Sunday 29/6/2008 |
12:38
Independence Day
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Tuesday 17/6/2008 |
13:25
Give Me A Break!
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I spent last weekend with my parents. At one point the conversation turned to the sudoku jurors and from there to jury service in general. Most people get called for jury service once in their life, many never get called up. In my case I've already done it twice, which is unusual.
I commented that to be called up with my lifestyle as it currently is would be extremely inconvenient and expensive. Jury trials are definitely a Good Thing, however three times before the age of fifty would be above and beyond the call of duty. Not even I could be that unlucky.
Me and my big mouth. I got home yesterday to find a letter telling me I'd been selected for the local panel shortlist. I haven't technically been called up yet but probably will be within the next year.
To paraphrase Basil Fawlty: "Thank you universe, thank you so bloody much!"
current mood:  irritated
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Sunday 11/5/2008 |
22:09
"The Doctor's Daughter" Review (Spoilers but who cares?)
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WARNING: SPOILERS (although I'm not sure it's possible to spoil something this bad)
This was without doubt the Worst Episode Ever, worse even than "Fear Her".
For a start the idea of the Doctor having a daughter is just *wrong*; ok, Hartnell called Susan his granddaughter but I've always rationalised this as a way he could avoid getting arrested by the police of any planet on which he landed! Had Jenny turned out to be a "true" daughter then the series would have jumped one massive shark - as it is they just about got away with it. However the way they did it made no sense.
Why would the humans have been so keen to process a random arrival? There's no suggestion they've got a problem with the gene pool. Since they have female soldiers why didn't they process Martha and Donna as well? Why would their machine produce a female from a male sample? Is a Timelord so easily recreated? If so, how come the Doctor hasn't thought to rebuild his race? Or the Master to replicate himself? And if Jenny has true Timelord regeneration abilities, wouldn't the Doctor have "sensed" her? Etc etc
The plot. Well, standard principle. Doctor brings peace to foolish warring factions - yawn. So they tried to liven it up with the lovely twist about the length of the war... well, it would have been a lovely twist except that it made no difference. Whether the war had been going on for 7 days, 7 years or 7 centuries made sod all difference to the story.
No difference that is except adding plot holes. How come the General was relatively old? If he'd been replicated wouldn't he have been a young soldier? But if he'd been there since the war began he's have known the true facts about the planet. Which might have been interesting - him keeping the war going to remain in power. However they didn't suggest that.
And are we really saying that *nobody* from the original group survived for seven days? The war didn't seem *that* bloody - if it had been they'd have been wading through bodies. We can assume that anyone from the original colonists would have passed the background information on - it would take more than seven days to lose that knowledge at the level of attrition suggested by the story. Even then there would be written and computer records, those would take a lot more than seven days to become useless.
And the whole story is rooted in one of the silliest and most unnecessary examples of (pardon the pun) hand-waving temporal paradox yet.
Oh, and an organisation goes to colonise an alien planet yet is so badly run that they have no chain of command and the death of one man results in a bloodbath? Actually, now I think of it, it reminds me of some places I've worked.
The Fishheads. Gorgeous aliens - wasted. We got to know nothing about them or their society, they might just as well have been humans in a different uniform. And why would colonists to a desolate world take *fish* people to live in underground caverns?!? If they're planning to turn the place into an ocean world then they could just have replicated or invited them after doing the terraforming. And if they were intending to live and work together wouldn't they have had some sort of translation device? Or is that too difficult for a science that can instantly replicate a Timelord from a tissue sample?
Sets? A joke. Worse than using an old gravel pit. They even had the cheek to *say* "this is a theatre"!
And, an ongoing complaint this series, the music continue to be intrusive and way over-the-top. Any time anything important happens we have to put up with a great swell of the sickly stuff.
Overall I might have forgiven this as an aberration. But keeping Jenny alive at the end suggests plans for a spin-off or - worse - a companion in a later series.
No.
Even though Georgia Moffett is Davison's daughter this character must now be banished from our screens forever.
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Sunday 6/4/2008 |
12:12
Fingerprint "Bounty" on Brown
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Saturday 5/4/2008 |
20:50
Doctor Who: Partners in Crime review (no spoilers)
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So the new companion's grandfather is played by an actor who was once briefly a companion himself (1966 movie, non-canon). Nice touch. But the real question is: what about Donna?
I admit that I was worried when I heard Catherine Tate was to be the new companion. Partly this was because in The Runaway Bride Donna was not just feisty but bordering on the nasty. A companion who stands up for herself is great but if we don't actually like the character then it doesn't work (remember Adric and Turlough). Fortunately they've made her less prickly than in Bride so I think that'll work.
My other big worry was that Tate is a comedienne. Getting the comedy level right in Who is always a difficult balance and when it goes wrong it goes badly wrong - as the Douglas Adams era showed.
This episode was definitely on the humorous end of the scale - the window scene cracked me up. That's fair enough, by all means make use of Tate's comedic experience. I'm just crossing my fingers that they can avoid taking the comedy too far.
Story? Nothing really, closer to a Sarah-Jane Adventure. The aliens were secondary, the story was about the Doctor and Donna getting back together.
Overall not a classic episode but an effective light-hearted season starter. And after watching last night's Torchwood finale I'm not going to grumble about a smiley episode!
current mood:  chipper
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Monday 24/3/2008 |
13:13
The Secret Show: U.Z.Z vs T.H.E.M.
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Kids today have some great programmes. Shaun the Sheep, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Stupid... My latest discovery is The Secret Show. The animation is the sort of simplified jagged stuff I don't particularly like but the surreal stories and humour are just my style. In many ways it's a sharper, modern version of DangerMouse.
Check out the trailer then set your video recorder.
Today you can call me FlubbaWubbaBubbaBubbaBubbaBubba.
current mood:  amused
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Saturday 22/3/2008 |
21:22
Zombies - For Real?
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Friday 21/3/2008 |
21:21
Adrift
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![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tchernabyelo was unlucky. Adrift was by far the worst episode of Torchwood this season, reminiscent of series one. No story, no atmosphere, heavy handed. The idea had potential but was undeveloped.
It looked to me like a "no time or budget" episode. To meet the tight filming schedules Doctor Who has one episode per season where the Doctor hardly appears - this is shot in parallel with another show. I suspect Adrift was Torchwood's equivalent and there was/will be an episode where Gwen hardly appears because she was off doing this.
current mood:  disappointed
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Wednesday 19/3/2008 |
21:57
Torchfire and Steel
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A great Torchwood episode from P.J Hammond. It didn't make a lot of sense but it didn't have to.
The SF-ghost genre is one of my favourites, I really wish someone would give P.J. another series of his own.
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Saturday 8/3/2008 |
22:16
EGG RIP
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scared