Marwood’s Marathon (Days 5 to 8)

THE SENSORITES:

Its an oddity. Hartnell is brilliant, taking centre stage for the first time and an active role in the story, and shines throughout. The Sensorites themselves are wonderful and diverse characters, a far cry from the generic ‘Monster Of The Week’ that we’ll get later. There’s some genuinely unnerving stuff about people losing their minds. But there’s also an awful lot of very silly, ill-conceived and poorly-realised moments, embarrassingly straightforward detective work, and a woeful understanding of basic physics. Susan is undoubtedly one of the best things about the story. Its the calmer, remote, undeniably alien Susan of 100,000BC/The Daleks rather than the shrieking, hysterical, incompetent basket case she’s become in other stories. Its far-and-away Carole Ann Ford’s best performance since the first two serials.

THE REIGN OF TERROR:

A hugely fun little romp through one of the uglier periods of European history. The comedy is a little unexpected and jars a little with some of the grim events being depicted, but it is nevertheless a very welcome change after the uber-seriousness of this season. A fine end to the first year of adventures.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Marwood’s Marathon (Day 4)

THE KEYS OF MARINUS:

Its really a bit of a mess this one. I mean, it really makes no sense. And whilst some of the design work is excellent, there is a lot of really shoddy stuff in there. Susan is becoming supremely annoying. There is a running theme through these episodes of morality, enforcement of law, the inherent tendency towards corruption, and State attempts to control the heart and mind of the populace, but Terry Nation never really goes anywhere with it. And the Voord are really, really shite. Frustrating.

THE AZTECS:

Superb. I wax lyrical about the story so often that I’ve run out of things to say. Just stunning. I love it.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Marwood’s Marathon (Day 3)

MARCO POLO:

Just beautiful. You’d think that seven episodes told at a sedate pace might drag. But it really, truly doesn’t. The script sparkles, Mark Eden is superb as Marco, Derren Nesbitt is excellent as Tegana, and the main cast once again excel - the scenes in which William Hartnell’s Doctor spars with Kublai Kahn (and is bested by him!) are particularly joyous. Beautiful!

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Marwood’s Marathon Day 2

The Daleks:

Its hard to know what to say really. The perfect Doctor Who story. The regulars are amazing, the Daleks are TERRIFIC – scary, manipulative, scheming, malicious. I really think Terry Nation is an amazing writer (at this point anyway). Just lovely.

Inside The Spaceship:

Absolute shit. Really, just irrideemable cack.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Manic Street Preachers – Journal For Plague Lovers (update)

Things are building up nicely for the new Manics album (though it is still six weeks away).

The 2-Disc deluxe edition has been confirmed as  featuring demo recordings as well as lyrics, artwork and photographs by Richey Edwards in a book package.

The official site has just had a makeover, and you can listen to the beautiful, beautiful track Jackie Collin’s Existential Question Time without having to work through an  interview with James (as you did in the XFM stream). There is a rather lovely review of the album from John Niven, which reveals a few more of those ever-so tantalising lyrics (one of which seems to come from the 2005 download-only track Picturesque, though I’m not sure whether that means it is on the album as a secret track or – perhaps more likely - the lyrics have been merged into another song). http://www.manicstreetpreachers.com/global/frontpage

Also, as seems to be the norm, the Japanese release of the album will feature bonus tracks – Alien Orders/Invisible Armies and Primitive Painters. There are also Japanese deluxe two-disc re-releases of the first eight studio albums, and a DVD release for Live video ‘Everything’. Check them out at CD Japan here:

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=SICP-2224

…well, assuming you are prepared to pay the import fees anyway.

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Manic Street Preachers – Jackie Collin’s Existential Question Time

Another new Manics track surfaced yesterday, ‘Jackie Collins Existential Question Time’, which you can hear on the XFM site here:

http://www.xfm.co.uk/news/2009/manics-richeys-lyrics-made-us-a-full-band-again

A great little track with a bouncy, poppy few minutes that ends with a massive, thrashy glorious rocky mess. More great lyrics too – I’ve spent the whole day walking around humming “Oh Mummy, what’s a Sex Pistol?” …trust me, it works in context!

There’s also a nice interview with James in which he talks about how they came to use the lyrics, and the process of converting them into useable form. Really interesting stuff and there is obviously still a huge amount of affection for Richey there. He also had this to say about the preconception that this album is “The Holy Bible Part 2″:

There are small elements, echoes of The Bible, but mostly it is not The Holy Bible part 2, because the lyrics kind of led us in a different direction. A lot of the lyrics on The Holy Bible dealt with the disgust that comes from being so angry, but I think a lot of the lyrics on this was dealing with what comes out of the disgust you feel and a lot of the lyrics actually is about when the disgust turns to doubt, and I think that is what a lot of the lyrics deal with. And so, you know, a lot of the lyrics weren’t quite as angry as The Holy Bible lyrics. There was something a bit more complicated going on there I think.

It is definitely nice to see James being so upfront and articulate about the record. I think there is a genuine sense of pride and belief in his talk about the new songs. Definitely, definitely, definitely looking forward to this album now!

 

Regards,

Marwood.

Manic Street Preachers – Peeled Apples

Peeled Apples, the opening track of the new Manics album Journal For Plague Lovers, got an airing on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show today. I’m completely stunned. IT. IS. AWESOME.

Musically, it comes across somewhat like The Holy Bible meshed with the heavier elements of Send Away The Tigers, with the crowd-pleasing melodies and chorus of their more successful albums thrown in for good measure. And they seem to have nicked the riff from Smashing Pumpkins…but sssshhhhhh, don’t tell anyone! There’s also a good chance that the production is better than any other Manics record, too.

Lyrically, it is pure, unadulterated Richey Edwards poetic genius. Opening with the lines “The more I see the less I scream/The figure of 8 inside out is infinity” pretty much guarantees that this album is never going to sell a million copies, which is frankly something of a relief. A reference to Noam Chomsky sits next to the line “Bruises on my hands from digging my nails out”, and elsewhere we get the ought-to-become-legendary line “The Levi jean will always be stronger than the Uzi”, and let’s not forget “The Falcons attack the pigeons in the west wing at night”.

And so far I’ve only listened to it once…as I say, I’m stunned. I’m genuinely, thrillingly, over-the-moon excited about the new album now. Ahhhhhh, dammit, May 18th is too far away.

You can currently hear the track on Zane Lowe’s blog here >>>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/zanelowe/2009/03/hottest_record_manic_street_pr.html

 

Regards,

Marwood.

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.

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.