Vacation, OK

All right, it was better than OK, but like everything it naturally had its ups and downs. Actually, Oklahoma has relatively few, but that's not to say it's landscape is flat and without interest. Indeed, the state can proudly boast 11 distinct bio-zones (a lesson I only learned this time out - ah, if only they'd had three, I might have been able to remember them all) and a diverse range of wildlife. Also, I'm reminded that, prior to my first visit - some two years ago now - a friend assured me that Oklahoma had no mountains, but that simply isn't the case. It just happens that the mountains it has have been around for so long they've been worn down to the level of, well, hills. That first trip, my wife-to-be and I spent some time in the Quartz Mountains, and I was very happy to be able to send that friend a postcard as irrefutible evidence of the existence of Oklahoman mountains. Petty, but fun. And on this occasion we swung by a place by the name of Tiger Mountain - which I'm not even sure qualified as a hill, but it did at least have a ridge or two on the horizon and, more importantly, it was where we met Ginger the Bobcat (pictured left - or, for any of you who happen to be inside the text and looking out, right). She may be too domesticated to count as an example of the diverse Oklahoman wildlife, but she was the star of that particular day and a definite highlight of the trip. But more of her later.

To be fair the trip's only 'lowlights' were owing to the slightly over-booked social calendar, which at times led to a sense of the kind of packed schedule you'd associate more with, well, a working week than a holiday. But that was the nature of the beast: there were just too many people who hadn't seen us for a year and a half and even then we didn't get to see everybody. There was a good plan originally, for an open house party on the first Sunday we were over there, so everyone could come around and see us in one go, thus freeing up plenty of time for pressure-free, open-timetable R&R. But the best laid plans of us and in-laws have much in common with those of men and rodents, and of course not everybody could make it on the day arranged. So we ended up having to fit more people in here and there throughout the two weeks. No sooner had I enjoyed a welcome massage (all professional and above-board, just in case any more sordid-minded readers are looking in :) ) the day after we arrived than I was in need of another one to help me relax all over again. Thankfully, they were all nice people and welcome company. Well, except for the ones who thought it'd be a neat idea to just drop by on our last day there, when I was socialled out and ready to go home and re-establish relations with our kittens (I'll own up to worrying whether they'd even remember us by the time we got back!). Poor timing and not helped by the fact that a certain uncle-in-law insisted on barracking me about this novel he had been writing (30 pages so far, it's a crime mystery but it has no protagonist yet) the way some folks feel the need to say, "I've been having these dreams lately" whenever introduced to analysts at parties.

Luckily, the very next morning, before our departure, we breakfasted at IHOP (International House Of Pancakes - a house of pancakes! how cool is that! - which was a favourite of mine from previous trips) with mum- & dad-in-law and that made for a really nice note on which to end the holiday. And one much more in tune with the majority of the rest of the vacation. Because in the midst of the social assault course ( ;) ) we managed to squeeze in plenty of holiday-ish pleasures for ourselves, some planned, some unexpected, just as it should be.

Obviously, I needn't dwell on the shopping. Suffice to say there was some and my wife had a few items on her list she was determined to bring back with her - certain supplies that were either cheaper across the pond or quite simply not available here in the UK. And along with the shopping there was, of course, plenty of good eatin. By our presence alone, we probably doubled the state's vegetarian population, but there's no shortage of really wholesome, nutritious food to be had. All of which was just too hard put to compete with all the lovely junk food. Trust me, American restaurants are the place to go if you really want more pounds to your dollar. And these hearty meals can be readily supplemented with varieties of candy bars that can't be had for love nor money in British stores. Reeses Fast Break, I'm looking at you. Well, I'm not really - I don't have any of those left. I'll just have to console myself with the Reeses Peanut Butter Cups we've stocked up on (which I have found here in the UK, but they're not nearly as available as they should be). On top of which, the US diners, restaurants and cafes have for centuries now (two, at least, I'm sure) championed the principle of free refills when it comes to drinks. I love that. UK restaurants take note: import this facet of American culture today!

Friday 16th, two days after our arrival, was especially good for culture. I'd wanted to squeeze in at least one date out at the movies while we were there. There was a large selection to choose from, but not a great deal worth seeing. Luckily - er, for me anyway - 300 was playing. Not a date movie. If there's ever a shortage of red in future motion pictures, this is the one to blame. I thought it was great and can't imagine why the Iranians kicked up such a fuss about it in the press while we were over there. I mean, a) it's a Hollywood fantasy movie based on a comic book and has no basis in history and b) if the Persians really want to hold a grudge, that Xerxes chap shouldn't have attempted to invade Greece in the first place. It was grim, ferocious fun and, apart from a few stylistic touches (naturally) in common with Sin City, I'd not seen anything like it before. All aided and abetted by a truly fierce performance from the lead guy, with a talent for saying "Sparta!" a lot, with a similar kind of relish to that demonstrated by the inhabitants of Gormenghast when invoking the name of their home castle.

Anyway, on the understanding that the next movie we went to would be my wife's choice, we followed that up with dinner at Abuelo's, a classy Mexican restaurant in Bricktown, deep in downtown Oklahoma City, before heading over to the Ford Center (I know, they can't spell centre) for a show. Mum-in-law had won tickets in a competiton on local radio, and she very kindly gave them to us for a night out. (Many thanks.) The show was Cirque Du Soleil: Delirium and was a new experience for yours truly. My wife assures me that previous offerings from this troupe had been much more Cirque, and less Soleil. Where Soleil is, of course, a potent hallucinogen. For my tastes, there was always just too much going on, with weird, wonderful and/or wacky happenings spilling over the stage and onto these huge side screens, across which would flash a host of arty visuals to accompany both the stage acrobatics and the belting but for the most part not very memorable 'songs'. It was tough to focus on any one thing at any one time, so it was easy to miss this detail or that detail in all the colourfully orchestrated chaos. It was all very surreal, but what with the free tickets and all, you'd be hard pressed to find a drug-induced experience any cheaper. As a nice extra touch, the woman from the radio station came over to greet us before the show, and she introduced herself as Jolly, which - in the nature of unlikely names - led to some entertaining conversation.

It was all helped along by the fact that I was excited by the surprise prospect of another concert to come, having spotted in the rolling ads for upcoming events that Evanescence were playing there the next Wednesday. Way-hay! I thought. Surely synchronicity at work. On my first visit, I was treated to a Sarah McLachlan concert (amazing) and so good concerts appeared to be a developing theme for trips to Oklahoma. Still, I'll come back to that, since it's important to establish that the gig was preceded by five days of anticipation and generally 'being looked forward to'.

In the meantime, there was (amongst other things) the party on the Sunday and a visit to the Oklahoma City Zoo. I'd visited there before, and it's an impressive enough zoo - would have been more impressive too, if a great many of the animals hadn't decided it was nap time when we arrived - but they'd developed a whole new Oklahoma Trails exhibit, featuring all the state's 11 bio-zones (see, that's where I learned that lesson). There was still some work to be done, but the majority of the enclosures were really well developed, with overpasses to allow for good visibility and plenty of room for the critters - and more than made up for the fact that it was spring break and the place was filled to overflowing with noisy kids! (Plenty of lion fodder - I know I can't have been the only one thinking that.) Still, for all the zoo's beautiful creatures, it couldn't compete with our 'wildlife' encounter the following day.

For that was when we met Ginger. We'd arranged to head out to Tiger Mountain Ranch for some trail riding - as traditional a part of my Oklahoma visits as concerts, it seems (I've been three times now, so I'm guessing the things I do over there - like, oh, egg and cheese toasters from Sonic or sampling the goods at the local ice cream parlour - can be counted as traditions). It was such a great setting for it too. A spacious lodge on a lake shore, huge amounts of wooded acreage, with tipis in which tourists could sample something of traditional Native American (insert ‘make your reservations’ joke here) and a number of trails of differing levels of difficulty for horseriding. Yes, we were out of practice, so we chickened out and opted for the ‘Easy’ ride. My horse, Marotta, was a fairly passive character but impatient to get on with the ride – but I didn’t take it personally. Rain threatened anyway, so we cut our ride short by ten minutes, only to see the rain just fizzle out and pass on by. Oh well, not to worry, because when we got back, our hostess – the ranch owner, a gal name of Sharon – took us to see her bobcat, Ginger.

She and her husband had found Ginger when she was three months old. She had her own little enclosure out in the yard, but was free to wander about the house. She even indulges in some harmless play with Nugget, the family cat. As we got to step inside and spend some quality time with Ginger, Nugget was also close by, on the outside of the enclosure, taunting Ginger from the other side of the wire fence. Ginger would make these chucking noises, rather like a bark, as she paced around looking for a way to get to Nugget. When she wasn’t being coaxed over for petting by us or coming around to nuzzle into our hands, just the way any domestic cat does.

There was still a hint of the wild animal about her, but she was safe on her own territory and perfectly at ease even with us strangers around. She was great.

We rounded off that day with a visit to a nearby winery, and after more shopping and socializing the following day, it was time to head off for the Evanescence concert in the evening. Cool. I was really psyched to see them.

Unfortunately, we had to first sit through two dismal support bands, both of whom only sounded marginally better when we ducked out for a walk around the hall outside, to stretch our legs, investigate the price of an Evanescence T-shirt (too much!) and, well, to get away from the support bands. The only entertainment to be had from the first band was the sight of their guitarist who seemed to believe he was a marionette and ‘danced’ accordingly, despite some obvious string-related deficiency. He, his hair and his guitar were all over the place and I’m not sure I have the power to describe just how ludicrous he looked. Still, there’s only so much you can get from watching that sort of thing, and the second band didn’t even have that to recommend them.

Then, thankfully, Evanescence showed up. Woo hoo!

Hmm.

Luckily, I still love the band. Don’t get me wrong, I think we got to see a terrific live performance – but none of it made it past the speakers. The volume was racked up so high as drown out Amy Lee’s vocals, such a vital element of the band’s sound, and reduce the music to percussion and so much raucous, distorted noise. These people do sound tests, don’t they? It was suggested to me it could have been down to the venue, but as I said, I’d seen Sarah McLachlan at the same place and her people got it right. Well, phooey. Definitely a letdown, but as I say, my love of the music is still intact – I’ll just be sticking to the studio material in future.

A shame too that the concert was the last major ‘event’ of our holiday, followed only by a scattering of more social engagements, another massage (I needed that!) and more dining, shopping and other miscellaneous activities of that sort. Fortunately, it wasn’t the last word on the entertainment front for us, because on the Sunday nights we got to enjoy the two-part Season 3 finale of Battlestar Galactica. Legitimately, recorded off the TV, complete with ad breaks to fast forward through and everything. Now that was a treat.

But I’ll save that for another time.

Not least because I’m conscious of having ‘gone on for a bit’. You’ll have to excuse me for that. I’ll put it down to the fact that you just don’t tend to walk anywhere in the States. It’s always driving here, driving there. So it’s only natural I suppose, now that we’re back home, I’d feel like having a bit of a ramble.

The main thing is, we had an OK time.

No More Nails

Metaphorical ones. They'd all been bitten down to the quick within the first half-dozen episodes of Battlestar Galactica Season 3. We've reached what must be the halfway mark by now and even if things settled down a bit, with a few 'ordinary' episodes here and there, I find even a standard BSG episode has more than enough to grip me. (Spoilers will undoubtedly follow for BSG Season 3, but I'm going to try to stay brief!) Woo hoo. I love this show.

One of the especially welcome touches in a recent 'ordinary' episode was the flashback to the earlier stages of the settlement of New Caprica. Intercut with uppercuts in the boxing ring, this episode could so easily have been BSG's TKO (a particularly poor B5 episode, the memory of which still causes a shudder or two). But since one of my 'gripes' about Season 2 was the One Year Later... jump to the set-up on New Caprica and the Cylon occupation, this provided some welcome colouring in of the gap. Of course, it had the ambivalent side effect of making me think what a great story that settlement would have made if properly explored and given air to breathe. Maybe just a matter of three episodes? Not too much to ask.

What was a big ask at the time was the dramatic adjustment the viewer was required to make, from military to civvy street (in the mud, no less) - and no, I'm not just talking about Adama's moustache. That said, the opening episodes of Season 3 deliver in spades. I'd mentioned before that this was a series that wasn't afraid to shake up its status quo once in a while, and it certainly managed that. It turned things on their heads to such an extent there was, on top of the customary nail-biting fare, a faint nervousness that things could never be the same again. We were in unknown, as well as occupied, territory, and it made for great, intense and even emotionally draining drama. All thoroughly enjoyable without the Colonel-Tigh-As-Bin-Laden comparisons. A particularly tense moment for me was when Laura Roslin was lined up for a Richard Attenborough Great Escape moment, and there was the sense of a chance, at least, that they might have killed her off.

To a certain extent, the bulk of the survivors (and that's not a reference to Apollo's weight problems) have effectively by now completed a journey back to something like the pre-occupation situation, but that’s a cycle necessary for the continuation of the greater journey and I think it's fair to say that all the characters bear their scars (some highly visible!) and certain relationships have undergone what must be irrevocable changes. First episode after the liberation, members of the Galactica crew - Starbuck included - are seen forming their own kangaroo court, doling out retributive justice as a means of dealing with their personal pain. Yikes. Just the kind of thing you used to get in every generation of Star Trek, eh. On which note, there are continued efforts to acknowledge factors like shortages of resources - food has been the theme in selected episodes of this season - and I've enjoyed the look inside the Cylon base ships, even if it has all had to go 'a bit weird' to show up the differences that set them apart from humans. Life on board seems disjointed, although that may be down to Gaius' disturbed perspective on the universe in general. Messianic complexes aside, the notion of Cylons projecting versions of reality to suit their tastes, the nature of the hybrid hooked into the baseship and the question of the final five Cylon models are the key sources of fascination so far on the Cylon side of things.

Well, those and Lucy Lawless. I've taken a real liking to her character, even over Caprica, who's been with us longer - and it's been interesting to watch her reprising something of her Xena role, championing the ideal of One God over a Greek-style Pantheon. Can't wait till she slays Athena with her chakram. Even if that doesn't happen and even if 'No More Nails' might be a bit of an exaggeration on my part, all this Season has to do is maintain the standard so far on display, and it will be sure to keep me glued.

Jamie And The Magic Of Animation

It's true I've been quiet on the subject of Doctor Who lately. Couldn't even be arsed to post any comments about The Runaway Blah, this year's Christmas not-very-special - I preferred The Sarah Jane Adventures. But then, I'd probably have preferred last year's Christmas dinner. Thank goodness (or, rather, thank the very generous person who gave me a copy as a gift) for The Invasion on DVD. "Crikey, DM, that was a real treat!" Penfold would have said, I'm fairly convinced of that.
Until now, my experience of the story had been confined to a) the excellent Ian Marter novelisation, with its gloves-off brutality, spattering of gore and general feeling of a more adult read than your usual Target book and b) the BBC audio. I think I may have had the VHS release at one point, with missing episodes narrated by someone or other (Nicholas Courtney, I'm tempted to say) but (in case it's not obvious) I didn't recall much about it. This, I'm reasonably sure, has more to do with the fact that I hit 40 later this year than anything to do with the story itself.
At 8 episodes, it is undeniably overlong and there's a great deal of runaround. But it's all played with the customary charm of the era, with Troughton in fine form, doing his mix of doddery, gravitas and a bit of a Laurel & Hardy routine as he's chased along an alleyway by a barrage of Cyber blasts. Kevin Stoney is superb as Vaughan, a madman who really gets mad, especially when letting rip at whining thug-hound, Packer. (Packer comes over as a more convincing hardman in the novelisation, but Peter Halliday creates a memorable lieutenant to Vaughan.) It's Vaughan, rather than the Cybermen, who's really in charge. Such that, it's down to the Doctor to defeat him or make him see the error of his ways, from which moment on, the Cybermen can be dealt with by the liberal application of missiles, MOD stock footage and Zoe's mathematics. (She's not just a pretty face. Indeed, at one point, one of the military staff is seen to check out her famously cute butt - a moment that had gone unnoticed on the audio and, I'm fairly sure, in the Ian Marter novelisation.) Personally, I'd perhaps have preferred to see the Doctor rig the Cerebreton Mentor device (what a great name!) for general broadcast and have him wipe out the Cybes with a multi-channel blast of emotion. Or something of that order. Okay, that may have run the risk of having a multitude of insane Cybermen rampaging around, but hey, sequel material right there. I did enjoy the idea of the insane Cyberman and, as usual with a lot of ideas like that, felt they could have done more with it. Just as I loved the whole scenario of having UNIT use a C130 Hercules as their mobile HQ.
Yes, overlong shmoverlong, this is the story Rise Of The Cybermen/Age Of Steel should have been. Um, actually, it *is* this story. Except somehow they lifted all its essential ingredients and made a Cyberpig's ear of it.
The irony with this DVD release is that, with absolutely no disrespect to Pat, Wendy, Fraser or any of those involved in the original, Cosgrove Hall (makers of such classics as Dangermouse and Jamie & The Magic Torch) have done such a fine job of animating the missing episodes that you end up wishing more of the episodes had been missing and needed to be brought to life that way. Partly that's novelty value in evidence, but they're a joy to watch. And I don't get to say that about many black and white cartoons. In any case, I definitely want to see this sort of thing become less of a novelty and have more missing episodes given this very magic treatment.
Lovely stuff. Thanks for that.

Martin Scores Oscar

The Oscars are a funny business. They're often rendered meaningless as any mark of quality by the kinds of movies they're awarded to. And yet, for some reason, it still mattered that Martin Scorsese never got one and now that he has, I feel compelled to commemorate the occasion. I've not seen The Departed yet (largely because, as a remake of Infernal Affairs, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, I can't imagine the story will hold many surprises for me), but I will get around to it eventually and I'm sure I'll be able to tell then whether it's a Scorsese movie that, remake or no, deserves such special recognition. It can't possibly be better than Goodfellas, obviously. And maybe these Best Picture and Best Director Oscars are just the ones Marty should have won for that movie, slightly overdue. To be honest, it was one of those oversights that was getting to the stage where it didn't matter which movie he won one for. But that's not to take anything away from The Departed or the achievement. Well done, Marty.

Prime Time Eval

Primeval. Like Torchwood but made by ITV. Which is not as damning as it sounds, but then again it doesn't elevate Torchwood in any way either. If we're gonna have kids rescuing cute CGInosaurs, I say bring back Surface damn it!

Disparate Entertainments

All work and no blog makes, er, for dull blogs I suppose. Yes, I've been busy. Not the sort of thing I'd often take the trouble to report - mostly because if I'm that busy, I'm generally too busy to report it. But as an excuse for not having blogged for a little while, it serves. Of course, I did post that short story of mine, but that was largely a bit of filler and, apart from a tiny intro paragraph didn't require much other than a quick cut n paste.
Still, it's not all been work here. I've been busy keeping myself entertained as well as productive.
For one, I've just now watched the first episode of the current season of ER. I'm horrified. Not from the harrowing emotional stuff, the trauma of an armed abduction, the operating room gore or the shock ending. No, I'm mortified by the sudden absence of the opening credits and theme. Come on, people, that's part of the weekly viewing pleasure.
Part of the reason I'm late in catching up with this (the 13th!) season is that me and the wife have been enjoying something of an ER marathon over the past few months (Seasons 1-6) and I have to say that even with all the drama of the Season 13 opener I've just seen, it can't match the level of emotional attachment the show commanded back then. So thoroughly involving it was I'm now considering getting a hold of Season 7 on DVD and maybe make my collection cut off point the really really sad one where Mark Green dies. I must be a masochist - I've only just gotten through the season with the departures of Jeannie and Carol and the deaths of Lucy (sniff) and Mark's dad. As at the beginning of last year's season, I find I'm just not as involved with or fond of a lot of the newer characters: I didn't care that much about Sam, Morris I'm thoroughly indifferent to and as for Ray, well, Ray-shmay. There are still those I like and am interested in (Luka, Abbey, Neela, Pratt) and of course we didn't want Jerry to croak, but it will have to pull out all the dramatic stops this year to compensate for all the favourite characters I'm missing these days.
Desperate Housewives has started out well this year and while I found it still retained its sparkle last year, it looks set to re-ignite more of its first-season flames with a mystery that's much better integrated into the Wisteria Lane community. On the surface, it looks fairly straightforward: Bree's married a wife-killer. But you know there has to be more to it than that and I'm looking forward to the show digging deeper and turning up who knows what. Kyle MacLachlan is great as Orson and if not for his dodgy wife-murdering past he'd be the perfect match for Bree. Double the OCD. On top of which we have the fireworks of Gabby's divorce and Susan's thread - with an amnesiac Mike being spoonfed a new version of the truth by evil Edie - is the usual Susan mix of goofy and tragic. (Although you have to wonder if loss of memory is also accompanied by loss of instinct and intuition: newly recovered from coma or no, surely Mike can tell Edie is a witch and Susan is honest, with just a screw or two loose.) Mainly, I think I'll be hoping for a stronger storyline for Lynette this year and watching her kick in the door of the interloping tramp this week was a joy to behold. I'm easily pleased, I guess.
Except, it must be said, that hasn't been the case with books lately. One poor mate of mine has been in the habit the past few years of buying me books for birthday and/or Christmas. Books that have usually been the subject of critical acclaim or come highly recommended by someone. And then I go and find them a bit lacking or not that special or, as in one case, particularly awful. And yet, he's a good mate, because he bought me books this Christmas too and having read one of them so far, I can safely declare it to be 'a good un'. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susannah Clarke) was a book I'd heard good things about, but the weight and size of it were a bit daunting - doesn't anybody write short books these days? Luckily, once I'd dipped into it, I was grabbed. Oddly, in a way, because there's nothing very dramatic in it - indeed, there are a couple of points where it sidesteps some potential dramatic conflict - but it has the sort of rambling brilliance of an English classic, where you're happy to allow it to wander where it will simply because it's just so good. The tone is generally light and entertaining, but there's more than enough shadowy material for contrast and a few moments of genuine creepiness. Wizards and Waterloo, it's a thoroughly novel novel. The one problem I had with it lay with the blasted footnotes. Entertaining as they were in their own way, they were a source of consant interruption to the narrative and a distraction. Probably a necessary one, but there we are. That's just me. I guess I've never been very fond of footnotes in novels ever since battling my way through James Fenimore Cooper's Last Of The Mohicans.
Anyway, I'm following it up with Galactic North, a collection of SF short stories by the usually brilliant Alastair Reynolds (he's not just about the stylish covers, you know). There don't appear to be any footnotes and the stories are kind of long for short stories, but still they're short.
As well as all the reading and watching, we also had the pleasure of going out to a concert recently. Living where we do, we don't often get many 'big names' playing down here and I'm not sure Nerina Pallot qualifies as a 'big name' anyway, but she was great. Songs that I enjoyed well enough on her CD (Fires) really came alive in the relatively small theatre that served as the venue. She's a highly gifted songstress, and she flitted easily from piano to guitar to piano as the mood took her or as it suited the song, injecting such a wealth of passion into every performance, aided only by regular refills of G&T. Yes, I commented afterwards that it should have been billed as Unplugged and Tanked-up. She's quirky and kooky, but very funny with it and the only downside was that when playing her CD a day or so later, I found myself wanting to hear the live versions. Hmm, maybe I'm really not so easy to please.
As if all that fun wasn't enough, I've also been catching up on some movies. Working my way through a list, in fact, that I made last year of Movies I Really Ought To Get Around To Seeing. There were about 50 in all on the list and I believe that was back around September or somewhere like that, and I've now seen 15 of them which isn't bad going. Some failed to live up to expectations, some surpassed and others didn't have any expectations attached at all, managing to surprise or disappoint purely on their own merits. But perhaps more on some of those at a later date.
Meanwhile, in other news, my wife passed her driving test on Monday! Yay! She's been driving for twenty years already, but being from the States she needed to get herself licensed for the UK roads. So I'm going to finish on a self-indulgent "Well done!" to her. After all, these blogs shouldn't be all about me, me, me, should they.

It's About Time

It's been a quiet month. That's to say, it's been a busy one and so it's been quiet here. One of the things I did very early in the year - or it might have been late last year, I can't quite remember! - was enter a short story competition (sponsored by Virgin Trains). Basically, it had to be "about time" and no more than 500 words. It didn't have to feature a train, but it just so happened mine did. Mine didn't win, hence it's ending up here. It does have the advantage of being very short, so won't even take up your lunch hour. :) Enjoy.

Tunnel Vision

Clackety-clack. Tickety-tock. Tockety-tick. The rhythm of the train is like a runaway clock.
The miles race by, but the journey drags.
Our passenger wonders whether he wouldn’t prefer it to drag some more. Two hours to go plus another hour before the interview, and he’s already nervous. Ridiculous. He should be using the time to do something worthwhile – or at least distracting – like read. Or brush up on the job particulars – again.
He turns his face to the window and tries to lose himself in the countryside. But for the present there’s only a rushing wall of trees and shrubs.
Suddenly, with a roar, that’s gone too. Swallowed up by a tunnel.
Black after black streams past. The interior – his fellow travelers (although nothing to do with him), the few empty seats – projected on the dark screen like a phantom movie. In the midst of it all, a close-up of his own face.
A reflection. His eyes full of questions about where he is going.
His whole life flashes before him. A quick-fire flicker of possibilities.
The interview. A handshake, a welcome on board. Spreading the news. More handshakes, pats on the back, learning to like it, the celebrations. Hugs and kisses goodbye. The move, the stress, the big adventure. The scary first day, finding his way around, introductions, more handshakes.
Then it happens.
A chance meeting. Eyes search each other. Is she a colleague or a client? Impossible to say. She’s just a shadow. A shadow to share his life with. Marriage – months, a year maybe down the line. Two children, a boy and a girl. They’re all grown up now. Had job interviews of their own – done really well for themselves. She even has a family of her own now.
Grandchildren. Who’d have thought.
As he stares at the speeding yet still darkness outside, he has the odd sensation that the train is heading in the opposite direction. And he remembers experiencing that same thing on a journey many years before. On most of his journeys, in fact.
Briefly, he locks eyes with his reflection. His hair seems white, the lines on his face are etched more deeply than he had ever imagined and his gaze is full of questions about where he has been.
Daylight erupts out of nowhere. They’re back to the rush of trees and shrubs. A blur of green.
He’s on his way home now. The interview a mere memory and often not even that. His back is to the engine and he wonders when looking forward became looking back. He can only blame it on a trick of the tunnel. The Twilight Zone.
He listens to the rhythm of the tracks.
Clunk-clack-clack. Tock-tick-tock. Tock-tick.
Slowing down. Must be approaching a station.
But it’s not his, not yet.
He digs into his bag for a book to read or a crossword to solve. Some way to fill the remainder of the journey.
Something worthwhile, or at least a distraction.

SAF

Amazon Shorts

Prefect SlogHappy New Year to one and all. Meanwhile, as of December last, a selection of short stories of mine have been made available as Amazon Shorts. Which are kind of like Bermuda Shorts, but available electronically. But no, seriously, for a mere $0.49 anybody resident in the US can read and enjoy the stories to their heart's content - and they'll be available online for the next six months. I'm hopeful that if the whole Amazon Shorts programme is a success, the other Amazon sites - like Amazon.co.uk, for example - will adopt similar programmes. For now though, it'll be a reasonable outlet for me to promote a few original (and totally non-Doctor Who) writings and, who knows, help raise my profile a little. Added to which, I'm married to an American, so if nothing else I should have a few US friends and relations who should be taking advantage of this golden opportunity to read my stuff at the earliest opportunity! :) For now, all UK readers can do is take a look at the tantalising blurbs on the US Amazon site and see what a nice job they've done on the 'covers'. Have fun!

Seasons Finales Greetings

Prefect Slog
Americans just don’t get irony, I’ve often heard it said. Alanis Morisette is part-Canadian, so what’s her excuse? But my wife is American and she tends to do okay with it. I’m sure she’d agree that it was pretty ironic that now that I’m taking time off work for the festive season, I find I have a lot less spare time on my hands. The upshot of which is I’m not going to have time for a lengthy Christmas message here, but you know, I figured a simple ‘Merry Christmas’ just wouldn’t cut the cranberry.
So by way of rounding off this year’s blogging, I thought I’d just add an update or two to some of those discourses on TV I’ve rattled off over the past few months.
Farscape, first of all, warrants a mention, not least because someone was kind enough to ask me to post my thoughts on the final season when I finally got there. Really, it merits a blog entry all its own, and it will get one in the New Year. For now, I’ll just say that, far from spiralling away up its own nostrils (seeing as how it’s Christmas, I think a more polite metaphorical orifice is in order) it was/is – with many of the same sort of caveats I gave before – superlative sci fi entertainment. Most creative, dynamic sf show ever. And, in the light of what I now know about that 4th Season, Peacekeeper Wars strikes a curious balance: being both a generally satisfying conclusion to the journey, and offering an insight of just how bloody fantastic it would have been if they’d been able to close the story with a full 5th Season. But more on this at a later date. It’s a compulsion, and I don’t see why indulgence should be limited to this time of year :)
Meanwhile, Award For Most Surprising Season Finale has to go to Ghost Whisper. Wow, I thought, when this show wakes up it really wakes up! Not only did we get two whole helpings of Jennifer Love Hewitt (overdoing good things, see, it’s entirely in keeping with the Christmas theme) but they cleverly diverted attention with big disaster-movie level drama, while pulling one of the best Sixth Sense-style twists I’ve seen since The Others. It would be difficult to see this falling back to formula after that, but what the heck do I care, I’m on board for another season.
But for Torchwood, I think not. That show upped its game too with the most recent episode – Out Of Time, I think it was called (really, the series doesn’t even inspire much effort to check my facts). Credit where it’s due, that was the best yet, but in the context of the series I suspect it’s too little too late. Overall, i gets my vote for Most Awful Series I’ve Watched All Year. It's Space:1999 Series 2 Awful. In the interests of open-mindedness, it may yet win me over, but as things stand, it’ll have to deliver something way, way above its current par for the end of season to keep me from saving myself thirteen lots of 45 minutes next year.
And who can blame me? As it is, I’m going to have to watch the Sarah Jane Adventures on New Year’s Day, and the advance publicity seems to suggest that someone thought K9 & Company was just too adult and had to be toned down for a younger audience. But it’s Lis Sladen, isn’t it, and hence another compulsion.
Never mind. On the plus side, it is starting the New Year with Sarah Jane Smith and really there was many a year in the past I’d have liked to have kicked off like that! So on that note, Merry Christmas to everyone here and here’s to heaps of positive things in 2007 for all of you.

Craig Hinton (TM)

Prefect Slog
Craig Hinton passed away last weekend. I had to come to terms with a very personal loss this year, when my Mum died back in May and, truth to tell, I've probably not finished doing that yet. But it apparently hasn't toughened me up any and it hasn't remotely diluted the shock of first reading news of Craig in an email last Sunday night.
Craig was a friend, even though I can't claim to have known him that well. Mostly we knew each other through online contact, emails and mailing lists, or the likes of Outpost Gallifrey's Doctor Who forum. And that's one medium where you can gain impressions of people that could prove completely wrong - without all the 'extras' like facial expression and tone, you can communicate, but the chances of misunderstanding or misreading someone are pretty high. That said, it's true to say that Craig's emails and posts to mailing lists always conveyed a great deal of personality. A guy with that much character can't help having a colourful online presence.
And I'm glad to be able to say I did have the pleasure of meeting the man in person. Just the once, but it was in special circumstances and, quite beside that, it was pretty obvious from the start that this was a special sort of guy.
We were both due to attend the Gallifrey convention in LA and it turned out we were taking the same flight. So we chose our seats accordingly. I was nervous about flying, as well as - being a complete newbie to the whole convention experience - nervous about the adventure ahead. Craig was just concerned about getting through the umpteen-hour flight without a cigarette. I guess it's fair to say the both of us were expecting the flight to be hell.
We had such a laugh. Lengthy animated chats, fits of laughter and my first proper introduction (ah, I was so naive) to the soap-opera style behind the scenes world of Doctor Who. Craig was a consummate gossip, with a wickedly sparkling sense of humour and a brilliant line in bitchiness. Brilliant company all the way, and we both agreed it was a damn good flight that went pretty smoothly. Quite the opposite of what we expected.
The convention too was a dream, and I met a lot of great people there, had a lot of special times - not least of which was meeting my wife! And Craig was there throughout, shepherding me through the whole 'big n scary' convention experience. He was incredibly popular, that wit and charm firing on all cylinders, and always in demand with this group of fans or that group of authors, but he always had time for me and was always inclusive and making sure I was part of said groups and not an outsider, complete newbie though I was. It was like hanging around with a real celebrity, but one that happened to be your friend.
He also sought to shatter all my childhood illusions about the world of Doctor Who, armed with a host of horrifying tales that could traumatise a sensitive soul like me and change my perspective on a given celeb or element of the show forever. I'll never forget the saga of the Captain Yates/Queen Spider dioramas. The less said in public the better, I suppose, but it left an image emblazoned on my mind that still gives rise to fits of laughter.
And as if that wasn't enough, then there was the journey home. Another long flight ahead, but this time I was looking forward to it. As luck would have it, we ended up travelling with Nev Fountain - another witty charmer! - and the hours flew by with even more thoroughly entertaining chat. And more fits of laughter.
The whole experience was a blast and one I will never forget. And Craig was a constant presence, and a bright constant throughout. I remember it was shortly after his Sixth Doctor book, Synthespians(TM), had come out and it had met with a popular response and I know Craig was - rightly - chuffed about that. He was getting a lot of praise for it from admiring fans at the convention. Of course, it's not much of a spoiler by now to say that it featured the dreaded Autons, but one thing we discovered between us was that we had both submitted Auton proposals at around the same time. We traded synopses and had a read, and I was appropriately miffed that his had won out - it's only natural :) - but we had a good laugh about it and he was entirely gracious. And when it came to writing the novel, he went to the trouble of working in some background stuff for the character of Peri that I had explored in Shell Shock. And I know that he was, according to the T-shirt he wore with pride at the convention, the Fanwank God (resplendently styled after the Doctor Who TVM logo), but it was still flattering that he bothered with my little contribution to continuity.
It reminds me now, as I write this, that he was one of the first to welcome me when I first ventured tentatively onto the Outpost Gallifrey forum, and very soon after he was emailing me in private to say how much he had enjoyed Drift. He was also the one to invite me onto mailing lists where I was introduced to a community of authors and fans I'd never have otherwise met. As I say we stayed in touch via emails and those mailing lists. It was infrequent and irregular, and he'd go quiet for sometimes lengthy periods, but you'd just know he'd pop up sooner or later with an update on what he'd been up to, what had been happening in his life - unfortunately, too often they'd be difficulties and hard times life was happening to throw at him - but, as with the convention, he was a constant. Even if an irregular one. ;)
The last time he emailed me, he was sending words of support and encouragement through my own difficult times, and that despite going through some of his own. There was some of his wonderful bitchiness, and there were laughs too. A little bit, I guess, of everything that I knew characterised him. I never knew it was his last email to me of course, but I easily recognised it for what it was: a message from a friend. A friend who would always insist, when writing of Synthespians, on including the (TM). And a friend who definitely warrants the same honour. So here's to you, Craig Hinton (TM). One of a kind. Thanks, mate.

Ghost Writer

Prefect Slog
This is, of course, one of those news items in which I can neither disclose any details nor tell you anything of any consequence. Still, the word 'commission' is such a nice one that it needs to be aired and shared, and since I've recently won a commission (there it is again!) to write the first volume in a series of books, about which I can say no more at this stage, here I am airing and sharing. It is a ghost-writing assignment, and so my name won't appear, but hopefully that won't prevent me from publicising it as and when my lips can be unsealed. So, woo and hoo, in equal measures!

NaNoWriMo

Prefect Slog
With apologies to Simon Bucher Jones, maestro of the CS5M...
...and to the tune of Abba's "Mamma Mia".
You have been warned.

NaNoWriMo

I’ve been writing like mad since I don’t know when
Now December is here, it must come to an end
Look at me now, now I’m nearly there
I don’t know how but I think I might reach my goal
There’s a fire within my soul
One more page! and I can sit back and sigh
One more K! and if I get RSI, o-o-o-oh

NaNoWriMo, now I’ve reached the end
My my, feels like it’s been ages
NaNoWriMo, fifty thousand words
Oh my, that’s a lot of pages
Sleep-lessness and detractors
Bore-dom and other factors
Why, why did I ever have a crack?
NaNoWriMo, thirty bloody days
My my, I can never get them back.

I’ve been suffering blocks and unable to write
Could not do dialogue and my prose was a fright
But every year, at around this time
And even though November is not that long
And still it could all go wrong.
Just one month! and you can turn it around
No safe bet! but the theory is sound, o-o-o-oh

NaNoWriMo, here I go again
My my, last time I did 10 K
NaNoWriMo, did the same again?
No way, I topped Fifty One K
Yes, I’ve been close to burned out
Making my daily word count
But I’m - glad I went and had a go
NaNoWriMo, now I need a nap
Woo hoo, now I have a novel
NaNoWriMo, it’s a book I’ll get
Pub – lished, if I have to grovel!

NaNoWriMo, here I go again
Woo hoo, its been validated
NaNoWriMo, sing it once again
Just needs, to be celebrated
Yes, it’s a pointless pursuit
And you can end up hirsute
Why, why did I never stop to shave?
NaNoWriMo, now I’m really done
Thank God, I was running out of rhymes.

See, that's what happens when I finish with time to spare.

BETTER THAN DOCTOR WHO: WHAT ISN'T?

Prefect SlogOkay, so I opted for one of those provocative eye-catching headlines. Still, if it did grab your attention, then all to the good. Got to attract those audiences. Of course, having kicked off with such a bold, controversial statement (aka cheap ploy), we all know that there are in fact plenty of shows that are not as good as New Series Doctor Who. It stands to reason. But the fact is, whatever they are, I don’t watch them.
In any case, of course, right from the beginning this Better Than Doctor Who heading was all about one thing: passing examinations of the shows that afforded me greater viewing pleasure than New Who. Or, to put it a less fancy way, shows I enjoy more, get more out of – or, to put it another way, shows I think are better.
Truth is, there are too many other shows that I’d rate more highly, ones that for one reason and another didn’t necessarily warrant coverage here. In the cult/SF bracket I’d have to include The X Files, for instance, (which I rewatched up to the end of Season 3 this year) and Ultraviolet (which I only recently acquired on DVD – yay!). Goes without saying, right? But maybe that’s being unfair – these shows are the top of their game, the cream of the crop, setting the standard on either side of the Atlantic. But no, wait up. We’re talking about Doctor Who here. It set the standard, it was the cream of the crop, and it should have been able to stand shoulder to shoulder with either of those and hold its head up high. But the sad honest conclusion I have to come to is that it can’t even manage that when compared with some of my ‘guiltier pleasures’.
Yes, it’s true. I enjoyed Jessica Alba in Dark Angel and thought the series was starting to really go somewhere in its second season, before it got shoved aside to make room for the mostly brilliant Firefly. I watched all of Tru Calling too, and found it entertaining in a Joey & Chandler’s Baywatch-obsession sort of way: “Run, Eliza, run!” And lately I’ve been following Jennifer Love Hewitt’s weekly outfits – I mean, exploits - in The Ghost Whisperer, which is kind of like Tru in that she helps dead people, but – sadly – without all the running. In the scheme of things, these are not great shows, and yet - while I confess the leading ladies in each might have something to do with it - I’ve enjoyed them all more than New Who. The answer? Put Jessica, Eliza or Love, as she prefers to call herself, in New Who and see what happens – obviously.
Okay, I’d probably watch.
But, um, no, I think there’s more to it than that.
There’s the expectation that comes with Who and the emotional attachment born of an n-ty year love of the series (where n is a large number that will likely give away just how old I am), but that also gives Who something of a free pass that other shows don’t have: there is the will, the desire to like it and the tendency to continue watching even if it falls short, past the point where you’d surely have given up on other shows. So the fact that Who has that past is a two-way street and, although an inescapable factor here, is not the distinction that strikes me most when looking at these otherwise essentially average shows.
It occurs to me – and it’s interesting to say this, given that two of the three shows were canned before their due dates – that these ‘lesser’ shows achieved at least 95% of their full potential. I could go into each of them in more detail in that respect, but we’re primarily here to talk about Doctor Who – and we will get there fairly shortly – promise! - especially when we appreciate that, on the question of realized potential, the New Series doesn’t even come close.
It’s something that dawned on me as I sat down to watch Season Two and the gap between expectations/hope and reality/end product yawned wide. And it perhaps wouldn’t have even been so bad if those hopes and expectations had simply been founded on nostalgia for the Classic Series and not built up by the New Series itself.
Despite any disappointments in Season One, there was enough to impress and sufficient cause to be optimistic that the various teething troubles would be ironed out and we would see a much improved Who come the new year. That optimism is epitomized in the closing speech given by a brand new Doctor in The Christmas Invasion.
The essence of the resulting disappointment is then equally beautifully captured in the opening episode of the second season. In the opening scene even. In the first place, it starts off with a needless recap. The characters haven’t moved, they and the story have gone nowhere. After the credits, when they do arrive somewhere, out of all the stars and planets they could have visited, of all the infinite possibilities arrayed before them in that Christmas night sky, they go to New Earth. Not Earth, you understand, but New Earth. It’s a minor detail and naturally it’s the story that matters, but it’s symptomatic of one of the show’s key problems. On top of an apparent lack of imagination, there is this unwillingness to let go of that bloody anchor.
As though we cannot travel anywhere because of some need to be surrounded by the safe and familiar. Whose benefit is it for? Not for mine, and if for the kids, then why does most popular children’s fiction remove the parents from the picture altogether or at the very least render the home situation unstable so as to promote adventure and, presumably, some sense of independence in the young reader? There are, as Farscape proves, better ways to explore your central character’s sense of separation from home, chief of which would be – I would think – giving some sense that they’ve been away. I can’t help feeling that in the past we could go anywhere, confront all manner of horrors and it was the Doctor who made us feel safe – not the fact that, it’s okay, we can pop back to do our laundry any time we wish. Phew.
The domestics are still very much an obsession of this series, the People Left Behind being a key theme. And even a sidestep into an alternative universe only serves to revisit the same territory explored to greater effect in the course of the first season. But more on that story – although as little as possible – later.
Getting past the initial blahness, we’re into the story and Season Two is off and running. It has pace and there is a sense that efforts have been made to make this new Doctor a more proactive Time Lord. He will resolve things, even if it is with an orange and a detach-part-of-the-spaceship button or, as here in New Earth, a drug cocktail that makes the witches brew in Macbeth (eye of newt, wing of frog! etc.) seem like advanced chem. Fun though some of it is, with all the body-swapping and great performances in that regard, it is hampered by this kind of dumb cobbled-together thinking and an illogical but convenient character U-turn on the part of Cassandra come the end, which gives rise to the notion that it’s not so much pacey as rushed.
It’s the sort of sloppy ‘first-draft’ writing that characterizes the majority of the stories to follow. So many of them, in fact, I’m tempted to say that it’s an element that characterizes the New Series as a whole. The mystery is that these scripts are apparently subjected to multiple rewrites and yet so much painfully awful stuff makes it on screen that the prevalent attitude would appear to be ‘It’ll do’. This can’t actually be the case. Professionals working in TV couldn’t get far with that sort of thinking. But the end product paints an impression and there is evidence of another loosely related attitude at work throughout the New Series. Indeed, it’s one that is apparently championed by some of its ardent supporters as ‘a good thing’.
It’s an attitude that’s also ably demonstrated, funnily enough, by some of the best stories of the season. As luck would have it the three real highlights follow hot on the heels of New Earth, in brisk succession: Tooth & Claw, School Reunion and The Girl In The Fireplace. I enjoyed them all. They were, in the New Who scheme of things, great. But each of them seems to subscribe to the Tea-Bag principle of storytelling – leave enough holes in them to let the flavour flood out. Essentially they only succeed by sleight of hand and illusion, in different forms: Tooth & Claw with atmosphere and pace, Reunion with nostalgia, SJS and genuine emotion, Fireplace with novelty and, er, warmth. And of course they all have spectacle on their side, but that’s a given for New Who. As effective as they were, they’re all held together by the flimsiest of threads and don’t stand up to much examination and I was wary of rewatching any of them for fear that the illusory bubble would burst.
School Reunion in particular, quite possibly my personal highlight for the season, was not very good. That is to say, the Doctor Who adventure plot – the Krillitane taking over the school, all solved by the robot dog – was about as poor as they come. But courtesy of the SJS thread being very much in the foreground, even I was ‘fooled’ into thinking it was a great episode. At the same time though, I was not ignorant of how much better it might have been if I hadn’t had to overlook the dog’s school dinner of a background story.
As the season goes on, the episodes continue to demonstrate, to a greater or lesser degree, the aforementioned prevailing attitude and, as best as I can make out, it is something along the lines of: the SF or Doctor Who story doesn’t matter, it’s the human drama that counts. In that I’m paraphrasing what some friends have said, but – at the risk of jumping ahead to the two-part season finale – here’s something Paul Cornell says when discussing the views of a certain sector of fans:

Paul Cornell's Blog

Under the heading Doctor Who: Jackie Tyler Leaves The TV On:
“These are the guys for whom the Dalek/Cybermen battle was the meaningful bit of ‘Doomsday’, and who ache that time was wasted on Rose and her family.”

If not the precise implication here, it does call to mind the argument that I have heard put forward to the effect that the Dalek/Cybermen battle (as with the SF/adventure elements of other episodes) was of lesser importance. Which is something borne out by the story: it’s a fun enough encounter, played for laughs – which it gets. And it’s all resolved by the throwing of a switch. The Doctor finds the invasion’s reverse gear. There' no story there really. It’s Rose’s story that counts, made obvious really by the way the story is topped and tailed with her account. But as with School Reunion, I have to ask myself how much better it all might have been if the SF adventure element – even if more of a background story, as in Reunion – had been granted the writer’s proper attentions. If this is anything like the true attitude that drives the series, it’s a deplorable approach to storytelling and the results come as no surprise. As a writer, I don’t think I’d ever take the line that aspects of a given story weren’t as important as others so I didn’t feel the need to bother with them so much. Surely every aspect of a given story warrants attention and deserves a little polish? And the drama of any human story would surely, like a diamond, benefit from a worthy setting.
Clearly, in this specific case, it would be difficult to lend a Dalek-Cybermen confrontation meaning. It’s a bit of fanwank. But I’m not sure that excuses the slapdash plotting, especially as it’s by no means something that’s confined to that two-parter. Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday scrapes by on the strength of its humour and its denouement and – where would we be without Old Faithful – spectacle. Other stories fare much more poorly because even the drama – supposedly the meaningful, important bit – is lame or ailing in some way.
In his blog, Paul goes on to say:

“Drama isn’t your puppy, it’s a tiger. It’s not meant to make you comfortable. It’s meant to make you feel alive.”

Absolutely. But too much of New Who’s drama makes me uncomfortable for all the wrong reasons. It’s frequently painful to watch and just as frequently doesn’t qualify as drama. It breaks the rules of good writing and good storytelling, at best undermining its better qualities, at worst shooting itself in the foot and waiting for the end credits to come and put the episode out of its misery.
Witness the many failings of the Cybermen two-parter, where the chasm between anticipation and reality was at its most gaping. Not only do we get one of the dullest depressions of the < Alt > + < Universe > key, but when dramatic opportunities present themselves the writer hits < Delete > immediately. “We’re stranded in a parallel dimension!” “But it’s okay, we’ll recharge and be out of here in a day or so.” “We’re surrounded by Cybermen!” “Don’t worry, I’ll zap them with my power crystal.” “We’ve drained our power crystal and now we’re really stranded in a parallel dimension!” “But it’s okay, it’ll recharge in a few hours and we’ll be right as rain.” “Now, where’s a handy mobile phone so I can defeat the Cyberman invasion?” Plod, plod. Clunk-clank.
From these depths, the series then struggles to haul itself back up to mediocrity. Ranging from mostly forgettable – The Idiot’s something or other – to if only it was more forgettable – Love & Monsters. Along with Fear Her, the saddest indictment of those episodes is that I actually feel disinclined to re-examine them any further. We are in the realm of fire-and-forget TV. Ultimately disposable, and it is somewhere in this stretch – probably the point fifteen minutes in to L&M when I was about to go off and do something less boring instead – that New Who dropped to the level of ‘just another TV show’. I think, on reflection, that while Rise Of The Cybermen/Age Of Steel removed the emotion and replaced it with something mechanical, the bulk of the stories that followed removed the hope that things might improve. (An operation later concluded with the introduction of Catherine Tate at the end of Doomsday, and post-season news of what we might expect in the Third Season. Yes, folks, the new companion has a family and they will be appearing as semi-regulars.)
Still, I will take the time to mention The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit. Again, it’s all relative in the New Who scheme of things, but in that post-Age Of Steel drought, this other two-parter is the one that stands out best in the memory. It gets points, anyway, for ambition and most impressive spectacle. Whereas the Daleks were the stand-out monster from Season One, I think it’s this story’s Satan that leaves the most lasting impression. Even if a chained giant demon is ultimately ineffectual, visually the image of a tiny Doctor confronting this great Devil is a striking one. Storywise, it didn’t altogether suck, although as we noted with dismay at the time it did pop at least as many dramatic balloons as the Cyber-debacle (shooting its own cliffhanger moments down like clay pigeons) and it did feature some of the worst characterization-by-exposition I’ve ever seen (“This is Bob, he’s our Science Officer, and he has a dark secret in his past, don’t you know”). There was a certain gusto to it all though and delightfully dark aspects that, somewhat like Ghosts/Doomsday all combine to help it scrape by. If only the station crew had been given personalities, we might have cared more. Because if there’s one thing human drama does benefit from it’s the presence of a few humans.
This, as it happens, was also the story in which David Tennant’s Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose appear to be at their highest – on drugs, that is. When they step onto the station, they are (to take my cue from the one truly awful moment from Girl In The Fireplace) laughing like a couple of the laughingest laughing hyenas laughing away on laughing gas. I don’t really think this was symptomatic of drug use, I’m not sure what could have brought it on. It didn’t help the story and it was Tennant at his gooniest – and, I think (apart from his Blackadder moment in Fireplace), his worst.
Acting aside, what I think it’s more indicative of is this need to have the Doctor turn up and be gushingly enthusiastic about absolutely everything. It’s a follow-on trait from the Eccleston Doctor to a certain extent, with his black-and-white, Sun-reader view of the Universe. Greeting positive things with childish glee and declaring them all to be “Fantastic!” Tennant’s Doctor appears to do a lot of the same, although he’s expanded his vocabulary to encompass a few more adjectives.
It’s almost as if the writer is hoping that by injecting all this over-egged enthusiasm into the proceedings, it will rub off on the audience. By declaring enough of it to be “Fantastic!”, “Briliant!” or “Amazing!” the hope is that enough of the audience will believe it to be so.
To which, I have to say: show us, don’t tell us.
It’s almost as if there’s some underlying insecurity at work. As though the series is self-conscious about how ropey it can be. Which is just silly. But then, when we look at the finished product, we can see why they’d have some cause to be insecure.
The trouble is, it’s not a finished product. Too often it feels unfinished and amateur. Worst of all, it’s rarely in something as superficial as the visuals; it’s routinely in something as core as the writing. And yet given the dozens of rewrites, you have to assume that the end result has been given the producer’s full thumbs-up.
In contrast, all the other shows that I’ve cited in this little series seem polished and professional. They’re confident. Even Dark Angel with its lack of direction, Tru Calling with its lack of variety and Ghost Whisperer with its lack of drama are finished products, delivered to a respectable standard. Okay, they may be cheap takeaway, but hey, sometimes I’m just in the mood for shallow-pan pizza and it turns out I prefer that to the undercooked Happy Meal that is New Doctor Who.
Of course it hasn’t escaped my notice that the vast majority of the shows I’ve covered here have been American ones. And it must be said that the only quality New Who has going for it above these shows, as far as I can see, is its essential Britishness. No American show can match that, fairly naturally. But I’m not sure that’s a recommendation any more. Especially if Britishness these days means being A Bit Rubbish™.
Still, we mustn’t lose sight of the one distinction Season Two has over its predecessor, and that is the master stroke of placing my three personal highlights together in the schedule. It does mean that there is a single entire New Series DVD out there that I might, one day, maybe, feel inclined to buy and perhaps even watch. That’s not something I could ever have said about Season One. Season One, you couldn’t get Dalek without a Slitheen double bill and you couldn’t even get the flawed but passably entertaining season finale without bloody Boomtown on the disc.
So, Season Two: 3/13. Or, let’s be generous and give it a 5/13, to make allowances for the good parts of Impossible Planet/Satan Pit and Doomsday.
But the truth is, I have no desire to rewatch any of it. And perhaps worst of all, the other week, when we had guests over for dinner, a mate of mine chanced to ask, “So when’s Doctor Who coming back on our screens?” – and, automatically, without thinking, I shrugged and said: “Who cares.” The forthcoming Christmas ‘Special’ – The Runaway Bride – fills me with what I can only describe as anti-excitement and when it comes to thoughts of Season Three, there is none of the accompanying anticipation that preceded Season Two. Which, who knows, may work in its favour.
Meanwhile, by way of some sort of conclusion, tongue-in-cheek provocative headline though it was, I guess I should make some attempt to answer my own question. Better Than Doctor Who: What Isn't? Space: 1999, Season Two, that's What Isn't. When I was a lad, it must have been the appeal of Maya and her cool shapeshifting ability that won me over. Because having seen a lot of them on ITV4 recently, every single episode I've caught so far has been truly, truly awful. No doubt the producer thought it was brilliant.

Crotchwod

Prefect SlogI know. It's not an anagram. All the good ones have been done already, so I've cheated. But it does at least sound like a means of padding out pants, which is as good a review of Torchwood as springs to mind. This week's was a bit better, but Torchwood has all the grabbing power of one of those arcade machines with the claw, where it tries and tries but just can't get a hold of the prize. Never mind. It could get better and rather than spend any more time or effort discussing it, I figured I'd rather waste some time wondering what we might have ended up with if all shows went down the same anagrammatical route when concocting their spin-offs.
Filefry: Government cover-up.
Filth-e-Sex: Not sure what it's about, but you know you're going to watch.
Farie The Bumpy Fly Saver: Fairly self-explanatory.
Crapsafe: Someone plans to break into the vault containing all the universe's crap.
Stagger Sat-1: A weapons platform with a wobbly orbit.
Lactic Rat Tablet Saga: It's anybody's guess.

Robin Hood

Prefect Slog
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
On our screens again,
Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
With his band of men,
Ranging from poor, to not very good,
Robin Hood! Robin Hood! Robin Hood!

BETTER THAN DOCTOR WHO: SCRUBS & SPORTSNIGHT

Prefect SlogLast time it was all about drama. This time, comedy.
Comedy is something Doctor Who can do perfectly well of course, but it'’s also something it can do very badly. It tends to work best when it arises naturally out of the characters and situations (Leela at Litefoot'’s dinner table in Talons Of Weng Chiang, "“Harry Sullivan is an imbecile!"” in Revenge Of The Cybermen, Sarah Jane'’s run-in with Rose in School Reunion, or any number of situations featuring Leela or Harry). And, contrary to popular belief, it tends to be at its poorest when consciously sending itself up (the *cliff* *hanger* in Dragonfire, the Master'’s ludicrous disguises, anything with the Slitheen). But essentially I'’m oversimplifying there for the sake of brevity. The main point is that Doctor Who -– Classic or New -– has had a variable comedy career, ranging from satire to panto, stand-up to sit-down to fall-on-its-face. Season 17 was even something of a sitcom, albeit a poor one with more than the usual number of set locations. And the New Series, to be fair, has had its share of laugh out loud moments, the vast majority of them intentional -– because, unlike its Classic predecessor, there are no hubcap spaceships, CSO caverns or Action Man tanks on the chuckle menu.
Its flaws and failings, where they aren'’t easily forgiven in the good tradition of Doctor Who viewing, are more likely to elicit groans. That'’s the nature of both the business -– i.e. there'’s really no excuse these days for poor visuals and amateur fx etc -– and the flaws/failings in evidence -– i.e. they'’re generally script-related.
But in case anyone imagines my disappointment in the New Series is the result of a senseofhumourectomy, I thought it might be worth taking a look at some of the comedies that have tickled me lately and earned their inclusion under this Better Than Doctor Who banner.
Between seasons of New Who, my wife and I got ourselves Freeview -– as an integral feature of our Hard Drive recorder -– which gave us access to everything abc1 has to offer. Hmm. With its endless rotations of Home Improvement (ugh), Hope & Faith (!) and Rodney (?) this might have been like a season pass to all major traffic accidents -– but luckily it led to our chance to sample Scrubs right from the beginning and to our discovery of SportsNight. Double whammy!
Scrubs would seem like a certain winner for me, what with my love of ER, but like a lot of other potentially good TV, it had simply managed to slip me by until this year. (As I'’ve said before, there's just not enough time to watch everything!) John Wells has said of his ER staff: "“If you have been in an automobile accident and you are in the back of an ambulance, when the doors of that ambulance open and you'’re coming out on the gurney, these are the people whose faces you want to see."” Not so the staff of Sacred Heart -– they'’re all neurotic, for starters. Still, within its half-hour slot (clumsily chopped up with ad breaks on abc1) Scrubs manages to pull off quite a balancing act, slipping seamlessly into passable medical drama between all the craziness, and as much as a friend of mine drew attention to the weekly helpings of schmalz, I haven'’t found that at all off-putting so far. '‘So far'’ being two seasons at this stage. Whatever sentimentality or moral message it chooses to pitch, I'’ve found more than enough bedpan humour, tickled ribs and belly laughs to mitigate all that. In fact, it all seems to combine successfully as part of the series'’ charm. It'’s never been so mawkish as to have me reaching for the sick bag.
And just as the show can veer off into surreal humour (mostly courtesy of its central character'’s daydreams) and still pull off a human story or two, the characters are wonderfully exaggerated while still remaining honest-to-goodness, well-drawn characters. JD and Turk who, if it weren'’t for their respective medical careers, would surely be revelling in some lowly Men Behaving Badly existence and even then they do okay as far as that goes, aided and abetted by their stuffed dog, Rowdy. Elliot, whose face you might want to see when wheeled out on a gurney, but all the same you really wouldn'’t want her taking care of your physical well-being. At least not in any medical sense. Carla, as the more sensible of the four, you might trust with some light nursing duties, but you'’d want to be aware of whatever boyfriend troubles she'’s currently having -– she'’s with Turk, poor girl. Then there's the uber-sarcastic, hyper-neurotic Dr Cox, who makes ER's Benton look the most laid-back of taskmasters, scary Dr Kelso who is, I suppose, the Kerry Weaver of this outfit and his whipping boy, the long-suffering lawyer who's part of an a cappella quartet in his spare time. Perhaps the icing on the cake is the predatory Janitor, who lurks on every hospital corner and stalks JD like some mop-wielding Freddie Kruger with a heart of gold -– or so he'’d claim. Whatever, it'’s all played to perfection and there'’s a great energy and chemistry to the whole thing.
And, at the end of the day, any show that features Men At Work's Colin Hay strumming away, performing an acoustic version of "Overkill" all the way from admittance to the morgue merits full attention. And, since that'’s in a Series 2 episode, Scrubs had won mine well before that.
Then there'’s SportsNight. I hate sports, I do, but I'’d heard good things about the show and it has Felicity Huffman in it so I thought I'’d give it a whirl and, what do you know, it turns out that the fact that I hate sports doesn'’t even enter into it. I mean, okay, some of the sports-related banter goes -– whoosh! -– straight over my head, but a) so did a lot of the medical jargon in ER until I made an effort to gen up on it a bit, b) I just know I'm never going to make that kind of effort where sports are concerned and c) I zone out when some of my mates talk about football but they'’re still friends.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given its credentials, SportsNight is an ensemble piece absolutely loaded with the same sharp-witted, fast-paced office patter that characterizes The West Wing. Unlike its Whitehouse-based cousin, I warmed to most of SportsNight'’s characters fairly immediately, but that'’s to be expected -– or at any rate, hoped for! -– from a comedy: these people are making you laugh on a more frequent basis. As with Scrubs, it walks the line somewhat between comedy and drama, but -– how shall I say -– the tightrope is closer to the ground. The tone is more that of a drama and the characters more grounded, and it has enough of a soapy element to hook you into the ongoing story, but it's all done with *class*. Not only is there Felicity Huffman (did I mention?), but hubby, William H Macy shows up at one point. This is almost certainly not the way this show came about, but it'’s like when a friend is relating all the insane, frenetic things that go on at their workplace and says "“someone should write a sitcom about this place"” -– where sometimes you nod but know it's just never going to happen and if it did there'’d possibly be enough material for a pilot but never six whole episodes, or somebody goes ahead and writes it and it becomes The Office (meh) or The Brittas Empire (oh dear god), or you get a SportsNight.
It clicks. I love it. And -– fairly naturally, given that -– it only ran for two seasons before it got canned. Added to which, owing to abc1'’s erratic system that some TV channels would refer to as a schedule, I'’m still not sure I've seen all the available episodes or, for that matter, in the right order. There are gaps to be plugged, I'’m sure, and I intend to plug them, because when there are only two seasons'’ worth of such a quality show you really have to see them all.
And while we'’re on the subject of comedy, I should also mention My Name Is Earl (which I mentioned before I had been enjoying) which, with its great collection of Coen Brothers characters, completed a consistent, successful first season and did manage to leave me wanting more. Now, whether it can deliver and whether the good central concept has the legs to run for very long (and here, sorry, but I can'’t prevent the picture of Earl'’s one-legged shotgun-toting ex springing into my mind) remains to be seen and like many a good thing, given the choice, I'’d rather have it end before it took a fall. I'’ve thought the same about Doctor Who (yes, even the Classic series!) before now. Suffice to say, as it stands Earl had a great sit and plenty of com, which is what you want.
Anyway, the less said the better in a sense. For one thing, I'’d rather enjoy comedy than subject it to an in-depth analysis and for another I'’d best not jinx anything by saying things like "“I hope Earl'’s just as good next year"” or "“I hope Season 3 Scrubs is as good as what I'’ve seen so far."” That would just be tempting fate, eh. Also and perhaps more to the point, given the subject header, we'’re very nearly at the point these little articles have been leading to all this time. Yes, Next Week On... Better Than Doctor Who, our New Who Season 2 overview and some sort of conclusion to all this nonsense. Even if, in writing it, I have no fresh insights to offer there should at least be a few laughs, intentional or otherwise.

BETTER THAN DOCTOR WHO: ER & DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES

Prefect Slog
As imaginative a child as I was, one of the many things I never imagined was that I’d get more enjoyment out of mundane drama than Doctor Who. Of course some people might look on that as a sign of growing up, but through a combination of books, audios and, principally, more of that imagination of mine, Doctor Who grew up with me and I never saw myself growing out of it. I’m not sure that’s what’s happened in the wake of the New Series, but the fact is there are dramas that I enjoy a good deal more.
Of course, the likes of ER and Desperate Housewives are only ‘mundane’ in the sense of being free of sf frills. Each has its own brand of magic and, well, age before beauty they say, so we’ll take a look at ER first.
ER is one of those very rare shows that managed to work its way into my adulthood affections to a degree comparable to the way Doctor Who won me over in childhood. In terms of fondness, it’s my closest adult non-sf equivalent and, having recently started rewatching the series from the beginning on DVD, I’m reminded that it’s even old enough now for nostalgia to be a factor. (And on a personal note, it carries some special significance in that I only embarked on the series in the first place while keeping my Mum company while my Dad was away on business trips.) It represents something of a medical miracle, since I never cared for and don’t like medical dramas in general. It was like one of my rules.
A rule always supported by the fact that I’m a bit squeamish when it comes to blood and bones and, well, squishy internal things, but that just lent ER something else in common with Doctor Who, in that I’d watch some bits through faintly parted fingers. Not, it must be said, from behind the sofa – my parents always had their sofa up against the wall, leaving a space accessible to cats but not to small children.
These days, I suppose, ER may not stand out so much, but that’s because it played a major part in setting the drama standard, and back then it was really doing something different. As with DW, there’s not one specific quality I can put my finger on as the thing that drew me in and held my fascination for so long. It’s the mix, just one of those 'Master Chef' moments where all the ingredients come together.
It’s a cocktail of tragedy, warmth, humanity, humour; it can go from laugh to cry in the blink of an eye; it’s brisk and busy and it crams a dozen or more stories into the space of an episode, coming and going with the patients, and there’s a sense of urgency you just don’t get from the staff of Holby City. Throughout the connecting threads are the stories of the staff – the main cast and a small army of supporting regulars – and they, chief of all, were probably what won me over.
They’re not only attractive, they’re charismatic (and, in Season One, astonishingly young), and it’s one of those ensemble casts that really click from very early on. And yes, I fell in love with Susan Lewis, but it was one of those higher, Sarah Jane sorts of love. Nothing sordid.
Anyway, although she departed midway through Season 3 (sniff – see, I’m tearing up already, because I remember it at least as clearly as Sarah Jane being so cruelly dumped at the end of The Hand Of Fear), for the purposes of my DVD collection I’ve limited myself to the first six seasons. Not because I think it drops in quality at all after that but because, economically, I have to have some cut-off point and enough of my favourite cast members had departed by the end of that series to make a difference. That said, I have continued to watch since – and pretty avidly. As far as I can see, the only significant dip in quality came in Season 10, where I believe there was some inexcusable mishandling of Elisabeth Corday’s character, as though the writers really didn’t know what to do with her once Mark Greene was gone and she was ready to move on. But a dip in quality in ER, as I’m sure I must have said before, still leaves it in a respectable position above the competition. I miss Mark Greene, and I miss Elisabeth Corday, but – and I say this with unashamed bias – it came back strong in Season 11. And I fully expect to continue watching new ER until they finally draw the curtain. I’m an addict, what can I say, and plenty of them turn up at the ER every week looking to get their fix – why should I be any different.
Meanwhile, arriving the same year as New Who, Desperate Housewives offered the promise of a new addiction, and a very welcome one at that. Of course, all fresh and new, it doesn’t have nostalgia going for it, but it’s at least comparable to New Who in that it has thus far run for two seasons and has currently left us in a similar between-series break, where we can look forward to a third season with breathless anticipation, expectation and excitement.
Well, for one of them at least.
Actually, that’s not quite as true as it should be even for Desperate Housewives. Both shows dropped the ball somewhat in their second seasons, showing trends towards the ordinary. For me, New Who dipped below the line into just-another-TV-show, while Desperate Housewives was saved by virtue of starting out at such a higher level and slipped only a notch or two, trading in its glass slippers, as it were, for a less fanciful pair of three-inch heels.
Life in Wisteria Lane was always going to be difficult after the exceptional first series. At the end of that, they had resolved their central mystery, laid the groundwork for a new one and left us on a cliffhanger – hitting all the right buttons. And all they did wrong, really, in following up, was fail to integrate their second big mystery into the community, so we were left following separate multiple threads as per a soap opera. The thing is, the mystery surrounding the Applewhites was not one tailored for integration and it was perfectly in character for Betty (the brilliant Alfre Woodard) to maintain her distance from the other Housewives, but it falls down in comparison to the fate of Mary Alice who committed suicide leaving so many questions at the heart of the community, while staying around to narrate. And of course, with the mystery of her life solved, we do have to wonder why she’s still lingering on to offer further commentary, other than being one of the signatures of the show.
So, as with ER at one point, a measurable dip in quality, but that disappointment has to be measured on the Desperate Housewives scale and against anything else, it still retains its essential sparkle and is as vibrant and entertaining as ever and, crucially, more engaging than many another show. It may have become more like a soap, but it was still Daz, with all the brightness that implies.
And not just brightness either. Despite aforementioned (comparative) deficiencies in story, the writing still sparkles well enough and the tone is always delightfully evoked by Danny Elfman’s score, but the whole is laced with some pretty dark material, more than enough to qualify it as drama, and of course it’s that which holds the attention far more than all its polish. If the writing is good, then the performances are superb: the hapless Susan (Teri Hatcher) who, for all the comedic value in her life, had me crying with her when she was standing in the middle of the road in her wedding dress; Gabrielle (Eva Longoria), who manages to combine selfish and manipulative with likeable and commanded similar sympathies when she had her hard-won adopted (well, all right, stolen) child taken from her; obsessive compulsive Bree (Marcia Cross), whose storyline was probably the most tragic of all and commanded at least as much sympathy again, despite her being a bigot and a paid-up member of the NRA; and Lynette (Felicity Huffman), whose storyline was (until the question of her hubby's fidelity was raised) perhaps the weakest – somewhat ironically given that she became empowered and liberated etc as the principal breadwinner of the household, but who, by virtue of her virtuoso performance remains my favourite Desperate Housewife.
So, all in all, Desperate Housewives remains a must-see for me and I’m very much looking forward to the third season – not least because I understand the writers have promised to address the faults cited in the second series. Would that the New Who people were as accommodating and attentive to their own product.
Even if Desperate Housewives doesn’t manage to pick up that dropped ball and match (dear oh dear, far too many football references for my liking) the quality and appeal of its opening season – a fairly tall order, after all - there are always, of course, other ‘mundane’ dramas that despite not being covered in any detail here, would lodge very comfortably under the same Better Than Doctor Who banner.
The West Wing is one obvious and, for me, current example, given that More 4 have been nice enough to start showing them all from the beginning – purely for my benefit, I might imagine. It was just one of those shows that slipped past me simply because of that age old problem of not having enough time to watch everything as well as having a life. I confess I’ve not found it as immediately engaging as ER was, but it’s all very slick and smart and witty and so clearly outclasses New Who that it scarcely matters that it’s taken me a handful of episodes to develop anything like an attachment to more than a couple of the characters. It bears the stamp of quality all over it, like a great big eagle-centric emblem on the floor of the Oval Office and so I’ve felt it deserves my continued attention, so here I am, sticking with it and letting the characters grow on me in their own good time.
Then there’s Homicide: Life On The Street – which kind of goes without saying – but I haven’t watched any of that very recently and my DVD collection is still in its relative infancy as far as that series goes. Still, that is a situation that may well have changed after my next trip to the US – since distributors haven’t seen fit to make it very available in this country. That was a show that C4 always used to shunt around the schedules something rotten – and I gather they accorded The West Wing similar treatment, although probably not to the same extent.
One show C4 are generally kinder to is Lost, and I would be tempted to include that one here, but for the fact that, having stayed with it for two whole seasons now, I am highly cynical about it. Rather too much of its measure of success will depend on its ultimate resolution and a) whether it delivers and b) whether I’m still hanging around to see it deliver. However, in terms of its ability to hook and tease continued interest out of even deeply cynical viewers – always just one episode away from giving up on it – like me, still puts it above New Who which really begins to look very ordinary the more I reflect on it and all these other shows.
And I haven’t even mentioned Deadwood. Until then. But the list is, if not endless, really quite long and I suspect there would be more dramas on it if I had the time to accommodate them in my viewing schedules.
It’s perhaps understandable that anyone might prefer to spend time with Teri Hatcher or Felicity Huffman rather than David Tennant, but when you feel you’d rather be in hospital – even if it is County General - than in the TARDIS, you know something’s not right. And I’ve checked my vital signs, and it’s definitely not me. Maybe I should get a second opinion. From Susan Lewis.