And Through The Wire - Part Two (SPOILERS)

Before I started watching The Wire, someone told me I wouldn't want to watch any other TV drama once I'd seen that. Yeah, right, I thought, and of course it's not true. That's what we call hype, short for hyperbole. Naturally enough in the wake of such hype I approached the series with caution and a healthy degree of scepticism. I still had to watch it. Had to. Not least because I'd been an admirer of David Simon's (and Ed Burns') work since Homicide (both Life On The Streets, the TV series, and A Year On The Killing Streets, the book), then The Corner (book, haven't seen the mini-series yet) and Generation Kill.

Anyway, one of the things that surprised me most about The Wire was that the hyperbole was very nearly true. Not quite, you know, because there'll always be other TV dramas I'm interested in. It's just the way I am.

But I've recently been enjoying a rewatch of Homicide: LoTS (one of my all-time favourite shows) and for a series that Channel 4 used to shove back and back into the wee small hours when no-one (except me!) was watching, next to The Wire it seems more like a mainstream network cop show. Which is unfair, because it was breaking the mould – or even shaping a new mould – at the time. But I'll save talk of Homicide: LoTS for another time. This is, as we've established, about The Wire.

It's awesome, yes. But like me you might not be awed by it at all to begin with. It's slow, it's in a foreign language. Okay it's not, but it's in a version of English that's removed from the one we speak. Generation Kill's the same, with its initially impenetrable military speak. The world has its own way of talking and it's uncompromising, there are no subtitles to help us along. I'm reminded of studying Shakespeare in school and some of the language makes you scratch your head but one day you get to watch a play or a film and suddenly it clicks and you're getting it. It is like Shakespeare and it is a thing of beauty.

Somewhere along the way its awesomeness creeps in and you realise that it's not slow in the sense that it's dragging its heels or nothing much is happening, but that it's taking its time and it rewards patience and that, in itself, is reason enough to sit up and pay attention. Or sit back and pay attention, because you realise you are in for the long haul. You are, my friend, hooked.

David Simon has said it's like a novel in TV form. (There's an interesting article here about what The Wire is, link courtesy of Stuart.) I'd almost say it's like a series of five novels. There's a distinct theme and focus to each of the five 'seasons': (basically) street, docks, city hall, schools, press. The themes of each series are neatly encapsulated in the opening-title montages and the different versions of the song Way Down In The Hole lay down the tone and mood.

Of course it's not as simple as that and anyone who tells you its overrated is underestimating the layers of complexity in the characters, the plotting and what amounts to constructing a portrait of the city from street level and up.

But it's not only that, it's also its sense of realism. David Simon's big on verisimilitude, and why wouldn't he be, he's a journalist by nature. And this feels like journalism dressed up as drama. There's a great deal of truth in it, many of the storylines and characters are woven from real events and real people harvested from the fertile Baltimore backgrounds that Simon and Burns hail from – newspaper, police, education. They cast real police, real newspaper men, real politicians – and real perps – alongside the actors. It's sobering too when you learn that when the fictional cops hold a wake for one of their number, it's because one of the cast has passed away. Even when you see an actor you know from something else (for example, Idris Elba as Stringer Bell – just one of several British actors you'd think were American if you hadn't seen them previously) they're so utterly convincing that you're still safely immersed in the experience. For a Homicide fan there are odd moments of recognition that might briefly jump you out of the action as you spot actors from that show, but if it's like the late cameo from the mighty Detective John Munch (Richard Belzer) then it's only long enough to applaud. The spell remains intact.

There's one moment (and thanks to Stuart for prompting me to think about this some more) that doesn't quite gel with the reality being portrayed. In Series 5, it's when Omar makes an end-of-episode leap out of an nth-storey balcony to avoid getting shot (fair enough). For me, it wasn't the stretched credibility of his surviving the fall that niggled, it was that it felt like one of the more standard contrived cliffhangers (although there's no hanging involved) you'd expect from 'normal TV'. Thematically and storywise it contributes to Omar's status as a legend, so there's an additional purpose served, but it felt like playing to the crowd.

Still, if we wanted any conclusive evidence that this is one show that doesn't pander – either to a network or to its audience – it's in Omar's departure. Not from the balcony, but, you know, from this world. Sheeeeeeeeeeit. It's still a shock. And I watched it (relatively) ages ago. You even (eventually) come to appreciate that it's the right end for him, for the story, just right. An anonymous, violent death at the hands of some kid who didn't have any sense of the legend he was gunning down. What else was it going to be? Face-off with Marlo? (Who, by the way, is described in The Wire: Truth Be Told as a 'shark on legs' and I couldn't sum him up any better.) That's what I wanted, it's what Omar was looking for. But we'd had that – when Omar takes down Stringer at the end of Series 3.

And that, for the record, felt good – and bad. Stringer was a bastard and he had it coming. But on the other hand, he was a bastard we loved. But we loved Omar too, goddamnit.

Which kind of brings us to another core appeal to this show. Or rather, we're there already, talking about it. Characters. As multi-layered as the city they inhabit and more shades of grey than the UK weather. Scumbags, sleazeballs, thugs and weasels – and that's just the cops. Ha. Seriously though there's a wealth of richly drawn individuals, but it's less about good and bad, more about the ones you love or hate or love to hate and how much. If I had to list my personal favourites, I'd say McNulty, Freamon, Bunk, Kima, Carver, Stringer, Omar, Bubbles, Carcetti, Bunny Colvin, Beadie, Prop Joe, Gus Haynes, Vondas... and keep on going.

There are those such as the Greek who turned my blood cold with a single throat-slitting scene, so I could never actually like the guy, but he's still a great character. There are those such as Levy, the lawyer, who has – if anything – fewer redeeming qualities than the Greek, but even he is, as grudgingly as I have to admit it, great at what he is. Yeah, I really wanted him to get some sort of comeuppance. Hated him, he was that good a sleazebag lawyer. At the other end of the moral spectrum there's Freamon, great character and undeniably good po-lice, but even he voluntarily colludes with McNulty in his insane fake serial killer scheme. At the end of the day, I just have to dispense with lists of favourites and say that I don't recall being quite so emotionally invested, one way or another, in such a vast array of TV characters from one series.

Brother Mouzone, perhaps, is one example that springs to mind of a character that didn't quite ring true at first. He seems a little too out there, more of a dramatic caricature, but there's something in the actor's performance and the world around him that sells it. It occurs to me that a junkie informant called Bubbles could so easily have been a cliche but it's obvious from very early on that's not going to happen here. Huggy Bears need not apply.

There's a clear love for the city and its characters from all of the writers, and clear evidence that love – this love anyway - is not blind. And there's no telling you or even asking you to love these people or their world, but the drama is letting you get to know them and allowing you to make up your own mind.

Interestingly, I've since read (in The Wire: Truth Be Told by Rafael Alvarez) that one aspect the writers definitely had no love for – at least to begin with – was the political layer that was added from Series 3 onwards. There were objections raised, apparently: it was felt that a foray into city hall just wouldn't be The Wire. But like the tale of the Sobotka dockyard dynasty the series before, it's another layer added on top of the existing story and fitting seamlessly as part of the whole. It's the end result that matters and it feels as authentic as all the other layers.

The story of Carcetti's rise to power is as involving and electrifying as the presidential election in The West Wing's Season 7. And I'm not going to get into a comparison – apples and oranges, and all that – but The West Wing, outstanding and slick and polished as it is/was, paints an idealised view (I believe I've previously bemoaned the conspicuous lack of bastards in the White House). In The Wire, you can have men – and women – with ideals, but even Carcetti who is genuinely set on changing things for the better is obliged to sacrifice those princples in favour of juked crime stats and school tests that have much more to do with saving his political bacon than education.

It's not as though self-serving politicians are original, but it's so real it's frustrating. And it's not just that they're self-serving, because Carcetti is an illustration that the system and the forces that drive it are bigger than any one well-meaning man. He's not blameless, but although he gets to exercise some mayoral powers (I'm remembering a brilliant sequence in which he goes on a whistle-stop tour of the city, flexing a bit of mayoral muscle and gets every department jumping into action), he's not exactly powerful either. In much the same way, the cops are often victims of their institution ad the way it operates, and likewise the dealers and dockers and students and teachers are all caught up in the tidal forces that held sway long before they were around and will be long after.

There are individuals who strike out and do things their own way. McNulty and Omar play their particular systems according to their own set of rules, they even beat the system on occasion. But all they're doing is winning battles in a war that can never be won. Stringer Bell attempts to promote himself out of the street and into the world of business and property development. He doesn't make it, but his efforts are doomed before Omar and Mouzone put paid to him in their particular way. And while Stringer's trying to go one way, Avon Barksdale's going the other, seeking to reassert his hold on those precious corners. Series 4 tells a similar tale of two lives running in opposite directions, with Namond – with a rare note of hope – en route to a brighter future and Michael on the down road to becoming – ultimately - a new Omar. The collective tale of those school kids (including Randy and Dukie) makes Series 4 one of the most affecting. As is the tale of Bubbles' voyage towards recovery, the following season, striking another much-welcome note of hope.

But it's not only that, it's – and we could just go on like that for a while. Any five-year series will – or should – leave you with plenty to talk about or think about. In most US shows that'll amount to over a hundred episodes. The Wire runs for 60, but there's (at my best guess) ten times the depth.

I mean, look at me, I've rambled on for too long already and I haven't talked of the plight of the stevedores, I haven't discussed D'Angelo Barksdale's tragic journey, or Cutty's attempts to give the kids an alternative outlet for their energy and aggression, Bunny Colvin's Hamsterdam as a different kind of alternative. I haven't discussed the various depictions of 'domestic bliss' enjoyed by cops and criminals alike. I haven't touched on the great humour - trust me, when it's funny it's hilarious.

I've not said anything about the beautifully crafted montages. But I guess now seems a good time, since we're (finally!) approaching the point of summing up. US TV drama loves its montages and sometimes they strike me as overused. Wrap up your weekly episode with a sequence of scenes set to a cool music track that'll hit all the right emotional buttons for you. But here the technique's used more sparingly, striking the vital end notes for the various characters and story threads each season. Generally with the same basic message: no matter what else, it's business as usual on the streets of Baltimore.

I wish there was some equally elegant way of summing up the series for the purpose of this blog, but I'd probably need a Part Three to do that and even then I'd be hard pressed to find the words.

On a mailing list, someone cleverly pointed out that in Series 5 you have a cop (McNulty) and a journalist (Templeton) both working (although independently) to create the same fiction (that of a depraved serial killer preying on the homeless), which is reflective of the Ed Burns (ex-cop) and David Simon (ex-journalist) collaborative creative team. (McNulty is trying to secure the resources he needs for getting Marlo, Templeton's all about his own career advancement, but I don't think that's any comment on Burns or Simon.) At the time I figured, well, it's probably one of those things that slipped into a story subconsciously during the writing, but now I come to think of it Simon and Burns are almost certainly that clever. If not more so. Neither of them see the war on drugs as a way forward and The Wire is an illustration of what that war is doing to cities all across America.

And here I am, post-Wire, looking for another fix. But there is no more. (Sob.) So like a junkie who can't score tiding himself over with a sugar rush, I rewatch my Homicides, I seek out another cop show I've heard great things about – The Shield, I buy and read books about The Wire and I blog about it and still find I haven't said all I'd like to say about it. So I'm forced to come to one conclusion: I am an addict.

What Burns and Simon have created in The Wire is a legal drug. And I don't have to kill for it, because it's freely available on DVD. Maybe they're trying to tell us something.

And Through The Wire - Part One (No Spoilers)

Gosh, I hadn't realised how long it had been since I posted here. It's as if I haven't been watching anything worth talking about on TV or DVD. Not so. For one thing, it's true I've just been too busy and as well as deadlines, my other creative blogs have taken precedence. For another, one of the things I finished watching and wanted to write something about was The Wire. And I think I've been subconsciously putting it off.

Why? Was it that bad? (I imagine) I hear you ask. But no, the truth of the matter lies at the other end of the spectrum, where I'm left wondering what I can possibly say beyond 'awesome' or 'amazing' or something of a likewise superlative ilk. I suppose I could just settle for raiding the heaps of praise already piled on the series, from people who saw it long before me.

"You either love The Wire, or you haven't seen it." The Guardian

"The Wire is arguably the greatest television programme ever made." Daily Telegraph

"The most challenging and rewarding experience in television history." The Times

etc...

To all of which I just have to nod in agreement.

Or I could purloin a few lines from the Peter Gabriel song And Through The Wire:

Driving round the city rings
Staring at the shape of things
I talk in pictures not in words
Overloaded with everything we said
be careful where you tread
Watch the wire

With particular emphasis on the last line right there. Because whatever I say, however I chose to express it, that will be essentially what it boils down to. Honestly, just watch it.

And there, pretty much, ends the spoiler free part of my 'review'. I'm left with more to say. I suspect there will always be more to say about The Wire. It's just that kind of show. But there will be spoilers, so in between reading this and reading the next part, rent, beg, borrow, steal, pimp yourself out for the DVDs, do whatever it takes and go and watch all five seasons. I'll probably manage to post Part Two before you've finished watching, but it's okay, because you won't be watching it to find out what I have to say on the matter. You'll be watching it because of all you'll have to say.

Dolly Mixture

Back in the days of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, I suspected Joss Whedon of having devised the series just so he could work - some might even say play - with lots of pretty young people. It seems true of all his creations. But then he liberally sprinkles his series with great characters, sparkling dialogue and lots of just generally clever witty stuff to persuade you that, no, the man is a genius. And heck, even if it's all to disguise his true motives, it's still genius.

That said, I'm not one of those who believes that Mr Whedon can do no wrong. Buffy had its disappointing patches, I really wasn't sold on Angel until quite late into the series and here, at the end of the first season, I'm still not entirely convinced by his latest offering, Dollhouse.

Once again he has assembled a cast of pretty young things, headed up by the superlative Eliza Dushku (so good she even enabled me to see the merits of Tru Calling), and most of them are talented too. With Amy Acker, Harry Lennix, Tamoh Penikett and Reed Diamond among the regulars, it's like Angel, Commander In Chief, Battlestar Galactica and Homicide: Life On The Street all met up for a party and ended up going home with the wrong partners. The series itself is a similarly odd mix of brilliance and 'bits that don't quite work'.

For starters, the premise is ludicrous. Now I'm all for absurd premises - for a while I've followed a series involving a man travelling through time and space in a police box and more recently I've been entertained by the exploits of a tech support guy working at a Buy More who has all manner of state and international secrets beamed into his brain. As to the former, I couldn't begin to tell you why that works for me, but as for the latter - Chuck - mostly it gets away with it with a combination of tone (you never take it seriously) and just not really going into the ins and outs of how it works - or doesn't. But there's something about the Dollhouse that leaves me thinking the foundations are a little shaky.

Even in the (admittedly brilliant) final episode, a character laughs at the revelation that the Dollhouse was nothing more than a high class brothel. And no matter how much the proprietors attempt to justify it, with phrases like 'your ultimate fantasy', when you see Eliza Dushku dressed up in S&M gear and wielding a whip you can't help thinking (amongst other things) that it is all an overly elaborate and expensive setup for what it provides. Those capable of paying the price tag (implicitly *very* high) for a doll could most likely obtain much the same with greater ease, far less moolah, a fraction of the cloak and dagger and ultimately - given that rumours abound on the streets about this secret establishment - just as discreetly elsewhere. There's also a skin-crawling creepiness to it all that's slightly off-putting. (Unlike characters like Miss DeWitt, say - ably played by Olivia Williams - who is creepy in a good way.)

In the midst of it, there are some applications that make a kind of sense - the woman who has a copy of herself 'saved' so that she can extend her life long enough to discover the identity of her murderer and the touching tale of the guy who has a doll help him celebrate the anniversary he never got to share with his deceased wife. And the whole thing is an actor's dream, handing many of the cast the opportunity to play a different role each week and play dress-up.

It begins much like the experience of existence as a doll, waking up to something new each episode, no clear recollection of exactly what happened last week and a degree of confusion as to where it's all leading. But the Whedon sparkle is there in the scripts and that, coupled with the generally charismatic ensemble of characters, tends to elevate a show that you might otherwise pass over. And if on those strengths you do decide to stick with it, it does eventually hit its stride, developing with twists and turns that (assuming they haven't been spoilered!) will have you sitting up and paying attention. Ultimately persuading you that, yes, in fact the producers do have a clear idea of where it's all heading and that it might even be interesting when you get there.

Exceptions would be the Tamoh Penikett thread (he's essentially like Mr McGee in The Incredible Hulk) which, although it does throw some genuinely startling curve balls along the way, has only a limited number of possible outcomes - and I happened to guess the one they went for. Sort of. The breakdown of the memory wiping and the 'revelation' that it's nowhere near as efficient as the Dollhouse management believed is thoroughly predictable from the get go, but on the other hand without it there wouldn't be much of a story at all, so that can be forgiven.

Anyway it's a short first season, so well worth a gamble, and the final handful of episodes are a fantasy drama tour de force that does reward viewer loyalty through the slow series start. And unlike Firefly it actually has been granted a second season. I'm not as fired up and keen to see what's next as I was at the same stage in Firefly - and I'm more excited by the news that, apparently, there will be more Dr Horrible - but it has at least grabbed my interest. The season finale, as I said, is nothing short of brilliant and is full of surprises - although in some respects it feels like the overall *series* finale that Joss made ahead of time in case, like Firefly, it got canned before its time. Second season will in all probability follow on from events in the preceding episode (12) and this thirteenth episode is perhaps best viewed as a tantalising extra for the time being. All in all, a curious - but positive - season closer for a series that can certainly be described as 'unusual'.

Unfortunately because I've endeavoured to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, I've probably painted as vague and indistinct an impression of Dollhouse as I had after the first couple of episodes, but at the end of the day it does amount to a qualified recommendation. On a purely superficial level, it amounts to a grown man playing with dolls. But since the grown man is Joss Whedon, I feel obliged to take notice.

The Long & Winding Rhodes

'It's the journey, not the destination' might be applicable to life (I'll let you know) but as previously demonstrated by our holiday to Crete, it has nothing to do with travel. I love being places. But going places is invariably a drag. And it was much the same with my very recent (just got home yesterday) week on the island of Rhodes. Scheduled stupid o'clock departure made worse by a flight delay, too many long hours in a very basic airport, the usual story.

Just as well that Rhodes was beautiful and entirely worth the hassle of what Lonely Planet guides tend to refer to rather breezily as 'Getting There & Away'. Especially good as I only booked the (much-needed) holiday last minute, with no particular preference as to destination beyond 'somewhere nice and somewhere hot'.

Yes, the place is absolutely heaving with tourists, but since I was one of them I couldn't very well complain. Besides, most of them were cooking themselves to a crisp on the beaches or by the hotel pools and it was easy to steer clear of that and do my own thing. Of course, there's a certain breed of tourist for whom travel doesn't so much broaden the mind as fatten the brain, but I only really encountered any of them when it came to getting about the island by bus. The local bus service is great, but they do operate according to the principle that the bus is never full. Standing room is regarded as infinite and people are just asked to keep shuffling back, so on longer trips competition for seats is of course fierce. So twice I found myself caught up in a bottleneck at a bus doorway, where tourists of various nationalities battled for pole position. I know queuing is a quaint British tradition but it does work reasonably well and involves a degree of common courtesy. But it'll never catch on in Rhodes: I think I was the only one present actually allowing people to board in front of me.

Luckily the Greeks were a great deal more friendly and courteous than those tourists, ranging from the traders and maitre d's who were merely out to pounce on you with charm to make a sale to the genuinely welcoming and hospitable. Prices were higher than on Crete, which was only to be expected since that was two years ago, but my one main disappointment in the tavernas and restaurants was that the tradition of tailing off a meal with a complimentary little dessert and glass of ouzo wasn't observed at all here. Still, that didn't prevent me from finding my favourite bar, in which I could sit and write and fend off the baking afternoon heat with a nice cold beer: The Blue Palm, ladies and gentlemen, I thoroughly recommend it. Lowest priced beer in Ixia (where I was based), the guy who runs the place really makes you feel welcome and the place even has its own cats who can be found sunning themselves on the veranda or seeking shade under the tables. It's good for evening meals too, although my favourite haunt for dining was (and I hope I'm spelling this right in my clumsy non-Greek alphabet) Derliki, where the food was great, really reasonably priced and I was really well looked after by a lovely Polish waitress, named Agata. Interested in writing herself, she always had time for conversation and, having lived and worked in Rhodes for some while, also helped as an unofficial guide, with advice on how best to see some of the local sights.

She told me to get lost - in the nicest possible way. By which, I mean, she advised me to lose myself in the streets of Rhodes Town - the Old Town - and she was absolutely right. Honestly, it was an amazing experience and, souvenir shops aside, it was like strolling around Tortenschloss. The city featured in my (as yet unpublished) fantasy novel is inspired by St Michael's Mount, of course, but much much bigger, and Rhodes Old Town, for all that it is a thriving, bustling mecca for tourists, manages to impress as a living medieval city - right in the heart of a modern town, but separated by bridges and battlements. It feels truly vast and just by wandering around, taking random turns you can easily stray from the vibrant clutter of cafes, tavernas and tackier souvenir shops into a warren of cobbled streets and alleyways. Surrounded all the while - even in the touristy stretches - by history: Medieval, built on Byzantine, built on Ancient Greek.

That was my first solo excursion. Being on a budget, I only shelled out for one of the agency-organised tours, but that was worth the price as a general tour of the island, painting a great overall impression of the landscape and taking in several key attractions, as well as affording an opportunity to sample some of the local (alcoholic) produce. And why not. I'm not one of those tourists who goes abroad just to drink beer - I like to drink lots of other stuff too. (On the subject of which, Retsina was a hit, Metaxa rather tasty - Souma, not so much, but if your throat ever feels in need of industrial cleansing, it's perfect.) We visited the Valley Of Butterflies, a really picturesque valley where the Jersey Tiger Moths incredibly manage to outnumber the tourists, and Monolithos, a spectacularly situated medieval monastery with a commanding view of the Aegean. But the highlight of that day had to be Kameiros (above) which, for me, was far more impressive than Knossos on Crete, unspoilt by the colony of souvenir shops that flock outside the Minoan ruins and, crucially, spared the indignity of Sir Arthur Evans' ham-fisted efforts at restoration. All this and more taken in along a course down the wonderfully unspoilt West coast (not a hotel in sight!), meandering cliff-edge drives followed by winding mountain roads through the interior, flanked by rugged rocky slopes and/or hills laden with cypress, olive or fig trees. And even the occasional sprawling town, comprised entirely of the ubiquitous modern Greek architecture (i.e. boxes), managing to look pretty from a distance.

In contrast to that busy day, another of my solo excursions was devoted exclusively to one place. And Lindos (below), an hour and a half by bus down the East coast on the East coast, does demand that kind of attention. Not only because you have to climb a winding path (in the sweltering heat) to reach the acropolis, and not only because when you reach the top you'll need to rest in the shade of a handy fig tree, but because you'll want a few hours for admiring both the architecture (and again here different historical ages meet) and the incredible views in every direction. Also, although I'm fairly sure this is not an everyday occurrence, while I was up there, the acropolis was being 'buzzed' by a man in a flying contraption that consisted of a seat, an engine and a parachute. For all the airlines' faults, I just hoped I wouldn't be expected to fly home in one of those things - but it made for another memorable moment.


Sadly, there's a similar problem with stray cats on the island, although I don't know if they're quite as prevalent as on Crete. And, me being me, I befriended a few of the local felines while there - I'd promised my wife I'd take pictures of any cats I encountered. What was more heartening was that I met a lovely lady who was taking care of a lot of the cats in her neighbourhood. And while there were no rescue centres, there was at least a programme for sterilisation as a means of trying to keep the situation from getting out of hand. Heartbreaking to see these poor little creatures starved of affection, amongst other things, but good to know that, unlike on Crete, there seemed to be some people who cared.

All in all then, a great holiday and as well as recharging the batteries, it was fuel for the imagination and I managed to get some useful writing done while soaking up the rays. There were a lot of pubs and bars that were far too British, boasting big-screen footie or X Factor, in their efforts to cater for what must be the majority of tourists, but as I said it was relatively easy to avoid all that and find my own favourite places with more local flavour. By far the tackiest tourist moment had to be the taverna which, as I passed by, was (I think) just warming up for its advertised Greek night with a musician giving a rousing performance of Elvis Presley's '(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You' on the accordion.

Just one of the many moments that raised a smile. Although that one was very much in passing. No, I couldn't be tempted in to participate. But like Crete, I could easily be tempted to make a return trip to Rhodes some day. Ideally when they've invented the matter transporter because I'm not sure I wouldn't rather have all my bodily particles rearranged and beamed around the globe before I'd spend another hour in a Greek airport. :-)

Of course, there are always alternatives, like a leisurely Mediterranean/Aegean cruise, which has a lot of appeal. But it'd be really bad of me to start thinking of future holidays when I've only just returned home. Wouldn't it...?

More Blogs

There's nothing like the internet for blowing your own trumpet. Of course, with so many others doing the same it's like trying to make yourself heard in the midst of 76 Million Trombones. So what's the answer? Why, don't limit yourself to one instrument, of course.

Quite a while ago - late last year, I think - I set up 4dprefect's Blog as a platform for a few random creative bits and pieces, but after a few initial posts nothing was heard. I guess I ran out of puff. So what on earth do I want more blogs for?

Well, I gather quite a few writers are raising the profile for some of their work through blogging, so I really owe it to my material to do likewise. So, for the time being, I've set up 4d Evil and Tortenblog, which will play host to writings from, respectively, the worlds of Evil UnLtd (TM), my SF comedy, and Tortenschloss (TM), my YA fantasy. There's nothing on either site yet, but hopefully that will change soon and, with a bit of creative juggling (no mean feat when playing the trumpet) I may even get around to posting further morsels on 4dprefect's Blog.

Rambling, generally non-creative waffle will remain here where it belongs.

Foiled Again

Doctor Who fans tend to think of the Master as the perfect foil for the Doctor. But really it's the Vardans. Cheap gag, yes, but surely not as cheap as the production values on the six-part Invasion Of Time.

It is a tad unfair to pick on any Doctor Who story for a failing in the fx department and, nine times - well, eight, or maybe seven times out of ten I can generally look past budget constraints and watch as the merits of the story outweigh the petty visual flaws. But ultimately too much of this story relies on the aliens being a convincing foe and they are, to put it in the simplest terms possible, not.

If it wasn't bad enough that they are, for the most part of their screen time, floaty bits of bacofoil, poorly CSO'd and brought to 'life' by voice-acting so leaden it could be used as radiation shielding, when they finally materialise in their true form, I found myself longing for their return to their floaty bacofoil existence. Because these fearsome enemies turn out to be goons in ill-fitting space uniforms commanded by a guy whose special power is to invest his facial expressions with a fraction of the emotion he put into his voice acting.

Now, on DVD, we do have the option of activating new CGI effects to cover for some of Who's old deficiencies. I'm not normally a fan of them, because I generally prefer to rewatch these - at least in the first instance - in their original form - and because in the main, the CGI effects have been A Bit Rubbish (TM). (Also, I discovered, if you're watching these stories an episode at a time, as I like to do, you end up having to reset the DVD options every time, which is a bit of a pain - take note, 2 Entertain.) However, it has to be said, the CGI people did a great job on the Vardans in their energistic form and, even if you can still see a little bit of the bacofoil poking out, they are much more effective. But even then, it only works until they speak and nothing could be done to remedy the trudging goon form.

Ah well, at least they are all (yes, all three of them) replaced in a dramatic plot twist by Sontarans at the end of Part Four. Unfortunately, I remembered them as being A Bit Rubbish(TM) in this one and it turns out I was not deceiving myself. There's a reason they keep their helmets on for the most part. Although not as sub-Spitting Image as they appear in the later Two Doctors, it seems the production team on this one only had money for one cartoonish mask, while the junior grade Sontaran troops get to traipse (and sometimes stumble) uselessly about in full armour. The actor here eschews Kevin Lindsay's previous decent stabs at portraying a credible militaristic potato-headed alien in favour of a poor man's Ray Winstone with a lisp.

But to hear me go on, you'd think this was one of the worst Doctor Whos ever. And it's not. It's really not.

There is, in the midst of the more disappointing aspects, a great story struggling to get out. And occasionally it even manages to pop up for a wave.

Tom Baker gives a surly, commanding performance and clearly revels in the role of a Doctor possibly gone bad - although his laughing up the invasion at the end of episode two smacks of over-egging it a bit. Louise Jameson is, of course, fab as Leela - although she is cruelly wasted. (There's oodles of potential in the whole primitive savage vs. advanced soldiery angle, but beyond the odd knife in the probic vent it's not properly explored.) And then she's married off in a way so lame I was still cringeing after all these years in anticipation of having to see it again. (It's one of those 'moments' in Who history you'd prefer to deny.) That's no disrespect to Chris Tranchell (another of the Survivors) who puts in a good turn as Andred, captain of the guard. Special mentions in the acting stakes also to John Arnatt as an exquisitely aristocratic Borusa and Milton Johns as Castellan Quisling, who's so obsequious you can only imagine if there had been more aliens queuing up to invade Gallifrey he'd be ready to change allegiances a few more times. And Rodan, the young Time Lady, is almost a precursor to Mary Tamm's Romana - which can be no bad thing.

The dialogue is frequently witty and on the whole - when the Vardans aren't around - the adventure's rarely anything less than entertaining and enough fun to keep you watching through the six episodes. But, much as a Sontaran is prone to falling over a plastic chair, this trips up over a few too many obstacles. And the great story struggling to get out ultimately spirals away down the plug hole of a hastily written script and some potential cleverness poorly realised.

At times, Gallifrey is granted some measure of the scale afforded it in The Deadly Assassin, but at other times the endless passages of this technologically advanced citadel of the Time Lords resemble the boiler room of an old hospital. Equally unfortunately, similar can be said of the TARDIS interior. And while there can be some justification for the TARDIS interior resembling anything it likes, the 'we've been here before' gag as the Doctor & Co parade through the same basements and corridors is overplayed and backfires. And no wonder the Shobogans dropped out of Time Lord society - they serve very little purpose.

These are minor issues though next to the manner in which the story itself disintegrates, with the hunt through the TARDIS taking place in entirely the wrong episode (Part 5 would have been a better choice) and it all culminating in one of the Doctor's flimsiest plans (build a big gun) versus one of the all-time stupidest plans by an alien (I'm fed up with chasing after the Doctor and control over Time, I think I'll just head off to the Panopticon and blow myself, the world, my own battlefleet and the rest of the universe up with this handy grenade).

It's this that ultimately lets down what could have been the (whimsical) epic it clearly wants to be. Suspension of disbelief is tough to achieve on a length of substandard bungee cord and you really need a meatier resolution at the end of a six parter. Here, the main enduring memory we're left with to sink our teeth into is the tinfoil and I don't know about you, but just the thought of that makes me cringe.

Amityville Slugger

The Graham Williams era of Doctor Who was not a favourite of mine. He threw a few curve balls (Invisible Enemy), some odd balls (Underworld) and too many downright dodgy balls (most of Season 17) for my liking and it's those that chiefly colour my memory of his stint as producer. In short, to seriously mix my baseball metaphors, a poor batting average. But just occasionally - to mix my baseball metaphors - he'd step up to the plate and seriously up his batting average with something like The Horror Of Fang Rock - as fine an example of quintessential Who as you're ever likely to encounter. Now, possibly that one met with my hearty approval because, frankly, it all feels a bit more Hinchcliffe than Williams - and Image Of The Fendahl is similar in that respect.

It has that 'something borrowed' feeling of familiarity to it as well as producing something new, but unlike much of the Hinchcliffe era its sources are not immediately obvious (to me anyway).

On some level, it's as though someone found an old recipe for Doctor Who and did their best to follow it to the letter, tossing in fairly creative substitutes where certain ingredients were unavailable. The exact measures are lost in time, but basically you'll need some fog, an old priory, a mad professor, a coven, death, more death, a glowing skull, banks of old computers and a sprinkling of pseudoscience, a dash of Time Lord mythology, race memory, giant alien slugs and, crucially, a pinch of salt. Heck, with its occult elements, ancient long-buried evils that have influenced mankind's development, themes of race memory and gestalt creatures, they may have just thrown The Daemons and The Ark In Space in a blender and hoped for the best.

But that assessment does a disservice to Chris Boucher, a Who writer I rate, and he manages to enliven the mixture with flashes of inspired dialogue and a (mostly) colourful selection of characters (helped along by some larger than life performances). The night filming certainly doesn't do any harm to the Gothic horror atmosphere either.

Now I love Ark In Space, but Fendahl even manages to score over that in the horror stakes, both because it's not set in a brightly lit space station and the idea of someone finding themselves absorbed into an alien gestalt is more effective here. Ark boasts its memorable shocks in that respect and explores the notion more fully, but Noah is portrayed in such a stylised, starchy way it distances us somewhat from the character, whereas I found more sympathy with Thea Ransome's fate here.

In a mailing list discussion, it was pointed out to me that a heterosexual male will generally be more sympathetic to the fate of a pretty female - and it's true to say I was always very concerned from a very young age for Sarah Jane's safety. And I think Thea is further painted as a victim by virtue of the patronising sexism to which she is subjected by her colleagues. Doubtless Wanda Ventham was used to it from her fellow officers in SHADO, but ultimately I'd rather be forced to wear a purple wig than end up transformed into a golden medusa. YMMV, as they say.

As to the others, it's a little disconcerting at first to hear Charles from Survivors speaking with a faux Germanic accent, but Dennis Lill lends intensity and credibility to what would otherwise be a standard mad professor shtick. Edward Arthur's got an entertaining line in sarcasm as Colby, even if some of his lines are misfires, and Scott Fredericks as Stael is so positively inhuman, with his cold smarm-school manners, it comes as a shock that I actually felt anything for him when he meets his ultimate fate. Daphne Heard seems over the top as the Worzelly white witch - but I suspect that has something to do with most West Country accents on TV sounding dubious to my Cornish ears - and she's undoubtedly a wonderful character - or caricature, I can't quite decide.

Tom is appropriately dark and sombre (a la Fang Rock), but with enough levity along the way to (just about) offset that truly chilling moment when he fetches Max the gun from the altar. Surely one of the coldest moments in Who. Against that, we have the warmth of Louise Jameson who shines as Leela and although that's about par for the course, we mustn't underestimate the incongruity of her savage ways in the contemporary world setting, to say nothing of her first encounter with cows.

The Fendahleen (aka giant alien slugs) themselves are a great design. The addition of those cobra-like wings was apparently implemented to avoid a phallic appearance, but whatever the reason, it completes their alien appearance rather well. They're somewhat wanting in the execution, with their rather impotent shambling, but they're by no means the worst in that department to have graced our screens in Who.

Storywise, I would have liked more clues sown earlier about the coven/witchcraft angle and it turns out there were some, at least according to the deleted scenes (Ted invokes some prayer to a strange occultish pendant). The ending seems a little rushed and there's a two-level threat which really only works on one level. The large-scale 'all-Earth will be consumed by Death' threat is rather too abstract - a bit like Sutekh (Pyramids Of Mars), in that we are given dire warnings about it and, courtesy of a side-trip to the Fifth Planet, given some indication of Earth's possible future. told about it and unfortunately the isolated setting plays against the Fendahl. More effective is immediate, localised threat, with characters prey to the big alien slugs so terrifying they can root even the Doctor to the spot in fear.

All in all then, a good solid Who story and one of the better deliveries in the Williams innings, but not as enduringly memorable as Fang Rock. Perhaps, in the end, it's just too much of an all-rounder when what was needed was to hit the ball out of the park. Not quite a home run then, but it does cover all the bases.

Virtual Master Piece

Doctor Who fans are funny creatures. Apparently The Deadly Assassin was poorly received at the time of broadcast, and yet for me at the tender age of seven it was an instant hit and pretty much the standard by which all other Gallifrey stories came to be measured. It's a common enough effect and by and large boils down to a question of age: i.e. which 'era' of the show played a significant part in your formative years. We'll call it the regeneration gap.

A fan interviewed for the documentary in the extras bemoans the fact that a Time Lord complaining about his dodgy hip, for instance, conflicts with previous on-screen evidence (such as it was) of the Doctor's people. Which is fair enough, except to me it seems to overlook the example of the First Doctor, whose doddery old frame was increasingly on the point of failing its MOT before he finally regenerated. Added to which, prior portrayals of the illustrious Time Lords skimped on detail and I rather suspect that the fan's chief complaint pertains to the lifting of that shroud of mystery that still, at that point, lay draped over the Gallifreyans like a dust sheet.

Here, Robert Holmes dares to whip off that sheet, shake off some of the dust and reveals a lot of old relics. But they're interesting relics, I find - the sort that would keep you watching Antiques Roadshow. What he does is invest the Time Lords - the people and their society - with character. And yes, it humanises them to a great extent and in a sense reduces them to our level, but at the same time, for me, it enriches them.

Holmes is famous for his deft flourishes, like the casual reference to the Filipino army and Reykjavik in the later Talons Of Weng Chiang, which manages to fire the imagination with a vision of an unusual and intriguing future. And there's a similar effect at work here, with references to Rassilon, Gallifreyan mythology and the Doctor's own past, all of which to my mind help refuel the mystery. And there's colour, figurative and literal - the green of the Arcalians, scarlet and gold of the Prydonians, the heliotrope of the Patrexes - that immediately set this young imagination running, thinking about the bigger picture of Gallifrey and its inhabitants and so many other story strands that (at the risk of stating it too colourfully) coursed like veins through my child's eye view of the Who universe.

Hence, rewatching it now it's difficult to set aside that perspective and a great deal of what I admired about it then still pushes the creative buttons. I guess there's a very thin line between the writer in me and the child in me.

It has its flaws - of course it does, it's Doctor Who. And it wears them on its big capacious Time Lord robe sleeves. There's the big rubber spider, for instance, dangling on a length of fishing wire that we can only assume is the result of a bug - ha - in the otherwise super-sophisticated virtual world of the APC Net. And I can see where some would have a problem that, ultimately, it all concludes with nothing more than a wrestling match between the Doctor and the Master above a gaping hole.

But as well as a sci-fi rendition of The Manchurian Candidate, this is surely paying homage to The Final Problem, with the Doctor facing his own Moriarty over the Gallifreyan version of the Reichenbach Falls. There are definite echoes of the way (Sherlock) Holmes speaks of his archenemy in the way the Doctor describes the Master to his Time Lord 'allies'. And we have Goth as the Colonel Moran figure, armed with a rifle and stalking the Doctor through an electronic Switzerland. And even if the local setting is considerably less scenic, by naming it the Eye Of Harmony, the story manages to elevate it above a mere hole in the ground.

Likewise, the production design and direction do a lot to invest the studiobound sections with a sense of majesty and scale. The high vaults of the Panopticon are perhaps not as high to adult eyes as they were to a young lad's, but the effort and the intention still make their mark. The design of the decaying Master is well realised and strikes the perfect note of horror in the shadowed surroundings - those skull-like features one of those truly enduring images from my childhood viewing, it must be said, and, combined with Peter Pratt's coldly venomous portrayal, still managing to evoke a chill.

Of the other Time Lords, Co-Ordinator Engin (who is far from Fearsum) and Castellan Spandrell are the comedy double act, but manage to be more than just that and we're glad to see them - like Jago and Litefoot in Weng Chiang - survive to the end. And then, of course, there is Bernard Horsfall, who has all the power and presence we'd expect from someone who calls themselves a Time Lord. He's also ultimately a sympathetic character, a victim of the Master and his own political ambition, and we're kind of glad to know his role in the crisis will be painted in a different light when his fellow Time Lords attempt to rewrite history with their own friendlier version of events. (And between him and Spandrell, we have all the evidence we need that Time Lords can have a wide range of Terran accents - or, as New Who might put it, every planet has a Yorkshire and a Rhine Valley.) He's a formidable foe too, as the Hunter, within the otherworld of the Matrix, his face a sinister shadow behind that mosquito netting - even when you know his true identity.

He's brutal and sadistic. And the Doctor stoops to what might be seen as some fairly questionable methods himself - traps rigged with hand grenades, poisoned darts. It's easy to see why even the production team wondered if they might have gone too far. But speaking as one of the innocent children who was corrupted by such horrific images, it did me no harm. That dark edge is what helped etch this story so indelibly on my imagination and nowadays of course I can properly appreciate the contrast between the depiction of an advanced technological society (albeit in decline) and the desperate, bare-knuckle battle-of-wits struggle for survival that all takes place inside, of all things, a super computer.

Plot-wise, in some respects, that virtual battle does put the real-world action on hold for an entire episode and you could even dismiss it as padding, but that amplified panotropic realm is such a fantastic creation and characterises the story as much as all the shadowy vaults and catacombs of the Gallifreyan Citadel itself. Not that I would have been conscious of its significance at the time, but what we're treated to here is an early dose of virtual reality - long before Keanu Reeves agonised over whether to take the red pill or the blue one. And although the budget is undoubtedly limited, the location work - along with the aforementioned set design - is a sign of a Who adventure that is pushing the financial boat out. And it pays off because for the most part, it impresses. Although that is in part down to the startling mix of imagery - Samurai warrior, clown, biplane, operating table and gas masked soldier and horse (can't go wrong with gas masks, folks), to name a selection - assembled to create this very Doctor Who-ish brand of surreality.

Shades of brilliance, I think, best sums up my overall impressions of this story and I think it stands up well. So the Time Lords are not quite the all-powerful beings we were once led to believe and are in fact a bunch of crusty old fogies with foibles and frailties like the rest of us. I can see where that might amount to a disappointing revelation for some, but I think above all it lends them character which they had, up to that point, been lacking. Sure, they could have - and possibly should have - been more alien, but much of the story relies on the very human politics to make it work.

And now that it has passed into official Who mythology, with the added factor of hindsight, its effectiveness can also be measured in terms of what followed and what subsequent writers made of it. If memory serves (and I've yet to rewatch that one), The Invasion Of Time does a good job of taking one of Assassin's casual throwaway references - to Shobogans - and turning it into an exploration of another facet of Gallifreyan society. But (again, if memory serves) falls down in other areas. (But I'll get to watch that one soon and be standing by to amend my impressions as and when.)

In some respects, The Deadly Assassin is like Genesis Of The Daleks. Yes, it lifts several lids on a mysterious past perhaps wished had been left unlifted and yes, perhaps in some ways it lessens the Time Lords - in the way that some felt Genesis lessened the Daleks. And as with the Daleks, later Gallifrey stories, in my humble, do a good job of illustrating the law of diminishing returns. But it's all, as I said at the outset, a matter of perspective.

Probably, if I'd been seven or eight when Arc Of Infinity came along, I'd be condemning The Deadly Assassin as the affront to all things Gallifreyan that (apparently) some fans considered it at the time. As it is, it remains in my mind - and I say this fully aware that some fans object to the term - a classic.

More Merling

Or, perhaps, Moreling? Perhaps not.

Either way, it seems I sufficiently impressed the powers that be at Random House Children's Books to land myself more work in this series of novelisations for the BBC's Merlin.

We writers have to earn our bread somehow, and if this keeps up I may even be able to stretch to a French loaf. Of course, I'm not at liberty to say anything more about future books at this stage, but in the meantime, the first book in the series, The Dragon's Call, due for release this September, is available for pre-order on Amazon. As is my other contribution so far, The Poisoned Chalice, due for release in November.

Obviously, the thing to do is to buy them and impress upon the publishing world that folks will buy books just because Simon Forward had a hand in writing them. :-)

Merling

When an author with a number of Doctor Who credits to his name says he's been busy on some new commissions for a Saturday night TV show, some Doctor Who readers might jump to certain conclusions. So I had best cut to the chase and just say, I'm pleased to announce that I've recently been writing not just one, but two novelisations for another Saturday night TV series entirely - the BBC's Merlin series. Thanks to the executive producers of the show who approved of my initial writing sample and gave me this opportunity.

It's my first foray into the world of the novelisation and it's renewed my respect and admiration for Terrance Dicks and all the work he did on those Target Doctor Who novelisations that were such a staple of my childhood reading. Back then, it was a case of filling in for the absence of video or any means of rewatching a favourite show. In this age of DVDs, it's quite a challenge to invest the story with extra elements and insights so that the book compliments what's on screen and offers an alternative to simply viewing the episode. I've been so busy in the past few months on these that I've even invented a new verb for it: Merling. And the experience has also afforded me the opportunity to work with some very lovely people at Random House, which has been great.

The first book, Merlin: The Dragon's Call is scheduled for release in September this year, timed to coincide with the return of the show to our screens. Book 4, Merlin: The Poisoned Chalice, my second book in the series, is due to follow a month later, in October. Watch this space for more news and of course I'll be adding links to the Amazon listings for both books as and when available.

God's Plan, Men Laugh?

By which I mean, you only have to mention God and Angels in these irreligious times of ours and a great many people will just find it all a bit silly. Both have featured heavily throughout the four (or some would say five) season lifespan of Battlestar Galactica, a sci-fi series that by its nature and tone looks to its audience to take it seriously. And I think when it comes to the conclusion of this epic journey, with all the compelling questions and mysteries raised along the way, we tend to look for a serious science fiction answer.

And I'm glad to say, from what I saw, it delivered. Mostly.

Hopefully anyone who hasn't seen the series finale yet will have looked away and pointed their browsers elsewhere by now. If not, do so now. A spoiler free review would be nice, but basically would amount to me summing it up – as I did on a mailing list at the weekend – as a 'qualified awesome'. Or words to that effect. And fair to say, it seems like ages since I blogged about any TV and as such I feel I ought to say a bit more. So, this one very much contains SPOILERS.



Now, declaration of interest: I love this show and so you can expect a degree of bias in anything I have to say on the subject. But at the same time, with a greater enthusiasm and emotional investment in the characters and the unfolding storyline, there are greater expectations riding on the resolution and greater potential risk of disappointment. So when it came to sitting down to watch the finale, it was with mixed feelings – anticipation (ooh exciting) and tension (please please don't let us down) and, not least, the firm and certain knowledge that we were all going to be left depressed that this terrific series was soon to be over.

At least with this one, it wasn't being canned before its time like a number of other favourites of mine (Firefly, Carnivale, Deadwood, for example). And it was effectively being given the full 3-parter treatment without the torture of having to wait an extra week. But even with the 3-episode runtime to play with, there was a perhaps inevitable impression of too many questions left unanswered and not enough time to cover them all and wrap up the storylines for the main characters satisfactorily.

When the series returned after its hiatus and that incredible scene of everyone, Cylon and human alike, standing on a devastated Earth, it did so with a good balance of oh-my-god revelations and ooh-that's-interesting reveals, and with a crisis in the fleet that (finally) addressed Gaeta's issues with having been tried and nearly executed by people who turned out to be Cylons. (Something my good friend Stuart and I had been hoping for.) It was during that edge-of-the seat stuff that we discovered Galactica's ailing condition. The fact that the two ladies in Bill Adama's life were both riddled with cancer provides a potent emotional core through the rest of the series and – especially if you, like me, happen to love the character of Laura Roslin and the 'old girl' Galactica herself – you'd really have to be some sort of toaster not to feel Adama's pain. And – not for the first time - Edward James Olmos breaks down brilliantly.

(And by the way, if I ever have to serve on a starship, I'm not saying I'd want to do so in the BSG universe when the remnants of humanity are on the run from Cylon persecution, but please, just make sure Adama's in command and not that useless lardboy, Kirk, or indeed any of the wet-blanket Starfleet brigade.)

In some respects it's unfortunate that it also vividly paints for us the general shape of the finale. Or a key part of it anyway. Because as horrible as it is to watch the Galactica being cleared out and 'closed down' like a high street store in the depths of the credit crunch, we know they're not going to let her go out like that. We know she's going to go out in a blaze of glory.

Events then are steering towards that and although Boomer's abduction of Hera is an effective enough shock moment, we are primed and prepped for a finale that has to centre around a rescue mission and a confrontation between Galactica and the Cylon colony. In that sense, it is not going to surprise us, so we merely have to trust that it will amaze – and be wrapped in that all-important satisfactory resolution.

We have by this stage already learned the identity of the last Cylon. And I'll admit to a measure of disappointment on that score – if only because Ellen Tigh was not my favourite character, so the idea of her coming back did not fill me with excitement. Still, in her defence I will say she returned as a different person – transformed, if not reformed. We learn a great deal about the nature of the Final Five, their background, their prior existence on Earth. My main gripe about that is that the majority of this reveal is dished out in a lot of tell, rather than show. So what you have are a lot of satisfactory answers delivered in an unsatisfying way – a large proportion of them served up by Sam, another of my least favourite characters, before he totally succumbs to data-delirium and rambles incoherently in a campaign to out-cryptic Babylon 5's Ambassador Kosh. However, the character's ultimate conversion into a Cylon hybrid is a fitting and satisfying twist.

At the same time, much focus is – rightly – given to the question of who or what is Kara Thrace? It consumes her and it's no coincidence that we'd very much like to know too. The episode where she cracks the musical code, coached along by the 'ghost' of her father was an interesting one that raised further questions about her nature. Couple that with the chillingly memorable image of her finding and torching her own corpse on Earth and you pretty much have the definition of a burning question right there.

These are just some of the ways in which the hook is baited. There are a lot of other threads and factors to be considered and tied up, and key ones for me included Gaius' religious experiences and where they were ultimately taking him, and what role Caprica – both the real one and the one in his head – was to play in that. Boomer and Athena, of course, and the significance of Hera. When you have that many fish to land, there are bound to be a few catches, so as with anything you're attempting to review it all boils down to how you measure its flaws against the positives. And the feeling, on balance, you're left with at the end.

So where, in my view, did it fall down and where did it succeed?

Falls, just for a change, can come before pride. A very minor issue, but I wasn't convinced by Cavil's suicide. It seemed a little too convenient and ran counter to a character who, I'd imagined, would want to take down as many as possible with him when everything was going to hell in a handbasket. It's something that gave me pause to question in the midst of an otherwise truly awesome moment (see later). Then there's Hera, whose importance seems to have been more symbolic than actual. Maybe it's just that she is the first one, when she grows up, to mate with a Neanderthal and (as Eve) mother a new race, priming us with her half-Cylon DNA and that imperative to fashion machines in our own image. But I think I expected something of her nature to play a key role in the resolution, rather than just have her serve as Cavil's hostage. Still, most disappointing by a Caprican mile has to be the 'answer' to the question of Kara Thrace – which seems to be “take your best guess”. Well, okay, I can only assume she's an angel in this scenario – but with the key difference that she can be seen by everybody, and that she came back with her very own 'sweet chariot' – her miraculously remade Viper - coming for to carry everyone home. She might even be the Saviour figure, died and resurrected. But more than left guessing, I did feel we were left begging, rather. I liked the character a lot and I think both she and we deserved more. Probably those who couldn't stand the character will be even more miffed.

However, her final scene and departure, leaving Lee alone, does spare us the possibility of these two ending up together. That would have been wrong.
And so to other things that weren't wrong. In fact, things that were, to my mind, very right indeed.

On a purely superficial level, the battle – as expected as it was – was massively impressive. A great many boats were pushed out on this one and the colony's position amid all that cloud and tumbling rocks made for a busier and more colourful space battle than we're accustomed to – all with some nice sharp cutting between that and the bloody gun battles on board the colony and Galactica. Blaze. Of. Glory.

And even if it all accelerated to the fairly unoriginal hostage situation, what followed was (as I think I mentioned before) truly awesome. Gaius, of all people, is the peace broker and an agreement is reached. Then as the Five mind-meld to provide Cavil with the gift of resurrection, Tory sweats – and Galen flips. One act of revenge and all hell breaks loose. Not only awesome, but key to what we learn subsequently.

The rest is (Kara Thrace aside) as neat an exercise in wrapping as you'll find this side of Christmas. There's real tragic beauty in the Roslin/Adama resolution and the Galactica's own death, flying off into the heart of the sun is almost – almost – as emotive as the shutting down and demolition of B5 at the close of that series. The use of the old Battlestar theme was a slight distraction in that part of my attention is briefly given over to recognition, rather than just getting on with crying my eyes out. But the scene does tug at the heart strings and/or give the tear ducts a decent poke.

There's tons more material that demands comment here, but by this stage I'm sure you'll be impatient for me to hurry towards my own finale and I may as well jump to what's likely to be the most contentious aspect of BSG's resolution. Which is, of course, that...

God did it.

God was behind it all. And God, like magic, can be a bit of a cop-out in science fiction. When you have a universe so rooted in gritty 'reality', God is a tough sell. And I can see where a lot of people would have a problem. Myself, I don't think it's nearly sufficient an explanation of the nature of the resurrected Kara Thrace, for example.

That said, for all its grit, BSG was threaded all the way through with mystical happenings and what Han Solo liked to call hocus pocus religion. And I was left in no doubt that this resolution was where they were headed all along. That in itself is a satisfying feeling. The Six in Gaius' head and the Gaius in Six's head were revealed as 'Angels' quite late in proceedings, but even though they are confirmed in that final scene as absolutely real – no figment of anyone's imagination except perhaps God's – it's all a question of interpretation. Like God himself, it's a question of what you call it.

Say, instead of Angels, we call them 'avatars'. Say, instead of God, we call it 'Creation'. Whatever you choose to call these things, whatever your own view of the BSG universe, what you have is a system that is constantly repeating a pattern in search of some 'winning move'. Like Joshua in that movie, Wargames. And I like the idea of that concept applied on a universal scale. The coin is being flipped over and over in the hope that it comes up heads. Trouble is, BSG has always shown us that the coin has more than two sides and the odds are stacked against the desired result.

Then, in the light of that revelation, you reflect back on Galen's actions and you appreciate fully why that is. The pattern had every chance to change – humans and Cylons had many chances along the way to change the pattern. There at that crucial point, revenge destroys that chance. Galen may have been Cylon, but what he does is a very human reaction. He's too good a copy of a human. Even Tigh assures him he would have done the same in his position. And frankly there aren't many characters here who could claim they would have done any different. Athena's answer to Boomer's act of contrition (returning Hera) is to blow her away. Adama, Roslin, they've all had their vengeful moments. There are few people, human or Cylon, who are especially big on forgiveness when it comes to the crunch.

The pattern's doomed to repeat again. Until next time. Or next time. Etc.

Insufficiently explained or no, Starbuck's deliverance of Galactica and – as a result – the rest of humanity to Earth (our Earth), backed up by the Dylan track - “There must be some way out of here...” - is a brilliant TV moment and for my money it illustrates that far from...

God did it

...the message here is that the blame lies squarely with humanity. Us. Whatever you call it, the portrait painted is of a God (or Creation or system) that gives humanity every possible chance, but His creations (i.e. we) keep screwing up. Not a new concept by any means but a message that maybe does bear repeating until we get it.

That's the warning that's implicit in that final scene and for me it was a satisfying footnote to a series that managed to impress, excite and give me plenty of food for thought over the space of five years. A series that also bears repeating, so I'm already looking forward to watching it all through again on DVD. Even if it turns out the same in the end :-)

Authonomore

So, last time I established that, for me, authonomy was very much a case of Been There, Seen It, Done That. Did Not Buy The T-shirt. You get what you can out of it, you move on - no need to commemorate it on an article of clothing, eh. ;-)

But as I stated, I'm going to be leaving samples up on the site as a reasonably accessible showcase for my work. At some point I may go to the trouble of converting them to PDFs to post on my own website, but for the time being they may as well stay put. Even though I'm no longer an active member of the site, I may as well put the account/page to some use.

So, if anyone feels like having a read and finding out what goes on in the imagination of Simon Forward - well, some of what goes on! - these are the places to visit:

Evil UnLtd (TM). The Farce Of The Dark Side. Villains are the heroes in this sci-fi comedy. Enough has been said about this one that I don't suppose I need to expand on that. Give it a whirl - if the comments I received were any gauge, it proved popular with SF and mainstream readers alike. I'm aiming to get back on the metaphorical campaign bus, searching for a publisher for this one and in the meantime have begun work on Vol 2 in the series.

Then, of course, there's Kip Doodle And The Armchair Of Lost Dreams. Kip Doodle's been trapped in his latest cliffhanger for too long. Now he's breaking out of his felt-tip world and into Ty Lewis' life. Anyone who's read this blog will know about Kip Doodle (TM), but for those who don't, it's an action adventure fantasy series for kids of 8+ - and a fair number of grown-ups too. Haven't actually started work on any further episodes yet, but I've drafted plots for another two books in the series and ideas for others are popping into my head all the time.

Then we have Tortenschloss. Gormenghast with multi-coloured frosting, a cherry on top and dark sprinkles. A Young Adult fantasy adventure, this is intended as the first book in a trilogy. The two subsequent books have been plotted with broad strokes and as with Kip, it's just a case of my preferred approach to work on some projects: this book evolved fluidly in the writing process and I'm keen to allow that to happen with the others in the series.

HEAVENSEND. The Four Horsemen are coming. Who will be the Four to stand against them? Another trilogy in the making, but this one definitely in the adult sf/fantasy - and even horror - market. I do need to continue with this series, but I also need to wait until the return to the chillier, greyer months as it's that sort of atmosphere I like to tap into for the characters and situations involved. And of course, none of us are in any hurry to get back to winter now that we're enjoying a spot of sunshine. So I and the characters of Heavensend will just have to be patient!

Ice Cold In Alex's. How far must a man go, to what depths must he sink, to protect paradise? A stab at a more literary form of SF, this is just one of those stories I have to write, irrespective of market considerations or whatever. As such, it's one of the first to take a back seat whenever I have paid work on, but I will finish it one day! Its themes of morality, love, hatred and idealism are just some of those things I feel compelled to explore.

WILD.Mama Nature has a bone to pick with Mankind. To save humanity, the world turns to a man called Wild. Coincidence? Maybe not. Adult SF/fantasy/horror, but different again to Heavensend. Although there are some connections, not least in terms of the featured background world/universe. A long time before authonomy was even a twinkle in the eye of Harper Collins, this actually received a decent spot of feedback from HC's Voyager imprint - one of those "You can clearly write, but it's a question of the market" style receptions. Which I took as highly encouraging at the time.

Industrial Waste.A Neuromance. SF/fantasy, again connected with the backdrop featured in Wild and Heavensend, and different again. This was the second novel I ever completed, so it's quite old now, but like Wild, it received a similar sort of praise in its 'rejection' from a top SF agent. Well-written, but a bit too Cyberpunk - at a time when Cyberpunk had had its day, or words to that effect.

Like all the samples on offer, it's not present for any of the old authonomy vote chasing, purely for your reading pleasure. And maybe a measure of frustration inherent in reading a sample and, all being well, getting to the end and wanting more. It's also worth noting that a number of the pitches/blurbs were done in a hurry for the sake of a quick upload, so those are by no means the polished article that you'd expect to see on a book cover, or even in a submission. For that - and any frustration! ;-) - I apologise in advance, but nevertheless if you do try a taster of any of these, I hope you enjoy. Comments are welcome here or on the site and I may upload further samples at some point or, as is more likely, eventually transfer samples to my own website.

Meanwhile, fingers crossed there'll be an announcement before too long about further commissioned work. I'd love to tell you now, but for the time being that's all hush hush, so I'd just have to content myself with placing a finger to my lips and going, "Shhhhh." Which wouldn't make for much of a blog post, I admit.

Beware Of The POD People

You know the POD people. They seem to be one thing and then they turn out to be another. Often they're out to steal your identity or your soul or some such.

Take, for example, authonomy, Harper Collins' online community for authors. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was an alternative route towards publication, what with all the enticing slogans dotted around the site: "We're More Than A Community Of Book Lovers, We're on a mission to flush out the brightest, freshest new talent around." "Beat The Slush." "Can You Make It On Screen?" And, most deceiving of all, pasted right above the Editor's Desk chart, "Publishing Contract Anyone?"

Whereas the truth of the situation is much more like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers where, when you are spotted as a talent, they point at you and scream. Proclaiming you an outsider and making sure you stay that way.

As the only author to date to have two separate books reach the Top 5, within the space of two months, I hope I might be forgiven for thinking my books had something special going for them. The first, Evil UnLtd (TM) was declared by Harper Collins themselves to be excellent but, as a science fiction comedy, sadly lacking a viable market. (Hello?) The second, Kip Doodle (TM), was a fantasy adventure for kids.

Many agents described it in positive terms, using words like "colourful", "imaginative" and "well-written". The only publisher to see it so far, Harper Collins, didn't believe young readers would find its central hook sufficiently fascinating. Kids - and adults - who have read it thus far have loved it. Some of the people in this loop appear to be a little out of touch.

It's clear that they pay no attention to the feedback left by authors and readers on each book. They are, I imagine, dismissive of those comments because the nature of the peer-based system does mean that a proportion of the critiques given will inevitably be self-motivated. There will be self-motivated positivity, angling for some reciprocal rave reviews, and there will be self-motivated negativity, from jealous, twisted individuals. But someone at HC devised the system, so you'd think they'd give it some credit. And to be honest, it's actually fairly easy to spot the crits that are borne of some ulterior motives. Among those that are the most transparent are the much sought-after crits that come from the HC editors each month. Their primary motive being, as far as I can gather, 'We'd really rather not publish anything off this site, least of all the really popular books.'

Not for the first time, I'm forced to wonder, what the heck is going on with the publishing industry? Which may be a little unfair. After all, just because Harper Collins are such a major player, should we consider them representative of the industry as a whole? Naturally, in the light of their 'verdicts' and the increasingly questionable worth of authonomy, I'd prefer to think otherwise.

Whatever their advertised claims about the nature of authonomy, unlike any Ronseal product you'd care to name, it's not what it says on the tin. The clue, in fact, is in the name. Authonomy = autonomy for authors. What they would like is to break into the POD business. As authors who have submitted our works to the sorry process, we know this because many of us have been approached by email with a 'special offer', inviting us to self-publish with HC's partners, Blurb, and help establish an authonomy shop, where visitors to the site might be able to buy our books.

Great, you might think, as a means of getting our books out there to the reading public. But no. Not when a paperback is costed at approximately £10 - before any profit to the author is factored in. How is an author expected to compete in that market, even if the quality of the book is better than many of those being produced commercially? To say nothing of the questionable quality control, where the apparent policy is, it's not good enough for us (despite being considered "excellent", for example), but it's good enough for POD.

Or, to put it another way, 'We'd like to make a bit of money off this book but we'd rather not have to pay the author anything, if that's all right with you.'

The worst aspect of all this though is the underhanded nature of it all. Because, whether the clue is in the name or not, those slogans say nothing about POD.

Those slogans invite the author to believe in some mythical new alternative to the slush pile and they wave a carrot of a *possible* publishing contract in front of the author's nose. A possibility that, it's quite clear now, is entirely non-existent. Indeed, they appear to be operating in accordance with some hidden rule that nothing selected from their precious Top 5 is to be granted any serious consideration. Faced with quality books and sometimes overwhelming evidence of readers' comments (even when weighing in the self-motivation factor), the crits offered appear geared towards finding spurious and often self-contradictory reasons not to publish. It's galling and insulting.

Now, in fairness, the smallprint does say that all that is promised is a crit from a Harper Collins' editor. But stop and contain your excitement for a moment before you go racing off to win yourself this prestigious prize. Because even these illustrious acolades are not always what they are cracked up to be.

Have a read of this one, from the latest batch (scroll down to the gold star and the brown banner that says Harper Collins wrote). The quality or otherwise of the book is immaterial. The crit given is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a professional critique. It may be from a HC editor, but frankly a tea boy could produce a nine-paragraph summary and round it off with a two line 'review'.

Me, much as the HC comments on Kip were short-sighted and self-contradictory, I feel I was quite fortunate in the crits I received for both my 'gold-star' works. But the results, coupled with the 'standard' - if we might call it that - of crits being issued in some cases, does lead me to question the worth of the exercise.

"Beat The Slush", they say. But the authonomy system is only an electronic slush pile, albeit linked with some social networking. 'Bookface', as someone dubbed it shortly after they introduced a messaging facility. Speaking from my experience, it took about a month and half for Evil to reach the attention of a HC editor, and two months later, Kip reached the Editor's Desk. They each received their response a month later. That's reasonably comparable to the timescale for a standard snail-mail submission. Now, the crits - for mine - were more detailed than you'd generally receive, it's true... *but* weigh that against the input of time and effort required in promotion and networking in order to get your book noticed among the thousands on the site.

At least with a snail-mail submission, you can post it off to an agent or publisher and forget about it, get on with something else in the meantime as you await a response. The work goes into fine-tuning the initial submission, then there's nothing more to be done. The submission will reach the editor's or agent's attention sooner or later, but you are free to write, be creative and, who knows, perhaps produce another masterpiece ready for a turn at rejection. ;-) You can even send off multiple submissions. Some agents and publishers frown on that and prefer an exclusive approach - check with the agents and publishers in question - but it is an option. Of course you can make other approaches while pursuing the pot of gold at the end of the authonomy rainbow, but you'll be lucky to find the time.

So was it all a complete waste of time? Well, no. The opinions and insights of many fellow authors were invaluable and I'm glad to say I made some very dear friends. Indeed if they adorned the site with slogans advertising a chance to meet lots of interesting people, there wouldn't be an issue. What I do regret is the time wasted professionally, when I probably could have written two other books.

So, if you are an author considering uploading your works on authonomy, all I'd say is, proceed with caution. They are POD people. They are not what they claim to be. They are also (for the Doctor Who fans out there) Chronovores. Major time-eaters.

What the site is good for, I have decided, is for showcasing those works which might otherwise be languishing in a cupboard or on the hard drive, gathering dust - actual or virtual. So my advice, think of it in those terms. It is a place to store samples of your work where they might actually be seen by others. Possibly even an industry professional.

That's why I've since uploaded further samples of my works. It's not my intention to chase after any more gold stars, I'm not even promoting those books on the site. But they are there to be seen and sampled and of course all comments are welcome. I'll have details and links in my next blog for each of the books I currently have uploaded on the site.

As for authonomy, I suspect it's the pet that the Harper Collins family didn't want. But their digital-age kids insisted on getting one and now they're saddled with its upkeep and obliged to feed it five crits every month. It's a strange beast. They might tell you it's a dog or a cat, but whatever they claim it to be, it is more likely a hamster running pointlessly around its exercise wheel and limited to thinking very much inside its box.

And the next time you see the words "Publishing Contract Anyone?" make sure it's on a product manufactured by Ronseal and not Harper Collins.