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...)
Showing posts with label almost a review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label almost a review. Show all posts
21 Sept 2014
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.
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?)
24 Nov 2013
The Day of the Doctor
"Great men are forged in fire. It's up to lesser men to light the flame."
Saturday 23rd November, 2013 - fifty years to the day since Doctor Who was first shown, and going stronger than ever. Of course everyone expects a special episode to commemorate it - and so we got The Day of the Doctor, the latest anniversary extravaganza!
Whilst I can't comment on the 3D (though I'm sure it looked cool), this Doctor Who special was big (and yet contained), brilliantly written, and beautifully directed. The sort of anniversary special the series needed, even if people didn't know it. Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman (both good value, as ever), David Tennant (seamlessly appearing again, even though it's been almost four years), and the very clever casting coup of John Hurt as a long lost Doctor. Who could resist?
Saturday 23rd November, 2013 - fifty years to the day since Doctor Who was first shown, and going stronger than ever. Of course everyone expects a special episode to commemorate it - and so we got The Day of the Doctor, the latest anniversary extravaganza!
Whilst I can't comment on the 3D (though I'm sure it looked cool), this Doctor Who special was big (and yet contained), brilliantly written, and beautifully directed. The sort of anniversary special the series needed, even if people didn't know it. Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman (both good value, as ever), David Tennant (seamlessly appearing again, even though it's been almost four years), and the very clever casting coup of John Hurt as a long lost Doctor. Who could resist?
18 May 2013
The Great Gatsby
At the moment, I'm reading another of F Scott Fitzgerald's books - in fact his first, This Side of Paradise. (It's rather dragging I'm afraid - well written, just not too engaging - but that's another story entirely) Undoubtedly the most famous of the things he wrote was The Great Gatsby - a novel which has just come out as a Hollywood blockbuster movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, directed by showman extraordinaire Baz Luhrmann.
A few months ago I read the book itself. It had been on my reading list for a while, given its popularity - but I went into it knowing very little, especially about the plot. So I didn't quite know what to expect - it wasn't as if I'd read any other of Fitzgerald's work, or was familiar with his distinctive, effortlessly poetic writing style. (I haven't seen any other film adaptations either!) But I did enjoy it.
I was caught up in the characters, the plot, the words, the atmosphere. In my mind, though the prose was pleasant (and the cynic in me thought it was almost written to be analysed for countless GCSE literature courses), the atmosphere seemed pretty harsh and brutal. This was a shady world of corruption and capitalism and, in the end, murder and death. Strangely enough I hadn't got the full impact of it - it's a book trying to define its time, but read ninety years later, you take the motor cars and the alcoholic parties for granted. When in actual fact this was the era of Prohibition (hey - I'm not American, perhaps that's why some of it was lost on me). But I could see why it was successful, even if I didn't quite get everything on my first (and only, thus far) reading.
But then you read that it wasn't initially successful at all. When it was first published in 1926, though the author had realised he was creating a novel's novel, a fine piece of literature which would, in part, define and also transcend its decade... it received mixed reviews. It didn't sell very well. People, apparently, didn't quite get it. So bear that in mind when reading the book - or indeed, seeing the new film that's just been released (you know, that one that's been getting mixed reviews...).
So what about the film?
The first thing that strikes you is the visuals - it's a blockbuster in every sense of the word, and it looks absolutely lavish. The parties are wild, and brilliantly staged. There's great sweeping shots from one bay to the next, and cars whizzing by over huge landscapes - created, of course, by the latest computer effects. In fact, for me watching it in 2D, there's a bit too much of it, and at times it's almost too well done. Almost all the exteriors of the film are done in greenscreen, which gives it an odd look to my somewhat trained eyes, almost like a comic-book. Given that it isn't, and the subject matter isn't sci-fi or fantasy, it's jarring. Whether or not it looks better in 3D (even if you have to wear the glasses and focus a lot), I don't know.
Where the film shined the most for me, apart from it being gorgeous to look at, was the actors. The quieter moments, where the characters are sitting in a room and talking. And they are good characters, and very good actors - after all, one of the reasons the book is adapted is because of the plot and the characters. Even though at first it doesn't really feel like they're centre stage, amongst all the visual trappings. And the music too - it's a great soundtrack, the dazzling jewel in the film being Lana Del Rey's sumptuous Young and Beautiful, and there's also Florence + the Machine's amazing, directly-inspired Only the Love. Sure, it's odd seeing people in the 1920s dancing along to modern club music, to rap, and a jazzy rendition of Beyonce's Crazy in Love. But, it's of its time, and it works. Coupled with the CGI, the 3D, and the glitz and glamour, this film will date very very fast - ironic, given the source material. But hey - Hollywood does this sorts of blockbusters every year, so why not, in Gatsby's spirit, give people a huge showstopper to remember?
It's definitely a tough book to film. Being somebody else's adaptation of the novel, it's always going to be somebody else's view of what they think the novel is saying. It's one of those books where you often have to read into the poetry or things that are happening just out of the main picture - subtlety, in other words. That's kind of hard to capture - the film uses voiceover, but then that ruins the scenes where the characters are properly interacting.
Watching it on screen, with the film following the plot of the novel faithfully (overly so, perhaps), some scenes I thought were spoilt by showing it in detail, and would be better left to our imaginations - I didn't imagine Gatsby's love affair was quite so passionate when I read it, for instance. And then, some scenes I thought worked really well, where the film deliberately showed us its themes, and what the story was all about. And then spelt it out in voiceover. And underlined with a red pen, twice.
The book, I believe, has reached high acclaim, right up there as one of the best American novels. Similarly, the film absolutely adores the book. Take the last chapter, the last paragraph: reading it fresh, I thought it was an enigmatic, poetic, if downbeat end to the whole story, but I didn't realise that it was especially famous. The ending of the movie tries to capture the essence of those words on the page... well, it tries too hard. I'd have been happy with just a voiceover to be honest. When the film starts to quote parts of the book, literally writing the words up on the screen, you realise this is a very unusual adaptation. Whether it's a good thing or not is up to the viewer.
A few months ago I read the book itself. It had been on my reading list for a while, given its popularity - but I went into it knowing very little, especially about the plot. So I didn't quite know what to expect - it wasn't as if I'd read any other of Fitzgerald's work, or was familiar with his distinctive, effortlessly poetic writing style. (I haven't seen any other film adaptations either!) But I did enjoy it.
I was caught up in the characters, the plot, the words, the atmosphere. In my mind, though the prose was pleasant (and the cynic in me thought it was almost written to be analysed for countless GCSE literature courses), the atmosphere seemed pretty harsh and brutal. This was a shady world of corruption and capitalism and, in the end, murder and death. Strangely enough I hadn't got the full impact of it - it's a book trying to define its time, but read ninety years later, you take the motor cars and the alcoholic parties for granted. When in actual fact this was the era of Prohibition (hey - I'm not American, perhaps that's why some of it was lost on me). But I could see why it was successful, even if I didn't quite get everything on my first (and only, thus far) reading.
But then you read that it wasn't initially successful at all. When it was first published in 1926, though the author had realised he was creating a novel's novel, a fine piece of literature which would, in part, define and also transcend its decade... it received mixed reviews. It didn't sell very well. People, apparently, didn't quite get it. So bear that in mind when reading the book - or indeed, seeing the new film that's just been released (you know, that one that's been getting mixed reviews...).
So what about the film?
The first thing that strikes you is the visuals - it's a blockbuster in every sense of the word, and it looks absolutely lavish. The parties are wild, and brilliantly staged. There's great sweeping shots from one bay to the next, and cars whizzing by over huge landscapes - created, of course, by the latest computer effects. In fact, for me watching it in 2D, there's a bit too much of it, and at times it's almost too well done. Almost all the exteriors of the film are done in greenscreen, which gives it an odd look to my somewhat trained eyes, almost like a comic-book. Given that it isn't, and the subject matter isn't sci-fi or fantasy, it's jarring. Whether or not it looks better in 3D (even if you have to wear the glasses and focus a lot), I don't know.
Where the film shined the most for me, apart from it being gorgeous to look at, was the actors. The quieter moments, where the characters are sitting in a room and talking. And they are good characters, and very good actors - after all, one of the reasons the book is adapted is because of the plot and the characters. Even though at first it doesn't really feel like they're centre stage, amongst all the visual trappings. And the music too - it's a great soundtrack, the dazzling jewel in the film being Lana Del Rey's sumptuous Young and Beautiful, and there's also Florence + the Machine's amazing, directly-inspired Only the Love. Sure, it's odd seeing people in the 1920s dancing along to modern club music, to rap, and a jazzy rendition of Beyonce's Crazy in Love. But, it's of its time, and it works. Coupled with the CGI, the 3D, and the glitz and glamour, this film will date very very fast - ironic, given the source material. But hey - Hollywood does this sorts of blockbusters every year, so why not, in Gatsby's spirit, give people a huge showstopper to remember?
It's definitely a tough book to film. Being somebody else's adaptation of the novel, it's always going to be somebody else's view of what they think the novel is saying. It's one of those books where you often have to read into the poetry or things that are happening just out of the main picture - subtlety, in other words. That's kind of hard to capture - the film uses voiceover, but then that ruins the scenes where the characters are properly interacting.
Watching it on screen, with the film following the plot of the novel faithfully (overly so, perhaps), some scenes I thought were spoilt by showing it in detail, and would be better left to our imaginations - I didn't imagine Gatsby's love affair was quite so passionate when I read it, for instance. And then, some scenes I thought worked really well, where the film deliberately showed us its themes, and what the story was all about. And then spelt it out in voiceover. And underlined with a red pen, twice.
The book, I believe, has reached high acclaim, right up there as one of the best American novels. Similarly, the film absolutely adores the book. Take the last chapter, the last paragraph: reading it fresh, I thought it was an enigmatic, poetic, if downbeat end to the whole story, but I didn't realise that it was especially famous. The ending of the movie tries to capture the essence of those words on the page... well, it tries too hard. I'd have been happy with just a voiceover to be honest. When the film starts to quote parts of the book, literally writing the words up on the screen, you realise this is a very unusual adaptation. Whether it's a good thing or not is up to the viewer.
17 Apr 2013
The obligatory Broadchurch post
Six weeks ago, the first part of Broadchurch aired - a slow, Dorset-set drama about a crime that shocks a small village. Since then it has slowly and surely built up to what some people are tipping the telly drama event of the year (well, so far at any rate). Certainly it's a big hit ratings-wise.
It's amazingly well made, which is odd because it's an ITV drama - great cast, lovely stylish direction and music, and even the writing's up to scratch. One of its strengths is in its sincerity. Not only is there realism in the local police's investigation, but you've also got Olivia Colman in it, and she's amazing, which adds some warmth and humour and truthfulness to the subject material. Given the slow pace - seven or eight weeks is a long time in this digital age - and that it's dealing with heightened events, it's the characters and the humanity that stops the whole thing getting silly.
Many people have compared it to Danish drama The Killing and you can see why: a (relatively) long, drawn out investigation isn't the norm on crime dramas these days - usually it's wrapped up in two hours. It takes its time with the potential suspects (an isolated community, with huge murder mystery style potential suspicions), and we see the story, mainly, from the point of view of the police, the victim's family, and the press. Like The Killing, it's quietly stylish (although this has much more slow-mo), but also it's very gripping, with a new development and twist seemingly every week. The cliffhangers might not match The Killing's - though Episode 6's nighttime chase could have been lifted from the other - but it's proving to be unmissable.
Final episode's next week, and we still don't really know who's done it, and a whole heap of forgotten clues and soon-to-be-answered questions.
So - who killed Danny Latimer?
Seeing as everyone's got a pet theory - which everyone then has to change week on week - I thought I might post mine.
First off - the death. It's a bit hazy at the moment - first we see Danny on the cliffs at the dead of night (which nobody's mentioned!), then there's a hut, a boat which was later burned, and the body put on plain view on the beach... So, he was killed on the boat then. Why all the trouble - lack of evidence? Seemingly Danny went to meet his killer secretly that night... willingly? And did they want the body to be found straight away, because they had an alibi that night?
Susan Wright says she saw a man in a boat, dragging the body onto the beach - did she really? She lies easily, as we've seen. And though she recognised the man as Nige - who is now a credible suspect - can we trust her? Could she be the murderer herself? (unlikely)
Danny's friend Tom can't have done it - that would be silly, even if he's acting strangely. Even more silly would be his father, and Ellie's husband, Joe Miller. I know people are speculating it, but he's the least likely person who could have done it, and the only evidence against him would be the stuff with his son. So no - but Tom definitely knows something important, perhaps who Danny was going to meet.
In your standard murder mystery, often it's the most likely person who did it. Here, the most likely person was the first person arrested, Mark Latimer. He got off, as he had an alibi (though it was the first time he'd ever slept around...) and not much of a motive- but could later evidence change things around? It's not the most likely, but he's still in the picture, and it would bring the story round full circle if it was a big main character like that.
Otherwise, my (figurative) money's probably on the dark horse, psychic Steve. It's a bit of a ludicrous character, but played perfectly down-to-earth. I can see why he's in the show - it ties in with the themes of grief and the public and adds a layer of mystery. But, presuming he isn't a psychic then - how did he know about the boat? He hasn't been in it much, but he's still a suspect too... Don't get me started on motive though!
And then you've also got the nice young vicar with a shady past (who was more trusted than the newspaper seller with a shady past!), and the thing with Danny's sister's boyfriend...
Regardless of what the end result might be, it's still been one of the best things on TV this year. Now we just have to wait until Monday...
It's amazingly well made, which is odd because it's an ITV drama - great cast, lovely stylish direction and music, and even the writing's up to scratch. One of its strengths is in its sincerity. Not only is there realism in the local police's investigation, but you've also got Olivia Colman in it, and she's amazing, which adds some warmth and humour and truthfulness to the subject material. Given the slow pace - seven or eight weeks is a long time in this digital age - and that it's dealing with heightened events, it's the characters and the humanity that stops the whole thing getting silly.
Many people have compared it to Danish drama The Killing and you can see why: a (relatively) long, drawn out investigation isn't the norm on crime dramas these days - usually it's wrapped up in two hours. It takes its time with the potential suspects (an isolated community, with huge murder mystery style potential suspicions), and we see the story, mainly, from the point of view of the police, the victim's family, and the press. Like The Killing, it's quietly stylish (although this has much more slow-mo), but also it's very gripping, with a new development and twist seemingly every week. The cliffhangers might not match The Killing's - though Episode 6's nighttime chase could have been lifted from the other - but it's proving to be unmissable.
Final episode's next week, and we still don't really know who's done it, and a whole heap of forgotten clues and soon-to-be-answered questions.
So - who killed Danny Latimer?
Seeing as everyone's got a pet theory - which everyone then has to change week on week - I thought I might post mine.
First off - the death. It's a bit hazy at the moment - first we see Danny on the cliffs at the dead of night (which nobody's mentioned!), then there's a hut, a boat which was later burned, and the body put on plain view on the beach... So, he was killed on the boat then. Why all the trouble - lack of evidence? Seemingly Danny went to meet his killer secretly that night... willingly? And did they want the body to be found straight away, because they had an alibi that night?
Susan Wright says she saw a man in a boat, dragging the body onto the beach - did she really? She lies easily, as we've seen. And though she recognised the man as Nige - who is now a credible suspect - can we trust her? Could she be the murderer herself? (unlikely)
Danny's friend Tom can't have done it - that would be silly, even if he's acting strangely. Even more silly would be his father, and Ellie's husband, Joe Miller. I know people are speculating it, but he's the least likely person who could have done it, and the only evidence against him would be the stuff with his son. So no - but Tom definitely knows something important, perhaps who Danny was going to meet.
In your standard murder mystery, often it's the most likely person who did it. Here, the most likely person was the first person arrested, Mark Latimer. He got off, as he had an alibi (though it was the first time he'd ever slept around...) and not much of a motive- but could later evidence change things around? It's not the most likely, but he's still in the picture, and it would bring the story round full circle if it was a big main character like that.
Otherwise, my (figurative) money's probably on the dark horse, psychic Steve. It's a bit of a ludicrous character, but played perfectly down-to-earth. I can see why he's in the show - it ties in with the themes of grief and the public and adds a layer of mystery. But, presuming he isn't a psychic then - how did he know about the boat? He hasn't been in it much, but he's still a suspect too... Don't get me started on motive though!
And then you've also got the nice young vicar with a shady past (who was more trusted than the newspaper seller with a shady past!), and the thing with Danny's sister's boyfriend...
Regardless of what the end result might be, it's still been one of the best things on TV this year. Now we just have to wait until Monday...
14 Apr 2013
Cold War
This is beginning to be a regular occurence!
This week, Doctor Who's action movie, and a rather fine one at that. It's packed to the gills (and definitely merits a future rewatch). The TARDIS lands on a submarine - and a Russian one, in the middle of the cold war! Back in the day, that would be enough in itself - but here, it's a colourful backdrop for an alien menace which happens to be on board. They thought it was a mammoth... it's not!
Ultimately the setting of this story is uncontroversially spot on - you can't argue with confined spaces, water gushing in, the works. It's beautifully made - and shown off in a particularly beautiful episode. Warriors of the Deep this ain't - there's well controlled lighting, a dark spooky atmosphere, lots of steam and water.
And add into the mix a very cleverly redesigned version of an old enemy - the Ice Warrior! Some people have compared this episode to Dalek (I guess because it reboots a monster by putting it on its own in an confined space, and making it a killing machine) - but as the episode goes on, it reminded me more (certainly visually) of the stalking-on-a-spaceship action of 42. The Doctor's reaction is great - and establishes that this alien is not only dangerous, but also has a personality - something absent from the mysterious, parasitic monsters last week - and a history.
Perhaps its greatest moment was that twist, which I didn't see coming at all - that Skaldak the Ice Warrior had escaped his suit! (There I was thinking - they could have shown more shots of its mouth saying the lines!) From there on, it turns into a real monster movie, Alien style. The bony, green alien hands look excellently creepy - that'll be why they redesigned it, although they don't quite fit in with what we recognise already as Ice Warriors - but I was expecting to see the whole thing. I know there's a budget, but it returning to its suit out of shot felt slightly clumsy - there's keeping a monster in shadow, and then there's hardly showing anything at all. Nonetheless, it gave the suit (now a design classic) a tiny bit more screentime - something that perhaps this episode suffered from.
The atmosphere was tense - especially when it came to Clara, realising nicely that things might not work out so well this time. But I felt a feeling of unease, and not wholly intentionally I expect. There's a disorientating (but stylish) bit early on where Clara loses consciousness, and then wakes up to find everything happening. Okay, it's a pacy episode, and so it cuts out some of the real-time explaining, but it puts you on the back foot.
Similarly, as ever with twists, if you don't know where the thing's going, or think you do and something else entirely happens - like Skaldak escaping - you feel slightly out of the action. That's not to say it doesn't make sense - just that, when you build up a monster, for him to mostly skulk about in the shadows halfway through, it feels a bit mystifying.
The cast is strong, stronger than most - I love Tobias Menzies already, and then you've got Liam Cunningham and David Warner too, playing three very different characters
They aren't especially nuanced, though - see also Victory of the Daleks (except Churchill), although editing may have something to do with it in both - but then it's an action movie. It's still a nice set-up - and the Cold War provides not only weapons (nuclear - huge threat there, well explained) but imagery that contrasts with the big old Martian, a character in itself, separated by culture and suspicion. Red planet, red army, perhaps.
Does it provide a satisfying ending though? It's a happy one - not least because there's no armageddon - but I couldn't help feeling a little cheated. Dare I use a certain latin phrase describing godlike denouments? The giant (if pretty, and almost Nekross-like) spaceship wasn't the only problem though - the Mutually Assured Destruction threat felt slightly forced, and it was a shame that we never glimpsed the Ice Warrior after he had teleported away - a shot of him in the spaceship hesistating would have made the situation clearer. (And can submarines do trips from pole to pole?)
And we get a reference to Ultravox - hooray!
This week, Doctor Who's action movie, and a rather fine one at that. It's packed to the gills (and definitely merits a future rewatch). The TARDIS lands on a submarine - and a Russian one, in the middle of the cold war! Back in the day, that would be enough in itself - but here, it's a colourful backdrop for an alien menace which happens to be on board. They thought it was a mammoth... it's not!
Ultimately the setting of this story is uncontroversially spot on - you can't argue with confined spaces, water gushing in, the works. It's beautifully made - and shown off in a particularly beautiful episode. Warriors of the Deep this ain't - there's well controlled lighting, a dark spooky atmosphere, lots of steam and water.
And add into the mix a very cleverly redesigned version of an old enemy - the Ice Warrior! Some people have compared this episode to Dalek (I guess because it reboots a monster by putting it on its own in an confined space, and making it a killing machine) - but as the episode goes on, it reminded me more (certainly visually) of the stalking-on-a-spaceship action of 42. The Doctor's reaction is great - and establishes that this alien is not only dangerous, but also has a personality - something absent from the mysterious, parasitic monsters last week - and a history.
Perhaps its greatest moment was that twist, which I didn't see coming at all - that Skaldak the Ice Warrior had escaped his suit! (There I was thinking - they could have shown more shots of its mouth saying the lines!) From there on, it turns into a real monster movie, Alien style. The bony, green alien hands look excellently creepy - that'll be why they redesigned it, although they don't quite fit in with what we recognise already as Ice Warriors - but I was expecting to see the whole thing. I know there's a budget, but it returning to its suit out of shot felt slightly clumsy - there's keeping a monster in shadow, and then there's hardly showing anything at all. Nonetheless, it gave the suit (now a design classic) a tiny bit more screentime - something that perhaps this episode suffered from.
The atmosphere was tense - especially when it came to Clara, realising nicely that things might not work out so well this time. But I felt a feeling of unease, and not wholly intentionally I expect. There's a disorientating (but stylish) bit early on where Clara loses consciousness, and then wakes up to find everything happening. Okay, it's a pacy episode, and so it cuts out some of the real-time explaining, but it puts you on the back foot.
Similarly, as ever with twists, if you don't know where the thing's going, or think you do and something else entirely happens - like Skaldak escaping - you feel slightly out of the action. That's not to say it doesn't make sense - just that, when you build up a monster, for him to mostly skulk about in the shadows halfway through, it feels a bit mystifying.
The cast is strong, stronger than most - I love Tobias Menzies already, and then you've got Liam Cunningham and David Warner too, playing three very different characters
They aren't especially nuanced, though - see also Victory of the Daleks (except Churchill), although editing may have something to do with it in both - but then it's an action movie. It's still a nice set-up - and the Cold War provides not only weapons (nuclear - huge threat there, well explained) but imagery that contrasts with the big old Martian, a character in itself, separated by culture and suspicion. Red planet, red army, perhaps.
Does it provide a satisfying ending though? It's a happy one - not least because there's no armageddon - but I couldn't help feeling a little cheated. Dare I use a certain latin phrase describing godlike denouments? The giant (if pretty, and almost Nekross-like) spaceship wasn't the only problem though - the Mutually Assured Destruction threat felt slightly forced, and it was a shame that we never glimpsed the Ice Warrior after he had teleported away - a shot of him in the spaceship hesistating would have made the situation clearer. (And can submarines do trips from pole to pole?)
And we get a reference to Ultravox - hooray!
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