The Last Sontaran – Part Two

After what you might call an excessively positive review of the first episode, I was a little concerned that part two of this years’ opening Sarah Jane story might fall flat on its’ face. Happily, it’s another dynamite little episode that firmly cements the show as the best thing on British television at the moment.

The previous instalment’s somewhat perfunctory cliffhanger serves to separate the team into pleasantly plot-driving and character-enhancing groups. Sarah finds herself imprisoned with the unfortunate Lucy, allowing her to demonstrate a high amount of compassion and improvisation before escaping to take part in the main story. Clyde is soon off on his own Sontaran-baiting decoy run, allowing him to reel off a seemingly endless number of increasingly juvenile and amusing insults. Maria and Luke meanwhile get to be emotional and authoritatively geeky in the Sontaran ship, and they have a wonderful moment together as Maria tells her friend about her impending departure from the group.

There’s some very nice and often suprisingly tense stuff here, as Kaagh hunts the various parties and… oh, look, if I went through the plot in intimate detail identifying everything I particularly enjoyed, I’d be here all day. Suffice to say that it all ties together very nicely and allows Maria’s parents, the wimpy Alan and grotesque Chrissie, to play a bigger-than-usual part which also shows Chrissie in a more-sympathetic-than-usual light (though I still passionately dislike her).

If there is anything negative to say about the episode, it’s that the conclusion of the story is – by necessity – somewhat rushed. We get no insight into the effect of the adventure on the Professor or Lucy, or what happens to them after the crisis is over. Perhaps this is an understandable consequence of also needing to write out Maria. Also Sarah’s ultimate solution to Kaagh’s bloodlust is the staggeringly unlikely act of asking him nicely if he wouldn’t mind going away, to which he rather astonishingly agrees. Whilst I realise that there is a lot to get done in the final moments of this episode, and it is obvious that they’re setting Kaagh up for a return in the series-finale, it has to be said that this is just a weak and drab resolution and perhaps it would have been a better option to follow up Sarah’s original suggestion of getting help from UNIT, and have them take him away in chains or something.

The departure of Maria and her family is incredibly well done, and all involved deserve a good pat on the back. Maria has been a great character who will be missed, and the show will feel very different without her. Thankfully of course, we never have to see Chrissie again.

The episode ends with a philosophical Sarah gazing up at the night sky with Luke and Clyde, and reminiscing about old friends who are now far away, in a deliberate mirror-image of the opening scene from episode one. It’s a positive and heartwarming conclusion an as a viewer I’m left feeling very confident about this show’s future. All in all, a huge success.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Doctor Who – Time Reef

The Doctor and Nyssa, finally back aboard the TARDIS after the events of their two most recent adventures, are startled to discover that the architecture of the ship has become unstable and, along with recent arrival Thomas Brewster, find themselves in an increasingly unpredictable and hostile environment before being abandoned on a desolate rock in space as the ship is apparently destroyed forever. They soon find they’re not alone – several parties are also stranded here, each with their own personal objectives and vendettas. Thomas Brewster has been very busy since we last saw him…

Well, it seems I was jumping the gun somewhat yesterday, as recent Big Finish audio Time Reef is ultimately something of a disappointment.

The play’s early stages are so promising. For once the timey wimey stuff – by which I mean the TARDIS scenes – are very interesting, entertaining and beautifully presented, and the new TARDIS team work very well together. Davison, Sutton and Pickard all put in solid performances and the dynamic between the three travellers makes for one of the most complex and interesting relationships seen in a Big Finish TARDIS team for quite some time, a far cry from the cautious bonhomie of The Sixth Doctor and Charley or the cosy domesticity currently enjoyed by The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex. In particular, Peter Davison shines as his Doctor is allowed to display a previously unseen level of aggression and petulance – largely directed at Brewster – as the Time Lord becomes increasingly distressed over the damage to his ship and the ramifications of Brewster’s extended period of travelling alone. The various other characters or groups are then sketched in quickly and with some success, all displaying behaviour of varying degrees of strangeness which implies some sinister mystery, and questions quickly develop over what is really going on in this strange situation.

Sadly the play falls apart somewhere during part two, and never lives up to it’s early promise. The story doesn’t so much draw to a conclusion as stumble blindly past it. The other stranded groups are never presented as anything other than paper-thin, and their cod-grandiose vocabulary and idiotic motivations soon begin to grate. Also the early implication that something deeper is going on is never followed up, ultimately meaning that these characters serve no genuine purpose, and their presence is irrelevant and distracting at best. The big reveal of the story - that the titular Time Reef was created as a result of the TARDIS’ destruction is frustrating in the extreme by virtue of it’s absolute inevitability – frankly, the suprise would have been if it were any other fucking thing.

Worse still, this destroyed-TARDIS-creating-bizarre-environment plot device is exactly that used by Platt in his 1992 New Adventures novel Time’s Crucible (which was also cack). And it’s not even the only recycled concept here – The Fifth Doctor finding a pirate-like sailing ship in space crewed by strangely behaving aliens or seeing his TARDIS destroyed are immediately reminiscent of his TV stories Enlightenment and Frontios respectively, and the Doctor being confused with an incompetent imposter brings to mind previous Big Finish audio The One Doctor whilst simultaneously foreshadowing this years’ Christmas special remake The Next Doctor.

This complete mess of a story is complimented by an equally messy and irrelevant one-parter, A Perfect World, which is essentially YET ANOTHER excuse for Big Finish to do their unbelievably fucking offensive ‘comedy’ Northern accents under the guise of a vehicle to write out Thomas Brewster. YEAH, THAT’S RIGHT!!! They write out one of their best-ever original companions in what is basically his second appearance. Real smart, guys…

Brewster has been a constant delight and I’d hope to see more of him in the future. All three-and-a-bit of the plays in this loose sequence have deliberately played with the expectations of the audience -even the title of the second play is deliberately misleading! - and the endings of the first two both promised future storylines which never came to pass. The Haunting of Thomas Brewster left The Doctor and Nyssa stranded in Victorian London, implying that they may be based there for some time to come when in fact they escaped five minutes into the next adventure, and The Boy That Time Forgot saw Brewster happily joining the Doctor and Nyssa in the TARDIS with the implication that he was here to stay, only for things to fall apart very quickly in Time Reef. It is to be hoped then that his apparent wish to settle down with his newfound love in 2008 is shortlived.

All in all, another serious disappointment from Big Finish.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Isn’t it?

I’m just listening to a recent Big Finish CD, Time Reef (which is really quite good so far, and I’ll be telling you why once I’m finished with it), and once again I find myself enduring more CD Extras, surely one of the most dubious ‘innovations’ introduced by Nick Briggs.

These extras really are a mixed bag, usually comprising hastily recorded interviews with the cast, writer and director, which bring a whole new level of crapness to the term ‘improvised’. These interviews usually involve cornering a tired and often somewhat bewildered actor during a four minute recording break and asking them random questions in the hope that they can form a cogent response despite being focussed on their job at the time. The actor/staff member concerned then politely stumbles their way through a few brief words before we move on to the next poor sod. Once in a while you do get some interesting insights into the acting/writing/directing process, though usually you have to make do with a few ‘umms’ and ‘ahhs’ and everyone saying how wonderful David Tennant and Russell T Davies are (as if we hadn’t noticed).

The main problem with these things is the interviewer. Blessed with the most boring, mundane, monotonal voice known to man, he for some reason feels compelled to phrase even the most innocent question in the most leading manner possible, thus forcing the embarrassed subject to agree with even the most bizarre opinion or concept, meaning guest actors are frequently forced to agree with the idea that a Big Finish play is somehow an achievement of literary and artistic genius on a par with the work of Blake or Bergman.

This fascinating interview technique usually takes the form of an awkward, overly-articulated statement of opinion followed by the phrases ‘isn’t it?’, ‘don’t you think?’ or ‘wouldn’t you agree?’. On Time Reef, for instance, he asks the question “The dialogue in this one is very good, rather like classical literature isn’t it?” to which the actor in question can do nothing but mumble an uncomfortable “umm…yes…” (it actually isn’t, by the way). It gets worse if the actor being interviewed has appeared in a TV show or movie at some point in their career which is in some way interesting and/or noteworthy and/or remotely-related-to-Doctor-Who-in-any-fashion, resulting in questions along the lines of “Have you ever appeared in a sci fi movie, pehaps with Christopher Eccleston, he is very good isn’t he?”.

I’ve not actually heard the Brigadier story which was released as part of The Companion Chronicles yet, but I can well imagine the CD Extras including the question “You enjoyed making this didn’t you Nick, did you enjoy your time working on Doctor Who in the 70s and do you have any amusing stories from that time, perhaps involving eyepatches?”.

Oh well. At least with Time Reef it’s not a complete loss, as because it’s a Fifth Doctor story I get to hear Peter Davison make his 6500th joke about Adric. I mean, along with the ‘Doctor Daddy’ anecdote we hear on every sodding DVD commentary, this is something that will never get old… Oh, wait…

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Doctor Who – The Doomwood Curse

Big Finish are an odd kettle of fish these days. After the solid success of their early years was followed by a period of fluctuating fortunes and variable (but generally below-par) output, the last two years have seen a noticable upward curve in overall quality (at least for this listener) coupled with some of the worst decisions ever made within the range. Some recent plays, notably Son of the Dragon, have been amongst the very best the range has produced, and experiments such as the new Eighth Doctor series or The Companion Chronicles have proven very successful. Others, such as the odious The Mind’s Eye, have easily sat amongst the very worst they have so far offered. The Doomwood Curse, whilst not a complete disaster, chooses to rest closer to the latter category.

I’m not a great fan of Jacqueline Rayner, though I always try to give any new Doctor Who a fair chance. Sadly, the writing here fails to impress. The central premise – that a Grel virus of some sort designed to make reality align with fiction wreaks havoc on period England - is really just a bit of nonsense designed to allow everyone to piss about for two hours, with little genuine plotting to worry about. The original intent of this narrative doohickey seems to have been to allow Rayner to contrast the fictional Dick Turpin with the harsh and unpleasant reality, but sadly we never actually meet the real Turpin, instead only hearing about him through a few brief accounts by guest characters and a bit of apocryphal (not to mention somewhat condescending) lecturing from The Doctor.

There are positive elements to the play. Nicky Henson does wonders with the role of Dick Turpin, and for once none of the guest cast are particularly terrible. As always Colin Baker does a splendid job, the scenes between The Sixth Doctor and Charley being a particular joy, and the continuing how-will-this-pan-out subplot is working very well. Indeed, the pair are so well suited to each other that you can’t help feeling this should have happened years ago. India Fisher does less well in the ‘fantasy’ scenes, however, and the whole thing becomes boring very quickly, which is a shame for two reasons – firstly that we’ve seen her pull off exactly this sort of thing so well many times before (The Stones of Venice, Minuet In Hell, Zagreus…) and secondly that Big Finish couldn’t give her something new to do.

The play also makes the frequent – and utterly frustrating – assumption that the audience will be well-versed in the details and specifics of a particular historical or literary event, in this case the story of Dick Turpin. I suspect this will have alienated a large part of the listenership (particularly the under-35s), as it did myself, and feel that it is about time Big Finish cotton on to the fact that they’re not just serving a market of middle-class, early middle-aged Southern professionals, mostly from London, who’ve had the ‘benefit’ of a classical education. And we’re treated to yet more of Big Finish’s comedy Northern accents, which angers me no end.

All in all, a disappointment. I’m fond enough of the series that I don’t mind the occasional failiure, but if Big Finish want £14.99p of my money every month then they need to do a lot better a lot more often.

Jac Rayner’s Doctor Who work bugs the hell out of me, to be honest. Whilst she’s managed to produce one or two genuine classics – The Marian Conspiracy, for instance – the majority of her output has been, to be as charitable as possible, complete excrement which makes me want to vomit in disgust. Her New Series novels particularly stand out as far and away the worst which that range has offered (which is saying something). Weak plotting, illogical and unlikely plot developments, and poorly conceived characters proliferate throughout her work. Her pathological insistence on waving her History Degree in your face at every opportunity seems to hint at some sort of severe insecurity or self-esteem issue, and becomes particularly frustrating when she gets basic facts wildly wrong (see 100’s use of the Julius Caesar/Caesarian section myth). I’m genuinely mistified as to how she continues to get work, though the placings of her novels and CDs in DWM’s annual survey suggest I’m in the minority here. Ah well.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Red Dwarf IX

I’m just catching up with the month-old news that Red Dwarf is to return to production for two new half-hour episodes. These episodes will be accompanied by a ‘making of’ documentary and an anniversary clipshow. Apparently they were commissioned by the freeview channel Dave, after regular repeat runs there have managed impressive viewing figures. There seem to be very few other details available at the moment, though it is claimed that ‘all’  the regulars will be returning, and there are clear signs that if the project is successful it will lead to further instalments.

Well, I’m certainly curious to see how they turn out, and I’d love to be optimistic. This is one of my all-time favourite TV shows, and one which meant a great deal to me when I was younger (and to be fair still does), but really I’m not expecting much. In many ways the series fell apart long before it disappeared from our screens. I thought the final two series were an absolute abomination and it is difficult to imagine Doug Naylor turning things around. It might just work if he ditches much of the back-story and continuity of the final series in favour of a back-to-basics story featuring just the core cast in an isolated situation – and if he can somehow remember how to write good jokes again (which were completely absent from 7 and 8). Sadly though I wouldn’t be suprised if Naylor feels obliged to present us with a torturous continuity-riddled abortion of an episode attempting to sort out the tangled mess in which he left the story at the end of the last series – which ended some ten years ago – and which is exactly the sort of serious mistake he made with much of the final two series.

Ultimately, I do think that if Red Dwarf were ever going to save itself from the scrap heap then it needed to do so ten years ago with a fresh new series instead of endless wrangling over a movie which was never seriously going to happen and which absolutely nobody thought was a good idea.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Heroes – Series 3 Episode 1

Heroes returned to BBC2 this week. After season one’s constantly outstanding wonderment was replaced by season two’s somewhat disappointing mix of no pace and deeply unlikeable new characters with bad accents, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

What we got was, I think, an episode that tried very hard to tick all the right fan-pleasing “trust us, we’re still the same show” boxes. So for instance we get more time-travelling and evil future counterparts, we get to actually spend some time with the Hiro/Ando double-act (and what a delight it is to have them together again), and Sylar is back in the game in a big way. At the same time, several of the more annoying aspects of season two seem to have been quietly dropped – amongst them, little Molly whassername has been sent away, and interestingly, stoopid Mexican wassername with the black eyes (who made such an impact on me that I can’t even remember her name) seems to have lost about 75% of her accent.

There are also many new and interesting questions raised, as well as resurrecting a few old ones. How much does Mother Petrelli know? What else did the older generation get up to? How will the future turn out? What does Hiro’s formula create? Is Nathan now completely fruitloops? (And if so, is Lindermann just a figment of his imagination?…this last one is just me, I think).

It’s not all good news, and the spirit of season two lingers on with Hiro encountering a new ’speedster’ character who is instantly twenty times more annoying than just about any crap character this show has ever had. On the whole though, there is a strong sense that the show has found it’s feet again.

My main concern so far is that whilst it is welcome to see a return of some elements of the show which seemed to have passed on, it can get a little tiring if it is at the expense of forward motion. The episode sees a disturbing number of characters resurrected from the dead, whether they deserved it or not. As well as Nathan miraculously surviving being shot dead in the final moments of season two (for which I’m thankful, as I think he is far and away one of the most likeable, complex and interesting characters), we get Lindermann and Nikki (one character I was particularly glad to see the back of). And Hiro’s father gets yet another cameo from beyond the grave. There is refocussing on the more popular or successful elements of the show’s first year, and then there is wallowing in continuity for no good reason…I guess it’ll be a few episodes before we see which way this goes. For now though, I’m a cautiously happy camper.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

“Oh well, yes, if you can get him!”

The title quote comes from the lips of the villainous Sir Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) in the 1979 James Bond movie Moonraker. The line genuinely bugs the crap out of me. Here’s why.

Drax is in the middle of a phone call, attempting to hire some new henchman muscle. Quite who he is calling is not specified, though I’m assuming you won’t find “GoonsForHire” in your standard copy of Yellow Pages. Anyway, there he is, phone in hand, when the mysterious individual on the other end suggests the metal-toothed moron Jaws (who is returning after an apparently popular appearance in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me). “Oh, well!” Drax responds, in a state of astonished rapture “yes, if you get him…”. Now, this line grates on me for two simple reasons: 1) it seems to imply that criminal ‘genius’ Hugo Drax can somehow believe Jaws is really really good at his job, and 2) it seems to imply that Drax is suprised that an assassin of Jaws’ *ahem* ‘calibre’ would be available for work. Which is clearly ridiculous. How on Earth can Drax possibly think hiring Jaws is a good idea?

Let’s look at Jaws’ track record shall we? Now certainly, the first hour or so of The Spy Who Loved Me sees Jaws assassinating a cringing wimp and a greasy fat guy, but somehow neither of these strike me as particularly difficult targets. We’re then treated to a further hour and a half of Jaws being thrown out of windows, comically punching walls instead of Bond, accidentally driving his car off of a cliff, having the shit kicked out of him by Barbara bloody Bach, etc etc. Eventually Jaws gets his comeuppance because, in all absence of the most basic common sense, he decides to have his final showdown with Bond in a room housing a great big bloody electromagnet. Hardly A-grade material in the assassin/thug/henchman community, I should think. He then reappears at the beginning of Moonraker in order to attempt – and entirely bungle – a mid-air assassination of Bond himself. Worst of all is that Jaws’ employer at the time of his first appearance, ocean-obsessed lunatic Max Stromberg, is eventually shot several times at point-blank range by Bond, with Jaws nowhere to be seen.

Now, call me picky, but if I were a genius megalomaniac with half an eye on Global genocide and/or domination (hey, I said IF), then no matter how desperate I was I’d like to think that I would take one look at that C.V. and completely piss myself laughing. What the Hell is Drax thinking?! “Oh wow, he was thrashed several times and his boss was brutally murdered by the exact same British agent who is attacking my operations now?! He is a MUST-HAVE!!!”. I mean, honestly, where is the logic?***

 

Regards,

Marwood.

 

***Then again, I’m questioning the ‘logic’ of a movie which makes no sense on any level whatsoever. Seriously, go watch it. What the hell were they thinking?!

The Sarah Jane Adventures – The Last Sontaran (part one)

Warmly received by audiences and critics alike late last year, it’s interesting to note that of the three programs currently flying the flag in the Doctor Who franchise it is The Sarah Jane Adventures which appears to have undergone the least ‘retooling’ for its’ second series. One of the most flat-out enjoyable aspects of the Doctor Who renaissance, Sarah and her team of teen investigators returned on Monday, kicking off with part one of Phil Ford’s The Last Sontaran, and it really is a fabulous doozy of an episode.

The new series begins with a truly beautiful little scene in which Sarah Jane and Maria gaze up at the night sky and wax lyrical about their wonderful adventures, before cutting to a radio telescope where scientist Professor Skinner and his daughter Lucy are visited by strange extraterrestrial lights. The main plot then unfolds quickly as Sarah and the gang investigate said lights, discover Skinner and Lucy (temporarily) missing, discover a distraught Lucy, search for her father, find he has become a hypnotised drone, discover a Sontaran ship in the nearby forest, and run for their lives from an angry Mr Potato Head.

The regulars are all re-introduced quickly and with the minimum of fuss, and all are absolutely fantastic – it’s genuinely difficult to single out a regular as particularly good, because they all are. There is a genuine emotional depth to this show, and the first episode is brimming over with examples – Maria is upset and conflicted by the possibility of moving to America and leaving Sarah’s world behind, Clyde and Luke’s friendship is obviously stronger than ever though Clyde’s ability to entice Luke into dangerous situations remains intact, and on a more subtle level we have Sarah’s obvious affection and concern for her young charges conflicting with her need to ‘use’ (and even manipulate) them in dangerous situations. Meanwhile Sarah’s abrupt hostility towards Maria upon hearing the news that they might be parting ways is both deeply shocking and completely understandable, and is a great example of how this show regularly and with casual ease does things beyond anything you would usually find in “childrens” television.

One small area of improvement on series one seems to have been in the show’s humour, which is a little more sophisticated and a little less crap here than in the past – and occasionally (gasp!) even funny. In particular, Clyde repeatedly baiting and insulting the Sontaran, whilst apparently oblivious to any danger this might be putting him in, is a real highlight.

The Sontaran himself, Kaagh, is a bit of an odd fish. On the one hand, the costume and prosthetics are every bit as wonderful as they appeared on-screen during series four of Doctor Who, and the characterisation is entirely authentic with Phil Ford’s scripts providing the archetypal Robert Holmes Sontaran, and actor Anthony O’Donnell giving a wonderful performance to match. On the other, O’Donnell does very little with the voice, resulting in a fearsome alien foe who sounds a lot like that nice bloke in the newsagents, or something. I mean, in this respect even Derek Deadman’s hissy cockney version was better!

One particularly noteworthy aspect is that this is very much a Sontaran whose motives and methods Sarah would recognise from her earlier experiences – a stranded survivor trying to find a way home is very much The Time Warrior’s Lynx, whilst Kaagh’s threats to use Clyde as test subject undoubtedly echoes The Sontaran Experiment. It’s little things like this which remind me of how fortunate we are to have the involvement of writers as exceptional and thoughtful as Phil Ford. So many moments in this episode show he is capable of great things – that pre-titles sequence, for instance, which not only reminds us of the close relationship between the two female leads ahead of their apparent falling out later in the episode, but also (by deliberately reflecting that relationship in the Skinner/Lucy scenes) makes us care about two guest characters who get barely three minutes of screen time. Plus of course, the idea that a children’s show should spend five minutes doing a slightly mental pisstake of Predator is wonderful.

Whilst it may be a budgetary requirement to borrow alien creatures from Doctor Who, it’s a little suprising to find the series riffing on emotional beats from the its’ parent. The scenes in which Sarah Jane realises she is dealing with a Sontaran (and then encounters one) are just a little too close in sentiment and tone to her scenes with Davros or Daleks earlier in the year, though the episode is so damn enjoyable and Elisabeth Sladen’s performance so good that it genuinely didn’t matter that’d I’d seen something so similar already.

There is really very little to criticise in the episode, though the fantastic breakneck pace of the first 15-20 minutes does sadly crash to a halt, in favour of Sarah Jane and Sontaran Commander Kaagh standing very still whilst laying out the basics of the plot in very slow and simple terms, and info-dumping for all they’re worth. Even here though the show is an absolute delight, as Clyde trades petty insults with a clearly exasperated Kaagh.

Far and away the least-best aspect in this episode is the somewhat perfunctory cliffhanger, which really seems like Ford had written 25 minutes and then remembered it was supposed to stop, but hey, we have to get to episode two somehow. And it has to be said that given the word ‘Sontaran’ is in the episode’s title, we spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to build up tension over what might be lurking in the woods. Erm…possibly a Sontaran, right?

An all-round great start to series two. It’s a shame those rumours of an appearance by David Tennant’s Doctor seem to be unfounded (mostly based around a shot in the trailer of someone’s vaguely Tennant-ish hair which is actually Professor Skinner actor Ronan Vibert) but nevermind. This show doesn’t need him anyway. It is that good.

Now, do I watch part two straight away on the CBBC channel, or be a good boy and wait? Hmmm…

 

Regards,

Marwood.