Saturday 24 September 2011

What Is And What Will Have Always Not Already Will Have Been

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Doctor bloody Who series 6 episode 4!


On a whim, and thinking on a comment by a friend about the present state of Doctor bloody Who, I re-watched the series six episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife’. And here are my thoughts.

First off - strange title. Or is it? Married to the life, connected to the one thing that has been constant in his life for the past 700 years, it was fitting enough once the opening salvo had taken us to the opening credits. I’m sure many fans were contemplating River Song’s involvement in all this - at time of broadcast, we neither knew who she was, nor what she was doing with such intimate information as to the Doctor’s real name (still a MacGuffin if ever there was one). Giving this episode such a title was partly to titillate the masses, I’m sure.

Very early on, we’re introduced to the idea that the Corsair - a word taken to mean pirate, or privateer - has sent a distress call to the TARDIS using his personal tattoo as proof of authenticity. This gets the purr wee Doctor all excited - after all, he’s supposed to be the last surviving Gallifreyan (not counting people unaccounted for, such as Susan, Romana, the Mad Monk, Omega, etc.). This Corsair chap seemed to be right up the Doctor’s alley; ‘one of the good ones’, ‘a hell of a bloke’, and even, in a female regeneration (inadvertently - or otherwise - letting it be known that Time Lords did actually change sex during their long lives), ‘a bad girl’. It sounded like just the kind of person the Doctor would jump about with, going to all those cool bars and being the hoopy frood with the hip friend everyone loved. With bananas in their pockets, of course.

Once we’re at the destination of the distress signal and it’s clear we’re all too late via a lovely bit with an Ood, it’s not exactly standard sci-fi fare. Yes, it’s a clear body swap and yes, it’s a prisoner having found a way to escape, but it’s more than that. Why? The characters involved. For once, the Doctor is allowed to hope that someone else of his race survived (barring the Master, of course. If I were the Doctor, I’d still be a just a little tetchy over making him regenerate when he really DIDN’T WANT TO GO). Amy even says the only reason the Doctor is so desperate to find the apparently hidden, living Time Lords is because he wants to be forgiven. And here we have a subversion; instead of the Doctor doing the standard blowing it off and stoically pretending nothing of the sort, he comes back with a very quiet, very humbling ‘Doesn’t everyone?’ This is more than enough to silence any Companion. Amy is suitably mortified. Leave it to purr wee Rory to be the sensitive one, though. His faithful earnestness all the way through was touching, and a very effective counter-point to the rest of the episode.

When the Doctor finally believes what the TARDIS is telling him - from Idris’ mouth - we get a marvellous if tiny, shiny moment of TV legend. Words cannot express how much I loved that weeny sliver of affection, of alien appreciation; the TARDIS knows what the Doctor calls her, and he protests that he only calls her that ‘when we’re alone’. Magic. That’s what he’s attracted to, and every Earth girl wannabe should bloody well take note. Everyone’s idea of ‘sexy’ is different - and, lest we forget, the Doctor is an alien whose childhood consisted of learning an alphabet that uses maths for its basis, playing with Röntgen radiation blocks in the nursery, staring into untempered schisms and time vortices and then being old enough to get lashed with his mates at the Academy. He’s seen the fall of Arcadia, the end of the Time War and every one of the Time Lords. (As House says: ‘Fear me, Doctor; I’ve killed hundred of Time Lords’. And the Doctor’s chilling reply? ‘Fear me: I’ve killed all of them.’)

The ticking clock is introduced - the TARDIS will cark it if she stays in the fragile corporeal body attached to only four dimensions instead of her usual eleven. The plot is set to get her back to her own space before Amy and Rory are killed off by the entity formally known at ‘sentient asteroid’. Now we’ve met sentient suns before, and let’s face it, this is Doctor bloody Who. It’s not the weirdest thing we’ve seen them be, to paraphrase Tony Stark. And at least this sentient plot device can talk - with the voice of Michael Sheen, Welshmen and Hollywood actor extraordinaire, no less.

While Amy and Rory are pounding up and down TARDIS corridors - whether belonging to Eleven’s version or not, it’s never made clear - we get a glimpse of life beyond the control room. It shows other places exist - good. It takes away a little mystery - bad. All in all, the effect is impressive - and, as we later learn, may not have been the actual truth anyway. So it’s all fixed, in a potential retcon kind of way. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the ‘archived’ control room - could it possibly be Five’s? As it turns out - no. It was Ten’s - not in bad nick for a set they put in the Earl’s Court exhibition and then brought back again. Part of me was sad it wasn’t Five’s (I’ve seen that at Earl’s Court, too!) - but then part of me was glad it was Ten’s.

And so to Idris. Hmm… Either named after an ancient Welsh astronomer, whose throne you sat on for one night and either emerged a genius or a madman, or the now defunct operating system. And a nice update/reference to Ten’s ‘timey-wimey’ comment - Amy mentioning how it’s all ‘spacey-wacey’. The Doctor, bless him, attempts to explain, but in the end he has to give up and just go ‘Whatever’. Amy’s only human, after all.

So is it a good episode? Undoubtedly. The concept of something that eats TARDISes may have arisen through entities luring Leviathan spaceships in so that the living ship, Moya, could be eaten (‘Farscape’, episodes 3x06, 3x12), but it was done neatly here. The framework was well-hung, and even Rory providing lampshading (as well as being the universe’s butt-monkey, as usual) was seamless. But the performances - oh dear god-who-is-Stephen-Fry, the performances...


Two outstanding moments from Matt Smith: the ‘only when we’re alone’, whilst talking to who he now recognises as his TARDIS, and the heart-wrenching moment where he realises he’ll be lost without her to talk to: ‘Please... I don’t want you to go’. His only companion from Gallifrey, the only piece of himself he can attempt to control, the only one who’s been with him since he was 200-odd (according to her). The only one ‘mad’ (or ‘man’?) enough to let himself get stolen by a Type 40 - and now he has to go back to the one-sided conversations he had before. Perhaps he’s listening to the wrong voice.

Rory - as always, quietly amazing. It’s been a shame since the very first episode of series five that he wasn’t taken into the TARDIS instead of Amy full stop. The Sam Winchester of England, in terms of his apparently bumbling nature and everyone’s eagerness to underestimate his tenacity - and just a hundred ways in which he Took A Level In Badass throughout the series - he gets my vote. He grew on me and I didn’t mind at all. Amy, on the other hand, was quietly not annoying. This got many millions of thumbs-up from me, because at times she’s really got on my tits. At least in this ep, the focus was firmly on the Doctor and was happy to stay that way. After all, he’s the reason I watch - he’s the alien, the interesting one, and it’s always going to be that way. Idris was at times a little over-played, but mostly convincing and certainly a welcome addition to the episode (and by an Oldham lass, none the less!). At just the right times, she was heart-wrenchingly aloof to the tiny things, practical and far-reaching, transcendental and omnipotent. But when it came to the small things - the words - she found it the hardest thing in the universe. Welcome to the human race, love.

Dialogue was spiffy and excellent - Eleven even came out with a direct quote from Ten: ‘Basically - run!’ His explanation of his Calm Malfunction: ‘I’m a mad man with a box - without a box!’ was just brilliant, and then at the end, Neil Gaiman rounds it all off with the throwaway line about going to the Eye of Orion for some peace and quiet - nice.

We do get a tiny hint, a niggling quote about the future: :the only water in the forest is the river.’ This seemed to go by the way in later eps, as it was never referred to again - but then, it wasn’t needed.

And so, all in all, I have to say this was one of my favourite episodes of the series. It demonstrated what the Beeb can do with it lets people writes its scripts for entertainment value - before being vetted by the Tormenting, Capricious God Who Is Stephen Moffat. It also goes to show that, when Matt Smith is given proper drah-ma, Doctor Who style, he can handle it easily and it brings out the best in him - and his audience. He deserves much more than some of the scripts they’ve given him, and I for one do not want Matt Smith to go. He’s not yet had his finest hour, but 5x11, 6x04, and Christmas 2010 are very, very close. No matter what happens in the next few hours, when 6x12 airs, I’ll still be wishing he could stay for another few years. Rumour has it that series seven has been pushed back to the tail-end of 2012. I’m not happy about that - but I am happy that we’ll actually get a series seven, and of the rumours surrounding that magical year 2013. Yes, the 50th anniversary of that national institution that is Doctor Who itself. Think of the possibilities...



Peach and lube, people. Peach and frelling lube.

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Thursday 22 September 2011

Space Oddity



Had the weirdest dream last night. Not just whoa-what-the-fuck-was-that but completely I-have-to-stop-eating-cheese-or-I-really-will-die-of-the-dream-side-effects.

It concerned myself and a party - a big party. Only when I arrive, my friends and my wee sister are there too. I’m on the doorstep, and then it opens without me ringing the bell (except I know I do). I go in the hallway and one of my mates waves me through to the front room. When I get there, everyone I like is there. Everyone is cool, everyone is happy, and everyone is pleased to see everyone else.


Anyway, I go in and reach the table at the far side - which, by the way, is laden with every kind of alcohol in the universe. Quite literally - there’s a huge punch bowl and it has reinforced legs, as if the contents are unbelievably heavy. There’s a ladle hanging by it with a sign that says ‘do not leave in the drink’, and then underneath that in big letters it says ‘PAN-GALACTIC GARGLE BLASTER. LIMIT ONE PER GUEST. WE’RE NOT INTO MURDER.’


I ignore this and go to the flavoured vodka instead, and they’ve got a Sodastream doing mango-ade (don’t ask). I add this to the mango vodka and I’m happy as Larry - who is standing across the other side of the room, talking to poor Will who keeps getting shot at. Anyway, next thing I know, someone’s trying to get past me to get to the mango vodka - the only bottle no-one else is touching. Whoever it is says ‘sorry, can I just get to the - bloody hell! I didn’t know you’d be here!

I’m thinking ‘I know that voice from somewhere’, and then I turn around and there he is: Ianto Jones. Charcoal-black suit, nice waistcoat, dark blue shirt and matching tie. He looks genuinely pleased to see me. I ask if we’ve met and he says something like ‘actually, no, but I know you because--’. From there it gets fuzzy. I know we talk for ages and we laugh and ignore everyone watching us. It’s weird - almost like Jadzia Dax and Dr Lenara Kahn, pretending they don’t know everyone’s staring at them. Finally we go out into the garden because it’s late and some people are drifting home. We don’t care; we’re still chatting away and then he says something like ‘I hope you’re not thinking of going home’. I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about, so he explains that it’s his house and he doesn’t want me to go home so early.


One thing leads to another, and the next thing I know, we’re playing on the PS3. I think it’s Tekken - whatever version there is of that going around. Everyone else has gone home. Eventually the sun comes up and I realise we’ve been playing all night. Then he makes up a bed for me in the spare room and I go to sleep, really not caring about anything.


When I wake up it’s midday and he’s in the kitchen downstairs, making coffee (of course). I go down and we have a friendly argument about tea. I win, he agrees to get a Tassimo machine with English and Scottish Breakfast if it’ll make me come round more often, and then the rest of the dream descends into porn.


Like I said: weird.

I don’t even fancy Ianto. He’s like Sam Tyler. He’s... brother-ish. Kinda. Friend-ish. But there we go. Answers on a postcard, please.


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Sunday 18 September 2011

Torchwood 4



Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be Torchwood 4x10 SPOILERS!



Where do I start? Hmm... First things first.

Hands up all those who were really really nervous about Starz Network paying for this series of Torchwood? I must admit, I was a bit sceptical. And then I saw the opening episode.

True, it was more of an introduction to the concept of Torchwood than an actual full-on episode, and it wasn’t anywhere near the standard of usual Torchwoodery... but I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and go with it. Subsequent episodes got better and better - and then I got my miracle:


All the way through series one, two and especially three, I tolerated Gwen Cooper. She wasn’t always annoying; she had a few moments where I almost got to like her. And then the writers would make her do something that made me wish she’d died instead of Suzie - or Owen, or Tosh, or just about anyone. Her compassion came over wrong - I began to dislike her.

And then we had series four.

During the first couple of episodes I thought, hang on, she’s not so annoying right now. She hasn’t been the whole time. And just about the third episode I thought, blimey, she’s actually a character I actively like. And I mean LIKE. Not as much as Jack, but hey, that’s impossible. I actually didn’t want her to die in a fire, or get mowed down by a dalek, or eaten by a rabid bugblatter beast from Traal. And from there she just got better and better. Truly miraculous.

Now I have a few theories about this. The first goes, rather predictably, that now that RTD is no longer writing the episodes, the character has to act like every other in terms of pulling their weight within the dynamic of the team - they no longer have a free pass to hang about being The Speyshall One. Now they have to actually do something that makes a fandom / casual watcher / audience member want them to be there (or, in case of recurring villains, make everyone love to hate them). The second theory, and probably a much more plausible one, is that the character of Gwen was now being written by a woman. A woman who’s written for shitloads of other women in TV. Now I’m not exactly sure what difference that makes, but whatever it was, it was a big one. What do I take from this? That RTD doesn’t write women very well? Or it needed a female American scriptwriter to give Gwen a proper character? Who knows.

Funny I should put it like that. I did like the many little nods to the Doctor throughout the series. From Jack going a bit misty-eyed about telling Angelo about the Doctor and his companions to mentioning Silurians, there were a few tiny touches I liked - even the ubiquitous ‘What? What? What?’ got in there. Coincidence? Or a fun way to remind everyone that this was a finale that had another series coming? (Note - we can hope there’s another series coming. I haven’t looked but no news has been brought to my attention on that point. I really need to spend a day on Tinternet. You see how going abroad screws up your routine?)

An honourable mention must go to Kai Owen - he went with the lines, he did them well, and he will always be a favourite of mine. I’m so glad he wasn’t side-lined completely. We saw enough of him to make me happy.


Jack. We love Jack, that goes without saying. But put him in a room with a sci-fi legend like Bill Pullman and you have a very interesting chill to the room. Bill Pullman does excellent work, and this time he really made my flesh crawl. Bloody excellent. Even his end was enough to make me want to stab him in the eye. The new cast and crew were tolerable at first, and better as it went on. We lost people, yes, but it was part of the story, not just to shock - although they did that too. And talking of shocking - it was about time Jack got his end away. He did mention fallen comrades and previous relationships (was I the only one who liked that he talked about Ianto - twice?), and he did the Jack thing and helped himself wherever he wanted. And that’s why we like him.

And talking of guest stars - whoa! Nana Visitor and John de Lancie? Are you shitting me? I nearly died of happiness fangirl overload when Major Kira and Q appeared. Both characters shamefully underused but brilliantly cast. I’ll never agree with what happened to them both, but that’s just a fangirl throwing her toys out of the pram because what happened to her favourites was not what she wanted personally. They’re both still fab - who else could be the balls-out granddaughter, or running the bloody CIA? Suffice to say, I’m sighing rather happily right now.

In a nutshell - I liked it. It took time to get going, that’s for damn sure, but it got there in the end. It’s even eclipsed the current series of Doctor bloody Who in my priority stakes - but that’s a discussion for another day. Overall, it did the job. It was business as usual at the Torchwood Institute, and whether moaning anti-Americans liked it or not, it did exactly what Hot Rod Cow’s been doing for the past three series. The only gripe I had was that there were no aliens. Perhaps now that this series has paved the way for more coverage in the US, and hopefully, more of a budget and a need for a series five, we might get them. After all, no matter what Gwen says, it’s the alienness of the show that drew me, and that’s what I was waiting for. No, I didn’t get it - throwaway lines about alien technology and futures, other stars, other adventures with the Doctor only go so far. Now the US has had this primer, it’s time to bring in the aliens.

That’s it, I’m done. Time to catch up on Doctor bloody Who with tea and hope that we’re not about to be swamped in more Amy-appreciation.

Peach and lube, people. Especially you, John Barrowman.


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Thursday 15 September 2011

Unexpected flight



Apart from the nasty business of having to attend a funeral, the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip to Blighty wasn’t all bad. Leeching wi-fi at sisters’ houses, watching Sky telly and finding it’s not all shite, beautiful blue skies and warm sun (sun! Real sun!), and a relaxed atmosphere. Bloody marvellous. In fact, this was one time I actually didn’t want to go home just yet.

Unexpected breaks and flights are always… odd. You buy a flight and before you know it, you’re on a different continent. It doesn’t really sink in until you get picked up from the airport and the cars and trees are whizzing by. That’s when you realise what you’ve done; because you’ve done so many long-haul flights you get used to not paying attention to the whole rigmarole of going abroad so that you don’t get annoyed at how long it takes to actually get anywhere. Good for your Asia Miles balance, not so good for your (already) tenuous grasp on time zones. Still, the flight out of Hong Kong (with Cathay) was easy and everything went smoothly. I even had an empty seat right next to me, so I could use my laptop without elbowing anyone else back in chicken-freight class. Tell you what - I can’t wait to rack up more miles so I can one day -- *cue light shining down through clouds and orchestral hallelujah music* -- fly something above Economy. Now that would be nice.

So it’s a flight to London Sunday, land same day, funerals and relatives and problems and fun and what-not, then a flight Thursday to arrive home Friday to go to work Saturday. Like I said: blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. At least this time I managed to keep my phone on ‘aeroplane’ mode and use wi-fi the whole time, so I shouldn’t incur squillions of HK dollars of roaming charges this time. I’ve learnt my lesson, thank you. Also managed to get to the airport for my return flight about an hour too early - again - so I have time to type all this shite before I board.

It’s been so nice to walk around and be outside without it being humid. I even woke up every morning without either (1) sweating my arse off, or (2) dry as Boris Karloff’s Mummy because of the air-con. A very nice change indeed. Very pleased about that. I did have two different cats sleeping on me, but that's just par for the course these days.


That’s about it. Tired now - and need to find food. It’s going to be interesting. See you on the other side.

Soopytwist.

Saturday 3 September 2011

Cowboys and Aliens

Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS!


Before you even start with me, stop. Yes, I was warned this movie was ‘crap’, ‘silly’ and ‘a waste of money’. But seeing as I like cowboys, and I like aliens, and I dislike people telling me what I do and don’t like, I went to see it anyway.

And so, dear reader, here is my official write-up. In the grand tradition I started aeons ago but have sadly neglected for the past few millennia, I will attempt to sum up the entire movie in three words.




Cowboys:

Daniel Craig in leather chaps, with revolvers? Bargain. Daniel Craig doing American and getting away with it? Done. Harrison Ford being the wild west’s crustiest old fucker - with a hat, no less? BONUS. I could not find a single thing wrong with any of the cowboys - even Young Boy wasn’t annoying. Sam Rockwell was understated and dependable as always, and everyone played their roles with credible confidence. Clancy Brown, still looking the same, got some rather hammy lines in the beginning, but that just set the tone for the fun and frolics that was about to ensue. And I have to say, I bloody loved it. It was quirky, off-beat at times and seriously fucked-up genre-bending at others. Which means it was less than totally predictable and good, in my book. It wasn’t something you take seriously. In fact, it was just another disposable blockbuster. But that didn’t make it any less enjoyable.

The side-plot of purr wee The-Son-I-Never-Had was actually pretty good, too, even if it seemed as though it were laid on thick at times - but then, what else do you want from a Western? Mr Lonergan’s back story was revealed in tasty chunks, giving you enough clues to work out there was a shit cloud coming, and that was all fine too. I actually liked the twist of why the aliens were there - it made a change from the usual taking-over-the-world bollocks.

Daniel Craig does very well as the laconic or taciturn type, and I think the role suited him just fine. (A few Gratuitous Butt Shots were a bonus - as was Mr Craig splashing himself clean at a few points. Girls, you know which points I mean.) I like my heroes to be one-word, mardy gehts, and he does it excellently. Harrison Ford had Crotchety Bugger in spades, and it was a downright joy to see him on the screen in a role he could have fun with.

In fact, the only gripe I have concerning the cowboys of the piece was how they all just went with the idea of FLYING MACHINES without going ‘I’ll never get used to seeing something fly over my head that’s not a bird’ or somesuch. But hey-ho, let’s go alien hunting.


Aliens:

Poke fun at tales of people being abducted and experimented on: check. Proper ee-vil aliens, like full-on ‘fru-its of the dev-il’: check. A bad guy who comes back to get revenge on the hero (or ‘anti-hero’, maybe?): check. A good reason to be there: check. A spaceship designed for the task rather than looking like someone drew it thinking it’d look pretty, but had no idea what it was supposed to be used for? CHECK.

They were different enough without being silly - I liked the touch (pun intended) with the extra hands. I liked that there was no effort to make up a language or show the internal social structure of the race - you saw what you needed to see. No need to fill it with exposition shite just to pretend you’re all looking for Oscars. Everyone knows you’re not; why waste film?

Even the twist of the alien coming back to life was not outrageous to me - it worked because of the reaction it got from the cast. If that character had been the same as everyone else, I might have been disappointed in the story. The ending certainly separated this film from a million other blockbusters. A little Alien-3-esque, perhaps, but worth it.

It was more Hollywood in other places: the Orphan Child survived, the Dog Came Back, some people Took A Level In Badass, the whole thing was Rated M for Manly… but none of these is by far a bad thing. All in all, I bloody enjoyed it. It was a nice surprise from what I’d been told to expect.


“_________”:

I liked the brevity. (Daniel Craig does Dead-Pan Snarker WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO SPEAK, PEOPLE.) I liked the minimalist dialogue and opportunity to fill in the gaps by myself. Unfortunately, the woman sat two seats down from me in the cinema needed her man (next to me) to give her a running commentary, as apparently she had eyes and ears but could not make them work together to interpret what happened on the screen into a series of events. She seemed upset the film was ‘difficult to understand’. She had subtitles for MEANING, not slang - that’s all I’m saying.

As for me, it was a visual treat, because no, I don’t need constant plot points spelt out. No, I don’t need the lead character(s) to give huge chunks of exposition and then fill in any grey areas for me. No, I don’t need the actors to tell me exactly how they’re feeling - since I was born I’ve been able to work that out myself, using things such as body language and experience with people’s expressions and noises. So go screw yourself, people who wanted to be told what was happening every step of the way - learn to watch a film. It’s not rocket science.

Just for the record, this film’s script was penned (‘typed’?) by no less than Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, two of my own personal favourites, seeing as they’ve doled out stuff like Xena, new Hawaii Five-O and The Fringe and such complete fucking victories as Star Trek (2009).

In summary, then: great. I’m not saying everyone will enjoy watching it - I know for a fact that most people seemed to have jumped on the bandwagon and bitched and moaned about it afterwards (see my opening point of finding two things I liked IN THE TITLE OF THE BLOODY FILM and deciding I wanted to see it - and then finding that is did EXACTLY WHAT IT SAID ON THE TIN). However, I am saying that I fucking loved it and yes, I will be buying the Blu-ray disc when it comes out. It’s not for everyone, but then, I couldn’t care. It suited me and my two mates whom I went with, and that’s what counts in the entertainment world.

That’s me done. I really should get back to blogging more frequently; this is fun.

Peach and lube, people. Peach and frelling lube.

(Especially you, Daniel Craig.)

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