Steven Moffat had real fun playing with the timelines this week.  Each of the characters in the story has a timeline that we dip in and out of.  The Big Bang shows the power of the point of view in a story.  We have the camera’s time line which starts out following Amelia Pond.  The Doctor keeps steering her to be in the right place at the right time for the Pandorica’s opening.   When did he put the postit on the Pandorica and when did he write it?

Then it swaps to Rory in 102AD (1894 years ago) anchoring us to the love story and to the Previously.  Then we get the first view of the farce.  One of the Noises Off sections where the Doctor gives Rory his instructions so he can escape from the Pandorica.  I’m not entirely sure there isn’t a paradox there.  Given the Doctor is trapped in the Pandorica with the sonic screw driver how did he escape the first time?  That’s really going to play with the heads of anyone who takes Who too seriously.  However he did it it was soon enough that he could still get River Song’s time travel doodad.

Then we get the Doctor’s alternative way of looking at life.  He can put Amy in the Pandorica for 1894 years to get healed.   Rory guarding Amy for 2000 years sets up his love and allows his dramatic entry to save the day.

Once the Doctor hops forward using the doodad we begin to follow him almost immediately.  We get a brief moment of Amy to set up her knowing of Rory’s 2000 year vigil that sets up their reunion and his coming to the rescue.  That lets us tie up the earlier action with Rory and Amelia.  We follow him up to the point where he is shot by the Dalek then it switches to Amy except for an excursion to River Song in the exploding TARDIS.

River Song’s time line trapped in a loop but unlike Groundhog Day or the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Cause and Effect this is an unvarying time loop of just a few seconds that she has been trapped in for an eternity.  2 billion to 10 billion times.  No wonder she says “And what sort of time do you call this?”

Amy then has to sell the sadness of the Doctor’s sacrifice.  That no one will remember him.

Then its back to the Doctor as he rewinds back through his timeline.  The moment he checks himself echos a post regeneration.  He knows he’s escaped but isn’t 100% sure he hasn’t been regenerated.  He discovers Amy can hear him and before sacrificing himself to close the crack he plants a thought in her head and reinforces it before he does.  The line in Flesh and Stone which didn’t make perfect sense at the time is explained now we see it wasn’t the Doctor from that episode but the Doctor from this episode who spoke it.  Then he sacrifices himself into the crack.

So finally to Amy again on her wedding day.   Slightly confused.  Trying to work it out.  Glad they avoided the wedding and skipped to the reception.  TV weddings have a way of feeling artificial.  The River Song, the blank diary, the bow tie and the man wearing braces.  The embarrassed guests at the reception.   All of that to set up the TARDIS makes its big entry.  Love the way the TARDIS makes its big entry.  Karen Gillan really sells her delivery of a cliché that takes on a whole new meaning.  The dramatic incidental music becomes more and more powerful each time its used.  Its almost more powerful than the main theme now.  In combination the two of them can be played as a double emotional whammy as they use it at the end.

All of this took a lot of plotting, writing and planning to make it make sense.  The camera is clever and it helps us follow the story and play some tricks on us but we’ll forgive it for that.

There are just some really fun things in the episode…

A Dalek in a Museum

Someone had fun dressing the set putting the time anomalies together leading up to the Pandorica.  Plus a certain someone as the leader of a star cult.

The Pandorica looks so cool.  It opens and closes in such a fun way.  Need Pandorica dice.  And again – one broken down DALEK scarier and cooler than an army of DALEKs.

“I dated a Nestine duplicate once swappable head, did keep things fresh.” River gets such good lines.  Then the moment, just a glance, between Amy and River when they destroy the Fez.

The writing has a wonderful knowingness without being smug.  A universe reboot not just a figurative or cynical, marketing ploy.  A character plotting one.  A literal one.  To save the universe.  It adds onto River’s work to avoid spoilers.

The Doctor dancing like a drunk giraffe.  Fun and reminding us he doesn’t entirely fit in.

The solution to the destruction of time and space has a mad logic that has been set up over thirteen episodes.  It’s crazy but it was set up.

The fez: that is going to really upset the hate the bow tie crowd.  It’s a really clever technique to let us keep track of the timeline.  If there is a Fez craze for kids next Christmas I’ll have a good laugh.

Having the Doctor have to work it out as he is going on.  Setting out each leap, no matter how fantastic, as logical.

Once its all over and we’ve had a moment to enjoy their success we have the set up for the Christmas special.  Alongside that we’ve the next series mystery – why did the TARDIS go then?

Who is River Song.  River casual high noon moment with the DALEK.  Is there a hint there when she tells the Dalek to recheck his records about her being one of the Doctor’s companions?  The Dalek’s fear moments later after, presumably, rechecking and discovering something.  Is it just that she will kill or that it finds something more?  Anyone that can scare a Dalek is emphatically someone to take seriously.  Yet on the flip side she nudges Amy to free the Doctor and her unguarded “I’m sorry my love.”  Whoever she is I don’t think she’ll do a sixth season Buffy Bad Willow on us.

And of course what is The Silence?  Is that a reference to Silence in the Library?  Is that just a red herring.

All in all both an excellent finish to the two part story and an excellent end to the series.  Do you agree?

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.

But maybe there was a twist of something in the Romulan Ale.

I was pretty happy with J.J. Abrams take on Mission Impossible so I had high hopes for the new Star Trek film. I think I can safely say it didn’t disappoint. The cast played the characters rather than doing impressions of the original actors playing the characters. The effects were impressive. There were lots of nice touches for the fans without making it impenetrable for anyone who hasn’t watched all the gazillian hours of TV series and films plus read the various technical manuals. The plot made sense, which is always a plus point, even though it involved time travel.

It’s late so I’m going to leave it at that. Excellent film.

Update: Dark Dwarf has posted his impressions of Star Trek.

Now if someone could persuade Ioan Gruffudd back to play Hornblower again I’d be really happy.

Jonj1611 asked on Renderosity how to create a searchlight like effect in Vue – if this is what he’s looking for I’ll post an explanation here soon.

Edit: Its now up as: Making a Searchlight in Vue

Its funny, its got quality slap stick and its definitly Get Smart.

You want more detail? OK. Far too many TV remakes have become cynical, star vehicle exercises. Shows which wern’t comedies reduced to a series of punch lines, some "funny" period references (drugs, flared trousers, sexism, bad haircuts or whatever) and a manufactured gag reel for the end credit because Jackie Chan had great end title gag / accident reels.

Get Smart isn’t one of those remakes. Yes its a star vehicle for Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson and the rest of the cast but their all playing their part not just playing for cheap laughs. Thats not to say there is a shortage of laughs. There are plenty of them. Not say Airplanes constant in your face assault but a high enough count for a comedy film. Theres enough slapstick without it becoming heavy handed. Then again it ought to be hard to mess up a comedy origally created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry – just distil out the best gags from the original and use them in a well constructed story.

My final verdict – funniest film I’ve seen in 2008 so far.

Went to see Walk the Plank’s The Emperor and the Tiger in Newsham park in Liverpool tonight. It seemed to have drawn a reasonable crowd. I’d thought it might not because I’d only seen the poster at the start of the week but coverage on the front page of the local papers and the regional TV seems to have worked.

I was interested to see how the show was put together. I tend to find that in the last ten years firework displays try to cram more and more wows in to less and less time. While I like a big finale I also like a chance to enjoy some of the individual fireworks so the idea of adding dance, lighting and story telling to fireworks appeals to me.

The first problem with the show was that the very long stage wasn’t high enough. I’m quite tall so I could see some of what was going on but anyone shorter than me was struggling. The length of the stage also created problems because there were times when everything was happening at the far end of the stage and so it was hard to see what was going on. This ment that the opening was underwhelming and so the crowd thinned a bit making seeing what was happening later easier.

Then the story proper began. The two biggest sculptural elements of the show, the Tiger and the Emperor from the title were dramatic and large enough to be easily seen. The story itself could do with a little expansion as an editor for a ladybird early learning version would have sent it back as too short but the basic idea wasn’t bad.

As the production went on the quality of the effects improved. The floodlighting of the trees behind the stage to create different looks with simple colour changes created effective backdrops. Using skytracker/searchlight effects combined with the smoke from fireworks worked well and the later firework effects were effective (including the big finale).

So it turned out to be not a bad show after all. With a bit of work to liven up the opening, a bit of expansion on the story and more thought about sightlines for the audience I’d say it could become an excellent production.

So I went to see Wanted tonight. More on that later…

I also bought a crab to have for my dinner tonight. Stick with me through this, hopefully I’ll make some sense at the end. I bought a crab because I remember having crab in the hotel we used to go to on holiday when I was little. I had one of the crab shells for years. I had a memory of crab as some sort of exotic, cool experience. Somewhere along the way the crab shell was broken and found its way into a bin. I still had the memory though.

So back to Wanted. I have a liking for escapist action films. The Matrix, Hard Boiled, The Killer, Under Siege, Hot Fuzz… the list just goes on and on. Each in its own way has a certain cool quality. Wanted does cool. It has cool special effects (the curving bullets), it has some cool cast members (Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp), there were some cool ideas and some well constructed action scenes (for the last two you can watch the film). The problem was it left me feeling like I felt after I’d eaten the crab: unfulfilled.

The problem with the crab was it smelt like the memory and it looked like the memory but it didn’t taste like the memory. It just tasted of crab.

Wanted did cool like The Matrix. It did body count like Hard Boiled or The Killer. Unfortunately it left out heart and soul entirely – instead it had a by the numbers plot woven together by a committee who forgot to read the instructions on how to use a loom. It had some mystical mumbo jumbo spun in a loose knit pattern to try to justify wholesale slaughter and the death of innocent bystanders in a nihilistic aberration (I was tempted to say train wreck but that was just one reference too many) that placed no sign of any value being placed on human life. It cynically tried to press buttons: the assassins have a code. The death of a few, chosen by some higher power, saves the many and stops bad things happening to nice people so they don’t end up as assassins.

You may ask “Isn’t that true of all the films you mentioned earlier” – I’d disagree. Under Siege – Stop bad people stealing weapons of mass destruction. The Matrix – save humanity from aliens who have taken over the world. The Killer – he only kills bad people. Hot Fuzz – for laughs. Sorry let me try that again: Hot Fuzz – to satirize action films by showing how silly they are when placed in an incongruous setting. Yes and but also because its funny to see a whole older generation of Britain’s finest actors in a shoot out that isn’t embarrassing to watch. So the grammars a bit ropey at the start of that last sentence – its like the plot of Wanted.

Fortunately, unlike the crab, the next action film I see hopefully wont mistake cool for at least some sort of moral structure. No matter how flimsy.

That’s where I ought to finish. I should at this point not write anything else. Anything more is just me messing up my central thesis and sounding even more pompous than I already have. After all its just an action film that like 99% of its relations will be consigned to late night TV, three quid DVDs in the sales a year from now and taking up space on some film archive shelf and being added to lists of action films kept by people who keep such lists. No where near the top 100 I hope.

However a few parting thoughts that flitted through my mind…

David O’Hara – wasted in more than the literal sense at the start of the film.
Marc Warren – no picture on IMDB? Actually Marc Warren – why did he do this film? To say he’d worked with the cool people or because he gets a gun fired inside his head for part of an action sequence? Thousand Year Old Cult of Assassins – except the Hashshashins didn’t come into being until around 1090 so that would be a rounding error of sorts? OK I’m just being picky but if they predate the group the word comes from wouldn’t this be a film about something called something else. I know I’m losing it somehow here. I really should give up. Sorry I’ve more…

Weavers who a thousand years ago could convert binary found in the cloth produced by a loom and discover that it was a list of names of people to bump off (I did say there were spoilers) – yes the ancient Indian writer Pingala knew about binary some time BC. However we have to wait to 1605 for Francis Bacon for a mention of a system to use binary to encode letters of the alphabet. Six hundred years after our order of killers has been bumping people off. Even then if (whatever mystical force is directing the appearance of binary in the cloth) hasn’t sent a cypher key how do they know that they are bumping off the right people? Plus back when names were more flexible (as little as a couple of hundred years ago) how did they know they were bumping the right people off. Sorry I shouldn’t pick apart the fluff. Except when the fluff is used to justify so much violence someone should have made certain the weft hold the rest of the plot together.