Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

I was worried about Richard Curtis writing a Doctor Who for two reasons – first that it could be too Richard Curtis; second that it could be Richard Curtis free. I’m glad to say that Vincent and the Doctor was Doctor Who and it was a Richard Curtis Doctor Who.

First let’s get some of the small stuff out of the way.  There were nice jokes about the sunflowers and only using the screwdriver to screw in screws.  I’m not sure if The Doctor actually talked too much in this episode or if that was just the impression I was left with from reading Curtis’ interview on the BBC.  There were times I felt a slightly quieter Doctor might have had a bit more impact.  Music can be a powerful tool for stirring emotions but it is a dangerous tool that can distract from the impact of a scene too.  I’m also not sure if the music was needed over the scene in the gallery at the end or it real bravery would have been to let the emotion of the scene play by itself.

This year’s Bad Wolf, The Glowing Crack, didn’t appear but Amy’s relationship with Van Gogh kept the Crack’s implication centre stage. The early joke of the children in the gallery with the Portrait of Dr. Gachet reminded us of the mystery of why no-one remembers the Daleks, Cybermen or other events.

Tony Curran is one of those actors who I look forward to seeing.  He turns up in so many interesting roles.  The camera angles, costumes and Curran’s passing likeness for Van Gogh’s self portraits help sell his performance.  Why is it that the Scottish accent can pass for other accents?  There was a time only Connery could pull that off but it appears Curran can now carry it off too. The Scottish Van Gogh only pulled me out of the story once.

Bill Nighy’s cameo at the start and the end was wonderful.  His inclusion is an obvious tie to Curtis’ previous work.  He had a difficult job to do – he had to pull off not one but two info dumps.  The first had to set up Van Gogh for anyone unfamiliar with the artist.  It was always going to be a bit awkward like any info dump.  The second was essential to completing the emotional journey of the story.  He nailed the moment at the end with just a move of the head when he’s not sure if he’s just met the real Van Gogh.  Nailing that moment and the moments before it nailed the story.

It took the darkness that can be found in Doctor Who in a new and powerful direction.  Amy’s Choice reflected on the darkness inside The Doctor by externalising it and personifying it as the Dream Lord. Vincent and the Doctor tackled complex and difficult questions of depression, creativity and suicide in a way that felt both sympathetic and honest.  It’s easy to remember Curtis for his RomComs but Blackadder Goes Forth deals with one of the most difficult settings a SitCom has ever tackled and in its final scene conveyed a powerful truth about the futility of war.  Tonight he managed that again.

The easy end would have been for history to change.  For the slaying of the external monster invisible to all but Van Gogh to be the slaying of mental illness.  I’m glad Doctor Who is still a drama capable of avoiding the easy path.  The result is Vincent and the Doctor, one of the best Doctor Who episodes since the relaunch.

I’ve been lazy and didn’t do a post for last week’s Doctor Who, Flesh and Stone.  So this week I’m doing a read one (post) get two Doctor Who reviews.  I’ll come to The Vampires of Venice soon but first Flesh and Stone and then at the end the Crack and River Song.

Second parts haven’t been the new Who’s strongest stories.   Fortunately Flesh and Stone worked from start to finish.  The escape by jumping onto the crashed space ships gravity.  Having the Doctor use a gun as a tool to engineer the escape was a nice touch.

Amy’s spooky countdown was a nice play on the old countdown timer gimmick.  The solution to the Angel inside her was clever and created another problem.  That in turn set up the problem of her escaping from the angels and the crack with her eyes closed and walking like she can see.

The end of the episode caused complaints but nowhere near the same scale as the last episode.  Interesting that the it’s a kids show and must be pure and nice with nothing adult mob didn’t even come close to the you spoilt our episode mob for numbers of complaints.

The Doctor had some nice snappy dialogue.  He also got some nice monologues.  Really liked the lines about the plan not being ready because he’d not finished talking yet and about having to trust him because he doesn’t always tell the truth.  Personally I’d have left the nanight off his climatic comment about them having forgotten the gravity of the situation.

The Vampires of Venice:  This week we got fishy, venetian vampires.  I was hoping for the return of the haemovores from the Curse of Fenrick but it wasn’t to be.  Lots of fun plenty of running around, an explosion, a sword fight and action but also a good building tension through the story.

The location worked wonderfully.  The set dressing was beautiful and costumes.  And there were the vampire girls.  They made up for the lack of haemovores.  Will the buxom, vampire girls get complaints to the BBC?

Overall, although I enjoyed it, I’d say The Vampires of Venice frothy a bit light.

Both episodes gave us more about the cracks.  Flesh and Stone revealed the danger of the cracks as they destroy people so they never existed.  Is the crack following Amy?  The crack unwrites time.  The crack can be fed to slow it down.  The Vampires of Venice was more of a teaser than a revelation with the bits about silence.

Who is River Song?  Who did she kill?  I’m not convinced by the idea that she’s the Masters wife or that she killed the Doctor.  The hints have been too broad and too obvious.  If either of those were true I doubt Moffat would have given such big clues away already.  Unless its more complicated and there is another layer to unpeeled below the hint.  A twist or two yet to be revealed.  Will she be back this season or are all the hints setting up for the long term?

Wow that went fast!  One of the best signs of a really good drama is that it feels like it was shorter than it was.  Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy always felt twenty minutes long.  Tonight’s Doctor Who clocked in at 40 minutes but felt like 30.

First there was River’s demonstration of how to make an exit and an entrance both at once.  Nice way to send a message etching it into the black box in a lost language with an anachronistic message too.  River Song flying the TARDIS lovely touch knowing about the stabilisers and parking without leaving the breaks on.

Amy Pond definitely my favourite companion since the revival of the show.  She just has a range: she does the curious companion, the scared companion and the ballsy companion.

This week was not full of the references in the last few episodes were.  The writing was excellent: some really sharp and fun dialogue.  Spotters guide to the Doctor love it – I’m guessing Paul McGann’s Doctor is worth the most points due to rarity if not quality or popularity.

Iain Glen’s Bishop was nicely played.  The comment about having to write letters after the Doctor flies away in a little blue box was quite telling.  It would have been more telling if it came from UNIT’s Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

The Weeping Angels newly revealed capabilities were neat but in keeping.  If Blink is Alien then The Time of Angels is Aliens.  I’m not sure if they’re as scary as they were first time around.

Nice trick having the characters’ walk deeper and deeper into the trap before they realised what it was.  It set up the Doctor’s nice little monologue at the end.

On a side note one thing spoilt the otherwise excellent episode:  BBC please don’t put notice about the next program over the climax of a drama. Don’t put it over the face of an actor.  Don’t put it over an important piece of dialogue. It’s an insult to the audience and to the artists and professionals who created the work.  If you have to put it over the titles but I wish you’d stop doing that and let us enjoy what we’re watching.  Or to put it another way – if that’s the BBC’s new look please have it look away while in a room full of Weeping Angels.

So we got jammy dodgers, Where Eagle Dare, Asimov, Troughton and Daleks references for fun.

Nice Dalek model on the plotting table to set them up and I thought the olive drab Daleks looked really good with the little Union Jack.  The new look Daleks don’t look quite so good.  I wonder if the main idea was to make them taller and more threatening. Maybe it means they can fit taller people inside to operate them.  Nice to see the variety of colour as my first memory of Dalek’s has them in a variety of colours from the films.  The best thing about them is the eye in the eye stalk.

Lots of fun Dalek dialogue.  Really fun to see them carrying files and making a cup of tea.

Letting the Dalek’s get away was an excellent choice. We don’t have to yet another Sherlock Holmes coming back after the falls to get them back.  Leaving Bracewell in the wild nice too.   I really didn’t see the Bracewell is a machine coming – nice twist.

The War Rooms nicely put together.  Not authentic but authentic to the story.  Beautiful set design and dressing.

Churchill played nicely.  Plenty of biting one liners from him.  Nice twist by playing with the usual Doctor meeting a historical figure plot. Having them already knowing each other leaving the question of where they met.  An opening for a prequel or sequel perhaps?

This didn’t bother me during the episode but afterwards I’m trying to work out: no one blinked an eye at the length of Amy’s skirt.  It’s a miracle men around the War Room didn’t keep walking into things.

I’m starting to feel like a stuck record: for the third episode we got all the pulp goodness but with the inclusion of logic.  The Spitfires in space could have been played as someone just comes up with the idea and then they appear.  That would have been easy.  All the references needed were dropped in as throw away lines earlier on, then later starts the ball rolling and then they appear.  It makes the whole story hang together so much better.

Next week to look forward to: River Song and the return of the monsters from Blink.  Interesting to see if Steven Moffat’s excellent touch runs to a two parter.  Fingers crossed they can keep up the excellent quality of the series so far.

So the second outing for the 11^th Doctor tonight in The Beast Below.

Interesting take on future Britain as a starship.  The sets were nicely dressed and with some interesting colour.  There was a lovely mix of retro, post war, grimy Britain littered with British icons with incongruous details like the rickshaws.  Small quibble if Scotland has its own ship and presumably doing its own thing why does the Union Jack still incorporate Saint Andrew’s Cross?

The scary end of the pier head-in-a-box bad guys were excellent.  I’d like to have seen more of them but the single episode story format doesn’t really let the new bad guys get built up the way the old ones used to.  Being physical objects rather than a CGI effect helps.  The winders becoming smilers using a physical effect in combination with CG was a good choice.

There were lots of nice gags and references littered in the show.  The moment the Woman in cloak (later revealed to be the queen) said “Save us Doctor you’re our only hope”.  The noise in the rubbish dump.  Touches of The Prisoner, Star Wars, Fairy Stories and Douglas Adams.

Liz 10 worked well and was nicely played.  The ruler who is trapped in a perpetual cycle of discovery and denial.  There seems to be a deliberate move to putting children in jeopardy to build tension and both the main child  actors in this episode gave excellent performances.

Amy gets an opportunity to show the kind of companion she is.  The Doctor goes for the dark solution and Amy brings the heart and finds the better solution to the same problem.  The story telling could have just had her hit the button but it showed us the logic very quickly and solve the problem.

Once the excellent story was over they brought out the DALEKs for next week.  Since the revival of Doctor Who that’s become something I dread.  For the first time in several DALEK stories I’m not worried that it will be a disappointment.

So one episode and he fixed it.  Fixed the big problem I had with the RTD Doctor Who.  RTD can do fun.  RTD can do pulp.  RTD can do adventure.  RTD’s plots sometimes relied on an unforshadowed solution at the end. Steven Moffat shows you don’t have to throw logic out the window to do it.  The Elevent Hour’s plot held together right up to the end. It did all the other things too.

And did it without the TARDIS or, by the end, a sonic screwdriver.

I enjoyed the twist on the new assistant, playing with the fandom with the Police Woman outfit and all the “she’s too young to be a copper” comments I’ve seen. The guest appearances were fun without getting in the way of a new Doctor and a new assistant. The new look TARDIS interior was also pretty cool.

Of course Doctor Who lives and dies by the actor playing the Doctor. Matt Smith has the role down nicely. He had me 54 minutes in with “Hello; I’m the Doctor.” I have admit my favourite Doctors are Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy. I may not be the best person to ask.

One thing I wasn’t sure about is the new theme and title but they’ll probably grow on me.

Then there was the extended preview for the series. Tasty.

I finished watching Season 2 of A Town Called Eureka tonight. I like TV shows about quirky communities. A Town Called Eureka is an excellent addition to the likes of Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, the first season of The League of Gentlemen and Trumpton. Each uses an outsider as a way into the strange place: Special Agent Dale Cooper, Joel Fleischman, Benjamin Denton and Brian Cant. Eureka has Jack Carter a U.S. Marshal who arrives in the town by accident. Twin peaks has its murder, Northern Exposure has oddness, The League of Gentlemen has its dark goings on and Trumpton has its musical box. It’s not a huge spoiler to reveal that Eureka has the largest collection of geniuses anywhere on the planet with budgets for all sorts of things to go horribly wrong.

By season two he is settled into town and the main characters have been established. The actors or possibly it’s the writers who are more comfortable with the characters. The inclusion of Joe Morton (Terminator 2) and Matt Frewer (Max Headroom) gives the show a certain ambiance without resorting to some of the more often used guest actors who might be brought in to add geek appeal. The large number of recurring characters gives the town the feel of a real place with real lives at risk when things threaten to go horribly wrong.

Season 2 has more of a story line connecting the episodes. It sticks to a style of story telling I like as there is no recourse to endings that come out of nowhere supported by a bit of technobable. Stories tend to misdirect both the characters and the audience before revealing how pieces already revealed fit together. Personally I find that a lot more satisfying than, say, some Doctor Who episodes. Not that Eureka is above technobable or extrapolated science but its a comedy not a documentary.

I’m not going to risk spoilling a series which relies on the viewer being a visitor to a strange place by going into anymore detail.   Highly recommended for anyone who like comedy science fiction but if you’ve not seen Season 1 watch that first.

Before I get to any more lucid thoughts – was it just me or did the two water zombies marching around look a lot like Ray Liotta and Mark Kermode?

So the long awaited second Doctor Who special The Waters of Mars was on tonight.   It was good fun.  From the trailer I’d expected a lot more of the creaping horror in space and not so much of the Doctor running through corridors.  Which brings me to a little gripe: if lifting a bicycle from Earth would have used so much fuel how much did lifting those long corridors use?  It’s the daft things like that that pull me out of the show.

Good points the acting was good, the effects didn’t let it down.  Excellent points: the early parts with the scary, martian, water zombies.  Best bit: the Doctor walking away – Tennant’s wordless performance reminded me of Bob Hoskins at the end of The Long Good Friday.  Part of me wishes he’d just kept walking because that would have been more powerful and dramatic.

Anyway I’m looking forward to the next special. Especially given who it looks like is coming to Christmas dinner…

Update: Dark Dwarf and Kim Knox have now posted their thoughts too.

So Hustle is back – much improved for the return of Adrian Lester and hopefully not troubled by the departure of Marc Warren and Jaime Murray. While I enjoy Hustle’s supperficial self importance, its modern Robin Hood approach to its victims and the bravado with which it breaks the fourth wall I hope tonights example of telegraphing the plot won’t be repeated.

Well I started on NaNoBloWhateverIGotLostSomeWhereInTheMiddleOfTheAcroCumuloNymbusMo by accident. Some days I can’t find anything to write and others I’ve more than I need. Anyway the Princess Trust show from the other night has started turning up on YouTube and here are three of the bits I liked most.

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