Category: Reviews

Nuts ‘n Baltars (Warning – many spoilers!)

So, a third season of Battlestar Galactica has wound its way to a conclusion. A conclusion this time much more low key and quasi-mystical than ever before. Leaving us, as usual, with lots of questions, it was also occasionally a little unclear. Was Starbuck dead after all? So where did she appear from and how had she “been to Earth”? Is Earth Heaven, then? Since they’ve yet to reach it, how was it that the newly revealed Cylons were triggered to wake by Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower? Who were the mysterious ships flying over our heroes in the nebula? Didn’t see any Cylons, that’s for sure…

Many friends of mine, and indeed people I don’t know, find Galactica hard to take for various reasons, the most prominent being that they see it as right wing propaganda. To me, this is an indication of not really having paid attention, or taking certain themes, plots and characters out of context. It’s true that the series shows the future to be dominated by an analogue of the US military, but the mistake people seem to make is to assume that soldiers are mere cyphers, extensions of the political philosophy of their government. Galactica deals with the fact that soldiers are people, as flawed and fallible as anyone else. They hold a variety of political views and are as prone to being wrong as anyone else. And in high office, while President Laura Roslin seems like a bit of a liberal, we found out last year about her strongly held views on abortion, which led to a decision that, by both moral and strategic terms, was very wrong and has come back to haunt her.

As for the political philosophy of the show itself, it was a revelation to me to sit in a panel at this year’s Gallifrey One convention and hear left wingers decry the show as right wing propaganda, and right wingers decry it as left wing propaganda. The truth, like the show’s characters themselves, is rather more muddy. The Cylons began as mass murderers in a Dalek style – witness Number Six’s unfeeling murder of a baby in the marketplace in the original miniseries. Yet they’ve been shown to be divided among themselves as to how to treat humanity, some feeling that attempted genocide was the worst mistake they ever made. Conversely, our heroes make no attempt to understand their enemy, which would make sense from both a moral and a military point of view. Whenever they capture a Cylon, instead of trying to figure out what makes it tick, they just shove it out the nearest airlock. The military can be both right and wrong, a fact acknowledged by Ronald D Moore when he ran Star Trek‘s most sophisticated incarnation, Deep Space Nine. Curiously, that realisation served to defuse the very real right wing agenda of Starfleet, an organisation who, as Clive James once put it, would “beam down and impose the Federation’s will in the name of freedom.” Their endlessly disposable red shirted cannon fodder really do show the soldier as merely a weapon rather than a person.

Since it began, Galactica has tackled potentially very controversial subjects, politically analogous to the real world and in particular the Iraq war. On no occasion, it seems to me, has it come down on either side of the political fence, but it has presented arguments for both sides very powerfully. The topic of prisoner abuse was deliberately rubbed in the viewer’s face in season 2’s Pegasus, in which the captured Number Six had been horrifically treated by the crew of the titular Battlestar, ostensibly on the side of humanity. This being indefensible, both right and left wingers can feel vindicated.

Things became rather greyer this year, with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica. Intentionally portrayed as a parallel to the US occupation of Iraq, this plotline even lifted the awful jargon of the US army and news media. “Insurgents” were referred to, and the occupiers formed a police force of the natives that became an instant target for the “terrorists”. But if the show has a right wing agenda, how would it make sense to cast the Cylons in the role of the Americans? For that matter, when it’s our heroes who are the insurgency, and they start strapping on explosives to suicide bomb what they see as collaborators, isn’t that encouraging us even more to see things from the point of view of the people of Iraq? On the other hand, as left-wingers might see it, the plot seems to show the Cylons taking a much softer line, indeed trying, in a cack-handed sort of way, to be a benevolent force for co-operation. Their violence seems to spring from frustration at the humans’ unwillingness to accept this. That, though, seems perilously close to defending the policies of people like Hans Frank, Nazi governor of Poland.

So in my view, the show presents plots about which one can make up one’s own mind. Both Cylons and humans have evolved immensely since the series began, and even then it seemed to be humanity’s treatment of their sentient creations as slaves that led to the enmity. Perhaps there is no right or wrong side; no right or left wing in this galaxy.

Other unfavourable comparisons, though, have been drawn with the original series. The original Battlestar Galactica was an expensive but shallow rip off of Star Wars, which nonetheless had an interesting premise. Its villain was a man named Count Baltar, with whom the newer Gaius Baltar has little but a name in common. Some see the new Baltar as a stereotypical English bad guy, but once again this seems to be a question of not looking hard enough. Gaius Baltar is vain, arrogant, weak-willed and hedonistic, but he’s not a villain. It is his fault that the Cylons were able to penetrate the Colonial defences and wipe out most of mankind, but he had no idea that was going to happen. All he wanted was a shag, with that tall, mysterious blonde woman! The series since has built on his sense of guilt and cowardice, and his fear of getting caught. In many ways, he’s the most realistic character in it; the slimy, “it’s not my fault” worm that perhaps a lot of us would become in such circumstances.

In contrast, the original Baltar was a camp, cackling pantomime villain who made Anthony Ainley’s Master look like a model of depth and complexity. John Colicos plays him with a great over the top relish, but really he’s a paper-thin 2D character who makes no sense. What does he hope to gain by betraying humanity to the Cylons? They want to kill all the humans. He’s a human. Does he expect them to make a distinction? It’s like that bit in Terror of the Autons where the Master suddenly realises that the Nestenes won’t distinguish between him and the people of Earth, and you think “if you’re a genius, how did you miss that rather large flaw in your plan?”. Colicos’ Baltar can’t be after money or power either; what use would they be to the last man in the universe? No, the new Baltar holds up far better in comparison, but for heaven’s sake try to see beyond James Callis’ English accent. At the very least it’s caused the use of words like “butterfingers”!

The other criticism of the show is that it’s unremittingly grim and visually drab. Well, be fair; being the last survivors of a holocaust on the run from a lethal enemy with superior firepower in a hostile environment is hardly the stuff of Terry and June, is it? And yet even given this, the show’s often displayed a fair sense of humour. Baltar’s ghostly sex fantasies of Number Six have led to a number of “whoops, Vicar” moments as other characters discover him pleasuring himself in his lab, and there’s even an outright comedy episode in season one. Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down, directed by stony-faced Edward James Olmos himself, is a Run For Your Wife-style farce of the highest order; or perhaps Abigail’s Party would be a more sophisticated comparison. As for being visually drab, well, the show is set on a bunch of clapped out military spaceships with some very low technology. The military aren’t known for painting things lilac, are they? Well, maybe some of them, but they work on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy. It seems to be an acquired taste, but I think the kinetic, “handheld camera” style of the space battles provides plenty to stimulate the viewer visually. It’s a logical development of the style used in Babylon 5, DS9, and most notably Firefly, whose main ship Serenity can be glimpsed in the Galactica miniseries as a kind of tribute.

One criticism that I initially shared before I saw the show was the concept of the Cylons looking like humans. It seemed like a cost-cutting measure, and it’s true that the early CG centurions in the miniseries looked less than convincing. Besides the “they look like us and they’re already here” plot is one of the oldest in sci fi, stretching from 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers through TV shows The Invaders, The X-Files, and last year’s ill-fated Invasion. But it’s a plot device that works brilliantly, especially with the self-imposed limitation of only twelve Cylon models. And now the Cylon ships are actual Cylons too, from their raiders to their base ships. Fitting for a robot race evolving towards true life form status. Besides, they’ve really improved the CG on the robotic Centurion models; they’re leaner and more vicious looking than the originals, with built in weaponry and a capability to be lethal even when partially dismembered. And they move like lightning! By contrast, the originals, while looking and sounding pretty cool, always looked like they’d fall over when they started moving. With hilarious results, as shown in an episode of Robot Chicken.

Perhaps Galactica appeals to a very different kind of sci fi fan than the lighter, frothier reborn Doctor Who; perhaps also one’s enjoyment of it may depend on one’s enjoyment of old war movies, whose conventions it frequently appropriates. But it’s a sophisticated, very human show, with many interesting science fiction concepts and limitations, and one deserving already of the term “classic”.

With all that in mind, now that season three has come to an end, what did I think of it?

It’s been a rather unbalanced season, with the strong opening episodes featuring the occupation of New Caprica and Galactica’s wham-bang rescue mission, but after that it seemed somewhat to go into idle. There were an unusual number of, admittedly very well done, filler episodes, such as the one about Chief Tyrol unionizing the refinery ship, or the one where he and his wife got stuck in an airlock. There were also a few tantalising plot threads left hanging from earlier. In particular, what happened to the mysterious Cylon plague that had decimated one of their ships and appeared to have no effect on humans? A perfect weapon for some of the nasty neo-cons on Galactica, I’d have thought.

Baltar’s enforced absence on a Cylon base ship gave us an ever greater insight into the truly alien world of these hyper-evolved machines, operating out of gigantic, living ships controlled by Minority Report-alike weirdoes wired into the system from tanks of goo. The problem with this was that Baltar’s presence in the Colonial fleet was one of the best dynamics of the show’s drama, and with the unwitting collaborator gone, the conflicts between characters seemed somehow less important.

They pulled it all together with the climactic two-parter, though. Taking the tried-and-tested dramatic format of a trial, it also weaved its increasingly mystical themes through a genuinely gripping exploration of the importance of the law, and how Baltar may not be as guilty as people think. The trial featured some powerful speeches on the rights of the individual, and grizzled old Adama surprised us all by voting Baltar not guilty. Meanwhile Lee Adama discovered that the legal process is no place for an honest man, as he sold his soul by betraying all around him to win the case. Small wonder then that he piled into a Viper at the first opportunity and flew off to almost certain doom.

And now we know the identity of four of the final five Cylon replicants. This might have been more of a surprise if Sky hadn’t said this in their listings, particularly since it became obvious after about ten minutes that only four of the characters could hear the mysterious snatches of music that turned out to be Bob Dylan. Still, the revelation begged yet more questions. Now aware that he’s a Cylon, Colonel Tigh seems intent on carrying on as the man he thought he was. But his ambiguous response to Adama at the close of the show was open to all manner of interpretation, and also made me wonder if there are multiple versions of these models in the fleet. Perhaps the Tigh we saw in the last scene wasn’t the one we’d seen before… Also, none of these four seemed to merit the hushed, humbled apology spoken by D’Anna when she glimpsed one of their faces in her temple-bound vision earlier in the season. Unless, of course, it was Tigh, and she was mortally embarrassed at having gouged his eye out!

Not as spectacular a conclusion as season one’s coup d’etat by Adama or season two’s Cylon invasion of New Caprica, this year’s finale seemed designed to stimulate the brain more than the adrenal glands. But that won’t stop me rushing back next year…

Episode 5: Evolution of the Daleks

“Begin the invasion of Manhattan!”

So they just wanted to invade things after all…
After the complex, inventive set-up last week, I have to say this week’s conclusion was something of a disappointment. All the rich period detail and characters were put to one side for a straightforward runaround that seemed based around set piece after set piece, like a Russell T Davies script. To be fair, it did a good job of tying up all the plot strands Helen Raynor established in the first part, it’s just that it somehow didn’t have the epic feel it really should have.

The central thrust of the story, that the Daleks needed to evolve to survive, was explored well, with the partially humanised Dalek Sec becoming a combination of both Frankenstein and his monster. Indeed, the nods to Universal horror classics of the 30s were even more overt this week with that impressive shot of many shrouded bodies on suspended slabs, and the necessity for lightning to animate them. There was some good dialogue too, with the Doctor convincingly deciding to aid Sec in his quest to make the Daleks a “better” race. This at once recalled and inverted the plot of Evil of the Daleks, in which the Human Factor was merely an aid to more efficient conquest, but the Emperor planned to infect humanity with a Dalek Factor when that failed.

The trouble was that while the set pieces were impressive, the narrative seemed merely to exist to link them together. So the chase out of the sewers was there to lead to the Hooverville attack, which led to the Doctor’s alliance with Sec, which led to his betrayal, etc. It’s good plotting, but there was barely room to breathe between them, and the odd reflective moment came across as strangely forced, as though the plot needed to stop and get its breath back. A certain epic feel was provided by the charcters’ battle at the top of the Empire State as the Doctor struggled to dismantle the Dalekanium antennae, but that was followed by a rather anticlimactic showdown in the theatre, when it felt like the struggle on top of New York’s tallest building should have been the episode’s climax.

That’s not to say it was all bad, though. The Daleks’ rebellion against their leader was well done, and perfectly in keeping with their philosophy on racial purity. With the historical knowledge that the Nazis were just around the corner, this had a deal of depth. I loved the way they conspired against Sec in the sewer, one glancing behind him nervously to see if they could be overheard. It also gave Sec the opportunity to say, “You must obey me… I created you!”, which apart from recalling Frankenstein again is virtually a Davros line from Genesis. I must say, though, impressive image though it was, I couldn’t figure out why they took a chained Sec with them to confront the Doctor. For that matter, I was wondering how they planned to untangle the chains from their arms if they needed to move fast!

The cast, so impressive last week, seemed pretty well sidelined in the breakneck pace of the plot. It seemed a shame for Hugh Quarshie’s Solomon to be so peremptorily killed; while the scene of him appealing to the Daleks’ better natures was crucial in establishing that they’re still really, really nasty, it seemed a shame to waste such a strong character like that. Surely the Star Trek style “let’s all be friends” speech could have been delivered by a more minor character. And after unexpectedly reprieving Andrew Garfield’s rather sweet Frank last week, the script this week seemed to have nothing for him to do but stand around behind people. Perhaps it would have had a greater emotional impact if the Daleks had killed him in Part One! The only characters well served by the plot were Tallulah and Lazslo, with their doomed romance continuing its Phantom of the Opera vibe, and serving to impress on us New York’s welcoming of a massively varied community.

Martha had a little more to do at least, her medical background again coming in handy after the Hooverville attack. Freema gave a varying performance, occasionally seeming a little forced at moments of high emotion, though she handled the relationship discussion with Tallulah well. Still, with the season now five episodes old, I do wish we could begin moving on from the Doctor’s moping over Rose. I know that in story terms, it’s only been about a week since Martha joined him, not at all long enough to get over such a relationship, but just this once I wish they’d sacrifice emotional realism and let the story get on with things. An entire season of Martha moping over the Doctor while the Doctor mopes over Rose could get a little much.

David Tennant was again on good form, giving a darker performance to serve the darker tone of the story. His lapses into emotional shouting were impressive, but his repeated challenges to the Daleks to kill him came across as rather reckless really. What if they’d taken him up on that? (The fact that they didn’t seemed to reduce them to Bond villian caricatures, too). Also, his apparent loss of control in the face of the species that had caused him so much trauma was a good idea, but his attempts at intensity palled rather compared to Christopher Eccleston in Dalek. While Tennant’s got a lot better, he still can’t seem to do intense like Eccleston could.

It’s a shame we didn’t get more of a final showdown with Dalek Khan (Khaaaann!!!), but at least the Emergency Temporal Shift means there’s still a Dalek out there. There’s been a bit of speculation as to whether he turns out to be the lone Dalek encountered by Christopher Eccleston, but that doesn’t really work. That Dalek was clearly an unimaginative footsoldier (if it still had the luxury of feet) and nothing like a member of the sneaky Cult of Skaro. Also, if it was Khan, it was curiously uninformed about the outcome of the Time War. No, I’m thinking we’ll see Khan again, but hopefully not in this season’s concluding two-parter…

Overall then, a rather patchy conclusion to a very promising set up. Some nice fan moments (Dalekanium, counting in rels) and great dialogue, but somehow less than the sum of its set pieces. Still streets ahead of last year’s disappointing Cyberman two-parter though, and perhaps one that might work better watched in a single sitting. Expect I’ll try that soon…

Episode 4: Daleks in Manhattan

“We must evolve!”

And from that simple idea sprung the seeds for the most imaginative Dalek story in years. Indeed, you could say the Daleks have actually devolved from their initial appearance in 1964, when they were portrayed as individuals with distinct personalities who had conversations with each other. Succeeding stories have increasingly portrayed them as regimented automatons without a trace of individuality, hence the need to invent figureheads like Davros and the Emperor. Russell’s idea of the Cult of Skaro from last year’s Doomsday was a similar idea, but it gave personalities and imagination to the Daleks themselves. So it was with some delight that I welcomed back the wily Dalek Sec, with his guile and cunning schemes.

And what a setting for them. The Daleks have traditionally been portrayed, as is the tendency for sci-fi icons, in a future setting, or at best loitering around on contemporary Earth. Their occasional forays into Earth’s past have had… mixed results, from the dire The Chase to the rather better but still somewhat disjointed Evil of the Daleks. New York in 1930 is an oddly appropriate choice, mixing the Daleks’ struggle for survival in with that of the humans caught up in the Great Depression. Thematically, the story is about adapting to survive, with the Daleks recognising that “there are only four Daleks, but millions of humans”, and setting out to redress that balance. The comparison is further strengthened by the shadow of the Great War that hangs over the characters, echoing the war which led to the creation of the Daleks themselves.

Perhaps taking a cue from the excellent 1930s New York of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, the production team have gone all out to make this one look visually sumptuous, albeit with almost no filming in the Big Apple itself. Yet again, this ambitious approach has had somewhat mixed results. A beautiful shot of workmen at the top of the Empire State with the sun setting behind them was rather spoiled by the curiously immobile waves on the river behind them, for example, and some of the compositing that placed tall buildings above the treeline in Central Park seemed a little unconvincingly matched. For the most part though, the CG was rather good, doing an artistic depiction of a city whose skyline has changed immeasurably since 1930.

Inhabiting this recreated metropolis was a well-rounded, if rather small cast of main characters. Eric Loren was superb as Diagoras, the epitome of the Depression era ruthless capitalist determined to prosper by exploiting the desperate unemployed, while Hugh Quarshie’s Solomon provided a more humanistic counterpoint. A nice touch was having his character live up to his name in his first scene by tearing in half a contested loaf of bread! Quarshie does “imposing” terribly well, and is looking more and more distinguished with age. Also in Hooverville, Andrew Garfield was believably waiflike as teenage runaway Frank, a character who seemed to have strayed in from a John Steinbeck novel.

Perhaps more contentiously, Miranda Raison’s Tallulah was something of a love-her-or-hate-her character, a cliche from all those nostalgic showgirls pictures of the 30s. Obviously this was the point, but her perilously close to parody version of a Brooklyn accent was occasionally rather grating. Desperate Housewives hunk Ryan Carnes was rather better as Laszlo, giving a surprisingly earnest performance from under a mountain of prosthetics. It’s a lovely idea to cast an actor who’s usually judged on his looks and then cover up most of his face! Still, it’s telling that he was nonetheless quite an attractive pig-man…

The best characters though had to be the Daleks themselves. It’s hard to imagine the Daleks we saw return in 2005 having a reflective chat with their human lackey while gazing almost wistfully at the skyline of Manhattan, but here we get that and more. Not to mention them arguing among themselves as Sec initiates the hybridisation procedure. Nick Briggs has done some sterling voice work giving them distinct characters, as well as conveying Sec’s pain as he undergoes the process. Presumably the Sec/Diagoras hybrid that emerged at the end is now voiced by Eric Loren, but I still sense Nick’s larynx under that too.

With all this local colour, the Doctor and Martha actually didn’t make much of an impact this week. I did groan at one point as David Tennant fell back on his irritating and trite “I’m sorry” catchphrase, but by and large he was rather subdued. Not even his usual manic outbursts of comedy were in evidence, though it has to be said that the story’s tone was more serious than any yet this year. Martha too got little to do; there was a nice character moment with Tallulah as she discussed her unrequited feelings for the Doctor, but generally she seemed to be there to scream, run away and get captured in an unusually retrograde style.

I don’t usually comment on the scoring of the show, but I was mightily impressed with Murray Gold this week. As a composer he seems to have matured no end since the awful Queer as Folk-like music for Rose, and this episode he produced a score eerily reminiscent of the 1930s Universal horror classics that superbly fitted in with the story’s setting. Fitting, as the Cult of Skaro’s laboratory seemed to have been deliberately designed to resemble Frankenstein’s workshop! There was also a new choral theme for the emergence of the Sec/Diagoras hybrid, in which I’m pretty sure the chorus were just repeating “Dalek Sec, Dalek Sec…” Sounded pretty good though.

Scoring aside, this is, I think, the first Who story since Talons of Weng-Chiang to feature a musical number! Kudos to the guys for not using an overly familiar song. The Busby Berkeley style choreography (which actually only works if viewed from above!) and the red feathered chorus girls were as reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as any 30s era musical, but in my view that’s no bad thing. It was almost a shame Martha had to interrupt it!

So, Helen Raynor’s first script for the series proper is as good as I would have expected from her standout Torchwood episode. There’s a fine grasp of history with its depiction of the Depression and its repercussions, and the whole thing has the feel of a more polished take on the (in my view) rather disjointed Evil of the Daleks. Of course, this being the first of a two-parter, the plot doesn’t move much; it’s all about getting the elements in place. The Daleks want to evolve, they’re building the Empire State building and grafting bits of themselves to the radio mast. Why? Hopefully next week’s episode will live up to the promise of this one and conclude this imaginative story in some style…

Episode 3: Gridlock

Well, Russell has been having a bad time on the M4, hasn’t he?

Obviously our man has been fuming in a traffic jam, and was inspired to write this episode in much the same way as Robert Holmes was moved to write The Sunmakers after a bad experience with the taxman. And you know what? It’s actually pretty good. The sci-fi concepts here are solid and imaginative, and the story moves at a good pace. What’s more, it makes sense. I’ve ranked on Russell’s writing a lot in the past for his tendency to get carried away and let the plot fit his ideas rather than the other way around, but with Smith and Jones and now this, I think he’s really improved. Yes, there are blatant set pieces and “moving” moments, but they aren’t contrived or bolted on but arise naturally from the plot; a vast improvement on our previous visit to New Earth.

The idea of a neverending, lifelong traffic jam is ingenious and amusingly satirical, and the script realises it well, especially in the characters’ sanguine acceptance of it taking years to go ten miles. What’s more, the ultimate explanation for it is equally ingenious, arising from a Red Dwarf: Better Than Life style-addiction that’s caused the death of the civilisation above them. The vista of the Senate filled with skeletons was an impressive one, though one has to ask: how could the Senate have declared a quarantine when they were all off their heads on this Bliss stuff? Small quibbles, really though.

One area Russell’s always excelled at is character and dialogue, and these didn’t disappoint. The range of quirky personalities filling the Motorway was great fun, in many ways a celebration of the British eccentricity Doctor Who has always embraced. Ardal O’ Hanlon was obviously the standout as Brannigan, his charisma making you wonder what he’s doing wasting his time with rubbish like My Hero. The consistently excellent cat make-up did nothing to dim his charm, either. Elsewhere in the smog, the two married old ladies were a hoot, though one can already hear the cries of “gay agenda!” from certain parts of fandom. I also particularly liked the bowler-hatted businessman, who Russell acknowledged was nicked from 2000AD. Likewise, the Oriental girls and the nudist couple added up to a deliberately weird bunch, and as last week, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the tongue in cheek style of season 17.

And, of course… the Macra. Why? Well, why not? OK, there’s no real reason why the big monster at the bottom of the tunnel had to be a returning foe, but it’s a nice touch. After all, who but the most ardent fans are going to get the reference? To anyone else, they’re yet another in an ongoing parade of aliens the Doctor somehow seems to know. It’s consistent with their previous appearance too, in that the poisonous fumes of the Motorway are rather nice, as far as they’re concerned. It did occur to me to wonder why they were ten times their original size, mind.

The relationship between the Doctor and Martha also seemed to develop quite nicely here too. Remember, it’s crucial to the future of the show that this latest reformatting is handled well, and the writers are clearly taking pains to do this. The Doctor’s plainly showing off, having promised Martha only one trip and then immediately cheating by taking her off to the future. He obviously wants her around more than he can admit, but it’s more guarded than his overt fondness for Rose. After all, when Martha’s kidnapped he doesn’t go all melodramatic and start declaiming “Now no power on Earth can stop me!”. Thank God. And his descriptions of Gallifrey are heartbreakingly defined for the viewer, who knows the planet no longer exists and winces when Martha eagerly asks to be taken there.

Martha, for her part, is becoming endearingly cynical about her feelings. “You’re taking me to the same planets you took her?” she asks. “Have you heard the word ‘rebound’?” Ouch. Later, in the van with her captors, she gets some great dialogue to describe her feelings, as she portrays the Doctor as an amazing, but somehow unreachable figure.

Finally, there’s the Face of Boe’s great revelation. Well, that took long enough, didn’t it? So… “You are not alone.” Hmmm. Nice, doomy signs and portents there, especially given our suspicions about the rest of the season. If it does tie into that, whatever “that” is, it’s a more inventive storyline than just having one of the characters say “Torchwood” once an episode. Cheers, Russell. Although… the Doctor refers to the Face as “old friend”, despite the fact that they’ve only met three times (remember in New Earth – “We shall meet again; for the third time, for the last time.” Bit like Spaceballs, “At last we meet, for the first time for the last time” but I digress). Anyway, I rarely refer to anyone I’ve met three times with that kind of fondness. Unless I slept with them. Actually, that might be an interesting subplot…

In fact, one interesting thing here was the evolution of the Doctor’s moral code. Clearly, he has no problem with gay couples, but he’s shocked and appalled at the Pharmacists selling artificial mood enhancers. Actually, I thought these, together with the mentions of the Overcity and the Undercity, were a nice crib from the Virgin New Adventures, but it’s telling that in one of those (The Left-Handed Hummingbird), the Doctor not only didn’t object to drugs but got off his face on mushrooms – just to track down the alien menace, you understand. It seems that the Doctor’s moral stance is now firmly rooted in the early 21st century, and while that’s a step up from William Hartnell, it’s a shame Russell couldn’t be more forward-thinking. After all, “drugs” may be viewed as bad now, but they have been, and may be again, very much acceptable in other times.

The direction was good, making impressive use of what was presumably only one set. Mind, that did make one wonder why everyone in the future buys the same model of car, in the same colour. Why it resembles a late 60s Commer dormobile is another question entirely. Seriously though, some of the perhaps overly ambitious CG could have been offset by a bit of variety in the traffic, though I acknowledge that that would have been more complicated and therefore more expensive. In fact, the CG may have been aiming a bit too high, and some of the compositing, especially in the sequence of Macra claws trying to grab the van, was distinctly ropy. Still, we’re spoiled here. It’s worth remembering that in the 70s it would have been an Airfix kit and some bendy toys.

So overall, a mid-range impressive episode with some nice ideas and some great quirky touches. I’m much impressed with Russell’s plotting this year compared to previous seasons, and so far this year is shaping up to be more consistently enjoyable than last year’s wildly variable efforts. Seven out of ten, Mr Davies.

Episode 2: The Shakespeare Code

“Upon this night our work is done
A muse to pen Love’s Labour’s Won!”

Masterpiece theatre!

That was terrific, everything I ever expected from a Gareth Roberts Doctor Who episode. A basically light and fluffy romp, much in the style of the Douglas Adams-guided 17th season which we know to be one of Gareth’s favourites.

Granted, the plot was basically the usual “big bad from the dawn of time trying to get back to our universe”, but it was done with such panache and excellent dialogue that it was a vast improvement even on last week’s pretty good season opener. Loved the witches, the spot on depiction of Elizabethan England, and the excellent use of the Globe. Dean Lennox Kelly made a charismatic Shakespeare, his only “period” dialogue the leering “hey nonny, nonny!”, and his two hapless colleagues were a terrific pair of comic supporting characters. Dropping in that comment “I can’t understand half of what he writes” must have had many a schoolchild across the country hooting with delight. As a depiction of Shakespeare, I could give it plenty of license, eyewitnesses to the man’s character are thin on the ground and he never wrote an autobiography. Who’s to say he wasn’t a 16th century rockstar with a big mouth, bigger ego and penchant to draw obvious comparisons to the modern age like “autographs” and “sketches”? Certainly not the “57 academics punching the air” as he flirted with both Martha and the Doctor in virtually the same breath.

The dialogue started out light and fluffy, and the Doctor’s exchanges with Martha at the episode opening were reminiscent of nothing so much as Tom Baker and Lalla Ward’s gabbling at the beginning of City of Death. Indeed, the later conversation in bed with Martha, where the Doctor not only failed to register her interest but unthinkingly compared her unfavourably to Rose, also recalled Tom’s deliberately alien persona. It’s beginning to look like Mr Tennant’s been watching a lot of old Fourth Doctor stories as homework! It shows in his more measured, controlled performance this year.

Martha seemed to accept the trip to 1599 surprisingly readily (unlike, say Steven in The Time Meddler or Ben in The Smugglers). Still she’d already had her entire hospital whisked off to the moon; I guess that’s a bit of an eye-opener. Freema’s already beginning to display a real chemistry with Tennant, their “Avengers”-like vibe repeating with the “Mr Smith/Miss Jones” exchange. I was glad to see that the writer didn’t just ignore the issue of being black in the 16th century either; in fact the whole “blackamoor” exchange with Shakespeare was a hoot, especially the Doctor’s “political correctness gone mad!” comment.

Some great visual effects in the depiction of Elizabethan London, especially those shots of London Bridge. The Carrionites too were well-realised, though as they swept around the Globe I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Angels of Death from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The recreation of the celebrated Bedlam hospital was also excellent, with Martha’s revulsion showing the true horror of the place and its casual cruelty. As for the Elizabethan people and their environs, this is probably the only historical drama (excepting Blackadder, which isn’t really a drama) to draw attention to the fact that they emptied their crap out of the window, had terrible teeth and generally would have smelled appalling. Martha’s embarrassed admission that Shakespeare had terrible breath did fall a little flat, though, in the face of the fact that all the major characters looked altogether too well-groomed and hygienic. That’s a pretty minor quibble, though.

The dropping in of Shakespearean quotes as a running gag was a delight, especially keeping up with which quotes had and hadn’t been written by that point. There was even a bit of iambic pentameter in there, and a rhyming couplet or two. Loved the dropping in of a bit of Dylan Thomas too; I can’t complain about the show’s reliance on pop-culture from hereon in, now can I? On that front, though, the reference to Back to the Future was very well-judged, as were the Harry Potter ones. Wonder how much they had to pay JK Rowling for “Expelliarmus”?

One final thought: while I laughed as loud as anyone at Queen Elizabeth’s unexpected utterance “The Doctor! Our mortal enemy!”, isn’t it a strange coincidence that episode 2 of both series 2 and 3 end with a well-known female monarch annoyed with the Doctor? Perhaps it’s a new story arc…

Episode 1: Smith and Jones

Well, that was quite fun, wasn’t it?

Each year’s season opener has had the thankless task of reinventing the show in a new format (though New Earth had that burden slightly lessened by The Christmas Invasion), and this is always going to hamstring a writer going for an inventive plot. With the focus of new Who being so much on the companion character, the introduction of a new one means that the storyline must take something of a back seat to the character. This, if anything, was the biggest problem with the solid but unimpressive Rose.

Smith and Jones showed a marked improvement on either of the previous season openers in these respects, doing a good job of introducing a new character and also backing up it up with a well-written, logical, and often quite inventive plot. While Rose was a straightforward runaround and New Earth was a campy, plot-hole filled irritant, this episode was actually quite impressively offbeat. The settings, concepts and characters involved were far enough removed from the norm to impress, and the characters, while often rather derivative and/or two-dimensional got some great dialogue and convincing motivations (unlike, say, Cassandra’s inexplicable volte-face at the end of New Earth… I promise I’ll try to lay off criticising that soon).

The key to the story is, of course, the introduction of new companion Martha Jones. I must confess that throughout the second series, the smugness of Billie Piper’s Rose had become incredibly annoying, and I was really looking forward to a different kind of companion. Martha’s certainly that. While Rose was, to be fair, a very ordinary girl trapped in a very boring life, Martha is bright, immediately resourceful and obviously going somewhere. Freema Agyeman didn’t get a great deal of detail to work with but has obviously been given enough background for the character to give a rounded, convincing performance. Russell’s dialogue for the scenes between her and the Doctor fairly crackle with chemistry, but of a different kind to the Doctor/Rose relationship. While Rose was a girl, Martha seems more like a young woman, far more self-assured. Her reaction to being invited for a trip to the TARDIS is very much that of someone with her feet on the ground – “but I’ve got bills to pay.” As seems to be mandatory in the new series, her relationship with the Doctor is obviously going to be based around some form of romance, but Russell was cleverly playful about the nature of it. Martha’s clearly attracted to him – her reaction to that kiss showed that- but equally clearly in denial about it. Conversely, the Doctor is apparently oblivious to it; or is he? This will-they/won’t they flirting game has been played out well before in shows like Moonlighting and The X-Files, and Russell’s a good enough writer of character and dialogue to pull it off. It’s refreshingly different to the obvious mutual worship between the Doctor and Rose.

On the slightly more negative side of the show’s reformatting, Martha comes equipped with a large, unruly family, none of whom at present has more than the flimsiest of characterization. Her sister and brother seem fairly featureless, despite some good performances, but her mum, her dad, and particularly her dad’s blonde bimbo girlfriend are irritating soap-style characters already pregant with subplots to come. It’s worth remembering at this point that the initial characterizations of Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith were no better, and they may improve. But it gives me a sinking feeling to see that Russell obviously believes this soap opera aspect to be integral to modern Who. He has a point in saying we should examine what impact the companion just buggering off with the Doctor would have, but the whole Rose’s family thing came to dominate the last series in a way that made the Doctor more like some kind of family guidance counsellor than an intergalactic hero. There is a positive to it, though; the Radio Times episode guide shows that this year, there’s only one other story set on contemporary Earth. So the Jones clan hopefully won’t come to dominate the show…yet.

But what of the Doctor, I hear you say? Despite his more restrained performance in the Runaway Bride, David Tennant seemed back to his more manic, previous self. But there was a difference. The manic outbursts of thinking to himself seemed more considered, more judged. Tennant has obviously looked at his performance in the previous series and made a plan for how the character should go. So his solemn, sinister intonations are balanced by moments of high energy mania; not unlike, in fact, the great Tom Baker. If Tennant can keep a rein on his performance – and it looks like he can- there’s no reason why his occasional lapses into hair-pulling barminess can’t all be part of the fun. And indeed his hair was all over the place this episode, pushed and pulled hither and yon during moments of particularly frantic thinking. The TARDIS plainly has quite a supply of gel in it somewhere. Nice to see him get a new blue suit, too; we don’t want the characters lapsing into John Nathan-Turner style uniforms, do we? Still, by the end of the episode he was back in the brown pinstripe. Perhaps he’d been having it dry-cleaned.

Having a story set in a modern hospital is a good idea, and one that I’m surprised the series hasn’t done more often. There was the Bi-Al Foundation in The Invisible Enemy, but that’s hardly Casualty, is it? Oh and that one in New Earth. Best forget about that really. Then to have the whole hospital shifted to the Moon was a stroke of genius, the impact of which was slightly lessened for me by the memory of a contemporary church being similarly shifted to the Moon in Paul Cornell’s New Adventure Timewyrm: Revelation. I wouldn’t consider it a wholesale rip-off; new Who has very smartly taken many of the impressive aspects of Virgin’s well-regarded book series to its heart, and is the better for it. In any case, the hospital setting was used well, exploited to serve the plot in a convincing and logical way. The sets were hugely impressive, though the NHS-alike RHT logo puzzled me somewhat – is there no NHS in the Whoniverse, or could they just not get the rights to the logo? The inclusion of the gift shop was a nice throwaway gag, too. On the negative side, just where was the hospital? The long shot appeared to show it opposite Parliament, but showed no sign of the shops we’d earlier seen near it. The close shots made it appear to be somewhere else again – but that’s really just quibbling.

The plot was of necessity fairly lightweight, and riffed on the old Who standard of an alien fugitive being chased by another bunch of aliens, with the Doctor and co being stuck in between. The Judoon were a nicely realised alien race, their comic bureaucracy and casual brutality obviously owing a debt to Douglas Adams. They were given a nice sense of real menace to counterpoint the humour by disintegrating that poor bloke who hit them with what appeared to be a bedpan, but the kicker for me was their presentation of a voucher for compensation to Martha; none too bright, but doing things by the book.

Their target, the plasmavore sinisterly known as Florence, was played to the hilt by the marvellous Anne Reid, last seen in Who as Nurse Crane in The Curse of Fenric. Very much a stereotypical villain, she got some rather hilarious OTT dialogue, pausing before drinking someone’s blood to proclaim, “I’ve got a straw.” A 2D character, to be sure, but an entertaining one. Her two henchmen, the “Slabs”, brought nothing to mind more than twin negatives of Top Gear‘s The Stig. Not a bad thing, but you couldn’t help wondering when they were going to pile into a Lamborghini Gallardo.

Of the rest of the guest cast, it seemed rather a shame to get a terrific character actor like Roy Marsden and then kill him about ten minutes in without even really giving him much of a character. It’s a tribute to the man’s skill that he took some fairly uninteresting dialogue and played the part as a believable but slightly comic consultant in the mode of the great James Robertson Justice. Mind, he also got some toe-curlingly purple dialogue just before his big death, and I’m impressed he pulled that off with a straight face: “What use are names when some nameless creatures are approaching… on the Moon?” or something like that. Bad Russell. Though not as bad as the Doctor’s “shaking out the radiation” business. Not Tennant’s fault, he didn’t write it! Anyway, it made rather a nonsense of the Doctor’s previous susceptibility to radiation in stories like The Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks… but I digress.

So, a solid if not classic start to the new series that’s actually one of Russell’s tighter scripts, a real improvement on the calamity that was New Earth (last time I’ll dis it…for now). The good stuff – liked Martha, Tennant on good form, nicely realised aliens and some impressive FX. The bad stuff – the Jones clan, a few bits of excruciating dialogue… and that’s about it. Not a bad result for a Russell T Davies-scripted season opener. And glad to see a few, oblique references to the enigmatic Mr Saxon already appearing, though his election posters are rather drab. Perhaps he should hire Max Clifford…

New series of Doctor Who! (Warning – spoilers!!!)

So, the time is almost upon us again. A new series of Doctor Who begins tomorrow, and the BBC are already trailing it heavily with a minute and a half clipshow on their red button interactive service.

And it looks good. A shorter trail than last year’s, we get to see some provocative glimpses of exciting alien worlds, weird villains, and trips into history. David Tennant, whose performance seemed rather uncertain and uneven last year, seemed to have finally nailed the role in the Runaway Bride, and this year promises to stretch him a little further. It’s already common knowledge that Paul Cornell’s written a two-parter based on his celebrated New Adventure Human Nature, which features an amnesiac Doctor living a life as a human schoolteacher in pre WW1 England, and quite unaware of his true nature. The trail shows some tantalising glimpses of this, as a tweed-clad Tennant angrily proclaims “I am not the Doctor!” Meanwhile, a scarily intense looking Harry Lloyd (Will Scarlett from Robin Hood) appears to be the leader of the “Family of Blood” that gives the second part its title.

We’re also promised a return to New Earth, setting for last year’s decidedly lacklustre season opener. As the look of the planet itself was the best thing about that episode, one can only hope that Russell T Davies has come up with a more solid script to set there this time.

The Beeb are not keeping any secret this year about the return of the Daleks, in the bizarre setting of 1930s New York. There’s some cool shots of them flying about, firing on a woodland camp (though that could be the product of some clever editing for the trail). The brief shot of some dancing girls complete with red feathers in a Busby Berkeley style musical number also makes me wonder if there’s a bit of a nod to the opening of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!

I’ve been fairly vocal about my dislike of the show’s constant falling back onto trashy pop-culture references, as if making a laboured attempt to match Joss Whedon’s effortlessly cool dialogue from Buffy. Apart from anything else, the constant references to things like the Weakest Link, Big Brother and Eastenders date the show almost instantly. As I’ve said to friends (ad nauseam), while the original series inspired me to read Shakespeare, the new one is unlikely to inspire any reading more complex than Heat magazine. As if to redress the balance, this year we get an episode set in and around the Globe theatre in 1599, and I think it’s safe to say there may be some influence of Shakespeare there. What’s more, it’s written by the splendid Gareth Roberts, who writes brilliantly funny and authentic dialogue for this period, as seen in his Virgin Missing Adventure the Plotters. Plus, it’s got the Dan Brown-baiting title of the Shakespeare Code!

Elsewhere, we see that Mark Gatiss, not having written an episode this year, appears in one instead, and some pretty high profile guest stars include one Derek Jacobi. Captain Jack’s back too, and John Barrowman will have to do some explaining to justify Torchwood! But the new star that dominates the trail is Freema Agyeman as new companion Martha Jones. Beyond being obviously older and initially a little smarter than Rose Tyler, the trail gives little away about what she’ll be like. It’s fair to say that her relationship with the Doctor will have to be very different from the intense and overtly romantic one between him and Rose, and despite my enjoyment of Camille Coduri, Shaun Dingwall and Noel Clarke, I do hope the show comes to rely a little less on having the soap opera aspect of a supporting cast from the companion’s family and friends.

For both the previous seasons, Russell introduced the loose story arc concept that tied the episodes together. The “Bad Wolf” motif in the first year was intriguing, and did eventually make perfect sense within the deus ex machina used to end the series. As Rose had come to transcend space and time, it made perfect sense that she should be able to scatter notes to herself throughout history (though why be so cryptic?). Year two, however, gave us a laboured, crammed in reference to Torchwood in almost every episode that was just gratuitous and didn’t make any sense beyond simple coincidence. Torchwood, after all, cannot travel through time and space, so any reference beyond its founding and the 21st century setting was implausible at best, and hardly constituted a storyline. Some fans have suggested an idea whereby the Doctor’s encounter with Queen Victoria led to an alternate history in which Torchwood exists; an intriguing idea unfortunately never really explored.

The other basic story premise for each season so far has been the return of a crowd-pleasing villain from the show’s past around the middle of the run, their apparent defeat and then reappearance in force for the final two-parter (viz, the Daleks and then the Cybermen – and the Daleks!). If they do that again this year, though, it will be way too predictable. So let’s hope Russell has come up with an overarching storyline that makes sense to be set all through time and space, and follows a different structure to the previous two years. If the rumours circling around are true (and I try to stay clear of spoilers but some always get through), the shot of the always excellent John Simm as the mysterious Mr Saxon, the House of Commons looming large behind him, may give us something of a clue. The title of the final episode, Last of the Time Lords, is also tantalisingly suggestive…

Last year, I tried to give a capsule review of each episode on Outpost Gallifrey, often while still rather blinkered by the enjoyment of the episode and unnecessarily apologetic for its flaws. This year, hopefully, I’ll do a rather more in-depth review of each episode here, and link to it from OG. That’s the plan, anyway. Watch this space…

Hammond, Bauer and the kids

A cause for celebration as Top Gear is back!(Unless you’re one of those namby-pambies who like trees or clean air…)

Of course, there was no getting away without mentioning THAT accident, which, as Jeremy Clarkson put it, has turned Richard Hammond into a sort of new Princess Diana. So on Hammond bounded, down a set of aeroplane steps apparently borrowed from easyjet, bashing his face into the feathered headdresses of the sequinned showgirls lining the stairs.

There followed about ten minutes of blokish banter along the lines of “So, are you now… a mental?” before it was back to business as usual. In no time at all, the boys were attempting to resurface a road in 24 hours, in a report clearly filmed last summer. It was hard to say what was more amusingly offensive, the “24” style split screen or Clarkson’s repeated motivational quotes from Adolf Hitler. Even James May chimed in, urging Jeremy on with the memorable “Work will set you free” as immortalised on the gates of Auschwitz.

I can understand why people object to Top Gear. In addition to its wilful political incorrectness, it doesn’t really function as a motoring journal, more a kind of Hunter Thompson-esque Jackass with motor vehicles. But it’s hard to get away from the fact that the old Top Gear, which really was a proper motoring review show, was cancelled because no-one was watching it. By contrast, the new Top Gear is wildly popular even with people who aren’t really interested in cars, both here and abroad. This is because it’s actually rather entertaining to watch, as Clarkson put it, “three grown men cocking about”. As the boys yawned their way through the obligatory health and safety lecture before declaring it an utter waste of time, I couldn’t help but smile. It’s good to have them back.

Elswehere, some not quite grown men were cocking about in a more literal sense. The first episode of E4’s deliberately controversial teenage drama Skins beat its skinny chest to loudly proclaim that this, in fact, is what Britain’s teenagers get up to. This, it seems, is getting drunk, doing drugs, and having sex (or in some cases, not). In a lot of ways that didn’t seem to be too wide of the mark, and it was refreshing to portray such behaviour without judging it.

Lead character Tony, played by the very easy on the eye Nicholas Hoult, is perhaps rather too cocksure and arrogant to be likeable or believable. Still, I have to say I remember boys like him at school who were impossibly good looking and confident. I just used to tell myself that deep down they were as crap and insecure as I was, and certainly as his byzantine plot to get his geeky mate laid came gradually unravelled, he did start to seem more enjoyably fallible. I rather hope that as the series progresses he’ll find more and more things going wrong for him. Schadenfreud? Oh yes.

Said geeky mate, the lovable Sid, is encountered early on in bed, wanking to the rather implausibly titled “Asian Fanny Fun”. Still, if I remember rightly, one of the things teenage boys do is masturbate a lot, so it made a change to see this on screen. It never seems to happen in Hollyoaks. Sid also got the subplot which gave me pangs of sweaty-palmed nostalgia as he ventured into the house of a frankly terrifying Scouse drug dealer who had the balls to carry off an utterly ridiculous handlebar moustache. This character was named Mad Twatter, and yes, I really did know a few dealers who might style themselves thus.

The other characters embody other teenage generalisations that the show can use to shock us by their unruly behaviour.Michelle is Tony’s female equivalent, so obviously goes out with him, oblivious to the torch held for her by the rather cute Sid. Drugged up party animal Chris shags anything and flirts with his teachers. Mental girl Cassie has a history of eating disorders and suicide attempts and talks like Drusilla out of Buffy. Anwar is a teen Muslim who’d rather go out partying than pray to Mecca. And there’s the obligatory gay one, Maxie, who loses stereotype points for being into showtunes and tap dancing.

None of this seems out of the ordinary to me, though my mates and I were a couple of years older before turning quite so mad. Stealing a Mercedes then crashing it into the canal seemed perhaps a little OTT, but when you start out outrageous OTT is the only place to go. With some decent writing and fun cameos by the likes of Harry Enfield, Neil Morrissey and Danny Dyer, this is a Larry Clark-lite bit of exploitive fluff which I look forward to seeing the rest of, like Hollyoaks with swearing.

In the Hollyoaks that doesn’t have swearing, tormented John Paul finally admitted his feelings for best mate Craig.
“When I’m with you, my heart just feels like it’s going to burst!”
This and other romantic declarations visibly startled Craig, who had perhaps not noticed the camera direction’s subtle hints that this was where John Paul was going from the very start. Having been introduced with a series of meaningful, furtive glances at Craig some months ago, I was fairly surprised to see that it took them this long to get on with it. But then, this is Hollyoaks, a show which managed to drag out its bizarrely funny serial killer storyline for something like three years.

Elsewhere in the world, Jack Bauer was back at CTU and having another somewhat stressful day in season 6 of 24. No sooner had Jack been handed back by the Chinese with his laughable huge beard and post traumatic stress, than he was plunged back into an insanely action packed plot about yet another set of Muslim extremists with a grudge against the good old US of A. Pausing only for a lightning quick shave and haircut, Jack was straight off on a trail which led to Hollywood’s rent-an-Arab of the moment, former Deep Space 9 doctor Alexander Siddig. But wait, what’s this? He’s the good guy and the other Arab’s the bad guy? It’s still only episode two!

Elsewhere, in an attempt to retain a popular character, martyred President David Palmer’s little brother Wayne had followed him into office. Kudos to DB Woodside, an actor I like, for being very earnest, but he can’t disguise the fact that he looks at least two decades too young to be a President. Still, 24 exists in a fantasy USA where the electorate have now voted in two black Presidents, so maybe one under 35 isn’t that weird.

Chasing around with Siddig, Jack is full of angst. ” I don’t know if I can do this any more,” he emotes, shooting his colleague for threatening their Arab ally. But there’s no time for Kiefer Sutherland’s particular brand of reflection, as a mini nuke explodes on the outskirts of LA. Doubtless more action next time, as we discover that Jack’s entire family are the real bad guys… What do you mean,”implausible”?

Christmas Telly 2006

Due to the magic and wonder of modern technology in the form of Mr Murdoch’s Sky Plus machine, I’ve now just about finished digesting the rich, overripe feast that was Christmas 2006’s Tv extravaganza. And it’s halfway through January. O brave new world that has such gadgets in it!

And what did we discover? Firstly, Kim Newman is an expert in everything. A favourite author of mine, who has in the past occasionally popped up to express an opinion or two, this year Kim couldn’t be kept off the box. BBC4 had a multitude of documentaries about British sci fi, and Kim was on all of them, his pseudo-Victorian mug unchanged for the last ten years or so. He gave us his two penn’orth on subjects as varied as The Tripods, Blake’s 7 and John Wyndham. Fair enough, he likes the genre every bit as much as I do, that’s why I’ve always got on with his writing.

Trouble was, then he started popping up to tell us what he didn’t know. He gave us his enthusiastic opinion of Chris Boucher’s Star Cops, despite admitting to never having watched it until that very morning. Other shows he didn’t appear to have bothered to watch at all…

On all of these, Kim was credited as “SF author”. Then he cropped up in BBC4’s marvellous documentary about MR James, which was mostly fronted by pop culture academic extraordinaire Sir Christopher Frayling. This time around, Kim was “Horror author”. Fair enough I suppose, he’s written both and it was a show about a man who wrote superlative ghost stories. Standing in front of a blurry bookshelf on which one or two spines were nevertheless identifiable as pulp schlock that I own too, Kim waxed lyrical about James’eerie, psychologically twisted tales.

OK fine. But then, he started appearing on BBC4’s series of documentaries about the resurgence of boys’ adventure fiction, and a suspicion began to dawn that BBC4 had actually done a fairly small cache of interviews in which they’d asked their subjects about every subject under the sun, just in case a suitable documentary came up to fit them in. This suspicion was reinforced by the increasing ubiquity of other talking heads. Charlie Higson popped up several times on different docos, as did silhouetted former SAS bloke Andy McNab. All of the above then forfeited any right to intellectual respect by appearing on Sunday Sport editor Tony Livesey’s requiem for the 70s British macho man, Beefcake. By now, Kim’s opinions had begun to tire me, and I barely took in his opinion of Jack Regan’s antics, though Andy McNab’s sneering scorn of the Lewis Collins SAS action fest Who Dares Wins did raise a smile or two.

But it wasn’t just BBC4’s small collection of talking heads who got to be everywhere. Julie Walters, presumably by no fault of her own, got two big new roles. The domestically produced film drama Driving Lessons actually debuted on ITV before its DVD release, and showcased Julie in “loveable” mode. Doing a batty turn as an eccentric former actress apparently based on Peggy Ashcroft she charmed the viewer and by extension her young apprentice Rupert Grint (out of Harry Potter). Under her tutelage, Rupert matured, learnt independence, got a shag, yada, yada, yada… OK, it was really not much more than your standard rites of passage tale, but Julie gave it her all and it had a lovely Citroen DS estate in it. Although if I hadn’t passed my driving test, the last thing I’d want to practice in is a 35 year old French car with a zero travel brake pedal and hydraulic suspension…

Having taught Rupert Grint to stand up for himself, Julie was back, in “menacing” mode, to terrify Billie Piper in The Ruby in the Smoke. Piper, recently freed from the TARDIS, was taking the opportunity of this lavish Philip Pullman adaptation to showcase her skills as a leading lady. And she wasn’t bad, as orphan-caught-up-in opium-intrigue heroine Sally Lockhart. Her problem was competing with the thesps hamming it up madly left right and centre, as thesps are wont to do in anything set in the late Victorian era. Julie got to play the nefarious and murky Mrs Holland, a shady landlady with a murky past who’s a dab hand with a letter opener to the stomach. Her villainy was neatly summed up by the way she wore false teeth she’d nicked from her husband’s corpse, which she dunked in her tea at every opportunity. Clearly relishing every minute of this sub-Dickens grotesquerie, Julie was genuinely terrifying, and I had to yet again concede that she is an actress of impressive range. If only she’d allow anyone else some time in the scene…

Also gaining a multiple appearance credit was the increasingly ubiquitous Marc Warren. Marc, who did well in Hustle, State of Play and the weirdest epsiode of last year’s Doctor Who, didn’t get as much range as Julie Walters. Basically, he was the baddie both times. But what baddies! Marc is a talented actor capable of considerable subtlety, but the screenplay of Terry Pratchett’s The Hogfather didn’t really require that. This sumptuously produced realisation of one of the monotalented author’s increasingly repetitive Discworld tales was about two hours too long, revelling in its apparently untrammelled budget. A number of venerable thesps cropped up in bit parts, hammed, and went away again, although it has to be said Ian Richardson was a joy as Pratchett’s only consistently funny character, the Grim Reaper, or Death as he’s known.

Marc’s role was the odd-eyed psycho assassin Mr Teatime (pronounced Tay-a-tim-ee), and in keeping with the rest of the cast, he made a right old meal of it. Equipped with a black cloak and one of Shirley Temple’s old wigs, he affected a peculiar American Voice somewhat like Truman Capote if he’d been a bit less butch. The effect was oddly chilling rather than comic, which I consider down to Marc’s talent rather than that of the director who made it all look tremendously rich but lacking any sense of urgency, menace, or originality. Though that could just as easily have been the fault of the unjustly lauded Mr Pratchett. If ever the emperor had no clothes…

Still, not to be put off, Marc was back, biting off more than he could chew as the title character in the BBC’s odd new version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Fans of the novel were perhaps rightly put out at the liberties taken (although they don’t usually seem to mind what Hammer got up to with it). This time, the venerable count was summoned to England by an entirely superfluous Satanic sect in the employ of Lord Holmwood (the rather luscious Dan Stevens, late of The Line of Beauty). In a rather modern, deliberately shocking twist, Holmwood needs Drac to cure his inherited syphilis. Covered in fairly good make up, Marc put in a good show as the Count in the traditionally good bit in his castle where he menaces then kills Jonathan Harker (who barely appears in this version), but when he gets to England, rejuvenated  into a sort of Balkan Oscar Wilde-lite, he looks rather less menacing. It doesn’t help that his rather laboured mittel-Europe accent gradually disappears throughout the course of the thing. He teeters rather between Byronesque seductiveness and a slightly comical persona, and it doesn’t help that he’s plainly very very short compared to Dan Stevens, who’s hardly Robert Wadlow himself. Still, Sophia Myles puts in a great turn as that perennial fin de siecle party girl Lucy Westenra, and David Suchet is a trendily bonkers Van Helsing. The unexpected hero this time turns out to be Dr Seward, ably portrayed by cleft-palated but dishy Tom Burke. Eschewing the novel’s overlong chase back to Transylvania, he stakes Drac in the basement of his London townhouse, though whoever told the production team the heart was on the right side of the chest perhaps needs a refresher course in human anatomy.

Tom Burke too was back in BBC4’s admirably restrained adaptation of MR James ghost story Number 13. Playing the drunken young lawyer next door to our hero’s (Greg Wise) hotel room, he was still rather dishy. The plot followed the usual MR James formula; stuffy academic dabbles in ancient secrets best left alone, to be hounded by sinister apparitions from outside the world. But it was extremely well realised, and subtly too, with none of the flash period details of Dracula or The Ruby in the Smoke. The ghosts too were wisely kept to the background, as James intended; a sinister force looming over the story rather than appearing in it.

Last, and in some ways best, Matt Lucas was on a few times too. OK, the Little Britain “special” Little Britain Abroad was a thing of sporadic mirth. Highlights included Dawn French popping up as Vicki Pollard’s mum and Tony Head’s increasingly homoerotic Prime Minister making a state visit to an equally homoerotic President of the USA, but the rest was  fairly laboured, an increasingly dull extension of characters and scenarios that really need to be laid to rest.

However, Lucas was on absolutely top form in a terrific adaptation of one of my favourite English tales, The Wind in the Willows. Commanding a zealous fanboy loyalty perhaps comparable only with Lord of the Rings, Kenneth Grahame’s ostensibly childrens’ story of anthropomorphised woodland animals is a risky thing to realise. Some surprise then that Rachel Talalay, director of the execrable Tank Girl, pulled off probably the best adadptation I’ve seen of this most quintessentially English of tales. The key, I think, is to get the cast right, and here they did very well. Matt Lucas is perfectly cast as Mr Toad, his slightly unhuman appearance and insane exuberance perfect for the character. Likewise, it’s hard to believe no-one ever previously thought of casting Mark Gatiss as Ratty. Played as a variant of Gatiss’ most English characters, particularly Dr Chinnery, he absolutely nailed it, his oversize teeth lending that polite grin an air of mania. The increasingly dependable Lee Ingleby was lovely, shy and cute Mole, and whoever had the idea of casting old cockney sweat Bob Hoskins as Badger deserves a medal. Of course a host of other actors of similar merit popped in and out of this charming production, though the only bum note was struck by the odd decision to cast American indie icon Michael Murphy as the Judge and then dub all his lines with the voice of Tom Baker.  I’ll grant that Murphy’s American accent might have grated with the exaggerated Englishness of the whole thing, but since he was almost unrecognisable under that wig, why not just cast Tom Baker in the part and be done with it?

Speaking of all things Doctor Who, Torchwood wound its way to a limp conclusion, as a sub-Sapphire and Steel McGuffin about Captain Jack being stuck in the 1940s led weird-mouthed git Owen to piss about with Cardiff’s very own time rift, thus loosing a badly realised CG version of Godzilla loose on the town. Or something. In truth, there were some very good ideas screaming to get out here, smothered under the deadwood of Chris Chibnall’s awful writing and a cast of characters who’ve been unlikeable and unsympathetic from the get-go. The collision of time zones was fairly well realised, with murderous Roman legionaries turning up in present day Wales and Black Death victims starting minor epidemics, and the story had an interesting villain in the enigmatic, skeletal Bilis Manger, who was manipulating events to bring about Armageddon. The trouble is, when you dislike the characters this much, it’s rather hard to care. At the end of the story, the TARDIS appeared offscreen to whisk Jack away. One can only imagine he was breathing a sigh of relief.

At the other end of the scale, it was a breath of fresh air to welcome back 70s Who companion Sarah Jane Smith, recently seen sharing angst with David Tennant and K9. Finally given her own series (or at least a pilot) she was given a chance to shine on CBBC. And shine she did, in a show about a million times as likeable and enjoyable as the po-faced Torchwood. OK, the plot -aliens trying to take over the world with a big company making brainwashing foodstuffs – was about as original as a 1973 Jon Pertwee Who story, but it was done with such verve, gusto, and above all clever scripting that it was still great fun. Sarah Jane was given a supporting cast of juveniles who were likeable and appealing, (if a little annoying in one case), and she got to be all Doctor-like confronting a bunch of baddies led by the scenery chewing Samantha Bond. Who’d have thunk Miss Moneypenny could be so deliciously evil? The only real disappointment in a show of this kind was the rather perfunctory cameo of K9, somehow stuck in a cupboard and sealing a black hole. While it was great to see him, one can only hope his creators will relent and allow him to be featured in the series proper.

And so, the big one, Who-wise. Yes David Tennant was back on our screens, fulfilling a tradition of Doctor Who Christmas specials that goes all the way back to, ooh, last year. And, sad to say, it wasn’t that great. Writer Russell T Davies had obviously developed an equation to feed into his computer which distilled the ingredients that made last year’s special so good. The trouble was, just spewing them out willy-nilly doesn’t work in the same way. Last year, the alien robot Santas were creepy; this year they already felt like a staple of Christmas, not remotely menacing. It didn’t help that the Doctor was accompanied by catherine Tate, in a role Davies apparently wrote based on all her most irritating comedy characters. I should point out here that while I don’t like her comedy show, I actually think Catherine Tate is a pretty good actress, but she wasn’t well-served by a script that offered a pale imitation of her own characters. The frustrating thing was that every once in a while, you got a glimpse of how good she could have been if the script had been consistent. Her final scene with Tennant was a doozy, with one of Davies’ best lines about the Doctor -“You need someone to stop you”.

As usual, Russell’s computer spewed forth a safely menacing alien that caused no casualties to ruin Christmas. Sarah Parish did well in a giant spider suit as the Empress of Rachnoss, though it was clear that no matter how much she waved her legs around the costume had her rooted to the spot. But her plot to bring back her children from the centre of the Earth was pure nonsense, as was the rather convenient solution of draining the Thames to drown them. Flood barrier or not, wouldn’t that involve draining the whole English Channel, and thence the Atlantic, and so on? While Russell T Davies undoubtedly loves a good set piece, he really needs to work on framing them logically in some sort of plot.

The saving grace of a show that I badly wanted to love was David Tennant. Throughout last year’s season of Doctor Who barely an episode went by where I didn’t want to just slap him at some point. But this was a measured, intelligent performance, which perfectly balanced the humour and the drama of the character. That, if nothing else, bodes well for next year’s series of Doctor Who.

So, Crimbo, then. The good, the bad, and the written by Chris Chibnall. Now at last, I can get back to that backlog of DVDs…