Brideshead Recycled II: The Family of Blood

First off... as before, with Gridlock, let me say that I thought this was outstanding-- but that I'm still Recyclingwatching anyway.

And, as before with the Dalek two-parter, this one's just going to be an addendum post, putting in any new recycling, or any previously-mentioned recycling that's either become a bit more obvious or acquired a twist, or otherwise become mentionworthy.

The Unquiet Dead: Plucky girl housemaid saves the day; a human being makes a conscious decision to die so that the Doctor can live.

Aliens of London/World War Three: I've said it before, but Lawrence Miles put it better in his blog: "The Doctor describes these aliens as hunters. They track their prey by smell. They have a strong sense of family. They insert themselves into human bodies, they've got a thing for strange gases, and they clearly prefer fat victims. Even Rebekah Staton looks like a younger, cuter Annette Badland. Is the message not clear, I asked myself?" Apparently RTD has said that he based the Slitheen on the Family of Blood, so this is kind of the ouroboros of recycling here.

Boom Town: Introspective conversations between the Doctor and someone else, the upshot of which is that, seen from the perspective of those who catch the fallout, the Doctor's really not such a nice guy after all, even when he's trying to be.

The Parting of the Ways: Moral decision time for the Doctor. The Doctor's cell structure changes, turning him into someone else.

The Girl in the Fireplace: Well, this one's got a girl in the mirror, but it's also got a woman who loves the Doctor but is willing to let him go because she loves him. The Doctor meet someone as a child, then fast-forward to when he's an old man.

The Impossible Planet: Mother-of-Mine getting chucked into a black hole.

Love and Monsters: Being on the fringes of one of the Doctor's adventures wrecks a whole bunch of human lives, but one of them, who's been having mysterious dream-visions, suddenly has them all make sense for him.

Old Skool Who: Battlefield (war memorial sequence; anti-war message). Any of the Cartmel Dark-Doctor stories and the NA's they spawned (emphasis on the idea that the Doctor's really a bit of a bastard, if you see it from someone else's perspective); special mention again to "The Curse of Fenric," featuring a baby, and a baddie who is trapped in a flask for all eternity; "The Five Doctors" (Borusa wants eternal life and gets it but in an ironic way); any humans-taken-over-by gaseous-aliens story you care to mention. The American Telemovie (featuring a half-human Doctor, though they may have nicked that one from Cornell's book to begin with, so it's sort of another ouroboros-recycle). Warrior's Gate (dwarf star alloy, and people living inside mirrors). The Enemy of the World (Tardis doors opening and a baddie being sucked out). The Wheel in Space (the sequence where the Family line up the schoolboys and go through them looking for the Doctor resembles the Cybermen going through the crew manifest with the same intention).

Everywhere Else: If again, in spades; Oh! What a Lovely War (ironic use of hymn music over battlefield sequences); Twelve Monkeys (thanks to Lawrence for this one); Battle Angel Alita (OK, I don't know if Paul Cornell's ever seen this, but there's a sequence fairly late on where Alita experiences an alternate world in which she didn't grow up a warrior-cyborg, but instead had a normal human-style life; and, seductive as this option is, she makes the conscious decision to end it so that she can save her friends). The Sapphire and Steel story about the man who lives in every photograph ever taken (the fate of Sister-of-mine).

Brideshead Recycled: Human Nature

OK, first off this story takes the Recyclingwatch prize automatically for being an admitted recycle of Paul Cornell's New Adventures novel Human Nature.

Alan and I had a discussion during the Confidential over whether this means that I can't actually point out similarities with earlier episodes of Nu-Who, since the story was technically written before Nu-Who was even conceived of. We decided in the end that it was legit, because in the first place the novel has been rewritten to bring it into the Tennant Era (and thus there might well be bleedthrough from other episodes), and, in the second, they wouldn't have picked that particular novel if they didn't think it fitted with the show as it is now.

Plus, Alan pointed out that each season thus far has recycled a production from the Hiatus Era, so doing the same this year is carrying on the trend.

Rose: Silent, shambling automaton-monsters; also, despite Phil Collinson's assurances that they stop mentioning her after Episode 3, guess what, she gets another namecheck.

The Unquiet Dead: Shambling possessed human corpses; non-corporeal aliens; plucky girl housemaids; psychic children/young people.

Aliens of London/World War Three: Aliens in human suits who are into hunting, and, particularly, want to hunt the Doctor.

Dalek: The first season's Hiatus Era recycle, being Jubilee without the, well, jubilee.

The Empty Child/the Doctor Dances: Creepy blond little boy; seemingly possessed children and adults.

The Parting of the Ways: the Doctor has a recording of himself in the Tardis to instruct the companion of what to do if something goes wrong.

School Reunion: The Doctor impersonates a schoolmaster, while his companion impersonates one of the school's staff; the Doctor meets a human woman, and his relationship with her makes his companion jealous.

The Girl in the Fireplace: The Doctor falls in love with a human woman, to companion's chagrin; "a girl in every fireplace," says Nurse Redfern.

Rise of the Cybermen: The second season's Hiatus Era recycle, being Spare Parts without the, well, spare parts. Once again a newspaper masthead is used for exposition about the date. A party which is gatecrashed by monsters.

Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts: Sometime in the past, an alien spaceship crashes/lands and an alien who looks like a human turns up with intent to infiltrate and kill the human population.

Timelash Moment: Story refers extensively to earlier, unfilmed adventure of the Doctor's which we haven't seen.

The Fifth Element: Alien creature is transformed into a human to protect it.

Old Skool Who: Remembrance of the Daleks (the possessed little girl with the balloon; Murray Gold even references the "five-six-seven-eight-there's-a-Doctor-at-the-gate" musical sting for her); Shada (invisible spaceships); I'm pretty sure there was a BBC Books novel featuring animate scarecrows; the unmade Doctor Who Meets Scratchman movie (animate scarecrows again); the Troughton Era (the Doctor's diary, plus gratuitous Mister Science moment about meteors); Four to Doomsday (shenanigans with cricket balls); The Pyramids of Mars (Edwardian upper-class twit unwittingly wanders into spaceship and gets possessed by aliens); The Mark of the Rani (where the Master disguises himself as a scarecrow and the Doctor meets his feminine match). Arguably Black Orchid (though it's twenties-Edwardian rather than tens-Edwardian, it does have posh Edwardian men wandering around crumbling old buildings hiding secrets and ranting about the Empire). The War Games (World War I; the Doctor going by the alias John Smith, though at that you could count any number of stories starting from "The Wheel in Space" for that one). The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (creepy alien-impersonating-human family; the Doctor engaging in Heath-Robinson physical comedy). The Curse of Fenric (the sequence of the scarecrows shambling over the fields and then attacking the landowner with their arms stiffly outstretched is pure Fenric; as is the cheeky lascivious housemaid being possessed by something evil).

Everywhere Else: Pick your public-school stories here: Billy Bunter, To Serve Them All My Days, The Compleet Molesworth, The Browning Version, Ripping Yarns, If (complete with students running amok with firearms), The Liar, etc. Also your Edwardian social-change/class conflict dramas: Brideshead Revisited, Upstairs Downstairs, Gosford Park, The Duchess of Duke Street, Howards' End. The Singing Detective (animate scarecrows, plus the fact that, to judge by the local landowner's accent, this is set in Gloucestershire). The Wizard of Oz again (scarecrows, their appearance and walk).

Recyclingwatch: 42

"Go on, my sun!"

The End of the World: Companion gets superphone from the Doctor and rings her Mum, pretending that everything is normal as she does so.

Aliens of London: Companion gets key to TARDIS as mark of status with the Doctor.

Dalek: Human illegal/amoral action triggers chase scene with unstoppable enemy in closed environment.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit: In the Radio Times, Chibnall acknowledges that these were "an influence," though perhaps "straight ripoff" might have been more accurate (did I say "straight ripoff"? I meant "generous homage"). Far-future multiethnic space-faring human culture in postindustrial setting where everyone walks around sweating in grotty workwear; mysterious voice speaks to, then infects and takes over, buff male crewmember, who then goes around being all sinister, having funny eyes, and repeating catchphrases; Doctor makes remarks about indefatigability of humans; the Doctor becomes separated from his companion, who nonetheless trusts that he'll rescue her somehow; the Doctor and companion are separated from the TARDIS, with seemingly no way to return, early on; the pretty/young female crewmembers are dispatched quickly, while the companion hangs out with male/working class ones; Doctor suits up for journey into the unknown; the bit where McDonnell and Korwin go floating balletically off into space is far too similar to the one where the dead Skooti drifts off to the black hole.

Fear Her: Fraught suburban Mum/daughter relationship; shadows being burnt/drawn into walls.

Earlier This Season: What the hell is it with Season 3 and MRI machines?

Timelash Moment: Seemingly dead villain-monster revives.

The Fifth Element: Gritty working-class-sci-fi with nonetheless beautiful space sequences. Colour scheme heavy on the reds and yellows.

Old Skool Who: Pretty much any of the base-under-sieges, particularly if they involve aliens taking somebody over rather than invading from outside (The Invisible Enemy, The Wheel in Space, and see below); also any of the Robert Holmes man-gets-infected-with-something-that-takes-him-over-to-the-dismay-of-his-relatives ones (Seeds of Doom; Ark in Space; Pyramids of Mars). Resurrection of the Daleks and Earthshock (Alien-influenced post-industrial chase stories with tough women leaders; at least two homages to Resurrection's "does nothing work properly?" moment); Destiny of the Daleks (twitching-hand revival); Terror of the Vervoids (the facemasks; the colour scheme; the murder-on-a-spaceship theme); "The Pyramids of Mars" (seemingly human villain, actually taken over by some sort of alien; baddie who can cause people to steam to death by touching them, and has a sinister calm voice; bit where the sibling/partner of the taken-over person attempts to bring them back to themselves by reminding them of the relationship, with no success); "The Invisible Enemy" (Doctor taken over by alien and urges his companion to try and cure him; infected people walking around in helmets with visors, opening them up to reveal their infected state, and zapping other people with their eyes, as well as muttering catchphrases); "The Stones of Blood" ("Where's that Dunkirk spirit?"); "The Daleks' Master Plan" (character ejecting herself and another character out the airlock to save the others); "Planet of Evil" (planet/sun is actually alive and taking people over, picking off crewmembers one at a time, and appeased when something taken from it is returned; people with glowing eyes).

Outside Sources: 24 is the most obvious one (realtime, or supposed realtime in the case of 24, action; action-adventure style, and government conspiracies), but you can also take your pick of the 1980s sci-fi-with-dirt-and-bugs-in boom (Alien and sequels/ripoffs, Event Horizon, even Star Wars usually shows the dings and scratches on the droids; this just makes RTD's proud claim on "Confidential" that this is somehow uniquely British rather silly-sounding). Alien and sequels/ripoffs also major source for McDonnell (working-class woman spaceship captain running around being tough in a singlet); The Black Hole (crew of spaceship about to crash into a natural phenomenon and trying to avoid it). Star Wars (compare the bemasked and gasping villains to Darth Vader, and watch George Lucas choke on a hobnob and phone his lawyer). Solaris, particularly/exclusively the film with George Clooney (planet/sun which is a living entity, driving people on a spaceship/station above it mad; the bit where Martha is shot into space in an escape pod is visually very close to the scene where Clooney's character deliberately shoots "his wife" into space similarly). Twin Peaks ("Fire walk with me"). "Last of the Mohicans" (RTD admits to this one: Daniel Day-Lewis' "I'll find you" moment). Red Dwarf (gritty, working-class, eighties, post-industrial etc.; character in stasis chamber). The Old Men at the Zoo (shadows burnt onto the wall; plus pick any documentary/drama about Hiroshima/Nagasaki); Not sure if Saxon's minions are closer to The X-files or The Men in Black.

Spending too much time on airplanes, redux

I spend a lot of time on planes, particularly in the summer months, and every time I do, I dutifully switch off my iPod (etc.) for the takeoff and landing portions of the journey. This time, though, it occurred to me to wonder why we never get told to switch off electronic equipment during periods of turbulence when the seatbelt sign goes on (when one would assume that electrical interference would also be a problem for the pilot). Also, on this trip, I actually had my iPod on for pretty much the entire descent of the plane, with no one telling me to switch it off (I switched it off myself just out of a sense of habit, but we were almost on the ground by that point). So, is this a real safety precaution or just some kind of superstitious custom? Answers on a copy of BA stationary, please.

Recyclingwatch: The Lazarus Experiment

Rose: Companion bids farewell to Doctor; Tardis flies off; then is back two seconds later.

The End of the World: "She's/he's my plus-one." Old human resorting to science to stay young/alive.

Aliens of London: Rose returns after twelve months in the company of a mysterious older man called the Doctor, and Rose's mum excoriates him, slaps him, urges Rose to have nothing to do with him and shops him to the government. Martha's mum does exactly the same, although, since Martha's only been away twelve hours, David Tennant doesn't look older than about thirty, and Martha, being a medical student, has a reason to be hanging around doctors, it's a bit more of a baffling response in the case of Mrs Jones. And the government shops the Doctor to Martha's Mum, but that's an inversion rather than an outright change. Human transforming into improbably larger monster and hunting people.

Dalek: Monster goes on rampage, building complex goes into emergency lockdown, cue scenes of people panicking along corridors and up staircases as they try to escape it.

The Long Game: Tardis lands in living room, next to a phone with an answering machine which turns out to be somewhat significant to the story. Emaciated, drained corpses.

The Empty Child: "That'd be the Blitz."

New Earth: Everything has its time; old people should accept death and not go all mad trying to fight it; the Doctor feels a bit depressed at his own longevity.

School Reunion: Monster jumping around ceilings and walls (it even looks a bit like a giant Krillitane); monster in human form cricking its neck to indicate that it has just reverted; authority figures being really human-eating monsters.

Rise of the Cybermen: Companion and Doctor go to party; Doctor dresses in tuxedo while companion chats up her relatives; party suddenly interrupted by glassware-smashing monster.

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: The Doctor gives his companion his sonic screwdriver and tells her how to use it as a sign that he trusts her; power failure causes unstable creation of monster (Yvonne Cyberman there, the Lazarus monster here); the humans in the story take for granted an occurrence which the Doctor finds very suspicious.

The Runaway Bride: Spiderlike monster with human face and with plans for world domination. One character distracts the monster from attacking another one.

And, guess what, they're even recycling this season...

Evolution of the Daleks: Mentally unstable human hybrid monster that is affected by sound; really old-fashioned labs with glassware and coloured fluids (incurring sequence of Doctor lighting bunsen burners/gas taps); a plan to "change what it means to be human" going rather awry.

Timelash Moment: False ending where it looks like the monster/villain is dead... and then, surprise, it isn't.

The Fifth Element: Dodgy businessperson comes to sticky end after backing dubious project.

Old Skool Who: Ripping off Nigel Kneale is a time-honoured pastime, particularly if you're Robert Holmes-- precedents include The Ark in Space, The Seeds of Doom, and others; the scientist-with-invention-that-goes-horribly-wrong is another Old Skool staple (precedents include Robot, The Talons of Weng Chiang, The Mind of Evil, The Two Doctors, Genesis of the Daleks etc.) in "Vengeance on Varos" people "devolve" into unlikely creatures; The Invasion of Time again (monster affected by sound); The Leisure Hive (treatment purported to rejuvenate the old, which goes wrong); the dessicated corpses look like the ones seen in Planet of Evil and The Horns of Nimon, for the same reason in all cases.

Everything Else: The Quatermass Experiment (human hybrid monster up a cathedral being talked down; apparently in the original script it was St Paul's, which would just have made it even more of a ripoff); The Fly (scientist experiments on himself in big glossy chamber and having it go horribly wrong); Life Force (monster draining people of their life energy; this story also ripped off the Quatermass serials shamelessly); Star Trek: TNG: "Genesis" (people "devolving" back into animals; the science is a bit differently explained but just as improbable); Carpenter's The Thing (creature with human face); Lost In Space the 1990s movie (where poor old Gary Oldman gets CGI'd into a kind of spider/scorpion creature with a distorted and spiky version of his face; I'll just remind you that RTD says in the Confidential that he "wanted a really original sort of monster"); Predator (the way the creature opens its bottom jaw); Spider-Man 2, apparently (I've more or less forgotten the whole movie, myself, but apparently the botched-transformation scene is ripped off from something Doc Oc did); the New Testament (with a surname like Lazarus, you just know there's going to be rising-from-the-dead hijinx); Cold Lazarus by Dennis Potter (not just the name, but also a dodgy older woman who really, really wants to become young again backing scientific research with dubious implications).

Headline of the week, continued

On Ceefax this morning:

SPORTING GREATS PAY TRIBUTE TO BALL

Recyclingwatch: Evolution of the Daleks

Since this one's a two-parter, I'm just going to focus on elements which are new, or more or less new here; read last week's for the setup.

The Unquiet Dead: The Doctor offers to take the alien refugees to another planet where they can start again. Aliens taking over human bodies, and bursting through shrouds.

Dalek: Dalek acquires human DNA through highly improbable method, promptly goes on rampage, starts discovering his emotional side, then dies before he gets a chance to spread his hybridness through the universe. People trying to kill Daleks with ordinary rifles, and looking up at flying Daleks. Dalek Caan is the purported last of the Daleks at the end of the story (don't you believe it). Following a nose-of-destruction confrontation with the Daleks, Doctor deals with his Time War issues and comes out of it a better person.

The Long Game: Bloke who's been interfered with in some visibly alien/futuristic way (Adam there, Lazlo here) is released back into society by the Doctor.

The Parting of the Ways: Leader rallies troops for doomed anti-Dalek battle; Daleks flying around shooting at people and apparently getting some sort of pleasure out of this; Daleks viewing the Doctor on a monitor screen; Doctor surrendering to the Daleks, asking them to shoot him, and only being saved by a passing deus ex machina; the Controller wired in to the system; Dalekised humans and Daleks with issues about this.

New Earth: Doctor deciding to try and save lives through chucking a bunch of coloured fluids in a container, and then patting himself on the back from the result; aliens experimenting on humans big-time; chases in and around lifts.

Rise of the Cybermen: Black leader makes speech appealing to the villains and gets killed.

The Age of Steel: The Doctor defeats the villain through appealing to the humanity of his converts; the Doctor and companion split up and join up with local factions, reuniting at the end. Massed ranks of blank-faced converted humans marching around.

The Idiot's Lantern: Mad-dash climb up Ally Pally = Mad-dash climb up the Empire State Building (this was in last week's too, but it's more obvious here)

Love and Monsters: The Doctor saving the life of the alien-affected and dying girl/boyfriend of the guest star; said girl/boyfriend can't live a normal life anymore, but said guest star vows to stick by them anyway.

Doomsday: "Emergency Temporal Shift" is now the Dalek equivalent of the way that defeated villains on the old Hasbro cartoons (Transformers, GI Joe) used to shout "Next time!" as they fled at the end of the story. "Allons-y!". Action stops for two characters to work out their feelings (more subtly here, but still).

Torchwood: Bloke brooding on a building, wearing a big flappy trenchcoat.

Timelash Moment: Hideous human/monster hybrid (see last week) wants to breed more like him and start a new race, but his coracialists have other ideas.

The Fifth Element: More art-deco arty sort of look; climactic shootout in a theatre; Frankensteinesque biology labs used to create a weird thing that looks human but isn't really.

Old Skool Who: Once again, we have a story mostly ripped off from "The Evil of the Daleks" (human-Dalek hybrids; the Daleks forming a tentative alliance with the Doctor; the Doctor "infecting" the hybridisation process; one of said hybrids asks "Why?" and starts a civil war; hell, the hybrids even walk like Marius Goring in "Evil"; the Daleks on stage look for all the world like an homage to the recent "Evil" stage play, and, well "Evil-ution of the Daleks," groan), but they're also going to town on Cybermen stories: "Earthshock" ("My/our army awakes!" followed by shots of said army marching through corridors; the human-Daleks bursting through their shrouds); "Invasion" (sewers); "Attack" (sewers again, plus hybrid creature working to bring down his masters); "Tomb" (Toberman being converted and then turning on the Cyberman Controller). Otherwise: "Genesis of the Daleks" (one eyed human-Dalek thing in charge of Daleks, who is gunned down by them at the end, and the Doctor refusing to commit genocide despite his stated antipathy to the genocidees; Doctor taking a zap of electricity and surviving), "Remembrance" (Dalek wired in as controller); "Resurrection" (big gun battle out of which only Lazlo/Lytton walks unscathed); "The Daleks" (leader of a community of outsiders makes a speech appealing to the Daleks' finer feelings and is gunned down for it; also sequence in which protagonists escape in a rising lift which is then called down again); "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" (chase sequence through sewer, with crocodiles/other monsters); "The Talons of Weng Chiang" (sequence in which a large number of enemy footsoldiers are conveniently killed through a Heath-Robinson rigup the moment they're about to burst through a door and attack); "The Invasion of Time" (enemy paralysed by loud noise"); "The Ark in Space" (sequence of the Doctor desperately trying to undo the locks/remove the Dalekanium plates with his sonic screwdriver, against the clock); "The Visitation" (Doctor offering to take last of alien refugees to another planet if they'll leave Earth alone); any story featuring Daleks doing a countdown ("The Daleks," "The Daleks' Master Plan," fill in your own favourites here).

Everything Else: Sunset Boulevard (the Doctor lying, seemingly dead, on the top of the Empire State Building); Vertigo (vertiginous top-of-building shots at climax); King Kong (blonde, Thirties, Empire State Building, blah blah blah; possibly the gimped-up Dalek Sec); Frankenstein (especially the James Whale version, and The Bride of Frankenstein as well). The persistent rumours that something is living in the sewers of new York. Are You Being Served ("first floor, perfumery!"). Blade Runner (artificial creatures who have an artificially shortened life).

Headline of the Week

Today, regarding the death of 1966 England squad member Alan Ball, Ceefax led with this headline:

WORLD CUP WINNING BALL DIES

...and my first thought was "Crikey, it's not enough that they write obituaries for the players, now they're doing it for the sports equipment too?"

Recyclingwatch: Daleks in Manhattan

It's Daleks! In Manhattan!
[Samuel L. Jackson] I'm sick of these motherf***ing Daleks in motherf***ing Manhattan!

Right, that's out of the way, now on to the Recyclingwatch.

Rose: Major landmark forms part of villains' plans; see also Rise of the Cybermen, The Idiot's Lantern; Aliens of London, Army of Ghosts etc. etc.

Aliens of London: Pig-people; the Doctor approaching a frightened pig-person in a friendly way only to wind up in a chase sequence; major world capital is invaded by aliens.

Dalek: American in black suit who has a Dalek-related secret; Daleks in the lifts; Dalek-human hybridising; "you would make a good Dalek" or similar line. Exposed Dalek mutants left, right and centre.

The Empty Child: Mid-century setting; people going to musical show to forget their troubles; bisexual humour ("You can kiss me later; you can too if you want, Frank"); the Doctor forms alliance with a group of homeless people.

Bad Wolf: Tallulah with 3 Ls and an H, meet Lynda with a Y.

The Parting of the Ways: Daleks using humans to supplement their ranks, and having moral qualms about this; Daleks backing off; American rallies a group of reluctant supporters into an impromptu anti-Dalek army.

Rise of the Cybermen: Doctor and companion land somewhere, and companion finds a convenient newspaper giving the exact date (following which they both look up to see a) zeppelins or b) the Statue of Liberty). Villains are kidnapping homeless people and converting them into hybrid things. No zeppelins, though, which is a bit surprising considering that one might reasonably expect to see one in 1930s New York.

The Age of Steel: The Doctor/companion join a queue of potential conversion victims in order to infiltrate the facility; the chief villain gets himself converted. Things in the sewers.

The Idiot's Lantern: The Doctor tampering with mid-20th-century technology to turn it into something more sophisticated; since the Empire State Building mast was actually a radio transmitter, there's a parallel between the goings-on there in "Daleks in Manhattan" and the Ally-Pally focused activities in this script. The Doctor was trying to get to New York in the earlier story (is it just me or is the RTD administration obsessed with New York? Two New New York stories, The Idiot's Lantern, and now this...), and finally makes it here.

Doomsday: The cult of Skaro get another outing, with backstory restated. Scene of Daleks backing off, and of Daleks viewing what another Dalek is seeing through its eyestick. Companion bossily confronts a Dalek about its plans.

Torchwood: Pig-people in boiler suits = Weevils in boiler suits; apparently the Torchwood website makes a bit of a joke of this, claiming that there was a suspected Weevil infestation in New York in the 1930s.

Timelash Moment: Human/monster hybrids wandering around subterranean tunnels; one of them is a hybrid of the chief villain.

The Fifth Element: Bronzy art deco sort of look; interrupted musical performance by a diva.

Old Skool Who: Where do I even begin? "The Chase" (Daleks on the Empire State Building, and it was fun to watch RTD pretend that was completely Helen Raynor's idea during Confidential); "City of Death" (compare and contrast: Sec Hybrid with Skaroth; end of episode 1 cliffhanger involving one-eyed squid creature in suit reveal); "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" (Daleks applying intelligence tests to kidnapped humans to test their suitability as slave-workers and converting them, plus the Doctor and companion joining a queue of same); "Genesis of the Daleks" (discussions of Dalek survival and racial purity, plus a kind of Dalek/human hybrid figure); "Attack of the Cybermen" (many of the sewer scenes are plagiarised from this one, particularly the one in which a shadowy figure is glimpsed down a sewer tunnel but the glimpsee doesn't discover what it is until too late; Frank being pulled off the ladder by the pig-people is also damn close to the scene where Lytton is pulled off a ladder by Cybermen; Lazlo, like Lytton at the end of the story, is a half-complete hybrid); "The Invasion" (Tobias Vaughn undergoes a partial cyber-conversion; sewer chase scenes, and again someone getting grabbed by Cybermen while trying to climb out of a sewer); "The Talons of Weng Chiang" (pig people; music-hall shows with sewers in the basement and something nasty going on involving people disappearing; something nasty and genetically modified in the sewer); "Tomb of the Cybermen" (compare the Cyberman Controller's emergence in the 1960s story with the Sec Hybrid's emergence from the Dalek casing in this one); "The Happiness Patrol" again (piggish-people in the sewer pipes; unhappy people pretending to be happy; companion makes an unplanned appearance in a variety show; how many times are they going to reference this one?); "The Five Doctors" (Phil Collinson admits on the podcast that the image of a Dalek shadow being cast on a wall before the Dalek itself is visible was taken from this one); "Revelation of the Daleks" (Dalek remnant making use of humans to supplement their army); "Destiny of the Daleks" (the Doctor discovering a Kaled mutant out of its casing and making an important mental link as a result); "Day of the Daleks" (Daleks in dark tunnels); "Death to the Daleks" (two humans up a tower on a windy night); any story involving a Dalek mutant/embryo ("The Power of the Daleks," "Resurrection," "Master Plan," etc.); and, most especially, "Evil of the Daleks" (Daleks in a past era of human history who co-opt a local ambitious businessman to fulfil their schemes, and later turn him into a kind of Dalekised human).

Everything Else: "The Phantom of the Opera" (deformed creature that lives in the sewers but is obsessed with a performer in a local show, leaves her roses and creeps up to the wings to watch her perform; the scene where Lazlo is discovered cries out for a chorus of "He's there! The phantom of the opera!" from the showgirls); any movie in which the protagonists come to New York to start a better life (likewise, the shots of the Statue of Liberty were crying out for Barbra Streisand standing on the deck of a boat singing the final chorus from Yentl); Damon Runyon (Tallulah is the pound-shop version of Sweet Adelaide from Guys and Dolls); Philip George Chadwick (1930s writer who predicted the creation of artificial biological life; cf. the Doctor's examination of the green thing from the sewers); Bugsy Malone (New York Prohibition-era goings-on; blonde showgirl named Tallulah).

Recyclingwatch: Gridlock

First of all, let me say that this is one of my favourite episodes of the new series ever, and I haven't had this much fun watching Doctor Who since "The Girl in the Fireplace." However, I have a service to provide, so that's not going to stop me doing a Recyclingwatch on it. I'll just open by juxtaposing two quotes that sum this whole exercise up:

"I think we're creating... our own mythology." --Phil Collinson
"You're just taking me everywhere you took her, aren't you?"-- Martha Jones.

The End of the World: The year Five Billion; the Face of Boe; the Doctor takes his companion on a journey to the future to show off and ends up putting her in peril; companion expresses distaste over future society and concern for her parents; Doctor ends up explaining to companion about being last of Time Lords, etc. The Doctor says "Everything has its time."

New Earth: The setting; the Face of Boe dying; cat people; red people; the Duke of Manhattan; New New York's got a nasty secret in its lower layers again; crescent moons; apple grass; companion kidnapped; rain/shower effects; Doctor saves the day with simple solution. "New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York" gag.

Bad Wolf: The Doctor returns to what he predicts will be a glorious time for humanity, only to find it's all a bit grotty now. Doctor gives angry/uplifting speech about how he's going to find his companion and then come back and wipe all the grot out.

The Parting of the Ways: Ostensible atheist Russell T. Davies does yet another story about Christianity; the Doctor messing around with wires; major character does self-sacrifice bit. Rose says "Everything has its time."

The Long Game: The drug vendors suddenly appearing; nobody knows what's above/below the studio/motorway, but they have heard that it's good/bad. When we find it, it looks like some kind of giant sea creature.

School Reunion: "Everything has its time" again, this time spoken by Sarah.

The Idiot's Lantern: Sally Calypso (blue and white virtual lady); companion kidnapped and Doctor vows to find her and then come back for revenge.

The Satan Pit: Once-intelligent monsters losing their intelligence. Random classical/hymn music interlude. Companion being drugged and kidnapped, and pulling a gun on her kidnappers once she revives.

Love and Monsters: Bliss.

Army of Ghosts: Cute Japanese girls.

The Fifth Element: Do you really need it spelled out for you? Just watch the first twenty minutes of the film and you'll get the whole idea.

Timelash Moment: Something nasty lurking in the lower reaches of the city, unknown to its (tiny) population. Morlox, meet Macra; Macra, meet Morlox. Sally Calypso should probably also meet the fake Borad.

Old Skool Who: The Happiness Patrol (bowler-hatted gent, but see below); The Sensorites ("The sky is a burnt orange..."); Paradise Towers (satire about contemporary urban life; people trapped in brutalist location after catastrophe kills off most of the planet's population; two old ladies in a long-term relationship; crablike monsters); The Macra Terror (go on, guess); The Robots of Death (recycling human waste for human consumption); Mawdryn Undead (companion mistakes burnt corpse for Doctor); Silver Nemesis (arrows remaining in door from previous story are removed by the Doctor). David Weir's unmade story "The Killer Cats of Geng Singh" (go on, guess again).

Everywhere Else: Ben Elton's novels (satire about cars); any cyberpunk writer of the 1980s (designer drugs absorbed through transdermal patches; huge highways; techno-dystopias; Japanese people; Max Headroom-style holographic newsreaders; ISTR one cyberpunk short story which featured an entire society living in the stairwells of a block of flats); Bladerunner (only in terms of the dystopian-city really IMO, but if I don't mention it I'll get eight million e-mails on the subject); Escape from the Planet of the Apes (ostensibly normal baby animal that suddenly starts saying "Mama, mama"); Judge Dredd (dystopian urban satire; RTD claims on Confidential that the bowler-hatted gent is based on a character from Judge Dredd, but as Andrew Cartmel was a comic fan, they may share the same source); Good Omens (people trapped on a motorway for all eternity); American Gothic (the painting, not the series); the video for REM's "Everybody Hurts" (in which a group of people stuck in a traffic jam on a motorway all abandon their cars and walk away).

But hey-- talking kittens!

Conversations with Alan: Recyclingwatch

Alan: Maybe all this recycling of plots and elements within Doctor Who is really some sort of deep, metatextual comment on the banality of life and the repetitiveness of existence.

Me: Who knows?

Alan: I do: no it isn't.

Recyclingwatch: The Shakespeare Code

The Unquiet Dead: the entire plot, basically (honestly, it's practically a straight swap, Dickens-Shakespeare, ghosts-witches), but, if I must go into detail: Doctor going all fanboyish over historical writer; companion making first trip into past and going all gooey over it, plus nervous over the idea of changing the past; a near-identical dialogue sequence in which the Companion points out that she can't have died/the Earth can't have ended in the past, and the Doctor sets her straight; more lit-studies in-jokes than you can shake a stick at. Near-identical climaxes in which the evil aliens attempt to come through a rift to our world, and are thwarted not by the Doctor or companion but some random historical person.

Tooth and Claw: the whole celebrity-historical formula (this time with Queen Victoria and werewolves; what's next year, Wordsworth meets Frankenstein); psychic/ghostly phenomenon given explanation involving aliens; queens threatening the Doctor's life on little/no provocation. The moon.

Rose: Familiar London monument (the Globe/the London Eye) used by aliens as means of instigating an invasion of Earth.

Also notice that once again pretty girls are either evil (Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts) or dead by the second reel (The Impossible Planet).

Old Skool Who: The Massacre (17th-century, or near as damnit, setting; companion having the opportunity to cop off with one of the locals but calls it off in the end); The Chase (Shakespeare, Elizabeth 1); The Mind of Evil (man drowning on dry land through psychic suggestion); Silver Nemesis (17th-century setting again; arrows hitting the Tardis and remaining there after takeoff).

Timelash Moment: The Doctor meets a famous writer from the past and gives him a number of his best ideas.

The Fifth Element: The idea of ancient writings being really alien codes.

Everything Else: Blake's 7: Power (the Seska, an all-female race with psychic powers, who use co-radiating crystals versus the Carrionites, an all-female race with psychic powers, who use co-radiating crystals); The Da Vinci Code and any other book suggesting that the art/literature of the Renaissance had some kind of ulterior purpose beyond its obvious artistic value (I'm especially thinking Tim Powers here); any of the BBC's educational dramatisations of Shakespeare plays; Shakespeare in Love (Shakespeare reconceived as something like a modern celebrity; jokey anachronisms; cameo by Queen Elizabeth; Shakespeare receiving outside help on his writing; lost Shakespeare plays); Restoration (madhouse scenes); Buffy the Vampire Slayer (S5 episode "Tough Love" features flying lesbian witches, well, Willow anyway); The Wizard of Oz (witches swirling around in a whirlwind)

New Service: Doctor Who Recyclingwatch

OK, I can't be the only one who's finding the new series of Doctor Who a little, well, familiar. Identifiably so, in fact. So, as a service to those of us who care about these things, this year I'm going to identify exactly what was ripped off from where (feel free to send in things I've missed at the usual address, btw). The focus is on the last two seasons of DW, obviously, but I'll put in a few of the more amusing other sources as well, plus seeing how many times Timelash and The Fifth Element get a look-in.

Smith and Jones

Rose: Typical boring day in life of DW-companion-to-be, which turns into exciting romp with aliens; Doctor grabs hand of companion-to-be and runs with her to escape said menace; companion-to-be's family issues explored in detail; after one particularly extensive instance of family issues, the Doctor turns up and offers to take companion-to-be away from it all, and she accepts; blonde slappers and absent fathers; "OMG it's bigger on the inside, etc. etc." moment. Companion saves Doctor at the climax through doing what she does best.

Aliens of London: Major London landmark damaged/removed through alien intervention; politicians quick to cash in on this.

The Parting of the Ways: The Doctor absorbs and expels a massive dose of radiation (though this time, he doesn't die in the process).

New Earth: Hospital; aliens with the heads of familiar Earth animals (cats there; rhinos here); camp older woman villain; taking on other people's bodily aspects (out and out bodyswaps there, plasmavore stunts here). The moon featuring prominently again.

Doomsday: Freema Agyeman; more Thamesside settings; a quick retconning namecheck by Martha.

Generally: Saxon = Torchwood last year, Bad Wolf the year before it.

Old Skool Who: The Curse of Fenric (plasmavore = haemavore; she's played by Anne Reid, who played Nurse Crane in the former serial), The Stones of Blood (blood-ingesting aliens; older women who turn out to be aliens), The Happiness Patrol (the Doctor taking a black medical student as companion).

Timelash Moment: Something weird happens early on, which turns out to be the result of a trip to the past being made later in the story.

The Fifth Element (early indications are that this movie is going to turn up a lot this year): protagonist hijacked on an ordinary working day into excting time and space plot.

Everywhere Else: Judge Dredd (the Judoon without the rhino masks), any and all medical shows (don't make me say Holby City), Buffy and Forever Knight ("vampire" surviving through raiding hospital blood banks); Casualty 1906 (a one-off docudrama BBC1 showed last year which was based on the patient records of an Edwardian London hospital; the sequences involving messing around with the X-ray machines and MRI reminded me irresistably of the sequences in Casualty 1906 showing how a turn-of-the-century radiology lab worked). Red Dwarf (bloodsucking alien that uses a straw to do it); The Wizard of Oz (ordinary building being swept up in a freak weather incident and deposited intact on another world). There's a Billie Piper music video in which Billie encounters a nightclub with a CGI anthropomorphic rhino bouncer that looks amazingly Judoonlike (earlier in the same video, she develops godlike powers, and turns a dustbin into a man; does RTD get his ideas from MTV?).

Taking It Back

Earlier this year, I posted in the Current Top Pics that I was finding Life on Mars disappointing this year. Well, I take that back, and I take back any criticism I may have made about the series. The final episode managed not only to be amazing and very touching (I don't mind admitting that I choked up) but it completely and totally, at a stroke, explained every inconsistency, every duff episode, every cliche and instance of poor characterisation that's gone before, and left the viewer satisfied. Now that is good television.

Much as I like Martha...

...I can't help but deplore the fact that we are now going to be inundated with fan videos to the tune of Aqua's "Doctor Jones."

Prisoner addendum

Just a quick note in case I have any fans who don't read the Kaldor City site: Fall Out: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to the Prisoner is now available for preorder on www.telos.co.uk.

Roundup

Surprise of the week: catching a 20something John "Life on Mars" Simms as a juvenile delinquent on this week's Rumpole repeat on ITV3. Close second was discovering that Destry Rides Again is actually any good.

Non-surprise of the week: discovering that Hellraiser 2 really is as bad as they say.

Disappointment of the week: the Victoria and Albert's exhibition on the impact of slavery on art and design. They decided to do it, not as a room of objects, but as a "trail" (i.e. you're supposed to wander through the galleries finding the relevant objects), meaning that after half an hour of helpless wandering trying to find the Silver Sugar Dispenser With Scenes of African Life (ca. 1750), we gave up and went to look at the Postwar British Household Design gallery instead.

Moment of Regret of the week: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom is over. Only three parts; why couldn't it have been six? Or twelve?

Bela Lugosi of the week: The Corpse Vanishes. More entertaining than The Black Cat, but lacking the latter's Expressionist design; less entertaining than White Zombie but with, if anything, a more ridiculous plot. Some genuinely chilling moments from Lugosi and the woman playing his wife, but the rest of the cast are only good for a laugh.

Popular Culture 101

Your essay topic for the week:

"Gilbert and George or The Pet Shop Boys? Discuss."

Number Six is loose!

The Prisoner book has finally been officially announced by Telos!

PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW GUIDE TO THE PRISONER

World Fantasy Award winners Telos Publishing are pleased to announce the forthcoming release of a new addition to their Cult TV range: Fall Out: the Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to The Prisoner, by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore with a foreword by Ian Rakoff, to be released August 2007.

The Prisoner's impact upon society was explosive, transforming art, storytelling and popular culture like no other television programme before or since. Patrick McGoohan spearheaded the project in his role as an unnamed man, held against his will in a strange isolated Italianate village, tormented by a succession of individuals, each calling themselves 'Number 2', whose true motivations and intentions towards him remain a constant mystery. The man, known only as 'Number 6', attempts escape, is befriended and betrayed, undergoes hallucinogenic journeys, and experiences strange revelations, before the series achieved its cathartic climax.

The Prisoner was ahead of its time, and in this book, Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, authors of Liberation: the Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to Blake's 7, take on the task of debriefing the programme and attempting to make sense of the many interpretations and readings which have been placed on it. This is not the book with all the answers.... but it may help you ask the right questions.

Telos' range of Cult TV and Film titles is one of the most varied and exciting around, including books on Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Survivors, British horror film, Stargate SG-1, Charmed and 24. For more information and to check out other Telos ranges, please visit www.telos.co.uk.


***ENDS***

Alan and I will keep you all updated at www.kaldorcity.com as preorder information, blurbs, publicity etc. become available.

Strong and Free

I've managed to get my hands, finally, on a copy of TV North by Peter Kenter, the only comprehensive popular guide to Canadian television that I'm aware of. I haven't finished reading it yet, but I'm having a very happy time dipping in and out, alternately informing myself, scoffing affectionately, and indulging in nostalgia.

Good points:

• I'm amazed by how much of what I grew up with was, actually, Canadian content. Here I was convinced I was having my culture sapped on a diet of American imports, and yet just about every single Saturday morning cartoon I watched was homegrown. Or a coproduction.
• I was also interested to learn that there's a pretty sizeable subcategory of Canadian TV which is actually American TV, which was premiered in Canada, and just carried on that way because it didn't fly in the US.
• Big props to that huge subcategory of Canadian television, the local programme made with no references to Canadian placenames so it'll sell in the States. Canadian TV makes golden-age ITV look positively nationalistic.

Nitpicks:

• For a guide which opens by remarking that most people's image of Canadian television is of worthy nature documentaries, how has the author managed to omit Hinterland Who's Who, the worthiest, creepiest and most surreal nature documentary ever, which the CBC continually reran and reran between educational programmes?
• No French programmes = none of the lovely Franco-Ontarien offerings I wasted hours of my childhood on, like Passe-Partout, Les Bouccaniers D'eau Douce, the live-action costume version of Babar, and that weird thing with the live duckling that was sort of like a more surreal Tales of the Riverbank. As a member of the French Immersion Programme, I must protest.
• Wot-- no Owl TV? No Eureka? Nothing featuring Peter and/or Omar Stringer? Actually, the whole thing's pretty deficient on the TVO front generally.

More later, as I keep on working my way through it. Otherwise-- somebody please, please, release Seeing Things on DVD before some idiot at the CBC throws out the archive. And if anyone out there is remotely interested in CanuckTV, buy this book-- it's out of print, but I got a copy for £10 through AbeBooks.

Torchwood or UNIT?

A tall, dark and handsome leader who's travelled in the TARDIS with the Doctor, but doesn't like to talk about it much;

A creepy bisexual second-in-command whose hobbies include dating his coworkers and pulling guns on his superior officers;

A likeable blokish sort whose function is to crack wise and make the tea;

A generally goodhearted and pretty but dim girl who wandered in on the whole setup and got adopted into it;

A frumpy girl who says practically nothing aside from occasional bits of expository dialogue and has no personality whatsoever;

...and that's all I'm saying. Let's just hope Benton doesn't have an Invasion cyberman tied up in the basement or anything.

Main site update

Just so's you know, I've done another of my far-too-infrequent updates to Nyder's Dyner, adding a Torchwood section to LGB Who and taking down the Quotes Page-- quotes from your uni mates having a smashing time is fun when you're all in uni, but after a while it starts to look a bit like you can't let go of the old days.

Super-Cardiff

Back from holiday, and catching up on my telly/film viewing. So, just to kick off: Torchwood last week ("Combat"). I don't believe it-- they actually managed to do a story that worked for a change. OK, it was still transparently ripped off from another source (Fight Club is usually cited, but I see more resemblances to Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard), but this is the first time I've seen a Torchwood where logical consequences follow. Owen acts like a twat-- and, for a change, gets beaten up for it. Tosh acts like a nerd-- and the baddie immediately twigs that the website is a fake. Gwen throws over her boyfriend-- and he starts making noises about walking out. Somebody other than Gwen actually has moral qualms about what they do for a living. Oh, and Jack actually acts like Jack, rather than Angel. It was a bit like watching a UFO episode from the period where David Tomblin comes in and sorts the whole series out; it'll probably be back to the same old crap tomorrow, but at least we had this one.

"Shaken or stirred?" "Does it look like I give a damn?"

Explanation here as to why, although I've seen Casino Royale, and although I think Daniel Craig is one of the best actors of our generation, I haven't put it in my top-picks list. Because, although the Bond Franchise did need to cut back on the silliness somewhat (just an example, the tick-the-box approach to set pieces of the last few movies: "skiing chase scene, check; motorboat chase scene, check; daring escape using helicopters, check..."), it went too far in the other direction (with Craig playing Bond as if he were a real character) and so, things which should have had a tinge of unreality to them to work (e.g. a terrorist engaging in a massively complicated scheme to blow up a plane, as opposed to simply hijacking it and flying it into something) were played as if we were supposed to take them seriously. So my favourite Casino Royale remains the version with seven James Bonds, Orson Welles and a troupe of sea-lions: it's insane, but it's enjoyably insane, and you can at least have fun spotting the bits that Robert Holmes ripped off for his 1970s Doctor Who stories.

New Torchwood for Old

So, Torchwood gets a second series. I'm really delighted by that-- and I rather hope it doesn't improve, because I'm enjoying the sheer badness of it, and I'm running out of Bela Lugosi DVDs. What worries me, though, is that it will be on BBC2. And, while ratings of between 1 and 2.5m are off the scale for a digital channel, they're lousy on terrestrial (even on second-string terrestrial), and I strongly suspect (based purely on anecdotal evidence, admittedly-- that and the BBC2 repeat ratings) that Torchwood is one of those shows with a loyal core audience but not much of a following among the general public at large. Still, one never knows.

Anyway, Random Shoes. I've just written, and then deleted, a long, rambling and incoherent in a pre-Christmas-not-enough-sleep kind of way, in order to boil my reaction down to two ponts:

1) Cool title.
2) One "Love and Monsters" is enough.

Thank you.

Two Python Posts, and a Penguin in a Pear Tree

Two lovely Monty Python fan vids from Youtube:


We shall not go to Telos. It is a silly place.


This one wins top marks from me not only for good editing and appropriate matching of song and series, but also for creative use of audio clips from the show (oh, and Brian Croucher jokes).

And, in the holiday spirit:

News that knocks the wind out of one's planned sarky Torchwood review

Craig Hinton's dead.

I just can't believe it.

My Favourite Martians

So I've been watching "The Martians and Us," the BBC4 documentary ostensibly about the history and traits of British science fiction. Unfortunately, while the first episode was by far the worst, the whole series got collectively outclassed by the average episode of Prisoners of Gravity. For a start, it has an insufferably smug, jingoistic tone (apparently, Britain invented every single aspect of modern science fiction, and the rest of us are just imitators), which is undermined by the fact that they can't find enough well-known highbrow British sf writers to take part and have to resort to bringing in Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing as examples (presumably justifying this to themselves on the grounds that they're colonials, which is even worse). It also went on about Olaf Stapleton as if he was some amazing forgotten gem of SF, when in fact a) he wasn't that great as an actual writer (A+ for ideas; C- for prose), b) anyone over forty knows who he is anyway, and c) there are plenty of much less well-known British writers out there who deserve a fillip (no Philip George Chadwick? For shame-- then they could have legitimately claimed that British sf writers predicted genetic engineering). Also, there was no mention of the whole New Wave movement-- no Brian Aldiss, no J.G. Ballard-- no mention of modern British sci-fi writers (aside from trotting out Kim Newman, who's really a critic rather than a writer, every five minutes)-- and, most damningly, no Mary Shelley. Here they are, claiming that the Brits invented evolutionary sci-fi... and the first example they give is HG bloody Wells. They mention that the British invented the postapocalyptic novel-- and don't even mention Shelley's The Last Man on Earth. Could it be sexism, or just a sheer ignorance of anything that happened before 1850? If BBC4 really want to gain credibility as a highbrow arts channel, they're going to have to start learning about their material first.

Torchwoodwotcher

Well, this week’s episode of Torchwood was pretty watchable, for a change; having Toby Whitehouse in was a real breath of fresh air in terms of characterisation and dialogue (namely, he actually provided the characters with both). The problem was, though, that, much like after seeing a fast-paced but ultimately superficial movie, afterwards I found myself with far too many niggles on my mind. So, right after Mary tells her the mindreading pendant can be used for good, Tosh just happens to have it on when a murderer passes. And he turns out to be an actual murderer, not, say, a paranoid schizophrenic off his meds. Yet another Torchwood member commits a breach of security that would get them cashiered in any normal organisation (someone on Tachyon pointed out that “Cyberwoman” contained the equivalent of an MI5 agent smuggling his al-Quaeda girlfriend into the office, and “Greeks Bearing Gifts” is just more of same), and Jack just gives them a stern talking-to and lets them carry on at work. And while I can understand Tosh apologising to Gwen for reading her mind, Owen is such a tosser that I think she would be well within her rights to say to him: “OK, I did wrong there, but one more word about it and everyone, Gwen included, finds out about the date-rape spray incident.”

While we’re on that subject, what is it all these otherwise sensible women have for Owen? He’s not particularly attractive (he reminds me irresistibly of Jude Law made up to play an android in AI, only shorter and more out of shape), he has the sort of obnoxious personality that in real life usually is fitted to the office nuisance (the sort who thinks he’s a massive hit with the laydeeez, and somehow manages not to notice that the laydeeez tend to leave the room when he’s around), and he shows every sign of being seriously disturbed on the sex front (leaving aside the date-rape-spray incident, his idea of courtship is to shove Gwen up against a tree and effectively threaten to rape her—and she goes for it?!), and yet reasonably mentally healthy career women—one a policewoman, for God’s sake-- seem to be continually falling into his arms.

Writing all that down, it also occurs to me to say that this episode made me realise that Torchwood has a really, really unhealthy attitude to sexuality. I can’t think of a single example of a positive sexual relationship, whoever the participants, in the entire series. Even the one-off, bit-part ones: we’ve had a married couple where the husband wants to kill the wife this week, cannibal yokels last week, a teenage girl shagging men in nightclubs a few weeks back, Roj Blake the rape-murderer… hell, even Jack’s ex-girlfriend in “Small Worlds” is someone who’s apparently been pining for her boyfriend for decades, and he ultimately gets her killed. Just once, I’d like to see a healthy, loving, friendly relationship where both parties gain support and strength from each other on Torchwood. I don’t care if it’s gay, straight, polyamorous or even human/nonhuman, just so long as I don’t come away from the episode feeling like all relationships are either evil or doomed, and/or that the writing team have got some serious issues to work through.

Sadwatch

Last night I watched Doomwatch on BBC4. Unfortunately it was "Tomorrow, the Rat" again (can't they show any other episodes? I'd love to see "The Plastic Eaters" or something else for a change), which I remember finding risible last time I watched it. But the pathetic thing is that, even including the legendarily awful "rat trousers" special (sic) effect, it was still miles better than at least five of the last Torchwood episodes I've seen. It was:

• Wittier (in that there were at least three lines that gave me a chuckle)
• More interesting (in that the plot actually started, finished and kept me watching in between)
• More relevant (in that it dealt with a real issue, genetic engineering, and one which is still pertinent today, if not more so)
• More convincingly performed (need I explain?)
• More credible in its portrayal of the relationship between governments and thinktanks (yes, the Doomwatch team have to fill out forms and deal with obstreperous Ministers-- I'd love to see the Torchwood lot do that)
  
• More mature in its attitude to sex (seriously-- I believed the relationship between the lady scientist and the office Lothario considerably more than I believe, say, Gwen/Owen or Ianto/Circuit Breaker from the Transformers Comic)

God, you know it's time to give up when you're outclassed by a series which is legendary as a byword for lousy early-seventies eco-sci-fi, basically the early Pertwee era without the jokes. I'm going to watch "The Invasion" this weekend and hope it restores my faith in the franchise.

Torchwood or Scooby Doo?

I mean, think about it:

Leader: Cute, muscular and smart American guy;
Female Lead: Cute, feminine, supposedly professional but actually a bit dippy and inclined to mess things up
Techno-bod: Nerdy girl with glasses who almost never gets to do anything interesting (ETA: And she's a crypto-lesbian)
Laddish Sort: Fashionably-haired gent who's thick as two short planks and obsessed with indulging his carnal appetites
Comedy Character: A dogsbody, or dog's body if you prefer.

ETA2: this one appears to have been picked up on by Tachyon, and thence to Charlie Brooker. I'm viral!

Torchwoodwatch

After last week's B-movie spectacular, this week's Torchwood did a 180 and actually produced an episode which I would consider good by any show's standards. Suspenseful, well-planned, and which, most importantly, actually uses something which people associate with Cardiff/Wales (myths about fairies, in this case) to good effect, rather than trying to pretend Cardiff is Los Angeles. I mean, seriously. Setting a couple of stories in Cardiff worked OK in DW new series 1 (S27, whatever), because in both cases all the characters were aware of the reputation of Cardiff as a backwater and took the mick out of it relentlessly. A similar thing could work quite well in Torchwood: e.g., making the explanation for why they seem capable of getting away with murder the fact that nobody in London cares what goes on in Cardiff (cf Boom Town), or focusing stories on local but relevant issues (unemployment in industry; the media boom; Welsh devolution etc., and if you don't think it can be done well in a sci-fi setting, check out Life on Mars and The Omega Factor). But doing all these Angel-style urban night shots just looks pretentious. Come on, guys, I want to like this series!

Who are you, and what have you done with our Russell T. Davies?!

I was planning on blogging this week about how Torchwood isn't really an adult show (as the BBC keeps claiming incessantly), but a family show with swearwords and sex scenes in (seriously: watch the first few episodes, and, if you cut out the swearing, make the rape-murder in Episode 3 an ordinary murder, and tone down the lesbian-snog scene in Episode 2 somewhat, you don't have anything I wouldn't show to a reasonably bright ten-year-old). But daaaaamn. That "Cyberwoman" episode not only crossed the border into B-movie territory, it smashed down the border crossing, molested the customs guards and claimed the land for the Queen of Spain while it was at it. I haven't laughed so much since the last time I watched White Zombie (which, BTW, the lovely folks at POE-TV have made available in its entirety for download) starring a clearly desperate Bela Lugosi. If the rest of Torchwood keeps up this standard, I'll be a massive fan, but not quite for the reasons I initially assumed I'd be.

RIP Nigel Kneale

And the pool of talented TV writers in this country just gets smaller and smaller.

By a weird coincidence, my first reaction to this week's Torchwood was "Oh my God! It's The Stone Tape!"

Puppetry for the People

Again courtesy of YouTube, this is another example of what I was talking about with regard to when The Muppet Show decided to break the formula and get creative. The puppets here are structured so that they have human hands, like the Swedish Chef, allowing them to hold cards, books, cigarettes etc. realistically, and the faces are done as actual soft-sculpture caricatures, making them much more evocative as characters than usual.

Turn the World Around

While I'm on the retro kick: YouTube turns up trumps with one of my very favouritest Muppet Show song numbers ever-- Harry Belafonte, singing what was then a new number for him, "Turn the World Around," in company with some very beautiful African-mask muppets.



I've always liked the Muppets best when they broke away from the standard Kermit-and-Piggy mode and started pushing the envelope on what they could do with puppetry: "The Dark Crystal" was one of my favourite films as a kid, partly for that reason. I'll see if I can find some more later on.

Plus: I embedded a video! Go me!

Carrying a Torch

So, Torchwood then. I'd been hoping to be able to do an unmitigated rave, but unfortunately all I can do is a vaguely optimistic it's-far-too-early-to-tell. It came across to me really as a cross between Angel and UFO-- full of very pretty people but a bit lacking in the gripping, intelligent plot department. Mind you, UFO is a series which improved greatly in the plot regard as it went on, so maybe this will too.

Other thoughts:

-I have a vague worry, which I hope won't be proved correct, that all of this is the result of the production team spreading themselves too thin. Rather than doing one excellent series, they're now doing two which show promise but don't quite deliver. Which means that Sarah Jane Investigates should wind up being really, really bad.

-Los Angeles, with its gangs and neo-gothicism, worked OK as a backdrop for Angel, but I'm having real trouble accepting Cardiff as a sinister, brooding location for supernatural goings-on. I mean, Cardiff. It's just too... nice. London? Yes. Edinburgh? Absolutely. Belfast? Perhaps not as ghostly, but still has a feeling of genuine menace. Going down a rung, Oxford has gothic architecture, Birmingham has a sense of agonised misery, Penzance and, hell, even Plymouth have got a West Country we-doesn't-talk-to-strangerrrrs feel about them after dark, but Davies just had to pick the major city in the UK least associated with violence, ghosts and gangs.

"The Streets of Cardiff." "The Cardiff Boy." "Gangs of Cardiff." Nope, it's no good. I just can't get creeped out about it.

-Naoko Mori's character will, I suspect, prove to have no personality whatsoever. White Britons can write convincing Black and Asian characters; why can't they ever do convincing Japanese?

-Also, she's nicked my coat. No, really. I had to go check the rack to make sure my own purple leather trenchcoat was still there. I don't know what it says about me that my fashion sense is shared with someone whose idea of a daring illicit use of alien technology is getting it to scan the text of A Tale of Two Cities.

-Without giving too much away, the plot twist at the end of Episode 1 is only a plot twist if you haven't read/heard any of the pre-publicity.

-While I hate judging a series on its special effects, I have to say this one really did give me the feeling that they were trying to save money. Over the first two episodes, we got a couple of understated bits of original CGI (mostly involving the lift), plus a vague-shiny-cloud-monster and a pterodactyl left over from Walking With Dinosaurs. Which doesn't bode well, since it's supposed to be the first episodes on which you spend the most money, so as to hook the nerd crowd. Mind you, the trailer seemed to show something vaguely Cybermanlike later, so perhaps they did wind up spending most of the money on subsequent episodes. We'll see.

-Finally, if Eve Myles is going to do lesbian scenes with the guest star, I'd like it to involve something other than flicking each other's hair about. So many lesbians I know are involved in film or television; surely there must have been someone behind the camera who could give them a few tips?

Time for a Change

Alan managed to acquire both the 1960 and 2002 film adaptions of The Time Machine last weekend, so we sat down to have a good old compare-and-contrast evening. Given the lukewarm reviews the 2002 version received, we weren't totally surprised that we both preferred the 1960s version; what did surprise us was exactly how much we disliked the 2002 version. Our biggest problems with it were:

1) Ripping off First Men in the Moon as well (seemingly for no good reason other than to give Jeremy Irons a speaking part) and giving the Morlocks a culture which is a version of the Selenite one from the other book, which actually made them seem much more interesting than the flaky Eloi, who are just a pack of generic noble savages (see below).

2) Completely contradicting its own message halfway through. "You can't change time, it's all fixed, if your girlfriend hadn't died you wouldn't have invented the time machine so you just have to come to terms with it and accept it... oh wait, it turns out you can change time after all, so go ahead and save the Eloi" (and just when I thought he was going to do something actually authentically from the book, and leave Weena [called, boringly, "Mara" in the film] to her dreadful fate).

3) "We Morlocks regard the Eloi as another species, so we kill and eat them-- except for Mara/Weena here, who we're going to use as a sex slave!" Now, really.

4) Most annoyingly, being an unimaginative pastiche of Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Between this and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, it's seeming like the default setting for adaptations of classic British fantasy novels these days is becoming "set it in New Zealand and chuck in a bunch of people who look like Maori and add a soundtrack of Polynesian chanting." Which irks me even more, since, while I know it's fashionable to bash Jackson these days (any time anyone has any success, it happens...) I think he's a pretty intelligent filmmaker, and, when Kiwi elements appeared in LOTR (and King Kong), I could rather see what he was getting at in terms of symbolism, message, etc. Whereas this didn't actually contribute anything to the story or say anything remotely new, other than, perhaps, implying that the Maori are a combination of totally thickheaded but beautiful primitives, and hideously ugly murderers, which one hopes wasn't intentional.

Alan summed it up nicely by saying "The 1960 film made you feel like you'd really travelled in time; the 2002 film just made you feel like you'd travelled to New Zealand."

Golden Oldies

Desperate for some new sci-fi, I hit the local library the other day and came back with a few. One is Banner of Souls by Liz Williams, which is restoring my faith that there really is good, interesting, speculative sci-fi still being written out there. The other was A Plague of Angels by Sheri S. Tepper, and, while I enjoyed it immensely, it unfortunately confirmed my feeling that since the early nineties she's mostly been writing self-pastiche. In fact, I started to play a game with myself as I read it, called Identify-The-Early-Tepper-Source-Novel (spoilers follow):

The Marianne Trilogy: Dark-haired and innocent/knowing girl protagonist, pursued by adoring but clumsy boyfriend who turns out to be a distant relative of hers and by a grotesque female antagonist; character with hair "like a dark cloud" (c.f. Marianne's "Cloud-Haired Mama"); talking dog (OK, in this book it's a coyote) companion; magical creatures turning up and being taken for granted; girl protagonist turns out to have mystical powers the likes of which none of her friends and acquaintaces had remotely guessed.

The Gate to Women's Country: Post-nuclear society obsessed with eugenics, in which the men and women live separate lives and only come together to have sex (in fact, if it weren't for the fact that the cultural reference point is Native American rather than Ancient Greek, and that this book appears to be set in California rather than Washington, I'd have suspected it was the same society, just a few centuries down the road). Whole society is built on a fiction, which a few of the top people know about but nobody else does. Female character who runs away from home in search of adventures, is kidnapped and forced into concubinage, is traumatised about this for the rest of her life, and has a son who can't or won't take a valuable object lesson from his mother's experiences. Girl protagonist's boyfriend doesn't really understand about women's feelings, but gradually figures it out after a few harsh lessons from various female authority figures.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall: Evil rulers of society secretly have a plan to oppress everyone, which is thwarted by a coalition of clever humans and nonhumans; future society in which STDs are rampant (which again turns out to be someone's cunning population-control plan); exploration of alternative ways of sexual/social partnership; Native American spirituality; one character even paraphrases the whole "humans don't mate monogamously like gibbons do" speech from the earlier book.

Grass: Amusing but poignant peasant couple who help out protagonist; diseases; female protagonist finds a resolution at the end of the story that makes her happy but leaves everyone else totally baffled.

The Song of Maven Manyshaped: Girl protagonist, magical powers, adoring but clumsy male companion who needs to be taught a few lessons about gender politics and the oppression of women but he's not a bad sort really, yadda yadda.

There's probably more, but that was all that I identified on a brief readthrough. The idea of a post-catastrophic California in which people live in "archetypical villages", living out Disneyfied fairy-tale scenarios, was intriguing, but it wasn't really explored in enough depth to satisfy me. So: it was worth reading as a kind of greatest-hits album, but I'm glad I didn't actually pay money for it.

Riding through the Glen

Well, the first episode of Robin Hood failed to disappoint. Which is, alas, not a good thing, as I was basing my expectations on my theory that Robin Hoods always seem to be relentlessly contemporary. The 1930s Robin Hood was a New Deal socialist who advised political solutions to the aristocrat problem; the 1980s one was a New Age Traveller who thought we should all get back in touch with pagan spirituality; the Kevin Costner one was a multiculturalist, feminist sort who had apparently been acting as a UN peacekeeper in the Holy Land prior to coming back and getting King John to respect Marion's rights as a woman. So it's no surprise that now we get a bunch of Asbo-lads in the forest, basically doing Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Arrows.

The thing that amused me most was how terribly similar to the 1980s ITV version it was. I mean, really. Unrealistic, wobbly-looking peasant villages, populated by people who apparently haven't heard that in the Middle Ages everybody went in for really colourful clothing (honestly; look at the margin of any manuscript. Even the peasants look like they're auditioning for Dick Tracy), bunch of cute unshaved fellows wandering the forest; a Guy of Guisborne who looks vaguely like Robin and who seems to have some undiscussed backstory with him; a Marion who is far, far too modern-looking and -acting to be remotely credible; everyone taking everything as seriously as only people in their early twenties can; and a Sheriff of Nottingham who's quite clearly a better actor than three-quarters of the cast and desperately thinking of his pension fund throughout. Unfortunately, though, it lacks the main assets of the ITV version: the retrospective kitsch factor which allows one to laugh at how big the mullets are; the Clannad soundtrack (for which I have a nostalgic fondness); the occasional forays into Hammer Horror territory; and the fact that just about every week some star from the Golden Age of British Televsion would turn up in an unlikely role (my favourite still is the sight of Anthony Valentine sporting a Bettie Page wig and managing not to laugh).

What actually offended me about the series, though, was Robin Hood's sudden conversion to Thatcherism. I mean, not only is he the bloody Earl of Huntingdon again (look, guys, that bit was the invention of Victorians who couldn't stand the idea that their kids were reading stories about a working-class hero) but his advice to the Sheriff is to eliminate all taxes, and let the trickle-down economy do its work. Which, frankly, is an economic policy that even the Americans haven't managed to make feasible, and to see a strategy which only benefits the rich in practice espoused by Robin bloody Hood just suggests that something is very, very wrong with the world.

So, in other words, I think I'll give the rest of the series a miss, and then catch it again in twenty years, when I can at least laugh at the ridiculous old-fashioned designer stubble and hoodies.

Out of the mouths of babes and tabloid editors

Headline in The Sun earlier this week:

LUNATIC GETS INTO NO. 10.

As Alan said, "what, again?"

This workout is brought to you by the letter S.

Yesterday, while at the gym, I had my MP3 player set on "random." For the first twenty-five minutes it played nothing but songs by Spirit of the West and Suzanne Vega. Then it played a song by the Smiths, and another by Steeleye Span.

Just when I was beginning to wonder if I'd spotted a sign of artificial intelligence (or artificial stupidity, which is probably scarier), it then played a song by Tenacious D.

It was "Sasquatch."

Reservoir cats!

Mr Tabby, Mr Orange, Mr Black and White...

The Horror

I've been watching, and/or rewatching, the old Universal Studios 1930s horror pictures-- you know the ones, The Wolf Man, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc. -- lately. Which has led me to two conclusions: 1) that I much prefer Bela Lugosi to Boris Karloff as a horror film actor (sorry Boris), and 2) how just about all of them really, really want to be silent films.

Now, it's easy to attribute the latter point to the fact that they were made in the early 1930s, and so had a cast and crew that were still thinking in silent terms, but it goes beyond that: M , All Quiet on the Western Front and Maedchen in Uniform are all good examples of early sound films which, consequently, look a lot like silents, but still work as sound films, and, indeed, are at least partly improved by the use of sound. Whereas in the Universal horror-pics, the dialogue usually takes away from the enjoyment as far as I'm concerned, being stilted and corny at best, the sort of thing that you might, possibly, be able to get away with on a title card if it's reduced to one line. Think of how much more pathetic the scene in Frankenstein where the father of the drowned little girl staggers into the village to report her death would be if you were left to imagine what he said for the most part, or how much scarier the Mummy would be if Boris Karloff never opened his big mouth to rattle on about Anubis.

Patrick McGoohan, in a 1970s interview, lamented the fact that black and white had gone so far out of fashion, since he thought Ibsen worked much better in monochrome; I'm starting to feel the same about sound as far as some early horror pics are concerned.

Quote of the Week

"I don't like it; it might give the servants ideas." (old lady on Upstairs, Downstairs, regarding a suggestion about holding a charity ball on a French Revolution theme)

De rerum Tennentibus

Remarked last night at the Tavern, on Tennant's performance:

"You know how that tabloid reviewer said that Christopher Eccleston looked like he should have a tin bath and a whippet? Well, it seems they've found the whippet."

Doctor Who: Season 2 Review

As promised, there's now a Doctor Who Season 2 Overview on the Kaldor City website, for those who want to know what I thought of it in any detail.

David Maloney

No, I didn't do an RIP for David Maloney. I didn't really think it was right, and after thinking about this for a long time, I realised that it's because when I actually know the guy (and I knew Maloney well enough to go to the funeral), it somehow feels stupid to do a brief "great contribution to society... sorely missed..." thing. Alan did a tribute on the KC page, and I think that's enough for both of us really.

If Captain Jack is in charge of Torchwood...

...would that make it the Army of Harkness?

Duke, duke, duke duke of Earl

My Name is Earl is in my current top picks, partly because it's funny, but also because it manages to pull off the trick of being simultaneously the most and least preachy American sitcom I've seen since M*A*S*H.

The main thing that differentiates American sitcoms from every other country's sitcoms, as far as I can see, is that there always has to be a moral lesson somewhere in the episode. If you don't realise how unusual this is, try comparing a Canadian or British sitcom to any American sitcom of your choice, and you'll see what I mean: while some non-American sitcoms do involve moral messages (Corner Gas is pretty heavy on "don't underestimate people just because they're poor/uneducated/not from Toronto"), it's generally pretty understated and also isn't necessarily a requirement for every episode, whereas even Frasier is given to delivering explicit homilies right after the climactic scene.

Now, by its very premise My Name is Earl is set up explicitly as a series dealing with moral lessons. After all, its titular character is a small-time con-artist who has reformed and is trying to make up for his crimes, and each episode revolves around him atoning for some past crime and usually learning some sort of related lesson-- gay people are human too, paying taxes supports public services, stand up to big business, own up to your mistakes, etc.-- so you'd think it would be the comedic equivalent of a Baptist Sunday School class (and one from the sort of Baptist church that frowns upon gospel singing and Getting The Spirit). However, the very fact that the central characters are deeply amoral allows them to get away with it: when Earl makes some kind of climactic speech about how he's just learned he should be nicer to his brother, you can genuinely believe that it's only just now occurred to him that there is value in doing this, and the series' simple the-good-do-well-and-the-bad-suffer setup also allows the series to deliver rewards and punishments to its characters without incurring a "c'mon, that's unrealistic" reaction-- if anything, having had the setup, you're just waiting for the moral payoff.

I compared it to M*A*S*H above, and it occurs to me that the earlier sitcom also managed to get away with its periodic moral lessons for precisely the same reason. Everybody in the surgical unit was as morally bankrupt as the characters in Earl (with the arguable exception of Radar, but he had the innocent-who-does-as-much-harm-as-good thing going, which leads to similar results), and so you could actually believe in them, if not learning from their misdeeds, at least providing a non-preachy example to others through them. So the lesson is, if you don't want your sitcom to come across as a prissy lesson in family values, make your characters as vile as all get out.

Now, if they'd only manage to pull off this trick with Will and Grace, maybe I'd actually be able to watch more than five minutes before switching off in disgust.

A planet where liberals evolved from conservatives?

The other thing I'm digging on television at the moment is Planet of the Apes (the 1970s TV series), because I can't figure out if it's a work of genius or a piece of trite sub-Starsky Seventies action television. On the trite side, the characters are cardboard (with the arguable exception of Galen the chimpanzee), the acting variable, and the plot premises are so cliched that Alan and I have taken to shouting out the ending of the story in the first five minutes. But on the genius side, there's actually an astoundingly subtle understanding of politics in the stories which emerges from all that.

Case in point, a recent episode in which Galen breaks his leg and the protagonists are forced to find shelter with a sharecropping family who are the ape equivalent of Southern white trash, with all manner of racist preconceptions about humans. You just know how it's going to end: the humans will win the racist apes over, and the now-no-longer-racist apes will end up saving them from the authorities. But it wasn't quite as simple as that.

The initially racist apes were gradually won over by the humans' showing them how to use their farmland, tools and oxen with greater efficiency, essentially demonstrating to them that tradition is not sacred and they didn't have to stay poor sharecroppers all their lives. But opposition was staged by the elder son of the family-- because under the traditional system, the oldest son is given a bull calf and goes off to set up his own farm upon reaching maturity, and, while he initially objects on the grounds that the humans might "curse" the cow and cause it to bring forth a heifer calf, it rapidly becomes clear that he's also afraid that the humans' challenge to tradition might result in him losing his chance at independence-- indeed, three-quarters of the way through, his younger siblings, noting that the sky hasn't fallen when they changed their traditional ploughing or watering systems, begin to question why the eldest should automatically get the calf. So what could have been a dull and worthy lesson on racism turned into an exploration of how people contribute to their own oppression by buying into the small benefits the system allows them-- the son is willing to be oppressed if that means he gets a calf, rather than reject the system and maybe not get a calf. Worth thinking about, even today.