My, What A Big Budget You Have

Prefect SlogAll the better to dazzle you with, my dear. What the Big Bad Wolf really needed was a Big Bad Ending - where 'Bad' means good, kick-ass, plenty of pow and wow - and thankfully "The Parting of the Ways", grand finale of the new Doctor Who's first season, had all of that in spades. Unfortunately not quite enough spades to dig itself out of all the holes it made for itself, but on the other hand nowhere near enough to bury it either. The whole thing, it turns out, was a love story, both between the Doctor and Rose, and between the episode and the Paul McGann TV Movie; the former a resounding success, the latter a rather misguided affair that didn't do the story any favours. Way back when I saw the TVM for the first time, I remember being suitably impressed by the production values and the fx, but by no means sufficiently impressed to be blinded to the story's failings. And, for the record, I didn't mind the kiss at the end - I mean, it's all a bit Hollywood and unnecessary to have every hero go for the inevitable snog, but McGann's Doctor was a suitably romantic figure, so what the hell. No, what I objected to principally was the flimsy plot (as well as the flimsy Master) and the dreadful cop-out ending, with the TARDIS hitting a magical reset button to save the world and restore the dead people back to life so as to ensure a comforting zero dramatic cost and provide any subsequent adventures in the series with an all too easy Undo option on the Story menu. So if, out of some profound admiration for the TVM, you really feel the need to cut and paste elements from it, sure, borrow the kiss at the end, and have your Daleks mock the fans as they declare the infamous 'half-human' phrase to be blasphemy - but don't, please don't, give us a story that has more cops out (ahem) than The Blues Brothers. Cheap fx I can forgive - I used to watch Doctor Who, remember - but cheap storytelling is a little harder to overlook, I find. Before I get stuck on a thoroughly negative track though, let's be clear: I did, despite the various cheats and get-out clauses, manage to enjoy it all and there was a huge amount of really very very good stuff in there. It was, in point of fact, jam-packed with good bits. For starters, credit where it's due, it had answers to some of those questions that had been left hanging from the previous episode, and some of them were even satisfactory - e.g. what was happening to all the humans being transmatted from Satellite Five? Being turned into Daleks, mate, that's what. Ulp. On top of which, the whole thing was laced with brilliant drama as well as all the spectacle, backed up by a suitably epic score - once again resorting to a lot of choral overtones, as per "Dalek", building an effective sense of menace. The Dalek Emperor was appropriately chilling, and the additional religious aspect succeeds in rendering the Dalek race even more dangerous; and the scenes in the Dalek ship are enhanced wonderfully by noticing all the many Daleks scooting about in the background - there's attention to detail for you. The Doctor is driven inexorably into a corner, and we're treated to the superb and emotionally charged sequence where he tricks Rose into the TARDIS and packs her on her way, with a hologram message that turns to her and tells her to live a fantastic life. Wow. And the Dalek Emperor hails the Doctor as The Great Exterminator, something of a reprise of the individual Dalek's accusation in Episode Six that the Doctor "would make a good Dalek". Initially I wasn't sure when the action cut away to more domestic scenes with Rose, her Mum and Mickey (can we please be shot of him already?) on Earth, but they're played out so brilliantly that you can't help but be as involved in events there as much as at the forefront of the Dalek invasion. On the subject of which, well, it was all worth it (let's be honest and entirely superficial here) just to see those thousands of Daleks pouring out of the ships and being allowed to exterminate away to their hearts' content. Let a Dalek be a Dalek, I say, even more so when you've got an army of them. And Jack's death has genuine impact. (Lynda with a Y, not so much, since we saw that coming last week, all without the aid of a Next Week... BBC-brand spoiler-fest.) There's such a lot of outstanding character moments and cracking dialogue, there's such a lot of, quite simply, brilliance in evidence that I can't help feeling that it deserved a far better class of storytelling than it got, and as much as I enjoyed it, the niggles are more than mere niggles and they feel like they really let the side down. It starts with the Doctor whizzing over to the Dalek spaceship in the TARDIS, materialising around Rose in order to pull off the rescue, continues with a force field that appears to extend outside the TARDIS - even following the Doctor and companions around so that they can walk safely to greet the Emperor - and shield all concerned from the unwanted attentions of the Dalek death rays. Following that not so daring rescue, there's an unfortunate lull in the action as the Dalek ships advance, giving those on board Satellite Five plenty of time to prepare their defences. The force field that prevents the Daleks from just blowing the station away, well, I can just about forgive that, as we wouldn't have had much of an episode without the Dalek boarding action, but the fact that the boarding action is conducted so abysmally is particularly poor. The Daleks may be able to climb stairs but they aren't half slow. When they bumble up against the hastily erected barricades, they presumably endeavour to surprise the defenders by, well, sitting there and waiting for someone to hit an eyestalk and invoke the old "Vision is impaired" mantra from one of their brethren, before adopting the sounder military strategy of 'shooting the enemy'. Still, in their favour, they do blow away Anne Robinson - although technically, as far as I know, she was only transmatting them back to their own ship. Another slightly weak link there. The Doctor's Delta Wave, in itself a magic solution, is nonetheless one with a dreadful cost attached and therefore potentially loaded with drama, which does pay off in terms of that moment of choice - to press the lever or not to press the lever, that is the question, whether tis nobler - and all that. Such a shame then that the entire thing comes down to such a deus ex machina and ultimately, as if to echo one of the things that has been lacking in the majority of episode resolutions throughout the series, the Doctor does diddly. Fair enough, he doesn't want to commit mass murder - you have to admire the bloke for that - but effectively he's given up, he's Dalek fodder and at that point the Universe (which in this series amounts to dear old Earth) is there for the Daleks' taking. Lucky then that Rose is the Bad Wolf and, by the power vested in her by the TARDIS and the Vortex (courtesy of a bit of brute force - a truck - and ignorance - Mickey - to lever the console open), she turns back time. Cher would be so jealous. Ashes to ashes, Daleks to dust, there you go, Doctor, another solution handed to you on a plate, and by the way, for my next trick, I'll bring Jack back to life and so undermine the dramatic impact of that moment too. It's like the TVM all over again. Now how's about a kiss. Dear oh dear. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad Jack's survived, he's a great character, proactive and highly entertaining, he deserved to survive. Just not by being killed and then brought back to life. And I'm still left with questions about the whole Bad Wolf thing, not sure why Rose had to scatter the words everywhere along her timeline to quite that extent. For the record, I never guessed who Bad Wolf was - my theory was that it was the future Doctor, guiding his current incarnation; so the revelation came as a surprise, granted, but I have to wonder, at the end of it all, whether the future Doctor alternative might actually have been better. Briefly, on the subject of that future Doctor, I'm not in any position to offer any real opinions on the new fellow yet - I will say, he had a great opening line ("New teeth") and I just hope that, in contrast to the Eccleston Doctor who, with typical arrogance declares himself to have been "Fantastic!" when the sad truth is, Doctor, in the final analysis, you really didn't do very much at all, David Tennant proves himself a far more proactive Time Lord who resolves situations with more than a sonic screwdriver and someone else's last-minute heroics to save the day. So, DT, welcome aboard, and the world wants you to succeed. Thankfully the BBC have decided to back their new Doctor with a promise of Season 2 *and* 3, and I think that's the kind of support I'd like to see across the board for the Doctor Who brand. It inspires confidence and gives us something to look forward to, which is always nice and it's very reassuring that at the end of this fairy tale, this particular Bad Wolf doesn't get the axe.

The Regeneration Game

Prefect SlogDidn't they do well? Okay, they didn't cover that particular game show in "Bad Wolf", the penultimate episode of the new series of Doctor Who, but it could qualify as a missed opportunity. I admit I cringed a bit when I saw the trailer for this one, because it smacked of more 80s Doctor Who silliness. According to the film, Candyman, if you repeat his name the requisite number of times he'll come and get you, but luckily the variant spelling must have kept the more lurid and farcical excesses of that particular Terra Alphan villain (surely an all-time DW low) at bay here because I didn't find anything in "Bad Wolf" nearly as painful as Bertie Bassett. It was all good fun, with enough of a nasty edge to keep things interesting (a sort of "Vengeance on Varos" for the 21st Century), and with a gripping and nicely paced tail end to the episode that might have been really stunning if the central revelation hadn't been blown in the previous week's Next Week... trailer. In fact this one might as well have been called "Bad Wolf... of the Daleks", as far as that goes. I do wonder how it all might date, given the incorporation of real contemporary game shows - and, to be honest, I hope it does date badly, because all it would take is for The Weakest Link and Big Brother to disappear from our screens within the next couple of years, yes please. On the other hand, using the genuine articles, including the brand music, is what makes the joke work. It's only unfortunate that, certainly on a second watch, you notice that they don't really do enough with it, in the case of the Big Brother gag, while they rather overplay the Weakest Link sketch, cycling through a few too many questions and even counting down to the commencement of play from as high as seventeen. There's a few other unnecessaries, what with the Trinny and Susannah bots revealing their cosmetic surgery tools twice - once for the audience, once for Jack - and the whole revelation about the Bad Wolf Corporation was needlessly duplicated too, once for Rose, once for the Doctor. Also, I was a little mystified as to why the Doctor, when one of the housemates is being evicted, should declare that it's all 'only a game show', when just the scene before he's arrived at the deduction that it's all 'more than just a game show'. Still, it's all very colourful and there's a decent streak of humour throughout (Cap'n Jack gets some great lines, although perhaps 'streak' of humour is too obviously the right word in his case), even if it does take pains to spell things out a bit overmuch at times (Lynda with a Y clarifying things for the Doctor: "She's been evicted - from life" and Rose's fellow contestant clarifying, in the wake of the runaway contestant's disintegration, that it's best not to try to escape and it's "Play or die". Well, d'uh.) Against the light-hearted vein, there's the gloom of the space station interior, and the stark imagery - calling to mind the Dalek Emperor and the Borg Queen - of the Controller, all hooked up to her cables at the centre of the proceedings. And of course the Daleks show up - dum dum dum!! All a little peeved no doubt at having the carpet pulled out from under their dramatic entrance by the BBC. And since I knew they were coming, I have to say that the ready way in which the Doctor formed an attachment to sweet Lynda with a Y, only made me think she was being groomed as a VICTIM with an I or two. Trust me, she's going to die. The sight of all the Dalek ships, with that choral score to back them up, was a great goosebump moment though and of course now we know the capabilities of a single Dalek, the prospect of half a million of the buggers is really something. So the sense of a formidable threat is well and truly established. Such a wasted opportunity then that, when the Doctor delivers a flat "No" to the Dalek ultimatum, they don't just turn around and gun Rose down. Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against Rose, but in the first place it begged the question right away why they didn't just do that, and in the second place it would have been just about the biggest shock the show could have delivered at that point. Possibly ever, in fact. But Billie's already signed her contract for Series Two, so no dice there, I suppose. Ah well. Unfortunately, other questions do crop up alongside that little "Why didn't they just shoot her?" one: a) if the contestants have all been transmatted instead of disintegrated, where have they all gone? (a factor which, incidentally, is something of a weak link in itself, potentially undermining the apparent nastiness in the TV shows on display) b) does the same hold true for the face-lifting Trinny and Susannah bit, and the Countdown with bombs, and Call My Bluff with real guns shows? c) if the Controller can transmat the Doctor et al out of the TARDIS, why did she go to the trouble of sowing all those Bad Wolf references throughout the Doctor's life as a means of drawing him in? d) if one Dalek can take out Salt Lake City (with a population of one million), what did they need to do for the fleet to 'be ready' before taking on an Earth full of humans who are media-brainwashed sheep? e) if one Dalek can take out Salt Lake City (with a population of one million) are we really going to see lots of bloodshed in next week's episode or are they going to go the Aliens route and have a lot of Daleks being blown away? f) given the apparent absence of any space-going navy around the Earth, surely all those Dalek ships could just blow Satellite Five away and be rid of the Doctor in somewhere a little under a jiffy? g) why did the Daleks transmat the Controller out of Satellite Five in order to exterminate her? Surely not the most expedient use of energy, and possibly therein lies the explanation as to why they've been taking such a long time to 'get ready'. All these questions and more may or may not be answered in the final thrilling (well, it looks like it will be) episode of this series of Doctor Who, so I'll wait and see if we get any answers to any of them. And even if we don't, from what I hear, it seems likely we'll get to see them do The Regeneration Game before too long in any case.

Rats

Prefect Slog"Boomtown" may not be quite bad enough to have everyone singing 'I don't like Saturdays', but really, what a pile of rubbish, I wouldn't be surprised to find a few rats foraging around in there - in search of something, anything they can get there teeth into. Give it up, rodents, there's nothing. Now, fair enough, the episode was onto waste ground from my point of view anyway, in endeavouring to bring back the Slitheen. Doctor Who has been perennially knocked for its wobbly sets and men-in-rubber-suits monsters, so resurrecting a man-in-wobbly-rubber-suit monster seems like retrograde motion, especially given that the new series was allegedly setting out to distance itself from the poorer aspects of the old show's reputation. Still, even given a patch of waste ground, you ought to be able to build something on it, rather than just rearrange the mess into a bigger heap. It has all the silliness of the earlier two-part Slitheen outing, a modest fraction of the farting and, given the confines of a single 45-minute episode, a heavier concentration of stupidity. Stupidity which begins with the basic premise: an alien with the ability to disguise itself as any human being by slipping into a new skin escapes to become the mayor of Cardiff, but neglects to switch disguises and prefers instead to protect her identity merely by being a bit camera shy. And goes on from there. There must be something in the Cardiff air that dulls the Doctor's wits too, as the last time he was here, he was easily duped by the angelic appearance and pitiful appeals of the Gelth - he even mentions them and the rift here, some little while before delivering a surprised "I should have known" when the Slitheen Mayoress turns nasty in the TARDIS. This, after the Doctor has been goaded into taking her out to dinner. Although I suppose, relatively speaking, this is only comparable to Tom Baker's Doctor sharing a philosophical discussion with Davros as intellectual equals in "Genesis of the Daleks". Yeah, right. I suppose it doesn't help that I rarely go a bundle on the kind of bleeding heart sympathy vote that they were aiming for here, as this poor lonely Slitheen that had been prepared to reduce the entire Earth to radioactive slag - and who had murdered the woman whose skin she was wearing - did her best to appeal to the Doctor's soft side. I'd have hoped that at least one of the TARDIS crew had the backbone to look her in the eye - particularly a Doctor who could watch Cassandra shrivel up and explode at the end of "The End of the World". The other thought that occurred during that scene was that the TARDIS was a mite overcrowded, and it may (what do I mean, may!) have been a mistake to bring Mickey in, when we had only just recruited Cap'n Jack (who has precious little to do here, but he needn't feel left out as the others are only involved in the plot equivalent of make-work) and only had a single episode to play with. On the other hand, the plot is so flimsy, Mickey is much-needed padding, but unfortunately padding something out with Mickey is like padding it with vacuum. Ordinarily, I've been giving each story a second watch before writing any sort of review, but I honestly can't bring myself to waste a second 45 minutes on this one. There's not even enough story to merit the one watch, let alone a second. Okay, there's some stuff about the rift, cracks (appropriately enough) opening up in the scenery, and there's a danger of the Slitheen surfing away to freedom, leaving the entire planet to blow up in her wake. But luckily, she looks into the heart of the TARDIS and turns into an egg. Huh?! Bring back the reset switch of the McGann TV Movie, all is forgiven. Or better yet, roll on the Daleks, and if they get to exterminate Anne Robinson then maybe "Boomtown" will be a distant memory by next Saturday.

Doctor Strangelove

Prefect SlogIt's a metaphor, darlings. Not since the X Files has the truth been so out there. Yes, it's like the Doctor's been travelling around in a closet all his life instead of a police box and now it's official: the Doctor does indeed 'dance'. I'm really not sure what to make of that, since as with the X Files, I tended to prefer the Mulder-Scully relationship when there was a frissson of sexual chemistry, the suggestion of what might happen as opposed to when it was out there. But at least it gives us something to talk about, as I'm afraid "The Doctor Dances" was another of those episodes where there really isn't much to say about it other than 'that was great, that was" and go on to sing its praises some more. Which, as we've covered before, can get kind of dull. :) Suffice to say, what Steve Moffat gave us was a fitting conclusion to what started so brilliantly in "The Empty Child", and once again he demonstrates a firm understanding of what makes Doctor Who tick. Even to the extent that, if a 90-minute two-parter can broadly equate to an old 4-part story, he kicks it off splendidly with two episodes of mystery and menace, follows with a good deal of running around in part 3 and builds to a satisfactory and suitably dramatic conclusion in part 4. (And at last, although it's Nancy and the nanogenes that set everything to rights, the Doctor plays his part and crucially it feels like he's involved in that conclusion.) Inevitably, this one sheds some of the creepiness that laced "The Empty Child", but the nature of the story is bound to change, both as we learn more and as the need to pick up the pace dictates. If part one was a danse macabre, then part two is something of a gloomy polka: quick, with a curiously successful combination of light and dark. There's room for a few moments of genuine horror, as other victims sprout gas masks from their faces. The sequence with the typewriter typing by itself and the child's voice carrying on when the tape has run out do seem to be attempting the same scare twice, but generally it works. And there's all the wit and humour of the first part (Richard Wilson's answer to the woman who discovers she's grown back a leg: "Is it possible you miscounted?", Cap'n Jack riding a bomb in a heavily symbolic Doctor Strangelove homage) contrasted with the grit and stark reality of teenage motherhood and questions of sexual proclivities. Including those of the Doctor himself. He's nine hundred years old. He's been around. What makes us think he hasn't danced? And the word 'dance' is applied liberally throughout the episode with appropriate emphasis to make sure we get the metaphor. Okay, there's no on-screen testing of sonic bedsprings or anything, but the answer to the question many people have asked over the years is there for all to see, on the obvious side of implicit. So yes, the Doctor dances. My only complaint would be that I wish he hadn't done quite so much of it in the denoeuement, as that tail end of the story does seem to go on a bit. But it's a very minor point in such a terrific two-parter. And I don't intend to dwell on the question of the Doctor's past sexual activities. For one thing, it might undermine all my innocent childhood illusions about Sarah Jane Smith, and I wouldn't want that. For another, the Doctor has always been like a favourite-uncle figure and any contemplation of what relatives may or may not get up to in the bedroom is just plain unhealthy. (Shudder.)

Jumpin Flash Jack, It's Aghast Gas Mask

Prefect SlogYeah, okay, I'm reeling in agony from that subject header myself. But you know, pleasure often has to come at the cost of a little pain, and boy "The Empty Child" was such a pleasure to watch. In a being scared but enjoying it, honest guv, sort of way. And no, it was actually nothing to do with the prospect of the Eurovision Song Contest hitting our screens shortly afterwards, it was all down to this one Doctor Who episode. Nicely creepy, a terrific sense of setting, an intriguing and involving mystery, beautifully realised and well paced, and convincing child actors. And with the sort of enduring imagery - scary child in gas mask - that used to stick in the mind years after the old classics had aired and helped warp my impressionable childhood imagination so darned well. Back when I saw "The Curse Of Fatal Death", the Doctor Who skit for Comic Relief, I recognised that Steve Moffat had a really good grasp of what Doctor Who was all about, and he demonstrated it tenfold in this one. Even managing to season the whole thing with some sparkling comic dialogue, in the pauses between dishing out cases of the creeps all over the nation. Of course, since we know nothing's perfect, there had to be something wrong with it, right? Um, okay, on first watch I did find the opening a bit rushed to the extent that I missed snatches of the dialogue and, er, I did wonder about the wisdom of Jack Harkness in decloaking his spaceship and lighting up Big Ben in the middle of an air raid. But heck, wisdom shmisdom, it was a bit of romantic fantasy, and worth doing for the imagery. And so nice to get the whole Time Agent thing being threaded into it as a nod to "Talons of Weng Chiang" (although I guess I would say that, being the writer of Emotional Chemistry and all :) ) (And for those who don't get that joke, go out and buy the book :) ) And Rose gets to hang from a barrage balloon, screaming helplessly for the Doctor like a traditional companion, and gets to swoon in the face of Jack's charms and, you know what, I don't think it undermined her feminine strengths one jot. All good fun, and lord knows we needed some of that, as we were never sure when the child was going to come stalking out of the shadows again, calling for his "Mummy" and giving us the jitters. *Maybe* the Doctor's speech about Britain in the Blitz sounded a bit overly patriotic for a non-national, but against that the episode scores serious points for being a wartime Doctor Who that doesn't feature the Nazis. It also scores even more points for the BBC's ability to treat a cliffhanger right and include an advanced warning that the next week's preview was coming up *after* the credits. Well done, people. I knew they'd get the hang of a cliffhanger eventually. Which is what you want at the end of part one of a truly 'Weird Tale'. And now all part two has to do is deliver on all that promise. Hmm. On top of the anticipation for this weekend's episode, I'm a little bit nervous. Are you? Well, whatever happens if an air raid warden shouts "Put that light out", don't listen to him. In the first place, he's probably one of the strange victims sporting a sinister gas mask, and in the second place, you really don't wanna be watching this kind of stuff in the dark.

A Tissue! A Tissue! We All Fall Down

Prefect SlogThe day "Father's Day" was due to air, my sisters happened to air one complaint about the new series of "Doctor Who" which, when I thought about it, unfortunately felt entirely valid. Contrary to their habit of knocking the old series when I used to enjoy it, they'd been watching the new one pretty avidly, but they'd started to get a bit ticked off with the fact that the TARDIS hadn't really gone anywhere other than dear old Earth. And they're right. Even "The End Of The World", with its procession of colourful aliens, occurs in orbit around our blue-green planet. So, if anyone's paying attention, guys, please, let's see some alien worlds. I haven't asked my sisters yet what they thought of "Father's Day" but I can only imagine that there was some disappointment on that score at least as they sat down to watch that night's episode. Still, none of that is Paul Cornell's fault, and in the context of the new series, he produces a strong piece of emotional human drama. More of a tear-jerker than a thought-provoker, mainly because if I'd allowed myself to think too hard about the temporal aspects of the story, I was afraid the whole thing would fall apart. E.g. why do the first Doctor and Rose wink out of existence once Rose Two saves her dear old pa? At that point, I knew I was going to enjoy the episode more if I didn't ask too many questions like that, and luckily a few tears, for the most part, adequately obscure the vision. Setting aside the time travel theory, the supporting cast do a grand job - most notably Rose's Dad, and since he's fairly crucial to the whole thing, that scores high points - and the Reapers are effective, not only in the way they look, but also in the way they see - through a filter of blood red - as they stalk their victims even before we get to see them. There are certain less than satisfying aspects that are difficult to ignore. One related to the episode in question, in that its resolution is all too inevitable and therefore predictable from the outset. While the others are more symptomatic of the series as a whole, and include the Doctor's lack of involvement in the resolution (in the context of an individual episode, and this one, it could be argued, in particular, not a fault, but in the context of the series, again dissatisfying); as well as the fact that, once the Reapers make their appearance, the action effectively stops and the episode goes largely nowhere for too long, as the creatures circle the church and everyone holes up inside (again, not necessarily a fault when the episode is taken individually, but when we've been treated to sequences in other episodes in which the plot fails to advance, you can't help thinking something needs to be done). And on a more minor note, I'm still utterly mystified as to the significance of the voice of Alexander Graham Bell coming through on the various phones in the episode, but it's possible I'm being thick - or it's possible the explanation got lost in the edits. Ultimately, it's the human story and not some of the more traditional elements of Doctor Who (temporal science in this case) that are the most successful in this one and given that shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer proved more popular for the teen-soap aspects than for the weekly monster, I guess that's no bad thing. So, on the whole, with my subject heading, I'm just being clever and the story is an emotionally involving one that does hold together - although I'm still refusing to examine the time travel theory too closely. Just in case. :)

Media-ocre

Prefect SlogIn the Doctor Who Confidential following "The Long Game", Russell T Davies says something to the effect that if it didn't have Simon Pegg in it, the whole thing might have been rather dull. Not the most inspiring thing a writer could say about his own episode and while I think he might have been a little unfair on the whole thing, he might also have a point. The overall impression I was left with at the end was that it had been reasonably fun, reasonably entertaining, with a reasonable central premise (based on manipulation of human society by an alien-controlled media) and considerably livened by the likes of Simon Pegg and Tamsin Greig. As in "Dalek" I wasn't that impressed with the character of Adam, although it was faintly amusing to see him as a TV version of Hex (the audio companion), as he looked like he was on loan from Hollyoaks (Brookside's younger cousin) and went about saying "Oh my god" just often enough for the comparison to stick. But I couldn't quite put my finger on why it felt, well, a bit ordinary and not very satisfying. Someone pointed out that it was very 80s Doctor Who, and that *might* be the only explanation needed. But I didn't need to think too hard to realise I also had problems with some aspects of the story that went a little further than that. For one, there really wasn't much of a story at all. The episode seemed a curious combination of being too simple to be very involving for us grown-ups, and based on what was probably too high-brow a concept for the kids. Worse - and perhaps out of a need to explain it to the kids - that concept, of social manipulation by the media (surely inspired by Fox), was delivered almost entirely according to a policy of tell-don't-show, something that went completely against the grain of the storyteller in me. On the plus side, it did have some memorable imagery (people's heads opening up to download data), some colourful moments and a degree of atmosphere (characters having a nose around the chilly regions of the top floor). But very much on the down side, it also suffered from what is probably the most disappointing trend of the new series overall: the persistent return of Doctor DoLittle. In this one, he and Rose are rendered inactive, helpless and shackled together, and while he does goad a guest character into action, it's a) an action we saw coming a long time ago (i.e. turn up the heat) and b) a resolution that we'd rather, after too many episodes of seeing the Doctor do not very much, see our 'hero' being a little more actively involved in. On aggregate then, the various pluses and minuses left this one, for me, somewhere very much in the middle of the road. A bit like the alien behind it all (I'm not even going to attempt writing out it's full name), it could have done with a little more creative thought put into it, so it didn't end up being quite so much a shapeless blob (too much like the Nestene in the first episode, for my liking) with a few teeth.

Positively Dull

Prefect SlogReflecting on "Dalek", episode six of the new series of Doctor Who, I begin to appreciate the perspective of the critic, many of whom apparently feel an obligation to be negative most of the time for fear they won't come across as sufficiently witty and entertaining. But in the face of my own overwhelmingly positive reaction to Rob Shearman's new series contribution, I'm not going to succumb to the same urge, and I'm just going to have to be completely at ease with the fact that this review of mine is going to be dull. Admittedly, with my current efforts to avoid use of the F word (by which I mean, "Fantastic!" - a word now doomed to be forever heard in my mind in a Christopher Eccleston voice) I'm going to be more limited than I'd like when it comes to appropriate superlatives, but for simplicity's sake, I'll just say: I loved it. Unreservedly. Yes, it had its flaws. Such as...what on earth is the Dalek thinking, showing off its nifty ability to levitate, then electing to follow the course of the stairs all the way around? Er, had it really not come across the concept of 'straight up' in its intensive download of the entire internet? What was the Doctor thinking, accusing Van Statten that he'd 'set it loose'? Scuse me, Doc, but the blame for that lies squarely with Rose. Van Statten was the one keeping it locked away, deep in the deepest vault and if Rose hadn't stuck her (admittedly touching) oar in, the thing would have been tortured to death and the Earth would never have been so endangered. Get your facts straight, Doctor. A friend of mine also observed that a billion combinations on the lock to the Dalek's cage was really not that great, and if I really thought about it I'd have certain questions about the abilities of the Dalek to regenerate itself merely by the acquisition of a little Rose DNA. But, really, when it comes down to it, who cares! It was great. They reinvented the Dalek, but retained the design. They made it intelligent, scary, bloody dangerous *and* sympathetic. (Just please, guys, when you bring them back in numbers make sure they're just as intelligent, scary and bloody dangerous - whole worlds must quake in their metaphorical boots. Don't do an "Aliens", please, and have lots of them just to have lots of them blown away, and then have to introduce a Queen Dalek just to up the ante again. That's all I ask.) The setting was nicely confined, and there was a real sense of them being trapped in there with the rampaging Dalek. The key characters were great - with the exception of Adam, and why oh why did they need to take him along at the end - I mean, if the Doctor had wanted a spare limb, there was a perfectly serviceable Slitheen arm in Van Statten's collection. And the character moments were nothing short of terrific: I wasn't a hundred percent sure about the Doctor's childish taunting of the Dalek when he discovers it's defenceless, but then I've not been convinced of this Doctor's childish behaviour on other occasions either. But lines like the Dalek accusing the Doctor, "You would make a good Dalek", the little moment in front of the Cyberman exhibit, the Doctor's evident fear and hatred of the Dalek race and his desperate scrambling to deal with this lone survivor, Rose's apparent death, and the genuinely tear-jerking stuff towards the end all - along with other moments that will no doubt jump out at me when I revisit the episode again (and I got the sense the episode had a greater re-watchability than any of the others thus far) - make for a magic 45-minutes. So, in summary, apologies for a positively dull review, but it's not my fault if Rob Shearman and the production team come up with an episode quite the opposite.

Two Nil Down In The Second Half

Prefect SlogIt's not something you'd ever expect to hear yourself say about World War Three, but to be honest I found it a little... disappointing. And it's not as if I had a great many expectations riding on it. I was just hoping for an improvement on the last one. By which, of course, I mean not World War Two but "Aliens of London", the previous episode of Doctor Who, with its none too cleverly undermined cliffhanger. Unfortunately, it is like coming back to the second half when your team is one nil down, it's always going to be that much more of a struggle. First of all, one of the main things that struck me as the credits rolled was, frankly, how bloody good next week's episode looks. But after that, it did occur to me that, at last, with WW3, they seemed to have addressed the problem of the long-drawn out 'action' finale where nothing much happens, which has plagued pretty much all of the episodes so far to one extent or another. Here, instead, they have a long drawn out 'action' second part where nothing much happens. Fair enough there's a lot going on on the screen, superficially, but it feels more like something out of World War One - lots of cost and effort for very little ground gained. It begins with ten minutes of running around, followed by thirty minutes of the Doctor stuck in one room, and there was something 'the wrong way round' about that. The Slitheen, sorry, I found as unconvincing as before, if anything undermined some more by the contrast between their CGI versions and their wobbly headed man-on-a-suit versions. And what with all their getting dressed and undressed in between all the running around from room to room, you might have thought you'd tuned in to one of the rarer *sci-fi* Brian Rix farces. Okay the Slitheen, still looking like the stars of an extraterrestrial Huggies commercial, are dropping their skins instead of their trousers, but in the midst of all this there's still room for more fart gags. Including the good old farting in the elevator gag - taking the show ("Going up!") to new heights of sophistication. And after taking what seemed like hours to clamber out of their skins last week, these aliens seem to climb back into them with remarkable speed as the Doctor brings the troops running. I'm not averse to a bit of nonsense and daftness - I enjoyed "The End of the World" - but for too many reasons, including more poorly paced action, this one wasn't working. It's all, I think, a bit too much of a panto, not a quality I admired in the original series in its latter years, and not one I can admire now. As the female alien corners Rose and Harriet in one room and sing-songs, "Where are you?" they *might* have been aiming to evoke the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (one of the scariest things from my childhood), but here it just came across as a troll or something out of one of those big budget pantomimes, of the sort that usually star Jim Davidson as Buttons. Still, it all gallops - in so far as an episode in which the Doctor and co are stuck in one room for the greater part can gallop - to a conclusion, in which the Doctor gets Mickey to summon up a sub-launched Harpoon to take out 10 Downing Street. Setting aside the effective range of Harpoon missiles (no, really, it is possible to be *too* picky :) ), this kind of indirect action seems at least as weak as some of the solutions to previous episodes. I know dear old "Seeds of Doom"gets criticised for its weak ending, having the Doctor call in the RAF, and every week I hear some feeble justification for new series flaws in the form of some lambasting of the original series: e.g. "Well, it's no worse than they did in {insert name of episode here}". And I'm sorry, that doesn't wash. It's like the current government fending off criticisms by pointing out all the problems we had under the previous administration. Or rather, especially given the timespan involved, it's more like them saying, "But look at how bad things were when we were last in Number 10." Making the same mistakes on a bigger budget is not the most persuasive policy to put in your manifesto. Still, political analogies are entirely apt here, because amongst all the rest there is the biting and blatant bit of satire and there are other more mature and highly successful elements. Penelope Wilton is great as Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, and there's a nice sense of closure to the story with which this whole thing began - the 'domestic' side of Rose's decision to go time travelling. Mickey snapping a photo of the Slitheen on his mobile, and the Doctor's "You kiss this man?" line to Rose when they're going through the contents of his kitchen cupboards has to be the funniest line in the whole two episodes. And there's a genuine sense of walled up emotion and maybe even a few dark secrets when the Doctor is confronted with the question of whether Rose is safe in his company, and later, when he faces risking Rose's life to save the world - albeit from one of the most ludicrous schemes for global destruction in the history of Who, but surprisingly and thankfully that doesn't detract from the potency of the scene. With some more convincing aliens, it might have worked. With some better pacing, it might have worked. And with a little less silliness, it might have worked. As it is, between the two parts, the story earns the first genuine thumbs down from me. No great shame in the scheme of things, and perfectly in keeping with a season of Doctor Who, to have a let down or two along the way. But overall, I was reminded that when watching "Rose" I could have wished it had been a two-parter, to allow for more of a story, and so a major chunk of the disappointment in the "Aliens of London" and "World War Three" combo is down to wondering why this flimsy little romp couldn't have been limited to a single episode, while "Rose" got the full attention it surely merited. Sadly, if these were being named in similar fashion to episodes of Friends, I can't help thinking this would be known as The One With All The Farting. And along with The One With The Belching Wheelie Bin and the (really very good) The One With The Gasy Aliens, anyone might think there was a theme developing. What it should have been, to my mind, was The One Where Rose Faces The Consequences Back Home Of Her New Time Travelling Lifestyle, and it would have been ample to have a relatively simple single episode sci-fi adventure woven into this excellent bit of time-and-space kitchen-sink drama, which would have benefitted this story immensely and had the added side effect of giving the Doctor, Rose and the Nestene invasion the introductory outing they deserved. So whilst "Aliens of London" and "World War Three" are perhaps not quite the failures I make them out to be here, they do represent - for me - something of a wasted opportunity, and get marked down for that alone. And next time I sit down to a two-parter, I'm definitely going to reach for the remote as soon as the Next Time... bit flashes up after the cliffhanger. But for now, Yay! Daleks!

Long Live the Cliffhanger, the Cliffhanger is Dead

Prefect SlogI'm going to be mean to this one, you might as well know up front. Before I get into that, there was much to like in it, some really great character stuff, that whole domestic side, the soap opera aspects of this time travelling journey of Rose's. Brilliant. It's what we'd expect from RTD, with his contemporary drama credentials. Of course, in the good old days, they'd just get on with telling a Doctor Who story, but these bits work so well, they feel perfectly at home in a modern Doctor Who adventure. It's only a shame that they weren't featured in a *better* Doctor Who adventure. It started out fab with the domestic drama, the spaceship crash, the "Pigs In Spaaaaaaace", but like a government it started to slip badly towards mid-term. There are aspects you can't exactly fault it for: in having the Doctor watch events on TV, it's doing something novel, after all, but it feels at least as unexciting and plain wrong as it does novel. Especially as we see the Doctor only a short while later imposing some of that familiar authority of his to involve himself - unquestioned - with the Army operation. There was another little paradox too, in having the Doctor so excited to be present to witness humanity's alleged first contact with aliens - and then remembering his involvement with UNIT who, we can only assume, must have had contact with, er, aliens. Actually, as I recall, it was on a frequent basis. And with aliens a good deal more convincing than the Slitheen. Okay, maybe it's just me, but one of the principal let downs of Alien Resurrection was the baby-eyed alien. At least that had the elongated skull effect to go with it, but it still looked too cute. (Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to cuddle it.) The Slitheen had the baby-eyes and the baby-cheeks too, stuck on a scaled-down Rancor monster meets scaled-up ET body. And we're supposed to find that final shot of its face looming large into camera menacing. Hmm. They weren't helped in the slightest by the fact that they'd spent far too much of the episode farting and giggling about it like children - you're not sure whether you should feel a sense of menace, so much as an overwhelming urge to change their nappies. Or, rather, to get some other poor sap to do it. (Although nice to see that the outmoded elements of old Doctor Who, such as the screaming female companion have been done away with and replaced by the modern sophistication of the fart gag.) They certainly weren't helped by the laborious process of clambering out of their skins - I certainly wasn't jumping out of mine, but I did seem to be spending a lot of that time wondering why somebody didn't do something while they were thus occupied. The Doctor of old could have foiled their invasion attempt three times by the time they'd 'disrobed'. But at least it gave the show an excuse for not one, but three long drawn out finales where people, once again, got to stand around and do a great deal of not a lot. This is getting to be a habit and with only 45 minutes to play with, it's not a very endearing one. Worst of all though - and this isn't actually to do with the content of the episode itself - was that all three points of menace within that cliffhanger were rendered instantly as limp and deflated as an empty Slitheen skin by the Next Week... trailer slapped on the end before the credits rolled. What were they thinking? I remember the sense of anticipation and impatience to see the next episode after one of the cracking cliffhangers of old - and unfortunately, it seems that said anticipation is destined to remain something to be remembered, rather than something to be experienced again. This is a story with two halves, so naturally there's room for overall impressions to change, but it would have been nicer to find myself really looking forward to the second half. Still, in the interests of ending on a positive note, the fx for the spaceship crash were truly incredible for a BBC Doctor Who and those shots deserve special credit in and of themselves. And I feel sorry for the pig. It's high time someone combined Doctor Who and "Pigs In Space" - along with a lot of the other Muppet gang, come to that.

Doctor Do Little

Prefect SlogI see dead people. Not on any regular basis, you understand, just in last night's episode of Doctor Who. For my money (how many ningis to the pu again?), the best one so far. I was thoroughly drawn in and I loved it. Three episodes in and, for me, Doctor Who had really arrived. The Victorian setting (superbly realised) and the theatre will naturally conjure reminiscences of "The Talons of Weng Chiang", but what brought that reminiscence to life more for me was the way the story was full of lovely touches of characterisation. And of course, this one actually took some time to enjoy its setting, atmosphere and, just as Rose was full of wonder at the sheer marvel of stepping into history, we were allowed some time to wonder at it all as well. The scenes with Rose and Gwyneth warrant a special mention, as does Simon Callow as Dickens. As they like to say on Points of View sometimes (when they're not saying "Why, oh why, oh why"): thank you, BBC. Or, more to the point, thank you, Mark Gatiss. I won't go into a laborious Oscars-acceptance-speech style list of all the other people who were involved, but the cast were all a joy to watch. Even the dead ones. And within that Christopher Eccleston came over as much more Doctorish, lending a real balance of authority against the grinning idiot that he's done a little too much of up till now. A darker story allows the darker side of this Doctor to, er, shine through. I just wish he'd had more to do. There are other little quibbles: the seemingly nonsensical solution of filling the room with gas to draw out the gaseous aliens (am I missing something in the distant mists of my O Level physics?), the fairly obvious twist to the angelic nature of the Gelth and the (again) drawn out 'climax' where (again) nobody's doing much of anything. Butthey're minor and things that certainly didn't detract any from my enjoyment of the whole thing. No, my biggest grumble would simply be that the Doctor's only crucial role was to make matters worse. First time he doesn't get to solve things with a wave of his sonic screwdriver wand, and he doesn't solve anything. Both him and Rose are stuck for what seems like an age in a dungeon - in Cardiff - while the tension mounts as the unquiet dead, well, reach rather uselessly through the bars. The stories thus far have been pretty simple, and I can forgive that given the 45-minute episode time, but by the same token, that's a reason to use the time to good effect. Don't see that 45-minute length as a limit, but work to the advantage of your format. Do something. That goes especially for you, Doctor. Especially in an episode where you've essentially just shown up to take charge of the scenes without, for the most part, changing the script. As I said, I still loved it and something like that needn't be too damaging: I've experimented before by removing the Doctor from "The Caves of Androzani", and things still play out pretty much the same way. (Although the story benefits a lot more from the removal of the Magma Creature.) But, in the end, the whole thing felt very Holmesian, by which I mean Robert not Sherlock, and that's good enough for me. The gripes (and you've gotta have gripes) are only the equivalent of the big fluffy rat. And if you can live with one or two of those, it's about as good as Doctor Who gets.

The End of the World... and I feel fine

Prefect SlogYou could be forgiven, if you're an ordinary paid-up member of the public, for not knowing there was a war on last week. Doctor Who fans - or rather, some sectors of the fan community - were behaving like it was The End of the World. Which it was, of course, on Saturday, in the form of Episode Two of the New Series. And wasn't it fantastic? Well, before I answer that, let's just mention the war. "Rose" had already generated a few divisions in the fan world, and then, as fans welcomed the news that there would be a second series only to learn shortly afterwards that Christopher Eccleston would be quitting after only this one season, those divisions magnified into something of a bitter North-South divide. There's nothing quite like Doctor Who to divide Doctor Who fans. So where do I stand in this divide? Well, somewhere in the middle. Mr Eccleston has put in a good bit of actin' so far, but he's yet to really convince (me) as the Doctor. He needn't feel bad - and I doubt he does on that score - the fact is the only Doctors who've convinced me from the first moment I encountered them were the first four plus McGann. The others took time. And naturally, I'm greatly disappointed to discover that Mr Eccleston isn't going to give me - or himself - that same sort of time. But he's an actor and it's an actin' job, so he has his reasons for moving on. So much for that. But it seemed to me, among fandom, that people were polarised to extremes where at the hot end they were too parched to voice coherent arguments and at the cold end they'd lost all feeling in their fingertips. It's been the same, as far as I can see, with the new series so far: people have either lost all sense of appreciation or all criitical faculty. Things are, broadly speaking, either "Stupid!" or "Fantastic!" - and I can't help feeling there should be room for some more balanced perspective. But, in this particular spirit of fandom, I'll air a few of my thoughts on Episode Two. So, blue alien woman being hauled into a duct by a few teeny metal spiders: stupid. Diversity and colour of the whole episode: fantastic. The Moxx of Balhoon's voice: stupid. Jabe: fantastic. Rose not hearing the spider scuttling around right behind her: stupid. Rose being overwhelmed by the plethora of aliens around her: fantastic. The Doctor bopping inanely to Tainted Love: stupid. Britney Spears' Toxic playing at the end of the world: fantastic. (Although I'd have gone the whole nine yards and actually had Britney in Doctor Who - and now, Britney S from Terra Alpha!) The lowering of the Steward's sun filter at the stab of a button and the Steward not running for the door: stupid. The emotional depth to the Doctor when Jabe lays a hand on his arm: fantastic. The vital switch at the other side of a batch of whirling propellor blades, so reminiscent of Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver's experience with pounding hammers Galaxy Quest: stupid. (And is the poorly paced 'climactic action' sequence the replacement for the cliffhanger? I do hope not.) The emotion at the moment of Jabe's death: fantastic. (Well, I mean, obviously it wasn't fantastic that such a fantastic character died, but you know, that moment did get to me.) Leaving the modern independent companion nothing to do for the entirety of the climactic action sequence: stupid. The going to get chips scene at the end, so brilliantly and emotionally touching on the Doctor's past as well as rooting Rose's experiences in that everyday context: fantastic. And, of course, there are more where those came from, just in the space of those 45 minutes. But you know, with all the fantastics and the stupids, the overall feeling I had at the end of it - apart from that bloody trailer coming up slap bang before the closing credits - was a good one. So I can only say - on balance - that The End of the World - that is, the one on the telly, not the one in certain sectors of the online Who fan community - was a darn good show.

We have no time to stand and scare

Prefect SlogI remember when I used to read the Target novelisations of 'classic' Doctor Who, the TARDIS always used to arrive with a wheeze and a groan. Now it arrives with a whiz and a bang. And before you even know there's an invasion on, it's over. Which is a nice feeling for the ordinary member of the public who wants to feel safe, but when you're sitting down to Doctor Who, you kind of want a bit more time to get into the story. Let me qualify this by saying that I liked it, and there was much to like - and it improved on a second watch, which is something I couldn't say about the TVM. But I don't think it's too much of a gripe to say that I wish we could have had more of it. (My Mum today thought the whole thing had been half an hour long.) A two-parter might have served better and could still have been nice and pacey, given a fuller story. After all, we're introducing a new Doctor (nicely done, by the way, and the mirror check was an exquisite little touch - although the scariest moment was hearing Graham Norton filter through over the soundtrack in the early minutes - had they been lying to us about who was playing the Ninth Doctor?!) and there's an alien invasion on. Paradoxically, against the show's seemingly relentless pace, you have apparent padding, with - for instance - cuts back to the Doctor on the platform above the Nestene creature, with zero progression to the action. How about a choreographed fight sequence - or something, guys? But the principal down side for me was basically that it wasn't long enough: the aliens could have used a bit more build-up to get their menace quotient up, the plot could have used a bit more, well, plot, and the characters could have used a bit more screen time for more of an emotional connection. Because if you want your monsters to be scary you've got to give them a chance, and it also helps if you care about the people they're threatening. Although on that side, I did feel sorry for poor Clive. Overall, it was fun, entertaining, a bit daft in places and very easy to pick holes in. So, pretty much like a lot of Doctor Who. Which, I suppose, is the main thing. Worst moment: (apart from Graham Norton) the replica Mickey proving that Rose, the modern independent girl companion is very possibly the densest woman on the planet. Fair play, it was a gag, but Billie Piper was good in the role and I can't help thinking her character deserved better. Most magic moment: Rose enters the TARDIS for the first time. That was a real lump in the throat, tear in the eye, thrill in the heart moment. And call me a sad old sentimental fool, but that counted more than anything else. That was when it came alive for me. Doctor Who is back and it is about time. And luckily, for those of us who wish we had more of it, there are 12 more episodes on the way. Plenty of time for this one to grow.

Marmite & Monsters

Prefect Slog
One week to go to the new series of Doctor Who and the excitement and anticipation is builidng in all sorts of unexpected quarters. My parents are looking forward to it and, after all, why not, they were the ones who got me started on it all those years ago. Even my sister is planning to watch it, despite her main experience of Doctor Who to date being taking the mick out of her brother for being so obsessed with a stupid sci fi show followed by a more recent phase of making a point of reading every Doctor Who book and listening to every Doctor Who audio her brother had written. (Bless her.) In other TV news this week, there was this ad - a reasonably funny one I thought - for Marmite that got itself into trouble for managing - *somehow* - to scare children. The thing about Marmite is that it knows it's not a product everyone likes and it's ad campaigns tend to play on that: you either love it or you hate it. Hence, this latest commercial opted for a pastiche of The Blob, done with all the appropriate 50s B-movie flair and style, with people running in panic away from the eponymous dollop of admittedly not very appetising brown Marmite, while others ran towards it and dived in like raspberry jam addicts might have done if it had been the original. Reasonably amusing, quite well done. Or so you might think. Imagine my surprise when on the early morning radio I catch the news story that the ad had been banned from being aired before certain times because it had 'scared children'. Yes, mums (although they didn't actually specify how many) were up in arms because the nasty blob of Marmite had frightened their little cherubs. Me, I survived giant spiders, giant maggots and a monster with its brain in a fishbowl, but apparently the kids of today are not made of such stern stuff. Or perhaps it's just the parents are more protective than mine were, with their irresponsible ways of letting me watch Doctor Who every Saturday night. Even going so far as to shout up to my room to tell me it was on *if* the need ever arose. Meanwhile, on the subject of monsters for the new Doctor Who, an article in the Radio Times (12th -18th March) jumps on the all too easily jumped on bandwagon of having a poke at Classic Doctor Who's (and I'm calling it that now so as to get a head start in preventing it ever becoming known as Doctor Who: TOS - it deserves better than that) lower budget monsters. In highlighting the appeal of the new monsters it says, "These aren't hokey men in suits - the new creations look and feel like the real deal." Well, fair enough and good show, look forward to seeing them in action. But let's not forget that some of those 'hokey men in suits' and other cheaper creatures imprinted potent, enduring images in the public consciousness - including those giant maggots (my poor sister hated them), the Sea Devils rising from the waves in their string vests and so on. And what Doctor Who had in abundance was creativity, it oozed it (if I'm allowed to say ooze without conjuring unwelcome images of the Blob again) and the designs of a great many of those alien creatures would easily stand head and shoulders (assuming most men-in-suit monsters would have them) above alien races in a good many other higher budget shows. So naturally, I'm hoping that the new series, with its greater budget, will do as many great things in terms of creature design as people like John Friedlander did on the original show. For my money, a Zygon looks more convincing than the fat blue Mekon-Buddha offspring depicted in the Radio Times article, but I've yet to see it in action and in any case I have every confidence that the new production team will be pulling out all the design stops to produce lots of new monsters as well as the old ones they're bringing up to date. But I have to wonder, in the light of the fate of the Marmite ad, what untold harm is the new Doctor Who going to do, even going out at the later time of 7pm, if it is going to expose us to weekly parades of monsters that are - we can hope - more convincing and horrifying than a gooey brown dollop of yeast-based spread? Are the mums going to be up in arms? If they're really concerned, then can't they turn their attentions against the insurance company ad that features Michael Winner in drag? Please. I'm not a kid any more and that one scares the yeast-based spread out of me.

America's Finest

Prefect SlogAh, the internet. Finally, a space big enough to accommodate every ego. I think the main reason I held off incorporating a blog into my website, despite all the recommendations, was the inflated sense of self-importance that I got from most of the other blogs I read. Which, it has to be said, were never many. So, anyway, that is not what this is about.
Just finished watching CSI:NY (which, bizarrely mentioned fox-hunting, but that's another discussion - don't even get me started) - and obviously can't wait for future spinoffs which might make it as far as my town, CSI:Penzance, or perhaps stray into challenging fantasy territory, CSI:Helm's Deep. Anyway, in the good old U of K, such programmes are shown on Channel 5 as part of a thing called America's Finest, and I was only having a discussion with a friend earlier in the week about how most of the good TV we get over here is generally American these days. Of course, that's all going to change in 3 weeks' time when the new Doctor Who hits our screens, but this on a night when the UK narrowly escapes being represented by Jordan (aka Katie Price) in the Eurovision Song Contest and on a day when some kid in Kentucky gets arrested for writing a short story that apparently marks him as a potential terrorist. Or something.

http://www.lex18.com/global/story.asp?s=2989614&ClientType=Printable

So it gets me thinking, about Iraq, US foreign policy, Iraq, our own domestic and foreign policy (if they can be considered separate from the US), and my own recent (first) visit to the States. And the fact is I hear a lot of anti-American rhetoric bandied about, on the internet and among friends, but as someone who endeavours to see every side of a story, I'd like to see a little perspective. Yes, American TV is among the best we have over here at the moment - but how representative is that? Surely they must have a whole load of crap on their countless channels that we never get to see. And likewise, there has to be a bunch of stuff produced for our screens that we couldn't export if we paid them. And, following on from that, I have to wonder how representative is that story of the kid from Kentucky, and how representative is all that anti-American rhetoric. Because, let's face it, UK, we could have been represented by Jordan, for crying out loud, and we have been represented abroad by everything from football hooligans to Tony Blair. Does any of that genuinely reflect on us? It doesn't reflect on me - I lay no claim to responsibility! And I'm reasonably sure that the 'average American' does not want to be represented by stories like the kid from Kentucky (the most shocking part of which for me was that he was allegedly shopped by his grandparents!), or by any of the stories that form the basis of much of said anti-American rhetoric.
Personally, I've met a few Americans and while they might not be an 'average' cross-section - the majority I've met were at a Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles - they don't represent anything of the public pereception of America I see a little too much of at the moment. The fact is, America's Finest isn't in CSI and its cousins (as much as I appreciate the drama and anticipate those future spinoffs), but it's where you'll find it in any country: at the people level. And I'd just like to see a little more of a balanced perspective, when people go mouthing off about a given nation. Because next time I go abroad, God forbid I get judged by the actions of Jordan or Tony Blair.

Prefect Slog

Prefect Slog
Hello and welcome to my blog. Or slog, depending on how you look at it. Hopefully, I'll be able to share my daily thoughts here - no doubt on more of a weekly basis, as I'm hopeless at updating things; but then again, I'm rarely short of something to say :)