sequences with them dressed as waiting staff, helping Joe with his various dates and holding up conversation cue cards is like something out of Are You Being Served? It's funny, but it's forced and it's not in keeping with the originality and believability that the programme built its legacy on.

The biggest shame that springs from this comes at the end, when Barbara finally confronts Jim about his scratch card winnings at the Christmas dinner table, in front of the neighbours and Denise & Dave (their kids? Pfff! No...) only to find that he'd bought her a new ring with (some of) the winnings and hidden it in her slice of figgy pud. It should be a real 'ahhh' tear-jerker moment, but the episode has been so uneven and lacklustre, there's been no emotional connection for the audience with anyone, or apparently between anyone in the show either, that the climax trips the audience rather than sweeping them off their feet and frankly you just don't believe it.
Speaking of climaxes, would a middle-aged couple so obviously leave the Christmas dinner table mid-meal to go upstairs in their parents house and have sex? Obviously Denise and Dave would, but only for the disappointment of coming back straight away thanks to Dave's 'hilarious' erectile disfunction. Ho ho ho...

If the BBC are going to insist on giving us more of these, please take it back to character-led observational comedy, not situation-led where the characters are forced to fit in.

A Doctor Who season in print: 7 - a brave new world!

I haven't done one of these in a while, but recently I've been munching my way through some old Target Doctor Who novelisations before I have to get rid of them (due to space restrictions) and as Season 7 is short on stories (but not on episodes) I thought it was worth another Blog article.
So, this time around we get two of the earliest Target books:
Doctor Who and The Auton Invasion, by Terrance Dicks (pub. 1974, 156 pages - with illustrations!)
Doctor Who and The Cave Monsters, by Malcolm Hulke (pub. 1974, 158 pages - with illustrations!)
And then two more from when they were fully established:
The Ambassadors of Death, by Terrance Dicks (pub. 1987, 144 pages)
Inferno, by Terrance Dicks (pub. 1984, 126 pages)

This is generally considered to be one of the best seasons of Classic Doctor Who - gritty, consistent, shocking and challenging, before a kind of cosy 'comfort' set in to the Pertwee era. Is this matched by the books?

Doctor Who and The Auton Invasion was televised as Spearhead From Space. Target felt it needed a punchier, more dramatic title. The same with (Doctor Who and) The Silurians which became Doctor Who and The Cave Monsters in print. there are several early examples of this title changing tendency (mainly Malcolm Hulke books, admittedly) and it does give some of them a certain frisson but the idea was quickly dropped. The other claim to fame that these two books have is that they are the first two authentic Target novelisations and really set the bar for what was to follow. 1973 saw Target re-printing the three 1960s novelisations of David Whittaker's The Daleks and The Crusaders and Bill Strutton's The Zarbi. Fuelled by enthusiasm for the opportunity Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke then produced some of the most readable prose 'adaptations' of any of the TV stories.

Doctor Who and The Auton Invasion is a lovingly expanded adaptation of Spearhead From Space. It's like Dicks has revisited Robert Holmes' story and Derek Martinus' direction and thought 'how can I build on this to flesh it out a bit and give it more of an over all coherency?' We get a prologue from the end of The War Games (which I'm surprised the DVDs haven't offered as an extra), we get thoughtful character backgrounds, explanations (like why Madame Tussauds would have a dull exhibition of senior civil servants and military men, for example!) and expansions on what was televised - particularly building the episode one cliff hanger and developing the 'octopus' at the end - and it's all so simply yet well-written it just picks you up and carries you along. Liz Shaw doesn't get much more of a look in than she does on TV, unfortunately, but it's possible that Dicks struggled with this anyway, knowing his preference for heroine-tied-to-the-railway-lines type companions. You can't help but feel a tad short-changed at some of the 110 page 4th & 5th Doctor books that Dicks would later come out with when he was churning them out month on month and clearly didn't have the time or the creative energy to apply the same level of care and thought. But here he was very much writing what he knew directly, and it's a great place to start the range.

Doctor Who and The Cave Monsters is a slightly different kettle of fish, yet just as brilliant in its own way. Hulke has clearly picked and chosen what he wanted from his TV scripts, or thought specifically about what would work best in print and what was needed from the televised story. The 'Silurians' here are Reptile Men instead, and they have names and characters beyond the Young Silurian / Old Silurian ciphers on TV. You'd be hard pushed to find more powerful moments of pathos and character than 'Old' Okdel's tears and his willing acceptance of his own death at the hand of 'Young' Morka. The story is essentially the same as on TV, but some of the details are different. What we may lose in detail, though, is made up for through creative narrative and point of view story-telling. Doctor Quinn and Miss Dawson are having a terribly protracted innocent courtship, and they benefit from further development in print - as does Doctor Meredith. Doctor Lawrence, on the other hand, is nowhere near as objectionable on the page as he is on screen and this is perhaps a shame - as is his altered demise. There doesn't appear to be any benefit to making Hawkins a sergeant rather than a captain in the book, or for changing Major Baker to Major Barker (being more familiar with the TV version I gave up trying to auto-correct myself after a while). Whereas The Auton Invasion built the story up, The Cave Monsters had seven episodes to fit in so it's down to strategic cutting to make it fit into a length that would sufficiently appeal to children without being too stodgy. It's major achievement, though, is in humanising the monsters, giving them clearly defined and individual characters in a way that the TV programme hadn't really achieved up to that point.

The Ambassadors of Death comes much later in the run of books. The illustrations are long gone, so this is all text. By this point we'd been through a severe page limitation and were emerging out the other side. Terrance Dicks' output had diminished considerably since in many cases the original TV scriptwriters were choosing to adapt their own work, so Dicks and Nigel Robinson between them were mopping up any earlier gaps. This was one such gap.
Overall Terrance was probably the best person to write this novel. Many have regretted Malcolm Hulke passing away and never having got his teeth into this script, which was largely written by him and script assistant Trevor Ray although credited to David Whittaker. But Hulke was probably too close to such a troubled script. Dicks, as script editor, gave the final polish to all of it and evened out the various contributors' work.
This book is pretty standard fare. It's not quite a simple script-to-page effort with the occasional token descriptive passage, but it displays little of the adaptive energy and enthusiasm of The Auton Invasion from 13 years earlier. It still succeeds because it's a cracking story with some great characters, concepts and action sequences. Simply reflecting these on the page is enough to give this book appeal. Some might have felt this was a good opportunity to give the story proper 'closure' at the end, but it's faithful to the abrupt televised version and we leave it half way down a page as the Doctor leaves Liz and the others to negotiate the safe return of the alien ambassadors. The middle episodes don't feel like they lose much from the story being curtailed to 144 pages and Dicks is very economical in places where action sequences which take several minutes on screen can be dealt with in a brief paragraph on the page, without the reader feeling that they're being rushed or missing out on anything.
My favourite part of the book is a typo on page 40:
'The guard fell, and the same brown-gloved hand took his eyes and opened the door of the cell.' Ouch! Very King Lear. I assume 'eyes' should have been 'keys', since there's no indication it was a retinal scan lock!

Inferno is another similar adaptation, but from three years earlier when 128 pages was the maximum length. How do you get seven of the best TV episodes ever into 128 pages and do them justice? Answer: make it 126 pages of very small type. Inferno, like Ambassadors of Death, is a great read almost simply because it's such a good story, but Season 7 gives us a useful comparison between the early years of the Target range and it's established adolescent period. All four books are great reads, but all four treat their source material in a slightly different way. Inferno's quirk of adaptation comes when The Doctor is in the parallel universe. On TV we get occasional reminders of what our friends are up to in the 'real world', and this may have been felt a necessity by the production team in case of any chance first time viewers not understanding what was going on. In the book we get one 'cut back' early on and then that's it, we keep with the fascist world and see that adventure through to the end. The 'missing' sequences are briefly referenced after the Doctor returns to 'our' universe but not gone into in any detail - nor do they need to be either; the Doctor is having an adventure on a parallel Earth, that's what we're interested in and that's what the author is focusing on. It also serves as a self-editing technique for the story, since some detail still has to be compromised to ensure it fits comfortably into it's limited page numbers - but at least it's done in a thoughtful, creative way that benefits the narrative. If it had been a shorter story it possible that Dicks may have been tempted to write a farewell scene for Liz Shaw at the end, or offer some hints that she would be returning to Cambridge. Considering what's been done since - particularly Gary Russell's Virgin MA The Scales of Injustice - I think it's good that he followed the TV version faithfully and ends Liz Shaw's adventures with her smiling away at the departing backs of the Doctor and the Brigadier.
My only query is why Dicks shied away from called the mutants Primords. The name isn't used on TV but it's what the creatures are credited as at the ends of the episodes. Dicks' just called the creatures 'mutations'. I guess if you call them Primords you're identifying them as a specific individual species, whereas Dicks' view is very much that these are mutations of mankind, not a different species altogether.
 
All these stories are excellent and are challenging works of telefantasy / sci-fi which have much to offer the reader as an alternative to watching them on TV. They highlight many of the considerable strengths of the Target range, as well as some of it's occasionally more frustrating limitations. I would recommend reading all these books, although at the moment only The Auton Invasion and The Cave Monsters are readily available as they've been re-published in recent BBC Books editions.

Red Dwarf X: The Beginning

'I challenge you to a duel across time and space!'

This series has ended on a real high, the kind of high that makes you hope that Dave commissions Red Dwarf XI immediately. Thankfully episode 6, The Beginning, was just as strong, funny and consistent as the previous week's Dear Dave.

OK, so we're back in Blade Runner territory, dealing with rogue simulants, but like last week's mail pod this is an acceptable recurrence: we know they occupy the area of space Red Dwarf is travelling through - so the series set itself up a long time ago for repeat confrontations. Here the rogue simulants are humorously a bit crap and camp, and less psychotic - which adds interest to them. We'd get bored if they were the same each time, after all. My only criticism (and this is probably just personal taste) was that I felt Gary Cady's Dominator Zlurth was slightly under-played and he could have cranked and camped it up a notch.

I loved the Star Wars homages - they weren't the 'nod to camera' heavy-handed references like you get in The Simpsons or Family Guy (not including their Star Wars Specials, of course!), they were there if you wanted them and they didn't make or break any scenes. I doubt you can do a spaceship hiding in an asteroid or a hologrammatic personal message these days without a large section of the audience thinking of Star Wars, so it's best to just embrace it. But it was difficult to tell if the laughter accompanying the line 'I'm not your father' was more for the sentiment or for the inversion of the Star Wars quote.

Possibly the best aspect of the episode, though, was Hogey the Roguey. What a guy, and what a performance from Richard O'Callaghan - miles away from Bertram Muffet, his clumsy romantic lead in Carry On Loving years ago.
In many ways Hogey is such an obvious comedy sci-fi character that it's amazing he's not appeared here before. And the gags worked so much better with us not being privy to the back story (unlike, I feel, the poker game with the BEGGs in Entangled). A crap, annoying, Hispanic cyborg with a ridiculous comb-over who is desperate to ease the boredom of his existence with honourable challenges is the perfect accompaniment to the Red Dwarf crew. Now we've met him, of course, and he's worked really well I fully expect him to appear again - only hopefully not as much as the over-used Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibbley crowd-pleasers of earlier series.

Will Rimmer's parentage situation change him in the future if the series returns? I doubt it. Nor should it. The dynamic is settled and works as it is. Was the Cat's psychoanalysis of Rimmer shoe-horned in? Possibly, but he occasionally shows moments of insight anyway, so it's not too much of a stretch of the imagination here. Plus he was playing the string on a stick game at the same time and that was a nice moment of Cat charm.

On the whole there's been little to compromise the visual impact of the series. I thought the BEGGs looked awful and Red Dwarf's drive room is a bit cramped, but otherwise everything's been fine. Maybe too much of the budget had to go on the space battle here, because the crew descending through the floor with Hogey's molecular destabiliser gun and the missiles passing through Blue Midget's bridge were less than convincing, which was a shame. Blue Midget's bridge was very similar to the Dwarf's drive room (same set redressed? Would make sense!) so again you had the crew tapping away on small keyboards at an awkward angle (they'd never be DDA compliant!) - seemingly for the Cat so that he didn't mask the camera's view of the rear of the cockpit. Bit of bad design planning there, methinks...

Overall, though, I think what marked out this episode, like last week's, was that there was just enough going on for it to have pace and energy throughout, but not so much that it had to compromise itself or cut corners. It had time for poignancy, humour and character. It could develop the villains sufficiently and most importantly there were some great gags along the way.

I'm also filled with hope for a further series because they didn't end on a cliff hanger where they could, if need be, end the series. If it did end here you'd know that they were just going to carry on as they have been, with wacky adventures. I hope, though, that we get to join them on those.

I was unsure before the series started. Back To Earth in 2009 was not an auspicious continuation of the original series, and if that was the template for things to come then I would struggle to remain a fan of the show. Also Dave (and the other UK Gold-type channels) tend to over-hype their own programmes and I get worried I've already heard all the best gags in something when I've seen the same trailer umpteen times. I think Red Dwarf X has overcome all this and it's been a solid series on the whole - not perfect by any means, but enjoyable and with some classic moments along the way. Personally I don't think we should demand any more than that. Get the basics right and anything extra special is a bonus in my view.

P.S. all the way through this series I've avoided the question of Rimmer's continuity. Is he the same Rimmer that went off to be Ace Rimmer in Series VII? He seems to be the same. In Series VIII he was human again. I know all the crew had died again at the end of that series though. I think it's best not to ponder on that. Red Dwarf, like many TV sitcoms, is not a series that rewards scrutiny of continuity. I'm happy to just watch it and love it for what it is...

Red Dwarf X: Dear Dave

Dear Dave,

Thanks!

Best wishes, Tim.


Hooray! At last we have an episode of Red Dwarf X that's consistently funny and well-crafted throughout, with some classic stand-alone moments. Excellent stuff, easily the best of the series so far.

My recent concerns over the programme ignoring or strategically forgetting  that Dave Lister is the last human being alive were answered, and similarly the positive strengths of the previous week's episode continued here, with all the crew doing their own thing and only coming together when necessary.

Admittedly we've had the mail pod before and again we're back in Series I & II territory with Lister feeling sorry for himself but personally I'm happy with that slant. It makes the team (and the show) less smug (more smeg?!) which tended to afflict the later series of the original run. Some aspects of the drudgery of day-to-day life are worth revisiting and the mail pod is one of these.

Key classic moments for me were the note to Rimmer asking him to stop writing his own letters of commendation, Lister 'hitting on' the French vending machine and the Cat's charades message. The final punchline of the episode, whilst in spirit largely predictable, was delivered so perfectly by Craig Charles that it has to stand as another classic moment.

I love the occasional tell-tale signs that sitcoms like this are still recorded in front of a live audience - there's an occasional buzz, a feeling that it may not be perfect, but it's got a special little sparkle. There was one in Lemons earlier in the series where Craig Charles was clearly chuckling away as Lister and Rimmer pointed out smeg to a panicking Kryten in the drive room. This week Chris Barrie was clearly having difficulty not creasing up at the end of the charades sequence. These moments are very charming, and betray the live theatre roots of television that it's all too easy to forget these days - particularly since we've become obsessed with outtakes programmes. It's great to see a director willing to keep these moments in, but also an actor who's going to soldier through and not take the easy option of corpsing safe in the knowledge that it'll be fine because it'll go on a DVD 'Smeg Ups' section and possibly on a TV outtakes programme. Personally I hope that BBC3 have finally killed that genre through it's endless runs of 'hilarious' outtakes from Little Britain and Two Pints of Lager where lines or cues are fudged at every opportunity and greeted with a cast expletive and a roar of audience approval. How easily pleased can we possibly be?

I have a personal 'grudge' with Dear Dave in that I have a radio sci-fi comedy series called Turbo Tina shortly going into production with Sunderland REP for SparkFM (details here:  http://sunderlandrep.wordpress.com/productions/current-projects/radio-comedy-drama/)
which involves a character possibly becoming enamoured with a food dispensing machine and now Red Dwarf have pipped me to the post! But it would be churlish of me to take umbrage with this episode over that, I guess. It's clear to all that Lister's not going to re-erect the vending machine while he's lying on top of it, but do we mind? I doubt it!

There is a little niggle though, that's been with me throughout the series so far, regarding the drive room. It's a very small drive room for such a large vessel - in fact at first I assumed it was the Starbug cockpit. But also why have the crew been given such tiny keyboards to type away at while they're sitting there, and what actually are they doing? Craig Charles in particular looks really awkward and uncomfortable and just appears to be typing away because he thinks that's what you're supposed to do there, occasionally looking at the small screen nearby. Is he setting co-ordinates? Writing a novel? Playing speed solitaire? In the grand scheme of things it's not massively important, but the more time Lister and Rimmer spend in there the more I wonder what they're doing and if they've just been directed to look busy...

There's not a great deal more I can say really. That's the trouble with an episode you really enjoy from start to finish! It was very funny, well-paced, well-constructed. The crew all had plenty to do that was individual to themselves and there were some killer gags along the way.

Shame the series ends next week now things have picked up.

Red Dwarf X: Entangled

So, this week we got Entangled - or maybe Doug Naylor did? I'm wondering if the episode was called this because it's what the writer scribbled at the top of his rough draft in frustration.
This was an episode that felt misplaced in the run by about seven series. It was also an episode that featured some really strong material and ideas but either needed a second part or more tidying up at the scripting stage.

There was a lot I really liked about it: it had some great ideas, some great gags, and (possibly since I work in that kind of environment) I thought the aspect of Health & Safety paperwork and audit trails was wonderful. But the BEGGs bits were rushed and there was no proper lead up to the Cat and his space weevil or Kryten and his crystals - and this left me completely wrong-footed when they started to do their (exceptionally well-played) synchronicity act. You could tune in at the start of this episode and think 'damn, I need to watch last week's first to get what's going on' - which of course wouldn't really help you at all.

What I liked about this episode, and what I liked about the early series, was that each of the crew is doing their own thing. It's a big ship, after all, so they wouldn't be under each other's feet all the time. Lister is being irresponsible, drinking and having a massive kebab in the (tiny!) drive room, Rimmer is being officious as only he can, Cat is hunting like a cat (it's good to be reminded that he is actually a cat now and again) and Kryten is getting on with what he has to do. The episode wouldn't work so well if any one of them wasn't there. Then they all come together for the important scenes.

But there's actually too much going on this week - or possibly too much going on off screen. Having tried it several times in the last few series I don't see why they didn't boost this one out to a two-parter. Then we could have had a proper introduction to where the weevil and crystals came from, we could have seen Lister meet the BEGGS and at least start the poker game (without spoiling the later gags), we could have had an amusing lead into Rimmer's anorak-wearing, wibbling breakdown on the BEGG moon and more could have been done on the ERRA space station (what a fabulous comedy concept that was). As it was it all felt too rushed, with too much trying to be crammed in to one half hour. This means the episode becomes off-balanced by some of the longer (and funnier) scenes such as Rimmer and Lister discussing H&S and the death of the rest of the original crew towards the beginning. You couldn't lose any of the individual plot-strands without compromising the conclusion, so I can't help but feel Doug Naylor wrote himself into a bit of a hole here.

Professor Edgington, with her glasses on upside down. Bless! Sydney Stevenson played her exceptionally well for what amounted to a potentially hammy cameo, but boy would the character have become annoying if she'd stayed. She'd already pushed her luck with my patience by the end of this episode, but she made up for it with a wonderful clumsy death through the airlock - perfect!

The BEGGs scene was set (possibly as a deliberate nod) just like the GELF scene in the episode Emohawk - Polymorph 2 (Series VI), including a return for actor Steven Wickham who'd played Lister's GELF bride. So far Series X of Red Dwarf has had an expensive, glossy look and feel to it, with excellent production values all round. Why, then, did the BEGGs have alien monster costumes that would have been derided in Doctor Who forty years ago? This was a real disappointment - but they could have got away with it if they'd drawn attention to it as a feature of them being genetically engineered! There was a ready-made get out clause for them and they didn't take it - or maybe the production team thought they looked great and not like £15 Planet of The Apes party costumes.
I also have to ask how Lister managed to communicate with them effectively during the previous poker game without Kryten to translate. The universal language of alcohol maybe? But I shouldn't be searching for my own answers! Sloppy...

This could easily have been the best episode of the series so far, or the best two episodes. It's a real shame that it wasn't either.

Round The Hornung: Raffles - The Amateur Cracksman

Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman, by E.W. Hornung.
Penguin Classics edition, 2003, edited with an introduction by Richard Lancelyn Green.

First published 1899.

Richard Lancelyn Green walks a familiar (or easy) path in his introduction to this edition, drawing attention to the oft-cited connection between E.W. Hornung and Arthur Conan Doyle (Hornung married Doyle's sister and Doyle 'possibly' encouraged Hornung to write these stories even though the pair may not have got on that well). This immediately drags the reader into the comparison of these short stories with the Sherlock Holmes short stories. I fear this does Conan Doyle no favours and probably brings more readers to Raffles than it deserves.

Raffles is 'the' amateur cracksman - a gentleman burglar. Holmes is 'the' amateur sleuth. Both have tales and exploits told by their close companions. But Raffles isn't an anti-Holmes; we all know who that is and Raffles is no Moriarty. Holmes is an attractive character to most readers; you don't necessarily love him but you tend to tolerate his enigmatic eccentricities and admire his skill. Similarly Watson is a very sympathetic character in most instances and it is difficult not to like him; indeed our fondness for Holmes is Watson's fondness for Holmes to all intents and purposes.
Raffles has no such eccentricities or quirks as Holmes; there is little to find to like or despise about him (to a 21st Century reader, at least), and little in the way of hints about what he does when he's not out on his occasional expeditions. Apparently he plays a lot of cricket, but there's not an awful lot of cricket played in these stories. Then there's Bunny. Poor Bunny. He's our Watson - except he's not, because again we have no reason to like him or hate him and he gives us no particular reason to like Raffles either as he regales us with their exploits. That sums up my views rather well actually: pure apathy.

What these stories need is a considerate editor who will draw the unavoidable comparison with Conan Doyle and then scream at the reader to forget it and approach the stories with a fresh mind. One positive that this volume has over the Holmes short story collections is that these stories are presented as a chronological sequence with almost a through narrative. It's pretty much a novel where the chapters are the individual stories. A lot of short story anthologies I've read aren't like that, so this was refreshing. I won't give too much away in case any of my readers decide they want to pick up the stories themselves, but it's basically a sequence of failed or successful thefts. Raffles is generally nowhere near as good a 'cracksman' as he (or Bunny) thinks he is, and if he'd stop wasting money on maintaining his thief's trappings he'd probably have enough to live a comfortable life anyway.
Bunny arrives at the beginning in a heightened emotional state. They are old public school friends (Bunny was Raffles' fag - stop sniggering at the back) and Bunny is down on hard times following a gambling problem. Raffles rescues him from his funk and takes him under his wing. Bunny is often an unwilling accomplice and is the typical occasional hero / foil / hindrance to Raffles' plans. Maybe we are supposed to sympathise with Bunny from the start? Maybe we are supposed to be intrigued by and attracted to Raffles, this naughty man of the leisured class? I felt neither.

There's one massive cultural hurdle when approaching this text: men aren't presented as having this kind of intimate loving friendship in fond terms anymore without being gay. Also 'Bunny' is a decidedly effeminate pet name. This is a shame, I feel, but I don't see things changing in the near future. The first few pages of the book are incredibly homo-erotic in our post-Wildean eyes. Green's introduction hints strongly at Hornung's acceptance of and closeness to homosexual friends but there is nothing to suggest that his writing is expressing anything more than the kind of close fondness men of that class could seemingly innocently exhibit before society dug deeper and made a public pariah of Oscar Wilde.

Many readers these days may also be put off by the strong sense of social class and distinction which the book exudes. Raffles wouldn't bother himself with the lower classes or petty housebreaking and pick-pocketting; he's only interested in doing over persons of wealth or rank, or bettering others at the same game. In fact it's all a social game to him, as much as a source of income. Can we love an upper class rogue who's only interested in stealing to maintain his leisured status? I would want to undertake a straw poll on that...

The stories are relatively short and on the whole not massively interesting. There'll always be one of two outcomes: either the robbery succeeds or it doesn't, and our 'heroes' don't get arrested or caught by the authorities either way. There's no danger of them killing anyone or committing any other dastardly deeds as this is not what they're about. As a result I didn't find the stories exciting or engaging, and quite frankly the characters aren't either. If P.G. Wodehouse had written Raffles and Bunny they'd be hilarious - as it is they often strain against the obvious potential for humour. If Conan Doyle had written these stories for Holmes then he wouldn't have, because he'd have thrown them out in favour of better stories. I want to be given good reasons to like or hate Bunny and Raffles, and Bunny's eventual desertion over time does nothing to assist.

This volume is now out of print, but there are plenty of second hand copies out there (mine was such and will probably go to charity now) and there are plenty of editions bringing together this and the other Raffles short story collections. Based on this experience I won't be tracking those down.

Red Dwarf X: Lemons

So, we've now entered the middle section of the series with Lemons. Three more weeks and it'll all be over. I wonder when Dave will reveal if they're going to make any more?

I have a basic problem with this third episode: as a general rule in Red Dwarf there is a certain scientific logic to most occurrences, or at least they don't require massive leaps of faith. In Time Slides, for example, the mutated developing fluid meant the photos could be interacted with, and the Holly Hop Drive that was used a few times at least worked on explained principles. Lemons breaks this. The rejuvenation shower is a nice idea, and yes there is much fun to be had from the crew constructing a device from flat pack, but it doesn't follow by any stretch of the imagination that it should become a time & space travel transmat when it's incorrectly put together and aligned. That's too random. It's from a different strand of comedy (Goons, Python, Hitchhiker, Boosh). More specifically it smacks of lazy writing: 'I've got a nice idea about the crew meeting a Jesus in 23AD, but how do I get them there? Oh, I'll have them create an accidental IKEA time machine, that'll do...' This is particularly disappointing after last week's well-constructed episode with some great concepts.

The episode was fun and there were some good laughs in places (I loved the pay-off with the meat cutlets Lister was grilling at the beginning), but I felt on the whole that it was patchy. This was a double shame as my old mate Nick Richards played Jesus's 'speeching' uncle and it's always great to see a friend on TV!
I'm also concerned that Kryten and Rimmer only seem to be a mechanoid and a hologram when it suits the situation: the crew used to be worried about people's reactions to Kryten's appearance, but no longer it seems. It was an amusing concept to have to create a basic battery to return to the ship and the scene with the lemon seller was a killer, but presumably Kryten's systems or Rimmer's light bee run on less volts than were required to power the remote device? The previous week Rimmer had referred to himself dying if Pree drove Red Dwarf into the sun. Is Doug Naylor slipping up?

I know that in one way or another Lister has returned to Earth several times now, and he always goes back to the ship afterwards. The series has stopped talking about him as the last human being alive now, but I wonder if they should be drawing attention to the fact that he chooses not to stay on Earth when he can on these occasions, in favour of his life on the Dwarf? Does the series still need a clear purpose, or is it fine to just be about four ageing types wandering the galaxy randomly and having occasional adventures?

This was an even-handed group episode in terms of the crew, with no strong main or sub-plot favouring any of the four, but I felt the situation was forced and ideas weren't thought through fully enough. Having said all that, I'm still enjoying the series and wouldn't consider not watching it - which is a real positive. I will be keeping an eye out, though, to see if the rejuvenation shower appears again...

Red Dwarf X: Fathers and Suns

Trojan was an OK start to the new Red Dwarf series in my view, but I was hopeful that it would improve - and it did with Fathers and Suns.

Trojan was a Rimmer episode. In Fathers and Suns he steps back and Lister comes to the fore. It's one of those periodic episodes where Lister is concerned that he's achieved nothing with his life. Again the series could be accused of re-treading old ground, but an audience (even one comprised mainly of fans who'll know all the old episodes backwards - ahem) will generally accept this as long as it's funny and this episode was.

I'm aware that I may have come to this episode more relaxed with the visuals and the cast than I was for the first week. I was impressed that Craig Charles managed not to overplay the dissenting teenager when watching the video messages, which could have made the whole thing horribly hammy. There's always been a kind of natural performance divide within the crew, with Rimmer and Kryten benefiting from over-performing and Lister and the Cat needing a more understated and controlled style - Lister because he's a lazy bum and the Cat because he's precise and physically aware. That's so far continued this series, and may be another reason why Kochanski unbalanced the team in Series VII & VIII.

There were some nice touches of higher-concept science fiction this time with Pree, the new (temporary) ship's computer predicting and extrapolating the crew's actions and ultimately defeated by her own logic. Yes, again we have an evil woman for the crew to overcome - but then with an all male crew I guess female guest characters are always going to be preferred. This was humorously highlighted by the scene where Rimmer selects Pree's appearance and vital statistics and then doesn't give a fig for her personality or manner.

There was also a nice deconstructive touch where Rimmer decides the term 'Chinese whispers' is racist, only for the episode to then play the game unwittingly, aided by a Taiwanese vending machine voiced in a self-consciously non-PC way and referring to Taiwan as being 'a bit Chinesey'. I just hope the irony of it all wasn't lost on most of the audience.

Unlike last week, this time Lister's main character plot and the rest of the crew's subplot actually came together at the end to bring about the successful conclusion, which was another reason why I felt this week's writing was better.

Overall I found it a funny, intelligent and well-constructed episode of enjoyable TV, despite offering little that's new.

Red Dwarf X: Trojan

So, Doctor Who has taken a break and Dave has given us new Red Dwarf to help fill the gap.

I used to love Red Dwarf back in the day. I caught it from the middle of the first series (a school friend nagged me to watch it) and I fell in love with it straight away. It was pretty much only that and Blackadder on TV at the time that could make me laugh so hard it hurt, except re-runs of Monty Python. Alas, unlike Blackadder and Monty Python I don't think Red Dwarf has aged at all well. I don't know if it's the production or the humour or the delivery, but I need to be in the right mood to swallow it's crass smugness these days.

When Dave brought the show back in 2009 for the Back To Earth mini-series I watched it out of faithfulness to the original. Alas, it was dreadful - but I think that was as much the style of the production as anything. I caught it again recently and didn't hate it quite so much, but it suffers in the way Series VII did: the programme needs a live audience, it works best when it is obviously staged and performed for laughs. Blackadder was the same - which is why Blackadder Back and Forth in 2000 didn't work either.
For that reason alone I'm glad the long-awaited Red Dwarf film came to nothing in the end, and there are many 1970s sitcoms which transferred to the big screen that would support that viewpoint.

I think the production crew realise this too, because the new Series X has returned to a studio audience format. That's its first big win.

I'll admit I wasn't keen the first time I watched Trojan. I didn't laugh once. But I wasn't sure why and it was clearly miles better than Back To Earth. I could see that it was funny, and not in too dissimilar a way to the old series for it to be a different beast. I don't feel my expectations were unnecessarily high either. I think in retrospect it was because the cast are so much older and I found it distracting, which is quite an unsophisticated and unfair criticism. They're all comfortable, competent performers - even if they look and sound 25 years older than they used to. I think once I'd stopped focusing on this and gave it another chance the second time I watched it I enjoyed it a lot more. I still didn't laugh much, but I smiled a lot and there were a lot of gags and humorous moments. My biggest 'smile' moments were Kryten deleting information, Rimmer's frustration at everyone else knowing the Swedish moose story and the gurning pauses - which is always a crowd-pleaser if done well as here.

This was very much a Rimmer episode and Chris Barrie applied himself very well. Lister, Cat and Kryten had plenty to do, but they were very much in supporting roles. I don't think it offered anything new though. The crew meet another vessel which turns out to have a survivor and a psychotic female aboard. Surprise surprise. It was a fun twist that Rimmer's brother was just as much a failure as him but in the grand scheme of things this episode was just re-treading the kind of ground Series IV & V had walked years ago.

I'd like to know what's happened to Holly. He/she/it wasn't in Back To Earth either. The character had become a bit stale and limited by Series V, as the same gags were rolled out week on week, but if used properly the ship's computer should be a useful and amusing tool at least.

One aspect that surprised me was the duration. Being made by Dave, as a commercial channel, I expected it to comprise the standard two twelve minute parts for a half hour slot with ad breaks. But no, it comes in at a standard BBC half hour, running to 40 minutes with adverts. Nice one Dave!

It was a solid, if not overwhelming start. If it's the best the series has to offer then it won't be great, but if it's started off firing at mid-range and gets better then there'll be plenty of happy fans out there I'm sure. I'll be watching again next week.

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: The Angels Take Manhattan

In various ways I've found nearly all of the Series 7 episodes difficult to review so far, and The Angels Take Manhattan is possibly the most difficult; it gets the effect it wants, but on reflection it takes some liberties along the way.

The episode sets out to tug at the heart strings, if not snap them entirely, giving us some of Matt Smith's, Arthur Darvill's & Karen Gillan's finest moments in the series - and the most intense, emotional character exit since 2006's Doomsday. My viewing experience was that this was a wonderful piece of television, pitched perfectly and delivered with aplomb.

The cherubs were easily the most disconcerting of the Weeping Angels on offer and the fact that the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River found themselves unwittingly caught in a trap where events were spiralling out of their control was very reminiscent of some of the best tragic stories from the Classic series - such as Logopolis, Earthshock and The Caves of Androzani. This wasn't an episode with a strong story driving through it, into which the Doctor et al enter and sort things out for other people. It didn't need to be. Instead this was a scenario into which our heroes enter, and then have to try to get out of without disaster - the story was theirs and theirs alone.

I loved that Amy & Rory were allowed to take their own decisions, make their own choices without having to check with or defer to the Doctor. They've not always been used in the best way so far this series and it was heartening to see them go out on such a high note from a character as well as a performance perspective. The roof-edge scene in particular was very powerful, if not a nightmare for viewers with vertigo (nice angles, Mr Director!) and the sheer overflowing emotion evident in Karen Gillan and Matt Smith as Amy made her final 'choice' was enough to tip even the hardest heart over the edge. It's scenes like this that take the show beyond the purely sensational, and really make the viewer challenge what they themselves would do in that situation.

There was a real portent of doom throughout. The viewer often knew more than the characters themselves and so we were left watching events fall into line with the certainty of disaster - whether we had heard that Amy and Rory were leaving or not. The episode was skillfully directed by Nick Hurran with a gorgeous use of light and shadow (which is what any Weeping Angels episodes need) and no unnecessary heavy-handedness or unsubtle lingering. Having also done a great job with Asylum of The Daleks, Hurran is the director setting the bar this season, in my opinion.

It's a bit trite to say that this was an episode about decisions, and committment, and living with consequences. Most Doctor Who stories are about those things; most stories full stop are about those things. But because this story was so entirely about our heroes, these aspects appeared much more heightened. There was no gallery of guest characters to hide behind, no one inconsequential, just the Doctor's group and the Weeping Angels. And there were no winners. Everyone lost in some way, but thankfully Amy's last gambit played off giving her something of a pyrrhic victory in the end.

As I said, my viewing experience was that this was a powerful and emotive piece of television drama and for that it should be praised. But I can't help being analytical too, and I don't like to judge things at face value.

We've had two full seasons of Amy, and then Rory as well, travelling with the Doctor, then this season it's been more fragmentary. They've been taxied from home to adventure to back home again a few times. We've met Brian, Rory's dad, and got to like him. We've not really had a chance to appreciate the Doctor and the Ponds back on proper TARDIS travelling terms again yet when this happens. I think we either needed to swap A Town Called Mercy and The Power of Three or to have another episode of them adventuring normally again before this one. The series hasn't allowed us or them to get comfortable. It was the build up of the comfort zone that made Rose's leaving in 2006 all the more powerful.

The Doctor reminds us that New York is known as 'The City That Never Sleeps'. Since the Angels are hampered by being watched, a city that doesn't sleep may not be the best place for them to operate! Perhaps they could have focussed on it being a city where people don't take an interest in anything but themselves (like much of London) suggesting that no one notices that these statues move because they're not interested in anything outside their immediate self-centredness?

The Weeping Angels: so now they can take over any statue, regardless of whether it's stone or not? Hmmm... I think this was shoe-horned in just so the production could use the Statue of Liberty (insert gag on taking liberties here...) In the grand scheme of things this isn't a massive problem, but I don't think the Statue worked as well as it might since we never saw it in all it's glory from ground level. There were various instances of Angels trapped looking at each other down a corridor or being looked at and still acting (which is bending the rules, folks!) - and can anyone believe that the Statue of Liberty could move without somebody seeing it at some point and thinking 'what the hell?!' (see my previous point about 'the City that never sleeps'!)

I enjoyed the pre-titles section with the private detective, but it was unclear if the mafia boss character understood the Angels and if he was working for them or whether he was accidentally sending people to their deaths at Winter Quay. His demise was rather thrown away too, leaving the viewer feeling a bit 'so what' about him. I wanted to know him better so I could like him or hate him properly.

Finally, if the Doctor couldn't go back to 1938 New York could he not have arranged to pick up Amy and Rory somewhere else in the USA in 1939 or even a few years later for example, by leaving them a message? Would that have also counted as one paradox too many and blown the world apart? I know the gravestone makes their deaths a fixed event (like the Doctor's in series 6, ahem...) but rules are broken and plots are schemed often enough by the Doctor to get them out of this, I feel.

But this is really me nit-picking and looking too closely into something which was actually a great piece of television. Now roll on Christmas and the return of Jenna-Louise Coleman!

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: The Power Of Three

I've already written at length about Chris Chibnall and his popularity with fandom in my review of Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. I got the impression this time around that much of the online community had exhausted themselves two weeks earlier and so this episode was preceeded with a more lacklustre dismissal. This is a good thing; we should all judge the episodes on their own merits rather than by our own preconceptions and blinkered opinions - which is why I will normally watch each episode at least twice before reviewing it to try to avoid being too reactionary.

I've watched The Power of Three thrice to date. Unlike the first three episodes, I've enjoyed this slightly less each time I've watched it - which I find rather curious. There is, however, plenty to like:
The regulars: it's good to have an episode centred around Amy and Rory for a change, particularly when they've been sidelined a bit over the last two weeks. Matt Smith is normally pretty damn good anyway and it's not easy to single out individual episodes from a performance perspective (scenes yes, but usually not whole episodes), but this week he was on scintillating form throughout.
Jemma Redgrave is pure class as Kate (Lethbridge-) Stewart, with a performance of effortless brilliance. Casting an actress of her stature was a real compliment to the memory of the Brigadier and to Nicholas Courtney. I do hope the character, and Jemma herself, returns. A little bit of me was very chuffed that as soon as she said her name was Kate Stewart I turned to my good lady wife and said 'the Brigadier's daughter!' and was later proven right. I expect there were mutterings throughout Whodom at that point though, from others just as smugly self-satisfied as me!
Steven Berkoff was also brilliant. Was he wasted on a minor role? I don't think so. He looked awesome and was very memorable, and I hope he also returns. The Shakri have added a nice touch to Time Lord mythology. Berkoff's precision shone through with a wonderfully controlled and under-played performance that still retained his trademark energy and passion. I'd seen him beating seven shades of sh*t out of someone in a first aid training video the previous Thursday (explaining what a heart attack feels like) and we know how scary he can be in manic full-flow, but it's also refreshing (to him no doubt as well as us) to channel it through a more controlled vessel now and again.
Rory's dad, Brian. Unlike his previous appearance, this time Mark Williams was much more natural and relaxed as Brian, making him much more of a 'real' character. Or maybe I was used to him having seen him before? I don't know. Mark had a couple of wonderful moments, but the best of them surely was the bewildered look on his face as he got wheeled off the Shakri ship on the trolley.
I liked the boxes, the fact that it didn't all happen in one afternoon, the spooky hospital porters (owing a little to the gas mask horrors from Series 1's The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances), the gorgeous, GORGEOUS shots of the Shakri ship orbiting the Earth, the whole domestic feel, with guest appearances from real TV people - which was a reminder of how different the show has been under Moffat compared to RTD.

Stuff I wasn't so keen on: the Henry VIII bit made me frown. Was this the moment referred to in the previous week's episode? If so were the episodes originally going to be the other way around (which would also explain my the Ponds are already with the Doctor at the start of A Town Called Mercy...) or have they visited the old king twice now?
The resolution: I found myself saying 'is that it?' at the TV when they just blew up the ship with the sonic screwdriver and it caused everyone to come back to life. I've never been fond of sudden, convenient solutions where the Doctor finds himself in exactly the right place at the right time to sort it all out three minutes before the end of an episode. Series 4's The Fires of Pompeii was similarly spoilt in that respect.
I realise by now that Mr Chibnall is a lover of the 'edited highlights' approach to other stoies going on around the one he's focussing on, so again we get snippets of other - possibly more interesting - adventures all going on just off camera or just ending. It's now ten years since Amy started travelling with the Doctor. I don't mind this, but it's rather thrown at the viewer unprepared and I found myself concentrating on that fact rather than what was going on in the episode; it's careless on the part of the writer to drop in something so distracting. Also, we've waited since 1975 for another Zygon story on TV and here he taunts us with one that's just happened - damn you sir! If he hadn't done that we wouldn't have got confused over how many times they'd visited Henry VIII in the last two weeks would we?

However, despite all this I found it an enjoyable romp with thrills, chills and plenty to move and amuse the viewer and I thought it was the strongest episode since Asylum of The Daleks. But when I watched it again it didn't thrill or entertain me as much. I knew the gags, I was able to concentrate a bit more on what was going on at the end and I spotted the phone charger in the Henry VIII scene tying it in with the escapade as reported in A Town Called Mercy, but it didn't move me as much, it didn't take me to that next level of appreciation beyond instant gratification. I don't know if this makes it a good episode or not. Most viewers will only watch it once, so on that level I'd have to go with my first reaction and say yes, it's a great episode with a gorgeous shot of a spaceship orbiting the Earth but with far too convenient a resolution!

I hope next week doesn't end too badly for the Ponds, or Brian will be left watering the plants for a very long time. He's a patient man, we know this from his log, but still...

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: A Town Called Mercy

So far this series I've loved Asylum of The Daleks and been a bit disappointed with Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. A Town Called Mercy was another curious episode that seemed to be wearing it's heart on its sleeve - or in its title.

The production values continue to be exceptional. The episode looked gorgeous from start to finish. Yes, the cyborg may have looked a bit like a Borg had mated with Kryten, but does that matter? Of course it doesn't!

Murray Gold's incidental music was worthy of note too - which doesn't happen so often these days. Maybe he relished the change of scene and period and it inspired him to new heights?

I'll admit I was left feeling 'so what' at the end the first time around.  It was just an old-fashioned cowboy yarn where the good guys and the bad guys weren't necessarily all they seem at the start. I watched it again the morning after and found much more to like; not a classic, but a good solid episode in what is turning out so far to be a good solid series.

This is the antidote to the previous episode: the Doctor starts off without mercy and has to re-learn it through others. Fine. But if that's all the episode has to do it's a bit of a drawn out morality tale. On the surface yes, that's all this episode has to offer - but then there's the fine supporting perfomances. It's a breather this week, not frenetic, just considered and thoughtful. Each episode so far this series has added to the variety of storytelling and tonal style that keeps Doctor Who so fresh week on week.

We start with the Ponds already travelling with the Doctor. This shouldn't be an issue for the viewer, but we've been accustomed of late to them being picked up and dropped off like a taxi service at the beginning and end of each episode so it jars a bit. The only niggle I have with the Ponds themselves is that again this week I felt that Amy and Rory were sidelined with little to do but react and respond, not lead - particularly for Rory.

The star performance was easily Adrian Scarborough as Kahler Jex. There was a great deal of realism and subtlety in his changing attitude throughout, as he challenged others and considered his own mortality and morality. Giving him pince-nez was a lovely touch, giving him a very human affectation and a prop to busy himself with.
In comparison Andrew Brooke as the cyborg gunslinger was wonderfully underplayed and precise without being dull. There was real pathos in his eye at times. It's these emotional moments, these touches which allow new Doctor Who to touch the audience in a way that the Classic series often wasn't able to.

I have little regard for the 1972 story The Mutants, but still a little part of me flipped over when I saw Ky-actor Garrick Hagon's name on the cast list. His undertaker and Ben Browder's Marshall stood out from the rest of the unwashed locals with some lovely supporting performances.

I'd be happy to see more of this type of thoughtful, considered episode, but my only plea would be to ensure the companion(s) have sufficient to do to make them proactive contributors, not passive observers.

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: Dinosaurs On A Spaceship

Although I’ve been a Doctor Who fan since birth I’ve only recently joined the on-line fan community. Thus I have been very surprised so far at how polarised opinions are on certain aspects of the show and particularly, it seems, this week’s episode Dinosaurs on a Spaceship!

‘Chris’ and ‘Chibnall’ seems to be two of the most emotive words in fandom at the moment, particularly if paired together to create the name of the writer of this week’s episode. Some ‘fans’ clearly won’t give him the time of day, but no matter what Chris Chibnall’s faults may be (if any) he’s still a successful TV writer with more credits to his name than just Doctor Who and Torchwood. What I’ve picked up on mostly this time is that those close to the production, or to the Doctor Who ‘brand’ seem to be going out of their way to praise him, possibly in response to the fans who so vocally hate him. It’s a no-win situation for anyone in my view. Those fans aren’t going to change their minds. Chris could write the Who story to end all Who stories and he’d still come out of it smelling like Glen McCoy.

I’ve cringed at some of his Torchwood episodes, but then in series one I was cringing at most people’s Torchwood episodes because a team of competent TV professionals appeared to have gone ‘wow, we’re doing adult drama, lets put in heavy-handed sexual references and force people to be uncompromising and argumentative to create drama’. But I also really enjoyed the episodes Cyberwoman and Countrycide which most fans seem to consider laughably bad. Chibnall's Doctor Who episodes so far haven’t impressed me massively; I’ve found them uneven, with instances that jar and missed opportunities - but then I can’t really say if that’s down to the writing or to the general production. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship continues this trend for me.

To start with, my comment about Pond Life stands again - but I appreciate that this is my personal opinion. I don’t like being given flashes of other, untold, stories because I feel it trivialises the Doctor’s adventures and it’s usually done in a dismissive or light-hearted way. I’d have been happy to see the whole Nefertiti story and the whole Riddell story, for example – don’t waste ideas, capitalise on them, create mini arcs if necessary.

I think the review in DWM made a very prescient comparison with comic strips – this episode was essentially a DWM comic strip adventure brought to life: lumbering monsters crashing around, spaceships, history, big slightly silly robots. On the whole the supporting characters didn’t feel like real people, but then the tone of the piece meant that they didn’t need to. This was fine except for Rory’s dad Brian, who really needed to be more of a character and less of a caricature. Solomon managed to be an interesting and well-realised individual, so why couldn't they all? The unfortunate side-effect of the writer introducing his own ‘companions’ was that he tended to focus more on them so Amy and Rory were relegated to supporting roles, which is a shame. The same thing happened to Rose and Mickey back in 2006’s The Girl In The Fireplace.

The big robots are, of course, a comedic pair, conveniently played by a highly-regarded TV comedy duo. I picked up Robert Webb’s voice first, and as soon as I did several things clicked in my head immediately and were confirmed the next time the David Mitchell robot spoke. My initial reaction was not favourable, I will admit. It comes close to parody in making the baddies or monsters not scary, so there’s no threat. Solomon is excellently played with real bite, yet these daft robots serving him undermine him and it loses the episode some edge.

So, it’s got a deliberately light-hearted title and most people seem to up for making this a reasonably light-hearted (almost Carry On in places) alternative to the dour tone of the season opener without making it an out-an-out comedy or parody (which would be dreadful). The shame for me, then, is that there’s a really strong and moving story sitting at the middle, which develops the Silurian mythology wonderfully and offers more options for them for the future. But it's undermined by the light-heared framework in which it's presented. It’s possible that this was an exercise in Douglas Adams’ concept that the show works best when comedy and horror are played side-by-side, thus heightening the drama as the audience realise the seriousness of the situation they’re smiling at. I feel that the light-heartedness got in the way of the drama, rather than complimenting it. Amy’s high-five moment with Nefertiti, for example. How uncomfortable was that, for so many reasons? It certainly wasn’t funny or witty or charming.

I don’t have a problem with the Doctor dishing out punishments the way he did with Solomon, as long as it’s with good reason and the villain is clearly unrepentant. Usually he gets out of acting directly because either the villain messes up or some third party interferes and does the deed for him. He’s done the deed himself before from time to time – he condemns Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars and shoots the Cybercontroller in Attack of The Cybermen for example. Protecting the Earth or a whole race is one thing, but having him play the vigilante role should be treated with caution unless the show is going to take a very different direction.

I suspect that as a kid I would have loved this episode far more, so I don’t want to unfairly judge it when it’s not aimed at me solely it’s aimed at a wide TV family audience. The dinosaurs looked wonderful and the production team resisted the urge to have a hand-puppet pterodactyl menacing the Doctor or a T-Rex with a tail that looks like it’s just shat itself. Overall I’d say this was a fun episode with a little bit of something for everyone, and an interesting contrast to Asylum of The Daleks, but like 2006’s Love And Monsters I hope it’s an experiment they don’t repeat often. I enjoyed it more on the second viewing, but maybe that’s because I was more comfortable about the style and the content second time around. The dreadful innuendos and tonal inbalance in the episode still jarred though. If it's the worst this season has to offer, though, we shouldn't fare too badly.

There’s also this thing about taking the Ponds home again each week so far. I don’t want to comment on that in case it’s leading up to something. It leaves nice gaps for books or audios to fill in perhaps in the future, perhaps..?

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: Asylum Of the Daleks

I'm very firmly in the 'no pre-season spoilers please' corner, and I'd only vaguely caught part of the trailer on TV once prior to yesterday evening's broadcast. So, apart from knowing from the end of Pond Life that all wasn't well between Amy and Rory I went into last night's episode as naively as I could.

Wow. Just that. Wow.

From the moment we see the massive Dalek statue on Skaro it's clear we're in for something special. And Skaro again? Wow! The Dalek sleeper agents were impressive, but the cadavers coming to life and converting was very much the stuff of nightmares and it's good to see that the series can still produce iconic scary or unsettling moments.

When Jenna Louise Coleman appeared I thought 'that looks like - no, it can't be, she's not supposed to appear until Christmas!'. I checked with my good lady who was equally confused. It's impressive that secrets like this can be kept back, despite pre-season screenings. I recall with the start of series 4 that RTD had a separate pre-screening version made of  Partners In Crime to avoid giving away that Rose was returning. Maybe The Moff trusts the press and the fortunate public more..? Regardless, JLC was brilliant - very confident and natural on screen. I don't know if she'll be coming back as Oswin as the companion (nor do I want to - spoilers!), but either way I'm looking forward to her joining the programme permanently, based on this performance.

It's an oddball concept, the Daleks asking for the Doctor's help, and it might have been scarier if they'd already tried sending someone else down to the asylum and they'd failed. But any criticism is really only me clutching at straws, essentially, because fundamentally there was nothing wrong with this episode at all and it's easily the strongest series opener since the show returned in 2005.

Dusty, broken and insane Daleks are definitely more unnerving than a gleaming massed army. Thankfully the fairground ride-style Paradigm Daleks from Mark Gatiss' 2010 episode Victory of The Daleks took a back seat and much of the action involved the bronzed 'armoured tanks' of the RTD era. It's possibly a shame that so much publicity was issued before about all the Classic Series Daleks being lined up for this episode, because the viewers didn't see much of them at all and it seemed they were only there for background set dressing and not getting involved in the main action.

Particular delights for me were the Doctor's putdown 'you're just a tricycle with a roof' to an unarmed Dalek. Also the control room throb when Rory accidentally reawakened the first Dalek, and the doors from Power of The Daleks! I'm assuming the nude Dalek in the glass jar at the Parliament was a nod or homage to David Whittaker's novelisation of the first TV Dalek story back in the mid-60's (Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with The Daleks) which had a glass / crystal-cased Dalek leader. I thought at first it was Dalek Cahn back again, but presumably he'd be in the asylum if he was still around, the tentacled little nutjob!

Whilst I loved the twist at the end I loved even more the anticipation as the camera slowly panned round to show what the Doctor could see. I was half-expecting Oswin to be a kind of female Davros, slowly being Dalek-ised in a base unit. Maybe that would have been too horrible for the timeslot? The reanimated cadavers earlier were probably already pushing it a bit. I felt something was up early on, though, when Oswin was hacking into the Dalek systems so easily. I'm glad it turned out not to be just a convenience for moving the story along.

Patience is a virtue, and Moffat was reminding us of that in this episode. I was annoyed at first that suddenly Amy & Rory's marriage had broken down when it's been clear all along that they both deeply love each other. The longer the episode went on without addressing this the more frustrated I was getting, but when it happened blimey was it ever an emotional moment. Pure dramatic highpoint. Historically, drama has been filled with situations where one character makes a decision which they feel is in the best interest of an other, which then creates a 'situation' to address. One frank conversation early on would probably prematurely end nearly all of Shakespeare's plays for example! Moffat rehashes that scenario here. We get the feeling a conversation about how important children are should have been had a long time ago between Amy and Rory. And does Amy have an objection to adopting?

The episode has an interesting premise, if not necessarily a deep story to tell. It's a platform for mending Amy & Rory's relationship, for introducing the talents of Jenna Louise Coleman, for spooky-ing up the Daleks properly for the first time since 2005's Dalek, and for re-setting the Doctor / Dalek mythology by having them completely forget him. It's refreshing to think that they have to learn about him all over again. I wonder what will happen if Davros ever shows up again though..?

As ever with the new series it could be argued it was too convenient that the Doctor could transmat himself and the Ponds back into the TARDIS at the end and not need a struggle with a saucer full of Daleks, but it does fit and it's not that much of a short cut in the grand scheme of things. I do wonder if the Doctor's made to be a little too good at times, because things have to be wrapped up on time.

I also wonder who's idea it was to get JLC to give a cheesy glance to camera at the end when she says 'remember me'?! We will, of course, and I'll forgive the schmaltz because I've loved everything else so much up to that point.

Next time, Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. I wonder what the hell that can be about?! And I'll be missing it 'live' because we'll be at Hyde Park enjoying Terry Wogan, Kylie and 'Prom In The Park'!

Doctor Who Series 7 reviews: Pond Life

OK, I know this wasn't a proper episode or story, but it's out there and it still counts. I've always been divided over this type of additional sketch / prequel - I worry that in reducing a situation to tableau or edited highlights it trivialises it and the attitude of the characters involved. It suggests that some stories just aren't worth telling as a whole. We had the same thing at the beginning of The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe at Christmas. Doesn't this then put more pressure on the stories that are told to be ever better? Could the team allow the novels to fill in these gaps, maybe?

Anyway, the Ponds are just getting on with their lives (which is nice) with an ominous brief visit from the Doctor and the occasional voicemail until the late Jon Pertwee's wish kind of comes true when the Ponds find an Ood sitting on their toilet (for those who don't know Pertwee thought the scariest thing ever would be to come home and find a yeti sitting on your toilet in Tooting Bec). There's some nice character moments with Amy and Rory and the Ood butler, while the Doctor is having his adventures with Sontarans and Mata Hari. It's all very fleeting, as I say, moments caught in time. Then there's an obviously heartbreaking moment at the end where Rory is walking out on a distraught Amy. How can things have got suddenly so bad between them? Why hasn't this been built up to?

These minisodes are too short to make an opinion over really. They appear to be setting up certain concepts for the next series but are a curiosity at best, and at worst a waste of about seven minutes of your time. I may re-visit them after the first half of Series 7 (the Pond half) is over and re-evaluate if / what it was seeding.

Fab fanzine fun!

As if this Blog isn't enough to contain my ramblings about most things Doctor Who-related, I've also started contributing to some excellent fanzines of late. They're well worth checking out:

You can download 'The Terrible Zodin' #14 for free here:
http://doctorwhottz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-terrible-zodin-14-summer-2012.html
It's a thrill-packed 85 pages of articles and artwork. Fortunately I don't do any of the artwork, but alas some of the articles can be pinned on me!

There's also 'Fish Fingers and Custard' #11 which you can buy here for two of your pounds:
http://www.fishcustardfanzine.co.uk/2012/08/issue-11-out-now.html

And issue #10 which can be downloaded for free here:
http://www.fishcustardfanzine.co.uk/2012/06/issue-10-download-now.html

All these fanzines are put together with a combination of skill, love and enthusiasm and rely on the good will and time of others to bring them to life. Then we rely on you lot out there to read them, to make it all worthwhile!

So, check them out and spread the word...