// Film and Television
Russell The Davies, OBE
So, the man himself, Russell T. Davies, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Now inevitably there’s a certain amount of grumbling about the honours list anyway, and there’s a certain amount of muttering along the lines of “well, he’s only brought back Doctor Who, how does that qualify him for an honour?” but I think he more than deserves this award for service to television and culture over the last twenty-odd years.
Who notwithstanding, he’s the creator of the groundbreaking series Queer as Folk which I had the pleasure of watching again recently and, with the shock value of some of its scenes long since gone, found I was just blown away by the writing. The warmth and the humour and - frankly - brilliant characterisation made me fall in love with it all over again. It’s a stunning bit of writing and well worth a re-viewing if you get the chance.
And then there’s its cultural impact which still resonates to this day.
Then there’s the quality of his other work. I have yet to see many of his other series, but two of his early works “Dark Season” and “Century Falls” had me gripped by Children’s BBC when technically I was way outgrowing it. The former clearly showed he wanted to write Doctor Who, but both also proved that kids could easily handle, nay love, proper drama at a time when the industry believed it was going out of fashion.
If anything I think its these two series that made me realise I wanted to write too.
He’s never written down to kids this one - look at “the Flashing Blade” and “Breakfast Serials” too for further proof - and I do believe that’s vitally important.
His New Doctor Who Adventures novel “Damaged Goods” is something I’ve also picked up again recently and that too is a brilliant - if very dark and, at times, harrowing - read, but also contains seeds that will be familiar to any New Series fans. (Council Estate, with sassy Girl, dark Time Lord, gays a go-go, war machine from an unseen war appearing on earth and so on…)
To see Russell talk about television is too be overawed by his intelligence, his rigour and - above all - his amazing enthusiasm for the medium. It’s always heady stuff and fires me up every time.
And then he’s effectively created a proper Welsh television industry, turning it from a small regional operation into a major powerhouse of drama. And if that doesn’t deserve an OBE I don’t know what does.
The man’s, frankly, brilliant and - despite my occasional problems with his plot decisions on Who - I love him to bits. Well done Russell, it’s an award I think is richly deserved.
Posted on June 14, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television, The World we Live In | 1 Comment
Halfway Through…
One or two of you may have noticed that for the first time since the series’ return I haven’t been posting up episode-by-episode reviews of Doctor Who this year.
This is basically because I’ve suddenly realised three things:
- I’m happiest watching and enjoying the programme (many times, many many times) rather than picking it apart ad nauseum;
- My views on each episode are really no more interesting than anyone else’s; and
- Even when it’s deeply flawed its pluses still outweigh the minuses.
So… as we find ourselves hurtling past the half-way mark (and because evil sodding Eurovision is giving us a week off in which to draw breath) let me say just this:
I’m enjoying myself enormously, and I hope you are too.
Posted on May 19, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television | 0 Comments
Worst of the Time Lords
Recently stumbled across this little gem on Edison’s All-Electric Interweb: a comic strip entitled “Worst of the Time Lords“.
Featuring an obviously depresssive tenth Doctor I find I’m enjoying it enormously.
Favourite panels so far include:
- On the TARDIS
- On the Universe
- On Gallifrey
- On the End of the Universe
- On Time Travel
- On Humans
- On Rose
- On Donna
- On Jack (and again)
- On Torchwood
It’s sort of how I’d play the Doctor if I were, through some freak accident of supremely stupid casting, I were ever given the role.
This site is so added to my favourites list.
Posted on May 18, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television, Reading and Writing | 0 Comments
The Influence of Television…
Over the weekend - where visits to Ikea, garden centres and so on were made less pleasurable by the flurry of snow - it occurred to me that I really don’t have enough jumpers. Nestling in the bottom of one of my drawers are a couple of quite slinky tight-fitting little numbers, admittedly, but until I have managed to pump up the physique considerably more I felt ill-inclined to wear them. Essentially a more chunky and standard look is definitely what I was short of, I thought
So last night, prior to a lovely evening of boozing in the Duke of Wellington with a friend of mine, I hit Oxford Street (with all the unutterable awfulness that entails) and rectified the problem with a few choice purchases. In retrospect I’m not sure the Lemon was a good idea - it occurs that more muted colours seem to suit me best - but certainly I now have an array of sweaters from which to choose.
And so this morning saw me struggling into one of said jumpers (I’ve managed to knacker my shoulder overnight somehow, which is agony), pottering round the house a bit doing my usual routine and leaving for work.
It was only when I paused to do a quick check of my attire before heading out the door that I suddenly realised that my entire look clearly echoed that of a TV character loved by millions. There in the mirror, with his short hair, big ears, maroon sweater and half-length black leather jacket stood the Ninth Doctor.
I cursed inwardly and scurried out the door before the flatmate could see. Because he would doubtless have pointed and laughed.
Posted on March 26, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television, My So-Called Life | 1 Comment
Scared now. Very scared.
An email dropped into my box (oo-er) this morning which had the sort of opening that you can only take offence at, really.
We thought that you would like to know that booking is now open for ITV1’s brand new big Saturday night series of ‘All Star Mr & Mrs’ with celebrity couples and it’s happening soon!
I mean… how bloody dare they? Why would I be interested in something this ghastly? Oh well… I read on…
ALL STAR MR & MRS - Hosted by Phillip Schofield & Fern Britton
‘Mr & Mrs’ is back with a couple of new twists for the new century! Phillip and Fern will be finding out whether some of the nation’s favourite celebrity couples really were made for one another.
If they’re not, what are they going to do? Gas them? Oh, hang on… that might be interesting given who’s on:
Amongst the celebrity couples taking part are: Neil & Christine Hamilton (18th March), Steve Bakley and his wife (18th March) Actor Anthony Head & partner Sarah (29th March 7.30pm), King Of The Jungle Christopher Biggins & partner Neil (29th March 7.30pm), Kerry Katona & husband Mark Croft (25th March), Vic Reeves & Nancy Sorrell (26th March), Laurence & Jackie Llewelyn Bowen (30th March 4.30pm) , Vicky Entwistle & her husband Andy (29th March 4.30pm) plus Lembit Opik & Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia.
It’s good to know that ITV is responding to its current hammering in the ratings by upping the quality of its output isn’t it?
My flatmate came and read it over my shoulder. I think it’s probably telling that just as we reached the list of celebrities we found ourselves simultaneously, and without any prompting, voicing one question in perfect time with one another:
“Who the fuck is Vicky Entwistle?”
Posted on March 16, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television | 0 Comments
Torchwood - Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
Gosh.
That was better wasn’t it?
Posted on January 17, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television | 3 Comments
Dante’s Cove
A random thread on Thingbox put me onto the existence of this little gem of a series, made in the US for a subscription gay channel (some people have dubbed this phenomenon “pay-for-gay” which amuses me), and I have to say that I have become rather hooked.
It starts simply enough, in Dante’s Cove, with a woman walking in and discovering her husband to be in the process of being buggered by his valet on the eve of their wedding. The obvious thing to do, therefore, is to kill the valet with a flash of her eyes, and then imprison her fiance as an ugly aged figure for a hundred-and-fifty years until he can be released from his aged form by the kiss of a young man.
And after this, ladies and gentlemen, it goes a bit mad.
It’s essentially Dark Shadows crossed with Buffy, crossed with softcore gay and lesbian porn, which makes for startling viewing I can tell you. The plot, such as it is, steams along for a while and then you suddenly think “hang on, there’s been no sex for 15 minutes, what’s going on?” before, right on cue, you’re rewarded with some quite surprisingly frank (if obviously non-penetrative - this is for TV after all) boffing.
The men are at times almost distressingly hairless and jock-like - although I seem to be coping since they are generally rather woof (especially Charlie David who plays Toby) - and the acting veers wildly between mediocre and appalling, but there’s definitely a certain captivating quality to the whole thing.
If nothing else you have to keep watching to see if Tracy Scoggins manages to nail down her English accent at any point. So far the signs aren’t looking good, I must say, but it’s a fascinating blend of vocal styles all the same. On one occasion she even managed to pronounce “aspirant” like “arse-print” which I’m afraid to say almost made me choke to death on my dinner - but it still made me love her all the more.
The thing I love most though is that in three short series it’s done all those things you’d expect from an American soap opera. It’s changed the actors playing two characters completely, replacing them with people who look nothing like the originals (”Hey Michelle, good to see you, you’re looking… different!”). It’s even changed location completely so that series one is set on a visibly different island to the subsequent ones (”It’s amazing what a lick of paint can do”).
But best of all they’ve also had to completely abandon a plot strand when one of the actors didn’t come back for series three. “There’s a new power in Dante’s Cove!” says the end of series two. Series three starts with: “Whoops, she appears to have died in a Tsunami! Got out of that one…”.
So, couple all this insanity with melodrama so thick you could tar a fence in it - and season with that wonderful trick that US soaps seem to have of having perfectly reasonable conversations switching to heart-wringing arguments with no pause for breath - and it really is something to behold.
I’m absolutely loving it.
Of course, given my track record with series like this, it’ll probably do a Hex and finish the season on a cliffhanger and then never get recommissioned. Oh well - such is life.
Posted on January 6, 2008 | Filed Under Film and Television | 0 Comments
ITV, I Love You!
Those words are four I never thought I’d use, but I just discovered that they’ve put five episodes of Metal Mickey online.
Okay, so it is a bit lame. And I was, oddly enough, far too young for it when it was broadcast (I would have been three when it started and I think I only ever saw one episode when I was a kid) but my early childhood scrapbook contained innumerable pictures lovingly cut out from magazines because they thought a comedy robot would be just the sort of thing a young boy would like when he was older.
Life was much simpler when I was interested in robots. Now I’m interested in men it all seems so much more complicated.
You can’t switch them off for one thing.
Posted on September 8, 2007 | Filed Under Film and Television, My So-Called Life | 6 Comments
Doctor Who - Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords
Okay… it’s been a long time coming, but with the release of the final three episodes of season three on DVD I thought it was finally time to commit my thoughts on the last two episodes of Series Three to the web.
And it’s got to be said, very mixed thoughts they are too.
Now, although it started with a terribly convenient resolution to the “Utopia” cliff-hanger, “The Sound of Drums” screamed “instant classic” from the off. It was, to put it simply, a bouncing-on-the-edge-of-the-seat-athon of dazzling proportions, and the cliff-hanger - with the Doctor aged to the point of frail infirmity, and the Master fully in control - was such a strong one that I wondered at the time how the hell they could top it.
Now… Last of the Time Lords isn’t irredeemably awful – although various people I know refuse to watch it ever again – and with the inevitable repeated viewings (and once taken in context of the series) everything is cleverly layered, pointered and it is on the whole a logical progression from its predecessor.
The first time I started to feel a little cheated was the Doctor being aged into a - rather less successful than you’d have hoped - CGI critter. Execution aside (for which I will only say “meh”) it is just a re-use of the same plot device used earlier, something which is a surprising lapse from a writer of Davies’ indisputable experience.
The moment I really started to cringe, though, was the rejuvenation of the Doctor. Now, I’m not going to whinge about overt religious iconography in Who - although this was about as unsubtle as you can get - but whilst the Master putting it about as if he is Lord and… well, you know… having the production team make the same comparison makes me feel very uncomfortable. For me the more mythical and Godlike the Doctor seems to become the more his intelligence and his (for want of a better word) humanity are eclipsed. Give him more and more amazing alien superpowers and you diminish his heroism to a certain extent, so the fact he suddenly surrounded himself in a glowing mist and was reborn was, for me, the absolute nadir of the series.
Then, following these two blows, the subsequent blatant steals from Flash Gordon and Return of the Jedi just annoyed me further. And as for the Face of Boe revelation, that just seemed to be another “how funny would this be” thing that would have better been left alone. (Telling I think that even RTD says it’s just a theory and he doesn’t believe it.)
But of course, these are precisely what the production team dismiss out of hand: the opinions of someone who has loved the series for years. But I would point out my 12-year-old stepbrother (who has only really come in from Series One) independently didn’t like the episode for much the same reasons, so I feel a little vindicated on this score.
Still, there were some marvelous moments too: CGI Doctor aside, the first thirty minutes were just stunning, particularly for Martha. And I hate that once again I have to praise the performances - since the series as a whole does pull stunning ones out of the hat from every cast member it ever has - but Last of the Time Lords was no exception. Martha’s exit, too, was a real shock, but so incredibly truthful that, whilst I so wanted her to stay, I could understand why she didn’t.
In fact if anything, the plus points of the episode are what Davies always excels at: characterisation, motivation, emotion and a real sense of sparkle and fun. It’s just sometimes he does push things a bit too far (either for a guffaw-type joke or for his view of what counts as “epic”) and in this one it pushed a lot of wrong notes for me.
Still, even with the (for me) chronic let-down of its last episode, Series Three has generally felt like an improvement over Series Two which somehow now feels a bit flat by comparison. And even at its worst, it’s still one of the best things on telly. (Second best, in my opinion, but a good second.)
Posted on September 2, 2007 | Filed Under Film and Television | 0 Comments
Snogging Quicksilver
My iGoogle home page served up my daily star sign today as usual (well, I usually find them diverting in a “yeah, right” sort of way) but the opening line this morning was particularly unusual I thought:
“Your key planet Venus receives a thoughtful kiss from intelligent Mercury”
I’ve got to say, a full-on tongue-lock with intelligent Mercury sounds like a scene worthy of Doctor Who in my opinion.
It’s probably being RTD’d even as I type…
Posted on August 17, 2007 | Filed Under Film and Television, Musings | 0 Comments