31 Dec 2014
Flickr Highlights: 2014 in photos
'2014 in photos' sounds rather grander than this will be - I'll be honest, I haven't taken many this year, and I've put even fewer up online. But since I want to make a tradition of it, here's some of my better Photoshop work I did in the last twelve months along with a few snaps. Enjoy!
29 Oct 2014
Doctor Who: Who is Missy?
It's being billed as a mystery - not just what the hell is going on with Doctor Who's dead-people-coming-back arc, not even what the grand plan is. But there's something else promised, most likely a cherry on the cake for fans. Because "Missy", is...?
Well, everyone has their theories, and here are mine. One of them's probably true as they're a bit obvious, so if this spoils it for you, stop reading.
Missy is Clara!
Okay, this is a rather literal interpretation of the (possession?) scenes billed in the trailers. Of course Clara's good... isn't she? Whilst this is probably the safest option, I personally wouldn't want to see Clara's newfound personality explained away by having a dark secret.
Missy is the Doctor!
New Doctor, new bad guy, and they seem to be equals, so why not? It had precedent - an evil Doctor popped up in 1986, so maybe Missy is a side-effect of the new regeneration and linked to the new identity crisis. Is he a good man, or a good woman? A female future Doctor would be a good way to skirt around that issue. I wouldn't like to analyse her line about the Doctor being her boyfriend though!
Missy is the Master!
Which leads us onto this similar theory, only more out-and-out evil - the Doctor's arch nemesis, reborn. The last time we saw him, he was John Simm and probably trapped on Gallifrey. Now that's been saved, perhaps the Master had a new life cycle too? Would fans appreciate a bold new take on the character? (very bold, in places!)
Missy is The Rani! Or Romana! Or Susan!
Ones for the fans - the female Time Lords who haven't turned up yet in the series. Regenerating The Rani and Romana have been done recently in Big Finish, so anything's possible. But would they bring back characters last seen in the 80s?
Missy is the TARDIS!
No idea how that works, but it's appeared as a mad Victorian lady the other year.
Missy is River Song!
Oh come on, Alex Kingston only appeared last year.
Missy is somebody who was sneakily introduced only a few episodes ago!
You see that little girl who pops up in the middle of that episode you didn't like very much? That was her!!
Missy is God/Missy is the Devil!
Frankly, for Doctor Who, that would be a cop-out.
 |
| "You know who I am..." |
Well, everyone has their theories, and here are mine. One of them's probably true as they're a bit obvious, so if this spoils it for you, stop reading.
Missy is Clara!
Okay, this is a rather literal interpretation of the (possession?) scenes billed in the trailers. Of course Clara's good... isn't she? Whilst this is probably the safest option, I personally wouldn't want to see Clara's newfound personality explained away by having a dark secret.
Missy is the Doctor!
New Doctor, new bad guy, and they seem to be equals, so why not? It had precedent - an evil Doctor popped up in 1986, so maybe Missy is a side-effect of the new regeneration and linked to the new identity crisis. Is he a good man, or a good woman? A female future Doctor would be a good way to skirt around that issue. I wouldn't like to analyse her line about the Doctor being her boyfriend though!
Missy is the Master!
Which leads us onto this similar theory, only more out-and-out evil - the Doctor's arch nemesis, reborn. The last time we saw him, he was John Simm and probably trapped on Gallifrey. Now that's been saved, perhaps the Master had a new life cycle too? Would fans appreciate a bold new take on the character? (very bold, in places!)
Missy is The Rani! Or Romana! Or Susan!
Ones for the fans - the female Time Lords who haven't turned up yet in the series. Regenerating The Rani and Romana have been done recently in Big Finish, so anything's possible. But would they bring back characters last seen in the 80s?
Missy is the TARDIS!
No idea how that works, but it's appeared as a mad Victorian lady the other year.
Missy is River Song!
Oh come on, Alex Kingston only appeared last year.
Missy is somebody who was sneakily introduced only a few episodes ago!
You see that little girl who pops up in the middle of that episode you didn't like very much? That was her!!
Missy is God/Missy is the Devil!
Frankly, for Doctor Who, that would be a cop-out.
18 Oct 2014
Six Reasons Why I Love Wolfblood
Wolfblood is currently experiencing its third series run on CBBC and I think it's one of the best dramas on TV, genuinely doing solid and extraordinary things, full stop. I've written about it before on this blog, but two years on, it's clear to see why it's ahead of the opposition:
1. It's a serial show. With Wolfblood you get more out of it if you started watching from the start, discovering the main characters' special abilities in the first episode (super-powered werewolf-like humans), and the gradual layering of new characters and events. More than that, the characters properly develop and show new sides, almost every week too. I was genuinely surprised in the first series how much they probed into the character's lives - Maddy's best mate Shannon's monster-spotting obsession being properly addressed, or later on with the slow and subtle romantic and non-romantic friendships between characters. Plotlines have been introduced that pay off later on, and plot elements that have proved useful before are taken for granted.
2. It's a fast show. Big things happen every week - big for the young characters and audience, like falling out with friends. And more importantly, it doesn't patronise its audience by undoing things after each episode. The secret of Wolfbloods living among us must be kept secret, and that's always a danger. Those high-stakes moments - at the series finales, or the threat of doctors running tests - feel like the whole thing could suddenly come crashing down.
3. It's not a scary show, it's not horror. The creator, Debbie Moon, envisaged her "werewolves" as normal people with superpowers - superpowered hearing, smell, the ability to run really fast and dealing with becoming a wolf at every full moon. That's particularly present in the most recent two-parter when one of the characters gets to experience what it's like as a Wolfblood. Stripped from the horror tropes, it becomes pure character drama with cool fantasy moments. And whilst there's sometimes big angry wolves, the scariness comes from characters messing up or getting found out, rather than death or getting attacked.
4. It's a realistic show, even with the fantasy elements (no, especially because of the fantasy elements, because without them you wouldn't be able to broach some of the subjects so easily). Whilst a lot of children's telly has a school setting, this really feels like the characters go to school - they get told off for skipping lessons, they have parents, they hang out at school at lunch break or in the toilets. Perhaps in another show the mundanity of French class and school assemblies would ground the rest of the fantasy and provide a safe haven before they go out to fight monsters. In this show, the monsters come from inside you, and school life provides enough drama for some episodes. As it's telly, we only see one class of course (well it's a tiny rural village!), but all of British school life is represented here: the sporty boys, the mean girls, the geeks, the loners, and the people who fall into the gaps. And the teacher Mr Jeffries is a real teacher too - like all the other (often more wolflike!) antagonists, he's not evil, he has interests and humour and warmth. That's what I've liked about the wild Wolfbloods and urban Wolfbloods introduced in series 2 and 3 - whilst they pose a threat to our main characters, they're always painted in shades of grey. No out-and-out evil villainy, that wouldn't be interesting enough.
5. It's a funny show, especially as the writers and actors have stretched their wings as they've gone on. The supporting cast of fellow school pupils might on the surface be a bunch of archetypes, but the strong polarised characters allows for some amazing moments and realistically snarky remarks. Recently the girl gang of The Three Ks have had some brilliant hilarious scenes (plus some brilliant drama), the writing and acting now honed over the three series to pitch perfect levels. There's variety in the humour too (bad dad jokes and insults to slapstick and farce) and a lot of it is refreshingly honest and grown-up for a show like this.
6. It's an amazing looking show, with a visual style and sound that's unlike anything on CBBC or elsewhere, and feels very assured from the first episode. The music has a wild folky quality (topped off by the theme song), even if ultra-modern chart music sometimes intrudes. There's bright yellow eyes, a wild muddy forest, slow-mo and stunts and night shoots. It's very impressive work all round - this series there's been seriously impressive closeups, drone shots, split-screen, the works. All this and CGI wolves! Rightly, this looks and feels like shows that have ten times its budget.
So there's six reasons - and to be honest, I could easily come up with six more delving into the characters and the positive storylines. It's thrilling, it's fun, it's addictive to watch each week - I hope this has whetted your appetite if you haven't discovered it yet.
1. It's a serial show. With Wolfblood you get more out of it if you started watching from the start, discovering the main characters' special abilities in the first episode (super-powered werewolf-like humans), and the gradual layering of new characters and events. More than that, the characters properly develop and show new sides, almost every week too. I was genuinely surprised in the first series how much they probed into the character's lives - Maddy's best mate Shannon's monster-spotting obsession being properly addressed, or later on with the slow and subtle romantic and non-romantic friendships between characters. Plotlines have been introduced that pay off later on, and plot elements that have proved useful before are taken for granted.
2. It's a fast show. Big things happen every week - big for the young characters and audience, like falling out with friends. And more importantly, it doesn't patronise its audience by undoing things after each episode. The secret of Wolfbloods living among us must be kept secret, and that's always a danger. Those high-stakes moments - at the series finales, or the threat of doctors running tests - feel like the whole thing could suddenly come crashing down.
3. It's not a scary show, it's not horror. The creator, Debbie Moon, envisaged her "werewolves" as normal people with superpowers - superpowered hearing, smell, the ability to run really fast and dealing with becoming a wolf at every full moon. That's particularly present in the most recent two-parter when one of the characters gets to experience what it's like as a Wolfblood. Stripped from the horror tropes, it becomes pure character drama with cool fantasy moments. And whilst there's sometimes big angry wolves, the scariness comes from characters messing up or getting found out, rather than death or getting attacked.
4. It's a realistic show, even with the fantasy elements (no, especially because of the fantasy elements, because without them you wouldn't be able to broach some of the subjects so easily). Whilst a lot of children's telly has a school setting, this really feels like the characters go to school - they get told off for skipping lessons, they have parents, they hang out at school at lunch break or in the toilets. Perhaps in another show the mundanity of French class and school assemblies would ground the rest of the fantasy and provide a safe haven before they go out to fight monsters. In this show, the monsters come from inside you, and school life provides enough drama for some episodes. As it's telly, we only see one class of course (well it's a tiny rural village!), but all of British school life is represented here: the sporty boys, the mean girls, the geeks, the loners, and the people who fall into the gaps. And the teacher Mr Jeffries is a real teacher too - like all the other (often more wolflike!) antagonists, he's not evil, he has interests and humour and warmth. That's what I've liked about the wild Wolfbloods and urban Wolfbloods introduced in series 2 and 3 - whilst they pose a threat to our main characters, they're always painted in shades of grey. No out-and-out evil villainy, that wouldn't be interesting enough.
5. It's a funny show, especially as the writers and actors have stretched their wings as they've gone on. The supporting cast of fellow school pupils might on the surface be a bunch of archetypes, but the strong polarised characters allows for some amazing moments and realistically snarky remarks. Recently the girl gang of The Three Ks have had some brilliant hilarious scenes (plus some brilliant drama), the writing and acting now honed over the three series to pitch perfect levels. There's variety in the humour too (bad dad jokes and insults to slapstick and farce) and a lot of it is refreshingly honest and grown-up for a show like this.
6. It's an amazing looking show, with a visual style and sound that's unlike anything on CBBC or elsewhere, and feels very assured from the first episode. The music has a wild folky quality (topped off by the theme song), even if ultra-modern chart music sometimes intrudes. There's bright yellow eyes, a wild muddy forest, slow-mo and stunts and night shoots. It's very impressive work all round - this series there's been seriously impressive closeups, drone shots, split-screen, the works. All this and CGI wolves! Rightly, this looks and feels like shows that have ten times its budget.
 |
| And these are just the shots that stood out! |
So there's six reasons - and to be honest, I could easily come up with six more delving into the characters and the positive storylines. It's thrilling, it's fun, it's addictive to watch each week - I hope this has whetted your appetite if you haven't discovered it yet.
21 Sept 2014
Time Heist - almost a review
Today I'm wondering how they could have improved Time Heist. Don't know why, but bear with me - it's probably because I didn't quite know what to think of it when I saw it, in a bad way.
Don't get me wrong - it fits the Saturday night bill perfectly. The show needs at least one episode every year which throws everything at the screen, rips off a bunch of favourite movies and genres, and everything ends happily. It's a formula for fun lightweight telly that has produced the likes of Dinosaurs in a Spaceship, Curse of the Black Spot, Planet of the Dead, and it's not a bad thing. We can't have Listen every week.
And there were some terrific elements to it - the Teller, Keeley Hawes as Miss Delphox, the gang, the look and style, the ending - pretty much all of it, on paper. Except for me it's less than the sum of its parts, and I'd say it's in the writing. Not that the writers haven't put a ton of work into the often labyrinthine plot, just that it could do with a few more solid character scenes, or explain things away easier.
Loved the opening: the Doctor and Clara, definitely how to open a story, even if it's very close to their first scenes together in Listen. And then the Memory Worm (a nice return of this plot device/joke machine creature), fast but wordy introductions to our new gang and why we're here. Guards banging on the outside and we realise it's going to be quicker than we thought. No time for questions now, let's go - straight into the plot and sneaking into the bank. In the most part, it works, I'll give them that, but I'd have liked another (possibly filmed but cut) scene outside the bank with the gang. Or for them to go the whole hog with the genre, and have a montage of security guards with a voiceover telling them exactly what the plan is.
I'm only saying this because the frantic pace of the opening, helped by the sudden jump in plot via a memory wipe, goes straight away once they get into the inner corridors of the bank. There's little in the way of geography - Into the Dalek had that in a similar setup, simply because it was inside a recognisable structure, though Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS didn't - or really threat, because the bank's so huge and devoid of guards and the Teller's slow and only used a few times. But I'm jumping ahead here - before the gang break in, there's a very fine scene where the Teller is introduced, a completely faceless character meets a grim fate, and Miss Delphox has a way with words. The direction and slow mo works a treat, and I love all the dry bleak hyperbole of the bank protocol in the script (reminiscent to Doctor Who fans especially from Robert Holmes's The Sun Makers): "open up and you'll be humanely disposed of", "fired with pain". And especially the dark "that's not tears, that's soup", which you can imagine Peter Capaldi relishing.
It's a shame then the plot dries up after this - it's often been wordy so far and full of unwieldy explanations and get-out clauses, but saved by the pace. Couldn't they think of a couple more (cheap!) set-pieces to fill the middle act? But the new 'companions' in the Doctor's gang get things to do, and become slightly more than just their stock characters (clever updating, but they're still undoubtedly cliches - a lot of thanks go to the actors and costumers as well as the writers). Psi and Saibra are great additions to the ever growing list of the Doctor's casual acquaintances, so it's good to see them survive for another adventure. Though with an obvious teleporting effect, their 'deaths' were undermined from the start, even with the muddled explanation of the importance of yet another mysterious gadget in a case put there by a mysterious... zzz...
Still, we've got some creepy scenes with the Teller being let loose, like a more colourful, lighter-toned version of The God Complex from a few years back (though what's up with the editing between scenes? again, geography). 'Don't think' resembles all too many monster weaknesses these days, and Clara alone comes almost too soon after Deep Breath, unless they're trying to make a running theme of it. And then by the time we're left with the Doctor and Clara, everything ties up a bit too early into an anti-climax and we're left wanting answers - and then we get them.
Peter Capaldi's Doctor needs more scenes with villains, including in this story. Karabraxos was a surprise to me (come on, the Architect figure was obvious, which distracted me a bit) but she's handled surprisingly by the Doctor - little time for any contempt, no punishment, because he's bound by the laws of time and trying to work out the plot.
And what is the plot? I think they fudged the explanation a little bit by explaining it in the wrong order (though working things out in your own time isn't a bad thing - just look at Listen) but here's my take:
Decades after having received the Doctor's phone number and then left, Karabraxos on her deathbed has a change of heart and wants to put things right by saving The Teller - right up the Doctor's street - but can only do so in the moment when she left it just before the solar storm hit or else she'd change time. She doesn't come up with the plan - the Doctor does, recruiting the best people to help him do it, and placing the gadgets and everything beforehand.
It's not much of a time loop really, just a bit of prior knowledge as to the moment, because the magical destroying solar storm means it had to be this moment for them to be able to break in (as explained halfway through) and they couldn't go by TARDIS, or just jump straight to the private vault... for some reason.
And finally, memory wiping had to be done for them to get past The Teller (as explained at the start when it's introduced) and to stop the younger Karabraxos finding the whole thing out. It's a rescue mission for the creature that would have been killed otherwise.
Contrived as heck, but then it's ridiculously high concept to begin with (the bit with the two aliens as the end is also quite similar to - and an improvement on - the ending of last year's Hide). I just hope Clara's "there has to be some logic behind all this" isn't the stick that people use to beat it with - once everything's explained and you've got your head around the oddness, it's a good story.
As the end shows, this is lightweight fare, even with a couple of grim bits. Our heroes made it out alive, everything's back to normal with Clara, job done. There's no final shot of the Doctor being dour, or prophetic about his own death, or realising something about the story arc. Nope, this is as Saturday night as they come.
(What's this? A phone call from somebody in the future: "I want you to write an article on how to improve Time Heist". Sounds contrived as heck, but why not...)
Don't get me wrong - it fits the Saturday night bill perfectly. The show needs at least one episode every year which throws everything at the screen, rips off a bunch of favourite movies and genres, and everything ends happily. It's a formula for fun lightweight telly that has produced the likes of Dinosaurs in a Spaceship, Curse of the Black Spot, Planet of the Dead, and it's not a bad thing. We can't have Listen every week.
And there were some terrific elements to it - the Teller, Keeley Hawes as Miss Delphox, the gang, the look and style, the ending - pretty much all of it, on paper. Except for me it's less than the sum of its parts, and I'd say it's in the writing. Not that the writers haven't put a ton of work into the often labyrinthine plot, just that it could do with a few more solid character scenes, or explain things away easier.
Loved the opening: the Doctor and Clara, definitely how to open a story, even if it's very close to their first scenes together in Listen. And then the Memory Worm (a nice return of this plot device/joke machine creature), fast but wordy introductions to our new gang and why we're here. Guards banging on the outside and we realise it's going to be quicker than we thought. No time for questions now, let's go - straight into the plot and sneaking into the bank. In the most part, it works, I'll give them that, but I'd have liked another (possibly filmed but cut) scene outside the bank with the gang. Or for them to go the whole hog with the genre, and have a montage of security guards with a voiceover telling them exactly what the plan is.
I'm only saying this because the frantic pace of the opening, helped by the sudden jump in plot via a memory wipe, goes straight away once they get into the inner corridors of the bank. There's little in the way of geography - Into the Dalek had that in a similar setup, simply because it was inside a recognisable structure, though Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS didn't - or really threat, because the bank's so huge and devoid of guards and the Teller's slow and only used a few times. But I'm jumping ahead here - before the gang break in, there's a very fine scene where the Teller is introduced, a completely faceless character meets a grim fate, and Miss Delphox has a way with words. The direction and slow mo works a treat, and I love all the dry bleak hyperbole of the bank protocol in the script (reminiscent to Doctor Who fans especially from Robert Holmes's The Sun Makers): "open up and you'll be humanely disposed of", "fired with pain". And especially the dark "that's not tears, that's soup", which you can imagine Peter Capaldi relishing.
It's a shame then the plot dries up after this - it's often been wordy so far and full of unwieldy explanations and get-out clauses, but saved by the pace. Couldn't they think of a couple more (cheap!) set-pieces to fill the middle act? But the new 'companions' in the Doctor's gang get things to do, and become slightly more than just their stock characters (clever updating, but they're still undoubtedly cliches - a lot of thanks go to the actors and costumers as well as the writers). Psi and Saibra are great additions to the ever growing list of the Doctor's casual acquaintances, so it's good to see them survive for another adventure. Though with an obvious teleporting effect, their 'deaths' were undermined from the start, even with the muddled explanation of the importance of yet another mysterious gadget in a case put there by a mysterious... zzz...
Still, we've got some creepy scenes with the Teller being let loose, like a more colourful, lighter-toned version of The God Complex from a few years back (though what's up with the editing between scenes? again, geography). 'Don't think' resembles all too many monster weaknesses these days, and Clara alone comes almost too soon after Deep Breath, unless they're trying to make a running theme of it. And then by the time we're left with the Doctor and Clara, everything ties up a bit too early into an anti-climax and we're left wanting answers - and then we get them.
Peter Capaldi's Doctor needs more scenes with villains, including in this story. Karabraxos was a surprise to me (come on, the Architect figure was obvious, which distracted me a bit) but she's handled surprisingly by the Doctor - little time for any contempt, no punishment, because he's bound by the laws of time and trying to work out the plot.
And what is the plot? I think they fudged the explanation a little bit by explaining it in the wrong order (though working things out in your own time isn't a bad thing - just look at Listen) but here's my take:
Decades after having received the Doctor's phone number and then left, Karabraxos on her deathbed has a change of heart and wants to put things right by saving The Teller - right up the Doctor's street - but can only do so in the moment when she left it just before the solar storm hit or else she'd change time. She doesn't come up with the plan - the Doctor does, recruiting the best people to help him do it, and placing the gadgets and everything beforehand.
It's not much of a time loop really, just a bit of prior knowledge as to the moment, because the magical destroying solar storm means it had to be this moment for them to be able to break in (as explained halfway through) and they couldn't go by TARDIS, or just jump straight to the private vault... for some reason.
And finally, memory wiping had to be done for them to get past The Teller (as explained at the start when it's introduced) and to stop the younger Karabraxos finding the whole thing out. It's a rescue mission for the creature that would have been killed otherwise.
Contrived as heck, but then it's ridiculously high concept to begin with (the bit with the two aliens as the end is also quite similar to - and an improvement on - the ending of last year's Hide). I just hope Clara's "there has to be some logic behind all this" isn't the stick that people use to beat it with - once everything's explained and you've got your head around the oddness, it's a good story.
As the end shows, this is lightweight fare, even with a couple of grim bits. Our heroes made it out alive, everything's back to normal with Clara, job done. There's no final shot of the Doctor being dour, or prophetic about his own death, or realising something about the story arc. Nope, this is as Saturday night as they come.
(What's this? A phone call from somebody in the future: "I want you to write an article on how to improve Time Heist". Sounds contrived as heck, but why not...)
30 Aug 2014
Deep Breath - almost a review
Doctor Who and the Deep Breath - and Peter Capaldi's debut, and I really enjoyed it. A Victorian setting with some familiar faces, tackling big old themes of the show in a fresh and dramatic way, and all pointing towards a bright new future.
(I'm saying 'almost a review', because I'm not trying to cover everything. Rather, here's some bits that jumped out at me when I watched it, or have been floating around in my head ever since.)
Peter Capaldi first... well, he's amazing. He has tons to do - high comedy and high drama - he plays a million different facets of the same character. And he does it all brilliantly. There's not much more I can say.
Then there's Clara. I've heard other, cleverer, people talk about how this is the show through the companion's eyes again, not the Doctor's as it has been with Matt Smith. This probably explains why suddenly we're noticing Clara having character - not that she never had one, but that the Doctor was the one who did everything. Here, she's reacting to plot of the Doctor changing, coming to terms with who this man is, and being angry with him - it's wonderful to watch. She holds her own for long scenes where the Doctor is missing (and Jenna Coleman can definitely act it) especially in some very dramatic scenes with Madame Vastra and the villain, the Half-Faced Man. The first one is pure drama especially, verbal sparring between two, an argument we can see both sides and relate to both characters. It feels almost unique in the show to have the companion being in such a strong scene, and the Doctor absent. I loved it. Clara suddenly shoots up to the pantheon of great Doctor Who companions, as similar moments with Rose and Sarah Jane spring to mind.
Viewers of the last series, however, might have noticed a change. Madame Vastra got on quite happily with Clara in the previous two or three times that they met (if they met at all in some scenes), although she was a little bit frosty and protective in The Snowmen. Clara's met many incarnations of the Doctor onscreen beforehand, so shouldn't be quite so stressed that her Doctor has changed (that's another kettle of fish), and her defensive comments about how she's never been swayed by the Doctor's youthful looks hasn't really been explored either way. And has Clara been such a control freak? There's hints - she fits in her TARDIS travels around her own weekly schedule, she masterminds the Doctor to accompany her to the family Christmas dinner - but it's never been stated outright as in this episode. I admire that they're finally giving her a proper character now, and giving her things to do, and I admire that they're sticking to the same character brief from before, even if I've probably only read it in interviews. I'm just not sure the qualities we're banged over the head with here are especially realistic, or make a good character on their own.
But still, the second is notable - it seems like we've had few of these scenes lately, not least because there's been a lack of proper villains. Clara can be strong and terrified and still showing her character. The robotic monsters work extremely well too: it's that mix of tangible real world scary things (clockwork sounds, robotic zombie people), cool design, and a villain who's played absolutely straight and absolutely perfectly. With the cherry on the cake of a Doctor Who monster - something that can be imitated in the playground. That's not to say they have what it takes to become a regular popular feature, just that they work especially well here, as a particularly big, well oiled cog in a wider machine - and cleverly (very Steven Moffat) reflecting the Doctor's character and the core themes of change and renewal and humanity.
Let's not forget it's the first story of the new Doctor - one of those rare, pivotal 'regeneration stories' - and many of the hallmarks are here, even if you have to look harder for some of them. There's the worry that the Doctor's regeneration might have 'gone wrong', with scenes of him breaking normal rules of etiquette (always more so than in later episodes when he 'calms down'). The companion doesn't quite know what has happened, and there's familiar characters to reassure us it's the same show, including a first - a cameo acting appearance from the previous man telling us to trust him. It reminded me of an old address to camera from Patrick Troughton: "this time I'm just a little bit more frightening than last time. If your mummy or daddy are scared, just hold their hand." Of course, this came at the end of the story, after plenty of scares and bewildering moments, so it was less of a warning, more of a straightforward cameo.
And then there's the - arguably - traditional moment, just after the plot kicks in, where the Doctor as we know him is back with us. He might be suited up already, or he might not. But, like here, we finally see the glimmer of the new character away from the post-regenerative madness. In The Christmas Invasion, David Tennant finally woke and stepped out of the TARDIS to face the Sycorax. In The Eleventh Hour, the moment came earlier, when Matt Smith was asking Amy to trust him, or perhaps when he was investigating the crack in her wall. In Deep Breath, Peter Capaldi rips his face off to reveal the Doctor underneath. That's where I see the Doctor stepping in, even with the T-Rex and the lovely restaurant business beforehand - he's finally found some clothes that don't smell, he's facing the villain for the first time, and he definitely hasn't abandoned Clara. Even then, as this leads into an excellent face-off (pun intended) upstairs against the Half Faced Man, we're not sure of who the Doctor is, of how far he can go. We're still not really sure after the credits have rolled. But we trust him - and we certainly trust in Peter Capaldi.
If the familiar elements are hard to find, I put that down to the new tone and style, orchestrated by Ben Wheatley. It would be more straightforward to play this story as one of the last few years, chewing up the meaty character scenes into bitesize quips. It's a brave opening gambit - the show will be more thoughtful, more weighty (rather than any of the now meaningless terms like 'dark', or even more meaningless here, 'adult'). Events will have consequences and take time to recover from, supporting characters will have their own motivations, the companion can be terrified of the monster and still stand up to them. Nothing here in the direction, either, is flashy for being flashy. I've seen relatively little of Ben Wheatley's output - only A Field in England - but it doesn't surprise me that there's few moments of extravagance in editing or the music or the effects. Not that his flourishes aren't there, but they feel natural and earned. It's the anti-Sherlock, from the writer of Sherlock. No wonder it all feels different.
But I'd also add that with this drawn out, more serious style came an underlying sense of bewilderment expressed by me and many other viewers. (AI: 82, say no more) I've nothing against the second half of the story which is traditional as anything and pure Doctor Who. And it's not the pacing - which wasn't particular bad or slow even when the plot hadn't kicked in yet. No, I find fault with the opening sequence, in the same way that Cold War left me, well, cold. In that story and this, everything's introduced in a blur, with the Doctor and Clara arriving in the middle of the action, so we and they don't quite know what's going on. Then there's jumps in time - Clara or the Doctor falling unconscious - a general lack of exposition/characters being filled in off-screen, and finally the whole episode takes a shift into a completely different style to what you were expecting (in Cold War, the Ice Warrior coming out of its casing). If the opening left me breathless, that change bewildered me.
You could make the case that it's about the format - forty five minutes is a short amount of time when having to introduce things - but Deep Breath has that extra time. And it's hardly an action packed opening either, people just talk! It's a storytelling problem, even if it could have been ironed out in editing. That first scene is a great scene, but I only noticed how great it was on the second viewing, when I had the right expectations of how it would play out. The trouble is with Doctor Who, more so than most dramas, a good chunk of the audience will only watch the show once, on a Saturday night, some of them too young to take in all of it. It needs to be accessible, and not just in continuity, something I think this lacks slightly. (for an opening sequence I think works, well, take your pick - though The Christmas Invasion works because it's short, and The Runaway Bride works because it picks up on crazy things shown months ago, and establishes them proper. No sudden dinosaurs here!) And an audience that is bewildered to begin with, with no Doctor to latch onto (and when he is there, he's behaving very oddly), could find themselves lost before the familiar, safer elements kick in, before Matt Smith reminds the viewers that this man is still him. It could have been their intention to alienate the audience a little, not making them comfortable with the new show (let alone the new Doctor), but I think a more accessible, or perhaps traditional, first half would have made this perfect.
(I'm saying 'almost a review', because I'm not trying to cover everything. Rather, here's some bits that jumped out at me when I watched it, or have been floating around in my head ever since.)
Peter Capaldi first... well, he's amazing. He has tons to do - high comedy and high drama - he plays a million different facets of the same character. And he does it all brilliantly. There's not much more I can say.
Then there's Clara. I've heard other, cleverer, people talk about how this is the show through the companion's eyes again, not the Doctor's as it has been with Matt Smith. This probably explains why suddenly we're noticing Clara having character - not that she never had one, but that the Doctor was the one who did everything. Here, she's reacting to plot of the Doctor changing, coming to terms with who this man is, and being angry with him - it's wonderful to watch. She holds her own for long scenes where the Doctor is missing (and Jenna Coleman can definitely act it) especially in some very dramatic scenes with Madame Vastra and the villain, the Half-Faced Man. The first one is pure drama especially, verbal sparring between two, an argument we can see both sides and relate to both characters. It feels almost unique in the show to have the companion being in such a strong scene, and the Doctor absent. I loved it. Clara suddenly shoots up to the pantheon of great Doctor Who companions, as similar moments with Rose and Sarah Jane spring to mind.
Viewers of the last series, however, might have noticed a change. Madame Vastra got on quite happily with Clara in the previous two or three times that they met (if they met at all in some scenes), although she was a little bit frosty and protective in The Snowmen. Clara's met many incarnations of the Doctor onscreen beforehand, so shouldn't be quite so stressed that her Doctor has changed (that's another kettle of fish), and her defensive comments about how she's never been swayed by the Doctor's youthful looks hasn't really been explored either way. And has Clara been such a control freak? There's hints - she fits in her TARDIS travels around her own weekly schedule, she masterminds the Doctor to accompany her to the family Christmas dinner - but it's never been stated outright as in this episode. I admire that they're finally giving her a proper character now, and giving her things to do, and I admire that they're sticking to the same character brief from before, even if I've probably only read it in interviews. I'm just not sure the qualities we're banged over the head with here are especially realistic, or make a good character on their own.
But still, the second is notable - it seems like we've had few of these scenes lately, not least because there's been a lack of proper villains. Clara can be strong and terrified and still showing her character. The robotic monsters work extremely well too: it's that mix of tangible real world scary things (clockwork sounds, robotic zombie people), cool design, and a villain who's played absolutely straight and absolutely perfectly. With the cherry on the cake of a Doctor Who monster - something that can be imitated in the playground. That's not to say they have what it takes to become a regular popular feature, just that they work especially well here, as a particularly big, well oiled cog in a wider machine - and cleverly (very Steven Moffat) reflecting the Doctor's character and the core themes of change and renewal and humanity.
Let's not forget it's the first story of the new Doctor - one of those rare, pivotal 'regeneration stories' - and many of the hallmarks are here, even if you have to look harder for some of them. There's the worry that the Doctor's regeneration might have 'gone wrong', with scenes of him breaking normal rules of etiquette (always more so than in later episodes when he 'calms down'). The companion doesn't quite know what has happened, and there's familiar characters to reassure us it's the same show, including a first - a cameo acting appearance from the previous man telling us to trust him. It reminded me of an old address to camera from Patrick Troughton: "this time I'm just a little bit more frightening than last time. If your mummy or daddy are scared, just hold their hand." Of course, this came at the end of the story, after plenty of scares and bewildering moments, so it was less of a warning, more of a straightforward cameo.
And then there's the - arguably - traditional moment, just after the plot kicks in, where the Doctor as we know him is back with us. He might be suited up already, or he might not. But, like here, we finally see the glimmer of the new character away from the post-regenerative madness. In The Christmas Invasion, David Tennant finally woke and stepped out of the TARDIS to face the Sycorax. In The Eleventh Hour, the moment came earlier, when Matt Smith was asking Amy to trust him, or perhaps when he was investigating the crack in her wall. In Deep Breath, Peter Capaldi rips his face off to reveal the Doctor underneath. That's where I see the Doctor stepping in, even with the T-Rex and the lovely restaurant business beforehand - he's finally found some clothes that don't smell, he's facing the villain for the first time, and he definitely hasn't abandoned Clara. Even then, as this leads into an excellent face-off (pun intended) upstairs against the Half Faced Man, we're not sure of who the Doctor is, of how far he can go. We're still not really sure after the credits have rolled. But we trust him - and we certainly trust in Peter Capaldi.
If the familiar elements are hard to find, I put that down to the new tone and style, orchestrated by Ben Wheatley. It would be more straightforward to play this story as one of the last few years, chewing up the meaty character scenes into bitesize quips. It's a brave opening gambit - the show will be more thoughtful, more weighty (rather than any of the now meaningless terms like 'dark', or even more meaningless here, 'adult'). Events will have consequences and take time to recover from, supporting characters will have their own motivations, the companion can be terrified of the monster and still stand up to them. Nothing here in the direction, either, is flashy for being flashy. I've seen relatively little of Ben Wheatley's output - only A Field in England - but it doesn't surprise me that there's few moments of extravagance in editing or the music or the effects. Not that his flourishes aren't there, but they feel natural and earned. It's the anti-Sherlock, from the writer of Sherlock. No wonder it all feels different.
But I'd also add that with this drawn out, more serious style came an underlying sense of bewilderment expressed by me and many other viewers. (AI: 82, say no more) I've nothing against the second half of the story which is traditional as anything and pure Doctor Who. And it's not the pacing - which wasn't particular bad or slow even when the plot hadn't kicked in yet. No, I find fault with the opening sequence, in the same way that Cold War left me, well, cold. In that story and this, everything's introduced in a blur, with the Doctor and Clara arriving in the middle of the action, so we and they don't quite know what's going on. Then there's jumps in time - Clara or the Doctor falling unconscious - a general lack of exposition/characters being filled in off-screen, and finally the whole episode takes a shift into a completely different style to what you were expecting (in Cold War, the Ice Warrior coming out of its casing). If the opening left me breathless, that change bewildered me.
You could make the case that it's about the format - forty five minutes is a short amount of time when having to introduce things - but Deep Breath has that extra time. And it's hardly an action packed opening either, people just talk! It's a storytelling problem, even if it could have been ironed out in editing. That first scene is a great scene, but I only noticed how great it was on the second viewing, when I had the right expectations of how it would play out. The trouble is with Doctor Who, more so than most dramas, a good chunk of the audience will only watch the show once, on a Saturday night, some of them too young to take in all of it. It needs to be accessible, and not just in continuity, something I think this lacks slightly. (for an opening sequence I think works, well, take your pick - though The Christmas Invasion works because it's short, and The Runaway Bride works because it picks up on crazy things shown months ago, and establishes them proper. No sudden dinosaurs here!) And an audience that is bewildered to begin with, with no Doctor to latch onto (and when he is there, he's behaving very oddly), could find themselves lost before the familiar, safer elements kick in, before Matt Smith reminds the viewers that this man is still him. It could have been their intention to alienate the audience a little, not making them comfortable with the new show (let alone the new Doctor), but I think a more accessible, or perhaps traditional, first half would have made this perfect.
1 Aug 2014
Doctor Who and the Terminator: an observation
When Doctor Who eventually came back on our screens, it had style. The past was still there, it was still the Doctor and his companion running towards danger and old, familiar monsters. But there was a new, perhaps American style, admittedly cribbed from wildly popular and influential shows like Buffy.
And it also pays lip service to Terminator 2: Judgement Day I noticed, after seeing the wildly popular and influential sequel the other day (I know, what kept me so long?). Both have mysterious leather jacketed time travellers going on the run with the girl, who's been noticed and death follows in their wake. And it steals the imagery when the plastic duplicate of Mickey develops flat blades for hands (no gory stabbings at 7pm) and destroys a restaurant, an unstoppable figure chasing after the Doctor and Rose. And upon seeing the finale of the film set in a steel factory, I finally saw the direct reference in the Nestene Consciousness's underground lair, lit up red and embodied in the lava. I still think the episode owes more to the Hollywood film than it does to Spearhead from Space, barring the Auton Invasion near the end.
Released in 1991, the film - hailed in places as the greatest science fiction film of all time - was too late to influence the TV series itself. But then I thought back to the TV Movie in 1996, set in America with the same brief to update this dated time traveller for a new audience, with movie style effects and not so many bug eyed monsters. Heere's the other half of Terminator 2, as it almost cribs the plot: two time travellers, one good and one bad, one out to change history and one who's trying to stop them, though the heroine doesn't know that yet. There's cool motorbikes and hospitals and nighttime chases to a scientific establishment and outwitting cops and a streetwise kid and body swapping and everything, followed by a fight in which both hero and villain are dangling over the edge, with an ominous destruction of the world hanging over them all. It's very T2.
And as such, it didn't really work as Doctor Who. Sure, the show had mined plenty of science fiction in the past, and there were plenty of Hammer ripoffs in the 70s. The series had both predated hits (The Ark in Space is the same idea as Alien, infamously, but a few years earlier) and mined them (the bit in Dragonfire that goes all Aliens, but with nothing like the production values), and that's fine. Indeed, if you're looking for accessible modern science fiction, T2 would be in the back of your mind.
I think one of the reasons Rose worked is it only used different imagery, but built it around the Doctor Who formula. The strength of Rose was the story enabled it to go straight into thwarting an alien invasion rather than dealing with regeneration, Time Lords and other 'core concepts', irrelevant to a new audience. The TV Movie was criticised for straying too far away from the show, even with these references, but that's probably because the plot's thin. What makes T2 thrilling is the drama and the danger: it had Arnie protecting Sarah and John Connor from the other, unstoppable Terminator. Here, the Master doesn't have much of a plan at first other than to survive, and so the Doctor has to go on a wild goose chase involving shutting the Eye of Harmony. Perhaps they should have stuck to what the Doctor does best - fighting monsters and villains.
And it also pays lip service to Terminator 2: Judgement Day I noticed, after seeing the wildly popular and influential sequel the other day (I know, what kept me so long?). Both have mysterious leather jacketed time travellers going on the run with the girl, who's been noticed and death follows in their wake. And it steals the imagery when the plastic duplicate of Mickey develops flat blades for hands (no gory stabbings at 7pm) and destroys a restaurant, an unstoppable figure chasing after the Doctor and Rose. And upon seeing the finale of the film set in a steel factory, I finally saw the direct reference in the Nestene Consciousness's underground lair, lit up red and embodied in the lava. I still think the episode owes more to the Hollywood film than it does to Spearhead from Space, barring the Auton Invasion near the end.
Released in 1991, the film - hailed in places as the greatest science fiction film of all time - was too late to influence the TV series itself. But then I thought back to the TV Movie in 1996, set in America with the same brief to update this dated time traveller for a new audience, with movie style effects and not so many bug eyed monsters. Heere's the other half of Terminator 2, as it almost cribs the plot: two time travellers, one good and one bad, one out to change history and one who's trying to stop them, though the heroine doesn't know that yet. There's cool motorbikes and hospitals and nighttime chases to a scientific establishment and outwitting cops and a streetwise kid and body swapping and everything, followed by a fight in which both hero and villain are dangling over the edge, with an ominous destruction of the world hanging over them all. It's very T2.
And as such, it didn't really work as Doctor Who. Sure, the show had mined plenty of science fiction in the past, and there were plenty of Hammer ripoffs in the 70s. The series had both predated hits (The Ark in Space is the same idea as Alien, infamously, but a few years earlier) and mined them (the bit in Dragonfire that goes all Aliens, but with nothing like the production values), and that's fine. Indeed, if you're looking for accessible modern science fiction, T2 would be in the back of your mind.
I think one of the reasons Rose worked is it only used different imagery, but built it around the Doctor Who formula. The strength of Rose was the story enabled it to go straight into thwarting an alien invasion rather than dealing with regeneration, Time Lords and other 'core concepts', irrelevant to a new audience. The TV Movie was criticised for straying too far away from the show, even with these references, but that's probably because the plot's thin. What makes T2 thrilling is the drama and the danger: it had Arnie protecting Sarah and John Connor from the other, unstoppable Terminator. Here, the Master doesn't have much of a plan at first other than to survive, and so the Doctor has to go on a wild goose chase involving shutting the Eye of Harmony. Perhaps they should have stuck to what the Doctor does best - fighting monsters and villains.
24 Jul 2014
Armageddon Outta Here! - the Skulduggery Pleasant short stories
Open up this improbably titled book - after staring at the gorgeous wraparound cover with all the characters brought to life - and you'll see a contents page, or rather, a timeline. Unlike the main (nine or ten) novels, this are the stories inbetween those blockbusting adventures. Short stories!That's not to say these are small stories. Some of the most memorable deal with the 'gaps' in the series: an unseen first meeting in Friday Night Fights; a story that has fun with the Western genre set back in the Dead Men's heyday; a longer novella in a very different - but no less Derek Landy - style; another very enjoyable (and slightly self-referential) appearance from horror writer Gordon Edgely
These are billed as the 'new' stories, although only the most adventurous fans will have tracked down and read all of the others (I'd only read one before). A lot of the existing stories introduce brand new characters created by readers as part of competitions - not as gimmicky as you'd think, and these stories have more significance after the author crammed in practically every character in the penultimate book last year, Last Stand of Dead Men. And it's also introduced me to The Lost Art of World Domination, a very impressive, hilarious exchange of dialogue, which is set in that odd continuity-sparse hinterland, the 'early days'.
Is the book accessible for new readers then, or ones that haven't read all of the books in the series? I'd say probably yes, as the stories are self contained and introduce people themselves, although you'd miss out a lot of injokes (more than references) back to characters, plots and later twists. It's great for fans then - really enriching the wider edges of the world of the books, or as extra stories on par with the great set-pieces of the bigger novels, or just containing more action with their favourite characters - Skulduggery or Valkrie feature in almost all of them.
Then you get to the last section, the advertised 'exclusive chapter from the final book'. I'm not normally swayed by these things - especially as they're normally a tiny peek compared with sitting down with the full tome when it's published. But I did enjoy this one - action, scares, fun, just like the previous short stories in fact.
Only this one has a shadow over it, as it's set after the really very game-changing events of the penultimate book. Some of the fun might be over, which makes this book - containing references to all the books, thanks to the final chapter - a last chance before we say goodbye. It's extra special.
5 Jun 2014
Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L Sayers
I seem unable to find the attention span to read a full length novel at the moment (even on holiday!) - so handily I've got this collection of short stories by Dorothy L Sayers (not to be confused with the very similar sounding Busman's Honeymoon!). There's twelve stories, quite short, some with Lord Peter Wimsey, some with Montague Egg, a travelling salesman, and some without a detective.
Alas, this book is a bit unsatisfying. Short story collections are inevitably a mixed bag, and this is no exception.
Let's start with the Peter Wimsey stories - Sayers's most familiar creation, and these stories are longer than the others in this collection. What went wrong here then?
The Image in the Mirror, the first tale, is admittedly well told - most of it a monologue from a stricken man telling Wimsey how he thinks he's going mad and committing murders in his sleep. It's full of detail and is entertaining, but it's spoilt by the ending - almost as preposterous as the man's own explanation of being 'sent into the fourth dimension', but also incredibly guessable from the opening pages - even Wimsey says so, acting thoroughly bored of his own story by the explanation.
The Elopement of Peter Wimsey is very odd - Wimsey doesn't feature at the start, which is more like an MR James pastiche. The second half, as Wimsey changes tack suddenly, not just jarring but very silly. Whatever humour is might have had has been lost by time, and it feels like a waste of pages with too much scene setting.
These first two detective stories are very different to usual, so perhaps it's noble of Sayers to be exploring the possibilities of the genre. The rest of the book is more straightforward. Sadly The Queen's Square, which consists of about twenty pages of the movements of guests leading up to a murder, is infuriating. It's all just names rather than any fleshing out of the characters of the suspects (even though there must be over twenty of them!), and is impossible to follow, let alone guess the very scientific explanation. The Necklace of Pearls fares much better: although characters are still mere sketches on a page, at least it's enjoyable (set at Christmas, a time Sayers apparently hated, and you can tell!).
Onto the Montague Egg stories, then. I approached them with a heavy heart, especially seeing these stories were shorter than the rest. But as a whole, they remind me of the Poirot short stories (or similarly Christie's Parker Pyne or Harley Quinn tales) - nicely uniform in style even if they deal with exotic locations, and the perfect story for this length. There's enough variety to keep you interested too - you've got courtoom drama, identifying a murderer, murder in Oxford, and a missing person - and also a very odd story about cats that has a rather sadistic and sour end. None of them are anything special, but most are satisfying and good to read.
Montague Egg himself is defined almost solely by his profession - he's a travelling wine salesman, eager to please, impossibly sharp eyed, who just happens to come into contact with mysteries and crime! It's a very sketchy character, but it means he's very suited to short stories rather than novels.
The final two stories are thankfully the best. The first, The Man Who Knew How, has a man chasing up suspicious deaths after a chance encounter, with a twist in the tale.
And then there's the enjoyable The Fountain Plays, which dispenses of a detective and instead focuses on the actions of a murderer trying to second guess the police. They're the sort of clever stories that Hitchcock would adapt into films, or would feature as an episode of The Twilight Zone. In particular, neither of them feature acres of detail and suspects, and are all the better for it.
In summary - these stories feel different to what's typically referred to as Dorothy L Sayers's style. Her novels are full of details, in both character and atmosphere, and often eccentric. In the confines of a short story, most of that is stripped back to reveal clever solutions (almost more tricksy and involved than the explanations in her novels!) I get a sense of the writer trying to work out what stories she can tell in this format, the level in quality explained by the stories being collected over, presumably, a number of years. As a collected work, it's not the best book ever, nor is it very memorable, but you should find things in it to enjoy.
Alas, this book is a bit unsatisfying. Short story collections are inevitably a mixed bag, and this is no exception.
The Image in the Mirror, the first tale, is admittedly well told - most of it a monologue from a stricken man telling Wimsey how he thinks he's going mad and committing murders in his sleep. It's full of detail and is entertaining, but it's spoilt by the ending - almost as preposterous as the man's own explanation of being 'sent into the fourth dimension', but also incredibly guessable from the opening pages - even Wimsey says so, acting thoroughly bored of his own story by the explanation.
The Elopement of Peter Wimsey is very odd - Wimsey doesn't feature at the start, which is more like an MR James pastiche. The second half, as Wimsey changes tack suddenly, not just jarring but very silly. Whatever humour is might have had has been lost by time, and it feels like a waste of pages with too much scene setting.
These first two detective stories are very different to usual, so perhaps it's noble of Sayers to be exploring the possibilities of the genre. The rest of the book is more straightforward. Sadly The Queen's Square, which consists of about twenty pages of the movements of guests leading up to a murder, is infuriating. It's all just names rather than any fleshing out of the characters of the suspects (even though there must be over twenty of them!), and is impossible to follow, let alone guess the very scientific explanation. The Necklace of Pearls fares much better: although characters are still mere sketches on a page, at least it's enjoyable (set at Christmas, a time Sayers apparently hated, and you can tell!).
Onto the Montague Egg stories, then. I approached them with a heavy heart, especially seeing these stories were shorter than the rest. But as a whole, they remind me of the Poirot short stories (or similarly Christie's Parker Pyne or Harley Quinn tales) - nicely uniform in style even if they deal with exotic locations, and the perfect story for this length. There's enough variety to keep you interested too - you've got courtoom drama, identifying a murderer, murder in Oxford, and a missing person - and also a very odd story about cats that has a rather sadistic and sour end. None of them are anything special, but most are satisfying and good to read.
Montague Egg himself is defined almost solely by his profession - he's a travelling wine salesman, eager to please, impossibly sharp eyed, who just happens to come into contact with mysteries and crime! It's a very sketchy character, but it means he's very suited to short stories rather than novels.
The final two stories are thankfully the best. The first, The Man Who Knew How, has a man chasing up suspicious deaths after a chance encounter, with a twist in the tale.
And then there's the enjoyable The Fountain Plays, which dispenses of a detective and instead focuses on the actions of a murderer trying to second guess the police. They're the sort of clever stories that Hitchcock would adapt into films, or would feature as an episode of The Twilight Zone. In particular, neither of them feature acres of detail and suspects, and are all the better for it.
In summary - these stories feel different to what's typically referred to as Dorothy L Sayers's style. Her novels are full of details, in both character and atmosphere, and often eccentric. In the confines of a short story, most of that is stripped back to reveal clever solutions (almost more tricksy and involved than the explanations in her novels!) I get a sense of the writer trying to work out what stories she can tell in this format, the level in quality explained by the stories being collected over, presumably, a number of years. As a collected work, it's not the best book ever, nor is it very memorable, but you should find things in it to enjoy.
28 May 2014
The First Five Decades
The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is upon us, and it's a good one for anyone who likes numbers. Thousands of fans have scored every story from 1 to 10, and all these have been averaged and totted up to find people's favourite - favourite story ever, favourite Doctor, favourite season, you name it. And there's even the prospect of comparing the results to the last time the poll was done, five years ago! (with a whole load of new stories since)
You can find out more about the issue, with a wonderful fold out cover, here. But I thought, since I entered myself, a short summary of what I voted for as my favourites. I rarely sit down and work out my favourite Doctor or story (there's 241 of them) - and my tastes are no doubt only controversial for how average they are - but it's a good game of numbers. (And maybe I've boosted the Slitheen ones up the chart ever so slightly!)
10s went to: (deep breath) The Tomb of the Cybermen, Inferno, The Green Death, The Time Warrior, Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons, The Brain of Morbius, The Seeds of Doom, The Deadly Assassin, The Robots of Death, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, City of Death, Earthshock, The Caves of Androzani, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways, The Girl in the Fireplace, Army of Ghosts / Doomsday, Human Nature / The Family of Blood, Blink, Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, Midnight, Turn Left, The Waters of Mars, The Eleventh Hour, The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, Vincent and the Doctor, The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, The Doctor’s Wife, Asylum of the Daleks.
9s went to: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Time Meddler, The Mind Robber, The War Games, Spearhead From Space, Pyramids of Mars, The Curse of Fenric, Dalek,
Father’s Day, Tooth and Claw, School Reunion, The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, Smith and Jones,
Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords, The Unicorn and the Wasp, The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End, Amy’s Choice, The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War, The Girl Who Waited,The God Complex, The Angels Take Manhattan, The Snowmen, The Name of the Doctor
There's a list of top 50 stories to watch right there.
(2s and 1s went to: Planet of Giants, The Space Museum, The Krotons, The Time Monster, Timelash, Time and the Rani; Underworld, Meglos, Time-Flight, Terminus, The Twin Dilemma.)
Per Doctor, it works out that Christopher Eccleston's stories work out the most favourable (my first Doctor, even though I put Matt Smith on the poll), followed by David Tennant and then Matt Smith. Out of the older stories - lower on average no doubt due to ropiness, but they're not that much lower - it goes, surprisingly, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Sylvester McCoy, Tom Baker (!), William Hartnell, Paul McGann (his one story), then Colin Baker.
That's stories, not the actors, of course. I tried to keep a wide distribution (or else I'd give them all 9s), and stories I haven't seen (seen, not just heard) are omitted. (This means in DWM, the lesser known 60s stories are voted for by less people... but then most are never going to be front runners, and 'less people' still equates to over a thousand!)
Don't ask me to pick a favourite out of that lot!
14 May 2014
'Murder Must Advertise' by Dorothy L Sayers
A short review of this classic 30s mystery - and the first Sir Peter Wimsey book I've read. Dorothy L Sayers's books regularly show up on lists of the best detective fiction (the Crime Writers Association put her up with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Agatha Christie, or Raymond Chandler). But like the rest, there's no clear consensus on her best novel. The Nine Tailors (on my reading list) and Gaudy Night and Strong Poison (two with Harriet Vane assisting Wimsey) are often cited, along with this one.
Set in an advertising agency, Peter Wimsey goes undercover in order to investigate a suspicious death and a drugs plot. Dorothy L Sayers has had considerable knowledge working as a copywriter - and it shows. The atmosphere in the opening chapters (and all the way through the book actually) conjures up a lively workplace of people - most of them thinking up the advertising slogans and campaigns in order to flog unnecessary stuff to the public. She captures the madness of the job with a satirical eye, and it gives the book an edge. The characters are reasonable, and there's lots and lots of them. A pleasing range in female characters, and of men too, but often the workers are interchangeable, and it's hard to pick out somebody in particular as a suspect - nor, do I suspect, does the author want to either.
I've heard that, like this one, Sayers's books focus more on the background and characters than constructing a clever, potentially dry murder mystery. Actually, the crime is quite well thought out, but there's not enough of it to cover 100 thousand words. That's not to say it's boring or that it drags along: there's plenty of ingenious chapters and set-pieces (workplace arguments, some skulking around town, some slight but colourful party scenes, a lengthy cricket match near the end that might confuse people who didn't know the rules).
It might be the first book of hers I've read, but I'm not a stranger to Wimsey - there was a short section with him written by another author in an anthology (to which she also contributed), and I've listened to one of the (3 hour odd) radio adaptations, of her first book 'Whose Body?'. That one was mad - a rambling mystery with little twist in the murderer's identity. The blurb on my edition of Murder Must Advertise says that 'five people will die' - and bar the first murder before the book begins, all of these happen in the last third of the book, and most are forgettable. By the climax, the whole thing is downplayed, with most of Wimsey's conclusions explained beforehand. I was surprised by the 'drug plot' - it sounds a lazy enemy to be up against (police unable to catch them, members potentially everywhere), but it's handled with enough detail to be plausible.
I found the book a great read, with a great setting and plenty of interesting diversions too. So it surprised me to read that the author herself didn't think much of it, that it was apparently written in haste to satisfy her publishers, before she could work on her next book with her preferred setting, the chuch bell-ringing of The Nine Tailors. Will that book hold up against the hype?
Set in an advertising agency, Peter Wimsey goes undercover in order to investigate a suspicious death and a drugs plot. Dorothy L Sayers has had considerable knowledge working as a copywriter - and it shows. The atmosphere in the opening chapters (and all the way through the book actually) conjures up a lively workplace of people - most of them thinking up the advertising slogans and campaigns in order to flog unnecessary stuff to the public. She captures the madness of the job with a satirical eye, and it gives the book an edge. The characters are reasonable, and there's lots and lots of them. A pleasing range in female characters, and of men too, but often the workers are interchangeable, and it's hard to pick out somebody in particular as a suspect - nor, do I suspect, does the author want to either.
I've heard that, like this one, Sayers's books focus more on the background and characters than constructing a clever, potentially dry murder mystery. Actually, the crime is quite well thought out, but there's not enough of it to cover 100 thousand words. That's not to say it's boring or that it drags along: there's plenty of ingenious chapters and set-pieces (workplace arguments, some skulking around town, some slight but colourful party scenes, a lengthy cricket match near the end that might confuse people who didn't know the rules).
It might be the first book of hers I've read, but I'm not a stranger to Wimsey - there was a short section with him written by another author in an anthology (to which she also contributed), and I've listened to one of the (3 hour odd) radio adaptations, of her first book 'Whose Body?'. That one was mad - a rambling mystery with little twist in the murderer's identity. The blurb on my edition of Murder Must Advertise says that 'five people will die' - and bar the first murder before the book begins, all of these happen in the last third of the book, and most are forgettable. By the climax, the whole thing is downplayed, with most of Wimsey's conclusions explained beforehand. I was surprised by the 'drug plot' - it sounds a lazy enemy to be up against (police unable to catch them, members potentially everywhere), but it's handled with enough detail to be plausible.
I found the book a great read, with a great setting and plenty of interesting diversions too. So it surprised me to read that the author herself didn't think much of it, that it was apparently written in haste to satisfy her publishers, before she could work on her next book with her preferred setting, the chuch bell-ringing of The Nine Tailors. Will that book hold up against the hype?
4 Apr 2014
Detection Club: The Floating Admiral / Ask a Policeman
A couple of years ago, in my quest reading all of Agatha Christie's work, I stumbled upon a recent reprint of an old collaborative book. Written in 1931, The Floating Admiral was devised by the members of The Detection Club, a 'fun' society whose members included the likes of Agatha, Dorothy L Sayers, GK Chesterton and many many others since. Presumably the reprint was a success as now a second Detection Club novel has been reprinted by HarperCollins, and I've just finished it.
The Floating Admiral was one of the first published collaborations between a group of professional, published authors, and even today it's quite star studded. There's fourteen writers involved, writing a chapter of a detective story each. Naturally, the story suffers - you can't compare it to a typical crime tale, even if the plot has all the hallmarks of one. A body is found murdered, floating on a boat on a river mouth between two towns! Not only is there suspects and alibis and tracing his movements, but also remarks about the tide and how to moor boats!
The style jumps around with each author, especially with the addition of more clues and twists, but it's kept from getting too contrived by an ingenious instruction: each writer, as well as acknowledging everything that came up before, had to come up with a solution to their chapter (printed at the end of the story), their own explanation of the evidence. Agatha Christie, whose short chapter thankfully has a lot of typically good dialogue between characters, came up with a famously great explanation, which I won't spoil here.
It's a very interesting book, and a fun experiment for the Club (they had worked together on a couple of short serialisations before this, but not a full length novel). Many of the writers have faded into obscurity (especially the most florid named such as Canon Victor Whitechurch and Edgar Jepson), so the introduction putting them into context is much needed. The book itself, though, is an odd read. What starts off as atmospheric and scene setting, quickly descends into a mess of overly complex evidence, deduction and counter deduction. The task of the final writer to tie everything up must have been enormous - but I'd prefer something less technical, playing on the fact each chapter has a different author by having a change in style, rather than juggling the plot all of the time. It's skilfully written though, definitely grabbing your attention, and definitely living up to the concept.
Ask a Policeman, the following collaboration, seems to tackle the inherent problems of the first book head on. For starters, it has only half the number of authors than the first book, making it a smoother, slightly more coherent affair. And secondly, this time they bring along their detectives!
The four detectives were probably well known to readers of detective fiction in 1934, but less so now. Whilst I'm familiar with the enthusiastic (and often infuriating) Lord Peter Wimsey from Dorothy L Sayers, and I've heard of Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley (played by Diana Rigg later on TV, and I've got one on my reading pile), the other two I hadn't heard of before. The trouble is that these books are barely in print at the moment, especially Helen Simpson's stage manager Sir John Samaurez and Anthony Berkeley's Roger Sheringham, who, whilst having books adapted into films by Hitchcock (!), remain obscure. Not to mention the other two authors involved in this (and the previous book too), John Rhode and Milward Kennedy. This means it's sometimes hard to see the humour and parody involved when they appear, but they're good characters and very good writers.
In fact, the book itself is marketed under Agatha Christie - and unlike The Floating Admiral, she hasn't even contributed to this one! Rather, they've lumped in a Preface that was published elsewhere, an essay by her about other Detective Fiction writers. However it's a great piece - insightful and critical - and fits this book very well.
It's rather a shame that some of the writers aren't better known, because it's a good read! This book has an odd gimmick - one writer, Rhode, writes the set-up this time, putting in an impossible amount of clues into his relatively short opening. That it stands up to the later repeated scrutiny, and doesn't get too dull when it's explained again and again, shows his merits. (The plot itself is possibly stereotypical, and definitely contrived, with three important pillars of society being involved and suspected in a country house shooting!). Whilst it's all about alibis and timings, the initial chapter is so open, the following chapters are all quite different.
The next four writers each have detectives 'solve' the case - but in a gimmick designed to invoke parody, they swap detectives and are writing in somebody else's style. This doesn't entirely work without knowledge of the originals, but it's put to the background. More important are the deductions, and there's a lot of them. Whilst some of these are long winded or with overly flowery prose, they're different enough to keep holding your attention, especially in small doses. By the end of it though, you know the movements of everybody at Hursley Lodge like the back of your hand, it's been reiterated and debated so many times.
And then, tying up everything in a very fun and ingenious final chapter is Milward Kennedy. The clever conceit is that all of these detectives, whilst their chapters were written independently, worked around each other, and every clue they found was correct - even if they picked different suspects as the murderer. So who really did it? A fifth solution is found, that's meant to be the 'correct' one that fits almost all of the evidence. It sounds horrendous to write, making sense of every clue (and sneakily discounting a couple of murderer's confessions!) but thankfully it's painless to read.
Both of the books are less coherent and less readable than usual detective novels, but then they don't claim to be. Rather, through parody and wit, they enthusiastically push some of the conventions of the genre, in an era where detective fiction was all the rage. These books are better than the concept sounds, and well worth discovering now they've been reprinted once more (in very smart new editions!), and the talent involved means they shouldn't be overlooked in a hurry. Whether any more of the few Detection Club collaborations will be republished, without Agatha Christie's name attached, remains to be seen, but I hope so, if they match this standard.
The Floating Admiral was one of the first published collaborations between a group of professional, published authors, and even today it's quite star studded. There's fourteen writers involved, writing a chapter of a detective story each. Naturally, the story suffers - you can't compare it to a typical crime tale, even if the plot has all the hallmarks of one. A body is found murdered, floating on a boat on a river mouth between two towns! Not only is there suspects and alibis and tracing his movements, but also remarks about the tide and how to moor boats!
The style jumps around with each author, especially with the addition of more clues and twists, but it's kept from getting too contrived by an ingenious instruction: each writer, as well as acknowledging everything that came up before, had to come up with a solution to their chapter (printed at the end of the story), their own explanation of the evidence. Agatha Christie, whose short chapter thankfully has a lot of typically good dialogue between characters, came up with a famously great explanation, which I won't spoil here.
It's a very interesting book, and a fun experiment for the Club (they had worked together on a couple of short serialisations before this, but not a full length novel). Many of the writers have faded into obscurity (especially the most florid named such as Canon Victor Whitechurch and Edgar Jepson), so the introduction putting them into context is much needed. The book itself, though, is an odd read. What starts off as atmospheric and scene setting, quickly descends into a mess of overly complex evidence, deduction and counter deduction. The task of the final writer to tie everything up must have been enormous - but I'd prefer something less technical, playing on the fact each chapter has a different author by having a change in style, rather than juggling the plot all of the time. It's skilfully written though, definitely grabbing your attention, and definitely living up to the concept.
Ask a Policeman, the following collaboration, seems to tackle the inherent problems of the first book head on. For starters, it has only half the number of authors than the first book, making it a smoother, slightly more coherent affair. And secondly, this time they bring along their detectives!
The four detectives were probably well known to readers of detective fiction in 1934, but less so now. Whilst I'm familiar with the enthusiastic (and often infuriating) Lord Peter Wimsey from Dorothy L Sayers, and I've heard of Gladys Mitchell's Mrs Bradley (played by Diana Rigg later on TV, and I've got one on my reading pile), the other two I hadn't heard of before. The trouble is that these books are barely in print at the moment, especially Helen Simpson's stage manager Sir John Samaurez and Anthony Berkeley's Roger Sheringham, who, whilst having books adapted into films by Hitchcock (!), remain obscure. Not to mention the other two authors involved in this (and the previous book too), John Rhode and Milward Kennedy. This means it's sometimes hard to see the humour and parody involved when they appear, but they're good characters and very good writers.
In fact, the book itself is marketed under Agatha Christie - and unlike The Floating Admiral, she hasn't even contributed to this one! Rather, they've lumped in a Preface that was published elsewhere, an essay by her about other Detective Fiction writers. However it's a great piece - insightful and critical - and fits this book very well.
It's rather a shame that some of the writers aren't better known, because it's a good read! This book has an odd gimmick - one writer, Rhode, writes the set-up this time, putting in an impossible amount of clues into his relatively short opening. That it stands up to the later repeated scrutiny, and doesn't get too dull when it's explained again and again, shows his merits. (The plot itself is possibly stereotypical, and definitely contrived, with three important pillars of society being involved and suspected in a country house shooting!). Whilst it's all about alibis and timings, the initial chapter is so open, the following chapters are all quite different.
The next four writers each have detectives 'solve' the case - but in a gimmick designed to invoke parody, they swap detectives and are writing in somebody else's style. This doesn't entirely work without knowledge of the originals, but it's put to the background. More important are the deductions, and there's a lot of them. Whilst some of these are long winded or with overly flowery prose, they're different enough to keep holding your attention, especially in small doses. By the end of it though, you know the movements of everybody at Hursley Lodge like the back of your hand, it's been reiterated and debated so many times.
And then, tying up everything in a very fun and ingenious final chapter is Milward Kennedy. The clever conceit is that all of these detectives, whilst their chapters were written independently, worked around each other, and every clue they found was correct - even if they picked different suspects as the murderer. So who really did it? A fifth solution is found, that's meant to be the 'correct' one that fits almost all of the evidence. It sounds horrendous to write, making sense of every clue (and sneakily discounting a couple of murderer's confessions!) but thankfully it's painless to read.
Both of the books are less coherent and less readable than usual detective novels, but then they don't claim to be. Rather, through parody and wit, they enthusiastically push some of the conventions of the genre, in an era where detective fiction was all the rage. These books are better than the concept sounds, and well worth discovering now they've been reprinted once more (in very smart new editions!), and the talent involved means they shouldn't be overlooked in a hurry. Whether any more of the few Detection Club collaborations will be republished, without Agatha Christie's name attached, remains to be seen, but I hope so, if they match this standard.
9 Jan 2014
My Best of 2013
I watch possibly too much TV, especially drama, these days. But 2013 was a great year for drama. I've seen a lot of roundups of best things to watch last year, though I haven't watched everything. (Breaking Bad? Not on the BBC, so...) Here's my thoughts on the best things I've personally seen. Starting with..
Was it just me, or is there more crime dramas - and detective dramas - than ever? Not that I'm complaining (most of the books I read too tend to be crime-ish now, or sci-fi, and I guess the telly I watch reflects that too.)
Broadchurch
No list on 2013 is complete without Broadchurch on it. Even from the start I loved it - the acting, the cast, the cinematography, even the writing (Chris Chibnall's far better at 'realistic' drama than spaceships and swords, it seems). Really lives up to the hype - even the electrifying ending (which I didn't guess - even if many other people did!). Blogged about it here. Curiously, my mum thought it was too slow and boring, but she's wrong.
Top of the Lake
Slightly too highbrow, too arty, with lots of intelligible New Zealand locals (almost needs subtitles!) and little exposition. This was yet another slightly grim crime series, but head and shoulders above the rest in terms of gorgeous scenery, dark crazy themes, and mysterious storytelling, and great twists. I really got into it by the end.
Endeavour
Very classy, very pretty and captivating mysteries. I've never seen the original Morse series (though I've started reading the books) - this came first, and it's a series of very good mysteries.
The Great Train Robbery
Quite slow and meandering, but a fine reenactment of the robbery and the police side of things from 50 years ago. It's very classy (CSI 1963! super) but gripping and very nicely done.
Also worth mentioning: Ripper Street (most of it's two series aired this year - strong Victorian cop show), What Remains (very suspenseful mystery, unashamedly contrived, with loveably bonkers final scenes), The Fall (grim serial killer drama, classy as hell). ITV's Poirot/Marple serials (generally well done, EIGHT new ones this year! - and I've caught up on a few old ones. Curtain and Endless Night particularly were amazing). Swedish crime dramaseries Arne Dahl (good, overblown long thrillers with good character development), Luther (returning, looking pretty and well told - I caught up with series one too, the first ever episode is a masterpiece), Scott and Bailey, Father Brown (cosy short mysteries), Mayday.
An extra category - and I'm not counting Broadchurch in it, cos even that had some humour in it. These ones didn't.
The Village
Very bleak and depressing (I sense a theme here..), but very well told and shot. One of those lovely epic dramas, but set in a rural Northern village from a hundred years ago. At times, at it's best, it's very moving, and very special.
The Returned
A French series about zombies... wait, come back! This wasn't really about zombies at all (apart from the odd bit of cannibalism), more like ghosts - as four or five dead people return to a quiet village and unsettle their grieving loved ones. Why are they there? Your guess is as good as mine - but aside from getting very few answers this year, this show just oozed a classy, eerie atmosphere and suspense. (Alright - it was slow!)
Also worth mentioning: Top of the Lake and The Fall (see above), and The Mill (fine period drama from C4, in all its grubby authenticity).
But there's also some really good TV shows that I loved... well, after a while. At first they rather irritated me. There's a new trend for the confusing, filmic, muttery drama series, and here's some of them that - whilst being excellent - took me some time to warm to.
The White Queen
Lavish as ever - I loved the first episode's containedness, gorgeousness and great plot, but then it suffered under the following two or three episodes of rushed historical events, muttered exposition and a cast of thousands. For a while I hated it - but by the end of the series it calmed down into a smoother, much better watch. Don't read up on the history if you don't want to know what happens, even though it helps you to follow the plot, as it's pretty accurate actually, depicting the end bits of the War of the Roses, and the reign of Richard III. It's just a shame history wasn't a bit more... simple.
Peaky Blinders
BBC Two's lovely gangster drama set in 1919, up north, to the sound of the coolest rock songs and arty visuals. Another one of these shows without much exposition, and an unconventional plot, so I thought it a bit mystifying at first, but go along with it, if only for the ride. Or something.
Dancing on the Edge
Started off slow (a ninety minute opening episode, too), but a great cast, oozing class and quality like The Hour (much missed), and jazz songs you wouldn't realise weren't authentic. But I did find it odd - stuff happening, but not much depth or subtlety - or mystery, by the end of it. Frustrating to watch at times, with the plot too, but glossy and memorable. (There's also an extra, very odd 'documentary' episode!)
Also worth mentioning: Top of the Lake (there's a running theme to this), Burton and Taylor (muttery, but with really good casting... even if I've never seen them in real life much to compare them to!), The Great Gatsby (the film - although the book was quite hard 'to get'. I wrote about them here - but yes, an odd film to love)
Orphan Black
A very intriguing import, about a woman who discovers there's other people who look like her. Sounds a bit crazy - it's a sci-fi (ish) thriller - but it plays differently to how you'd expect, in that it's actually very very fun. Tatiana Maslay as the clones deserves every award going, as I kept having to remind myself that these characters were all played by the same actor. Really really lovely.
Utopia
Again, only technically sci-fi. Super stylish, hyper realistic and very awesome... and very disturbing! This was gripping from the start - a conspiracy, comic-booky drama, with violent assassins and... well, I'm doing it a disservice. Like nothing else this year, highly recommended - and it's coming back.
In the Flesh
After Being Human, BBC Three aired a zombie drama... wait, come back! This was completely different to your usual horror, actually being a self-confessed rural kitchen-sink drama exploring what it's like to be dead. The gradually unfolding main character and situation is what made it - the first episode's slow, but it improved into something really special.
Also worth mentioning: The Returned (see above), Neverwhere (not telly, but epic radio drama with one of the best casts ever, and best stories too. Basically, incredible - and I've never experienced the originals), Agents of Shield was alright superhero-ish action fluff.And of course returning stuff like Doctor Who - but more on that later.
The best of the rest (alright, I can't think of any more categories!).
Frankie
The complete opposite to most of these - a light, breezy antidote to the violence and misery on this list. But it's also a very well made series, about a district nurse played loveably by Eve Myles. It's not all sweetness and light though - there's a stalker, relationship problems, and obviously, death. The plot's good, and it's miles better than anything similar on ITV.
The Americans
An American show - a slow paced, tense spy series, about a pair of Russian spies posing undercover in 1981 as a typical all American family. It's a great, solid and rewarding watch - no huge explosive set-pieces or secret volcano lairs, but pure drama with a good cast.
The Escape Artist
Another one of these BBC mini-series: this one, starring David Tennant as a lawyer, was an economical, solid, effortless thriller, with a great twist of a final episode. And just a cut above most dramas.
Privates
Odd title - it's a BBC daytime drama shown last January about 1960s conscripts to National Service. But it's a lovely series, with unfamiliar actors (well, except Alex Vlahos), and juggles the plots and themes superbly over the five episodes, to keep you watching.
Also worth mentioning: I discovered Borgen, easily the best Danish political soap I've seen this year. The Wrong Mans (fine thrilling drama, with laughs). CBBC's documentary 'I am Ethan' (top notch - and Who related). Lucy Worsley's A Very British Murder (very enjoyable, about the history of crime solving!). Irish gangster drama Love/Hate (shown on 5 - action packed, pretty darn good), The Wipers Times (an excellent period piece, despite being overly long, packed with humour and cynicism), The Whale, Gangsta Granny. And The Tractate Middoth and The Thirteenth Tale were two very good ghost stories shown at Christmas.
A second series (or even more) is often hard to do. But these shows kept the quality up this year in my opinion...
Call the Midwife/Last Tango in Halifax
A second series can be tough - more of the same, especially as the first series is often hailed as the best thing since sliced bread. But these two series - both real hits, both which I loved the first time around - came back with the same quality, the same cast too, and really stunning telly. Call the Midwife made me weep with the always painful abortion sequence, pre-watershed (no blood, but intercut with bright red nail polish...) Last Tango developed the characters realistically and showed the wedding of the year, as well as the best acting, writing, directing, etc...
Wolfblood
A great set of 13 new episodes gave us our old Wolfblood gang back, plus new characters and expanded the characters and the world they lived in. A very strong, realistic serial with heart and - wait for it - bite. I also watched back the whole of the first series from last year when it was repeated on BBC Three!
Wizards Vs Aliens
The first series was alright, if small and sometimes too silly - the second really knocked it out the park though with its risk-taking stories. The Thirteenth Floor in particular is a fantastic adventure with bold twists, and the finale is amazing. But all the stories were good, ranging from high comedy to tragedy - between this and Wolfblood, it's breaking the boundaries of traditionally 'children's telly' (And Young Dracula too, not on this year).
Also worth mentioning: The Sparticle Mystery (another great children's series - a fantasy drama with all child actors, trying to find the adults - great old-school, watchable fun, like playing in the woods). Final series of Being Human (great ending to the show, revitalised for the final stretch - especially with Phil Davis, and also Kate Bracken) and Misfits (much improved on last year's also). Black Mirror (executed perfectly, most of them), The Paradise (still lovely, with glorious design and over-acting). Doc Martin (consistently light and funny - don't be snobby). And Horrible Histories - very very amusing and brilliant as ever
An odd year for Doctor Who - but a good one on the whole, with an eight episode series (also called, just, a series) and two specials. The one in November, The Day of the Doctor, was superb - as were highlights like The Crimson Horror and The Bells of St John. Let's not mention some of the episodes though, nor the Doctor or Clara's character development...
However there was also two star highlights of the year elsewhere:
An Adventure in Space and Time
A one off drama, completely different to Doctor Who, about its origins. I'd heard a lot about the drama and the history behind it already throughout the year - it's beautiful, absolutely magical. David Bradley is (was?) William Hartnell, and Mark Gatiss skilfully compressed an awful lot into 90 minutes. It's almost perfect.
The Five(ish) Doctors
Pretty much as good as the Doctor Who anniversary special, but a comedy, and with a tenth of the budget (probably). Star studded, bloody hysterical, one of the best things ever.
State of Play
One of the best TV series ever, quite possibly? A perfect storm of conspiracies, politics, journalism and mystery - if a little too long (six hours). It's also got a now A-list cast, including John Simm, David Morrissey and Bill Nighy.
Casanova
This reminded me how much I love Russell T Davies - it screams 2005 Doctor Who with David Tennant and the music and the fun, fast cutting. And it does that trick of making you laugh and cry at the same time.
Also: Finally saw Ashes to Ashes after only seeing the final one-and-a-half series (just as good as Life on Mars, perhaps better). Danger UXB (a very thrilling old wartime series). The original Pride and Prejudice (I read the book first, too, the BBC series is marvellous), Margaret (the Thatcher drama that is all about politics, with a fine cast), Land Girls (a strong series from a few years back, soap style), Eric and Ernie (accomplished and infectious - no wonder it won a Bafta). And as a family we've been watching Bergerac (the crime drama set - mostly - on Jersey. we've seen all of it now, it's mostly really good).
I didn't watch that many films this year, certainly not at the cinema - but I did see Alien, Avengers Assemble, Scott Pilgrim VS the World, Brideshead Revisited, Attack the Block, Young Sherlock Holmes, A Field in England, Indiana Jones, Starter for 10, The History Boys and Source Code, so that made up for it. And not telly, but Big Finish's last Eighth Doctor series on the radio was excellent, a real high point (as is discovering Round the Horne and Cabin Pressure, two of the solidest, funniest radio comedies). And I finally got round to reading all of Sandman, if in a fairly jumbled order. And I read lots of books, too many to mention. And, of course, I got on the radio myself, as part of Chain Gang, which was very lucky (and it wasn't half bad either).
BBC's Atlantis - a sub-par Merlin
(no pun intended), which started off terrible, and ended up as, well, a
sub-par Merlin (and that had problems of its own too). I watched the
first episode of Mr Selfridge, to my horror - utterly lifeless. Doctor Who - well, there was The Rings of Akhaten, but I watched Death to the Daleks for the first time, unfortunately.
Southcliffe was very naturalistic, arty, but without a plot and so grim it's almost unwatchable. Death Comes to Pemberley was lavish, if sombre, but I didn't like the lacklustre ending. Masterchef's format this year was very repetitive.
Catching up, the film version of The Time Traveller's Wife doesn't quite work, and doesn't feel like how I imagined it when I read the lovely lovely book - well, I was warned. Mars Attacks is far, far worse than I remembered back when I was younger. And after getting round to read them for the first time, I found some of the short stories of HP Lovecraft to be a bit heavy and a struggle to read, sadly.
Maybe I shouldn't have ended on such a downbeat paragraph... but 2013 was a good year for telly, and 2014 (even thus far) looks to be great too. It's striving for better things, it's more filmic, more nuanced, more varied than before.(And with all the dramas I watch I should probably go into the industry myself... let's call all this "research", eh?)
Best Crime Series
Was it just me, or is there more crime dramas - and detective dramas - than ever? Not that I'm complaining (most of the books I read too tend to be crime-ish now, or sci-fi, and I guess the telly I watch reflects that too.)
Broadchurch
No list on 2013 is complete without Broadchurch on it. Even from the start I loved it - the acting, the cast, the cinematography, even the writing (Chris Chibnall's far better at 'realistic' drama than spaceships and swords, it seems). Really lives up to the hype - even the electrifying ending (which I didn't guess - even if many other people did!). Blogged about it here. Curiously, my mum thought it was too slow and boring, but she's wrong.
Top of the Lake
Slightly too highbrow, too arty, with lots of intelligible New Zealand locals (almost needs subtitles!) and little exposition. This was yet another slightly grim crime series, but head and shoulders above the rest in terms of gorgeous scenery, dark crazy themes, and mysterious storytelling, and great twists. I really got into it by the end.
Endeavour
Very classy, very pretty and captivating mysteries. I've never seen the original Morse series (though I've started reading the books) - this came first, and it's a series of very good mysteries.
The Great Train Robbery
Quite slow and meandering, but a fine reenactment of the robbery and the police side of things from 50 years ago. It's very classy (CSI 1963! super) but gripping and very nicely done.
Also worth mentioning: Ripper Street (most of it's two series aired this year - strong Victorian cop show), What Remains (very suspenseful mystery, unashamedly contrived, with loveably bonkers final scenes), The Fall (grim serial killer drama, classy as hell). ITV's Poirot/Marple serials (generally well done, EIGHT new ones this year! - and I've caught up on a few old ones. Curtain and Endless Night particularly were amazing). Swedish crime dramaseries Arne Dahl (good, overblown long thrillers with good character development), Luther (returning, looking pretty and well told - I caught up with series one too, the first ever episode is a masterpiece), Scott and Bailey, Father Brown (cosy short mysteries), Mayday.
Best Unrelentingly Bleak Series
An extra category - and I'm not counting Broadchurch in it, cos even that had some humour in it. These ones didn't.
The Village
Very bleak and depressing (I sense a theme here..), but very well told and shot. One of those lovely epic dramas, but set in a rural Northern village from a hundred years ago. At times, at it's best, it's very moving, and very special.
The Returned
A French series about zombies... wait, come back! This wasn't really about zombies at all (apart from the odd bit of cannibalism), more like ghosts - as four or five dead people return to a quiet village and unsettle their grieving loved ones. Why are they there? Your guess is as good as mine - but aside from getting very few answers this year, this show just oozed a classy, eerie atmosphere and suspense. (Alright - it was slow!)
Also worth mentioning: Top of the Lake and The Fall (see above), and The Mill (fine period drama from C4, in all its grubby authenticity).
Best Series I Often Found Frustrating
But there's also some really good TV shows that I loved... well, after a while. At first they rather irritated me. There's a new trend for the confusing, filmic, muttery drama series, and here's some of them that - whilst being excellent - took me some time to warm to.
The White Queen
Lavish as ever - I loved the first episode's containedness, gorgeousness and great plot, but then it suffered under the following two or three episodes of rushed historical events, muttered exposition and a cast of thousands. For a while I hated it - but by the end of the series it calmed down into a smoother, much better watch. Don't read up on the history if you don't want to know what happens, even though it helps you to follow the plot, as it's pretty accurate actually, depicting the end bits of the War of the Roses, and the reign of Richard III. It's just a shame history wasn't a bit more... simple.
Peaky Blinders
BBC Two's lovely gangster drama set in 1919, up north, to the sound of the coolest rock songs and arty visuals. Another one of these shows without much exposition, and an unconventional plot, so I thought it a bit mystifying at first, but go along with it, if only for the ride. Or something.
Dancing on the Edge
Started off slow (a ninety minute opening episode, too), but a great cast, oozing class and quality like The Hour (much missed), and jazz songs you wouldn't realise weren't authentic. But I did find it odd - stuff happening, but not much depth or subtlety - or mystery, by the end of it. Frustrating to watch at times, with the plot too, but glossy and memorable. (There's also an extra, very odd 'documentary' episode!)
Also worth mentioning: Top of the Lake (there's a running theme to this), Burton and Taylor (muttery, but with really good casting... even if I've never seen them in real life much to compare them to!), The Great Gatsby (the film - although the book was quite hard 'to get'. I wrote about them here - but yes, an odd film to love)
Best New Sci-Fi/Fantasy Series
Orphan Black
A very intriguing import, about a woman who discovers there's other people who look like her. Sounds a bit crazy - it's a sci-fi (ish) thriller - but it plays differently to how you'd expect, in that it's actually very very fun. Tatiana Maslay as the clones deserves every award going, as I kept having to remind myself that these characters were all played by the same actor. Really really lovely.
Utopia
Again, only technically sci-fi. Super stylish, hyper realistic and very awesome... and very disturbing! This was gripping from the start - a conspiracy, comic-booky drama, with violent assassins and... well, I'm doing it a disservice. Like nothing else this year, highly recommended - and it's coming back.
In the Flesh
After Being Human, BBC Three aired a zombie drama... wait, come back! This was completely different to your usual horror, actually being a self-confessed rural kitchen-sink drama exploring what it's like to be dead. The gradually unfolding main character and situation is what made it - the first episode's slow, but it improved into something really special.
Also worth mentioning: The Returned (see above), Neverwhere (not telly, but epic radio drama with one of the best casts ever, and best stories too. Basically, incredible - and I've never experienced the originals), Agents of Shield was alright superhero-ish action fluff.And of course returning stuff like Doctor Who - but more on that later.
Best (Other) New Series
The best of the rest (alright, I can't think of any more categories!).
Frankie
The complete opposite to most of these - a light, breezy antidote to the violence and misery on this list. But it's also a very well made series, about a district nurse played loveably by Eve Myles. It's not all sweetness and light though - there's a stalker, relationship problems, and obviously, death. The plot's good, and it's miles better than anything similar on ITV.
The Americans
An American show - a slow paced, tense spy series, about a pair of Russian spies posing undercover in 1981 as a typical all American family. It's a great, solid and rewarding watch - no huge explosive set-pieces or secret volcano lairs, but pure drama with a good cast.
The Escape Artist
Another one of these BBC mini-series: this one, starring David Tennant as a lawyer, was an economical, solid, effortless thriller, with a great twist of a final episode. And just a cut above most dramas.
Privates
Odd title - it's a BBC daytime drama shown last January about 1960s conscripts to National Service. But it's a lovely series, with unfamiliar actors (well, except Alex Vlahos), and juggles the plots and themes superbly over the five episodes, to keep you watching.
Also worth mentioning: I discovered Borgen, easily the best Danish political soap I've seen this year. The Wrong Mans (fine thrilling drama, with laughs). CBBC's documentary 'I am Ethan' (top notch - and Who related). Lucy Worsley's A Very British Murder (very enjoyable, about the history of crime solving!). Irish gangster drama Love/Hate (shown on 5 - action packed, pretty darn good), The Wipers Times (an excellent period piece, despite being overly long, packed with humour and cynicism), The Whale, Gangsta Granny. And The Tractate Middoth and The Thirteenth Tale were two very good ghost stories shown at Christmas.
Best Returning Series
A second series (or even more) is often hard to do. But these shows kept the quality up this year in my opinion...
Call the Midwife/Last Tango in Halifax
A second series can be tough - more of the same, especially as the first series is often hailed as the best thing since sliced bread. But these two series - both real hits, both which I loved the first time around - came back with the same quality, the same cast too, and really stunning telly. Call the Midwife made me weep with the always painful abortion sequence, pre-watershed (no blood, but intercut with bright red nail polish...) Last Tango developed the characters realistically and showed the wedding of the year, as well as the best acting, writing, directing, etc...
Wolfblood
A great set of 13 new episodes gave us our old Wolfblood gang back, plus new characters and expanded the characters and the world they lived in. A very strong, realistic serial with heart and - wait for it - bite. I also watched back the whole of the first series from last year when it was repeated on BBC Three!
Wizards Vs Aliens
The first series was alright, if small and sometimes too silly - the second really knocked it out the park though with its risk-taking stories. The Thirteenth Floor in particular is a fantastic adventure with bold twists, and the finale is amazing. But all the stories were good, ranging from high comedy to tragedy - between this and Wolfblood, it's breaking the boundaries of traditionally 'children's telly' (And Young Dracula too, not on this year).
Also worth mentioning: The Sparticle Mystery (another great children's series - a fantasy drama with all child actors, trying to find the adults - great old-school, watchable fun, like playing in the woods). Final series of Being Human (great ending to the show, revitalised for the final stretch - especially with Phil Davis, and also Kate Bracken) and Misfits (much improved on last year's also). Black Mirror (executed perfectly, most of them), The Paradise (still lovely, with glorious design and over-acting). Doc Martin (consistently light and funny - don't be snobby). And Horrible Histories - very very amusing and brilliant as ever
Best Bit of Doctor Who
An odd year for Doctor Who - but a good one on the whole, with an eight episode series (also called, just, a series) and two specials. The one in November, The Day of the Doctor, was superb - as were highlights like The Crimson Horror and The Bells of St John. Let's not mention some of the episodes though, nor the Doctor or Clara's character development...
However there was also two star highlights of the year elsewhere:
An Adventure in Space and Time
A one off drama, completely different to Doctor Who, about its origins. I'd heard a lot about the drama and the history behind it already throughout the year - it's beautiful, absolutely magical. David Bradley is (was?) William Hartnell, and Mark Gatiss skilfully compressed an awful lot into 90 minutes. It's almost perfect.
The Five(ish) Doctors
Pretty much as good as the Doctor Who anniversary special, but a comedy, and with a tenth of the budget (probably). Star studded, bloody hysterical, one of the best things ever.
Best Show I Watched from Years Ago
State of Play
One of the best TV series ever, quite possibly? A perfect storm of conspiracies, politics, journalism and mystery - if a little too long (six hours). It's also got a now A-list cast, including John Simm, David Morrissey and Bill Nighy.
Casanova
This reminded me how much I love Russell T Davies - it screams 2005 Doctor Who with David Tennant and the music and the fun, fast cutting. And it does that trick of making you laugh and cry at the same time.
Also: Finally saw Ashes to Ashes after only seeing the final one-and-a-half series (just as good as Life on Mars, perhaps better). Danger UXB (a very thrilling old wartime series). The original Pride and Prejudice (I read the book first, too, the BBC series is marvellous), Margaret (the Thatcher drama that is all about politics, with a fine cast), Land Girls (a strong series from a few years back, soap style), Eric and Ernie (accomplished and infectious - no wonder it won a Bafta). And as a family we've been watching Bergerac (the crime drama set - mostly - on Jersey. we've seen all of it now, it's mostly really good).
I didn't watch that many films this year, certainly not at the cinema - but I did see Alien, Avengers Assemble, Scott Pilgrim VS the World, Brideshead Revisited, Attack the Block, Young Sherlock Holmes, A Field in England, Indiana Jones, Starter for 10, The History Boys and Source Code, so that made up for it. And not telly, but Big Finish's last Eighth Doctor series on the radio was excellent, a real high point (as is discovering Round the Horne and Cabin Pressure, two of the solidest, funniest radio comedies). And I finally got round to reading all of Sandman, if in a fairly jumbled order. And I read lots of books, too many to mention. And, of course, I got on the radio myself, as part of Chain Gang, which was very lucky (and it wasn't half bad either).
Disappointments
Southcliffe was very naturalistic, arty, but without a plot and so grim it's almost unwatchable. Death Comes to Pemberley was lavish, if sombre, but I didn't like the lacklustre ending. Masterchef's format this year was very repetitive.
Catching up, the film version of The Time Traveller's Wife doesn't quite work, and doesn't feel like how I imagined it when I read the lovely lovely book - well, I was warned. Mars Attacks is far, far worse than I remembered back when I was younger. And after getting round to read them for the first time, I found some of the short stories of HP Lovecraft to be a bit heavy and a struggle to read, sadly.
Maybe I shouldn't have ended on such a downbeat paragraph... but 2013 was a good year for telly, and 2014 (even thus far) looks to be great too. It's striving for better things, it's more filmic, more nuanced, more varied than before.(And with all the dramas I watch I should probably go into the industry myself... let's call all this "research", eh?)
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