~ and you’ll miss it

You know some people have this thing about clowns (me included)? That they’re not really the fun, loveable rogues they appear to be, but are in fact masking an ugly, devious and downright ee-vil creature? Have you been to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not at Blackpool Tower? Madame Tussaud’s? All them rows an’ rows of wax figures, and you with that feeling that they’re actually about to move, any second? I hate statues, too. Always have. You just know they’re Up To No Good, in that shifty kinda way. And them bastards in blue paint in the public squares of Bath, Deansgate, London, Cardiff, Roma… in fact everywhere, pretending to be them arty students. Oh, they get all painted up in blue or silver, stand around and pretend to be statues, when in fact they’re just waiting for some bugger to stand too close. Then they move. They grab at a scarf, or a jacket, or an arm. And everyone jumps back, laffing and joking, tossing money in his hat and walking on.

I hate em. Cos they prey on a deep-seated fear – that fear that says you mustn’t get too close, you mustn’t touch, you mustn’t believe what yer eyes are telling you. Cos it’s a lie – and that thing is just pretending to be inanimate. One of me favourites scenes in film history has to be from ‘Army of Darkness’ (A.K.A. ‘Evil Dead 3’), when the old Deadite witch is lying ont floor. Everyone crowds round to check, but Ash, clever ol’ Ash, is not to be taken fert ride. “It’s a trick,” he announces, and then, elevating himself to Hero Without Peer, he states, “get an axe!”

And so to last night’s ‘Doctor bloody Who’, imaginatively entitled ‘Blink’. Right fromt outset, it delivered. The Doctor’s message ont wall ~ genius set painting and a wicked use of writing ‘in the style of’ a character’s conversation patterns (‘oh, and duck! No really, duck!’). I were laffing already – in between ignoring the feel of Imminent Creeping. The Weeping Angels crowding round the windows to see out, the whole creepy feeling that you know summat’s rotten in Denmark. Then we get the lovely Cathy Nightingale, and her brother Laurence. Yes, Laurence Nightingale. If that didn’t raise a few laffs in yer house as well as mine, I’d be surprised. And then – DVD Easter eggs saving everybody! Bloody marvellous! And then DI Billy Shipton (Michael Obiora, or the gay bloke from ‘Hotel Babylon’ to his friends), being lovely and really, really edible lovely. But woah woah woah ~ what’s this? Is he dissing the TARDIS? Because the outside phone dunt work and the windows are “the wrong size”? My TARDIS Defence Sense started tingling, have to admit. But hey, he weren’t to know, right?

And then we catch up wi two travellers stranded in time – the Doctor and Martha. Nice crack about the Moon landing(s), and the whole “they let you live to death” line. In fact, considering that the Doctor shows up fert shortest time since ‘Love and Monsters’ in series 2 (28), he manages to cram a bucket-load of excellent first-class logorrhoea in there (“This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes ‘ding’ when there’s stuff. Also, it can boil an egg at thirty paces. Whether you want it to or not, actually, so I’ve learnt to stay away from hens. It’s not pretty when they blow.”). And Martha wi her worldsly-wise “Trust me, just nod when he stops for breath.” Nice.

But the whole one-sided conversation ont DVD, when viewed again int proper setting, were just ace. Just blew me away. Just goes to show what I’ve always said: when yer in full possession of all the facts, things are so incredibly simple. Or should that be ‘DVDs are more fun than should be allowed’? Amazing how many times I get them two mixed up.

Oh, but can I just say, Scooby Doo didn’t have a house, he always seemed to be int Mystery Machine. But it’s nice that characters believe in inaccuracies – makes them human and realistic.

And Larry – oh, a man after me own heart: “the angels have the phone box – I’ve got that on a T-shirt”. But then the strobe-effect of the moving statues ~ yes, I did draw me feet off the floor PDQ, and yes, we did howl at the characters to just bloody well get the key int door. Bloody marvellous stuff! And then there’s that familiar, comforting sound o the TARDIS. And everything makes beautiful sense… Well, almost everything… But then we have TARDIS-tipping! Bloody excellent! Wait, didn’t someone already put that in a fan-fic? Oh right, that’ll be me then. Moving on –

And she did it to herself – she brought it all on herself. Or did she? Again, nice lines from the Doctor, and ooh, look at that: lovely large blue circles ont outside of DVD shop (named, appropriately enough considering what Cathy had said, ‘Sparrow and Nightingale’). I think I’ve seen that design before somewhere… Then the Doctor confirms what I’ve always thought about statues in general, and again we’re left wi another shiny, shiny example of brilliant Saturday night TV fromt Beeb.

Phew. It just keeps getting better and better, dunt it? It were such a good episode I forgot the Doctor and Martha weren’t in it fert pretty much first half. Just ace. And then we got ‘Doctor bloody Who Confidential’, from wee Davey himself. Very funny, very warm and tickly in that nostalgia kinda way. Loved ‘The Two Ronnies’ memories and suchlike. Gold.

Apart from that, it’s just: I saw ‘Pirates 3’ last week, and other than the monkey being shot out of a cannon, I can pretty much say ‘meh’. And moan about the sadly under-used and much-maligned Chow Yun-Fat. And then report that I have tickets to see ‘Ocean’s 13’ tomorrow night.

And that’s really it. Wallpapers of the Week are up at me sister-ship, and I’m left wi the rest of Sunday afternoon. Mate’s coming later wi series two of ‘Life On Mars’ so we can trawl through it again fert clues and such. And it is going to be… fantastic.

Peach and lube, people, peach and lube.

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Martha Jones ~ Freema Agyeman ~ BBC ~ Michael Obiora ~ logorrhoea ~ Chow Yun-Fat ~ the god that is Bruce Campbell