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Doctor Who: Spyfall, Part I (Review)

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Darren

The name’s Doctor. The Doctor.

Spyfall, Part I offers a solid start to the season, if an unspectacular one.

Of course, Spyfall, Part I is all about spectacle. In some respects, showrunner Chris Chibnall is building off the successful elements of his deeply flawed first season of Doctor Who. Spyfall, Part I capitalises on a number of the core strengths of those first ten episodes. The location shooting in South Africa affords Spyfall, Part I an impressive sense of scale and spectacle. As in episodes like The Ghost Monument and Rosa, South Africa is able to stand-in for a variety of exotic locations that would normally be outside the scope of Doctor Who. Chibnall is able to pitch Spyfall, Part I as a genuinely globe-trotting adventure.

No agency.

More than that, the production continues to look lavish. Chibnall retains the anamorphic lenses and the modified aspect ratio from the previous season, lending the series a polished and cinematic appearance. The guest cast for Spyfall, Part I is absolutely stacked, especially by the standards of Doctor Who. Stephen Fry has had a long a complicated relationship with Doctor Who – starring in audio dramas, writing for the television show, critiquing the television show – and he finally makes his television appearance here. Lenny Henry is a suitably big draw, particularly for the role he ultimately plays.

Spyfall, Part I is a good old-fashioned runaround adventure, consciously built around setpieces and action beats that would have seemed impossible for Doctor Who even a decade ago. However, there is something frustratingly hollow in all of this. Spyfall, Part I is positioned as both a season premiere, a New Year’s Day Special, and the first episode of Doctor Who to air since Resolution. That is a lot of weight pressing down on the episode, a lot of expectation, and a lot of outside context. Spyfall, Part I is a new beginning for the series, but it feels more like another day at the office than a statement of purpose.

What the tech is going on?

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New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 10 (“Midnight of the Century”)

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Darren

It’s Christmas, so The Time is Now has a special treat lined up for you. It’s the night before Christmas, so it was the perfect opportunity to discuss Midnight of the Century with the wonderful Tony Black. It’s something of a companion piece to our discussion of The Curse of Frank Black at Halloween.

It’s strange to imagine Millennium producing a Christmas episode. It’s even stranger to realise that’s a pretty much perfect episode for the season, following Frank Black through his Christmas Eve as he tries to work through his own complicated feelings about the holidays. Then again, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, the second season was show run by Glen Morgan and James Wong who had written Christmas-themed episodes like Beyond the Sea on The X-Files and River of Stars on Space: Above and Beyond. It is a delight.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below. Have a Merry Christmas!

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New Podcast! Standard Orbit #297 – “Inverted Commas”

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Darren

I was thrilled to be invited to join the great Zach Moore on Standard Orbit, a Star Trek: The Original Series podcast hosted over at Trek FM. I appeared on the show the year before last to discuss the third season of the series, and returned last year to delve into the second season, and so it makes sense that I should be back to discuss the first season.

This is an interesting one, in large part because I don’t necessarily have a strong take or controversial opinion on the first season of the original Star Trek. I think it’s a remarkable season of television, one of the best in the franchise and that it’s an embarrassment of riches in places. So we talk about the order in which we watch the series, the way in which it builds, the sense in which the show was constantly revising and reinventing itself between episodes before emerging towards the end of the year as the Star Trek that most fans know and love. There’s nothing too controversial here, aside from two people sharing their love for a great piece of television. Which is perfect Christmas fodder.

Zach was, as ever, a very gracious host. I had great fun discussing it. You can hear the full discussion below or visit the episode page here.

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René Auberjonois

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Darren

René Auberjonois passed away at the weekend.

Auberjonois was a tremendously prolific and talented performer. Indeed, one of the most striking things about his passing has been the sheer diversity among his fans. It seems like everybody has a different memory of Auberjonois, a different role with which they associate him. Some people remember him from M*A*S*H, some people remember him from Benson, others associate him with cult roles like King Kong. However, it seems like everybody remembered Auberjonois in one form or another.

I have a long and deep attachment to Auberjonois. He was an accomplished voice actor, and I knew him well from various cartoons that I would have watched as a child and even beyond that; Chef Louis in The Little Mermaid, Flanagan in Cats Don’t Dance, his vocal turns in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, the part that I most associate with Auberjonois is his work as Constable Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It is a performance with which I grew up and to which I have frequently returned.

It is a performance which has seemed richer every time that I have watched, a fantastic demonstration of the actor’s talent.

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New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 9 (“Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense”)

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Darren

With Christmas coming up, The Time is Now is firing up again. This week, I finally got to talk about a Darin Morgan episode, joining I was flattered to join Paige Schector and Kurt North to discuss Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense.” It remains one of my favourite episodes of television ever, in one of my favourite seasons of seasons of television ever.

If you have never watched Millennium, this is actually the perfect opportunity to dip your toe in the waters. Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” is an episode of Millennium through and through, suitably “millenniumistic” and concerned with the themes of the show around it, but it is also an accessible Darin Morgan script feature Charles Nelson Reilly reprising his iconic role from Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space.” It is playful, funny and deeply moving. It is all that one could want from an episode of television.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below. I really hope you enjoy.

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New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 5, Episode 2 (“Redux II”)

Posted on December 6, 2019 by Darren

It’s a bit of a change up on The X-Cast this week. Last week, I joined Tony Black to discuss the first part of the fifth season premiere Redux I. This week, Tony swapped out with Russell Hugo, whom I joined to discuss Redux II.

Redux II is an interesting beast. I am actually appreciably fonder of Redux II than I am of Redux I. I think the second part of the premiere does a lot of the stuff that the first half attempts, but in a much more interesting and compelling manner. It’s not quite as good as Gethsemane at the end of the fourth season, but it’s still a surprisingly ambitious and adventurous story for The X-Files to tell at this point in its run – the moment at which the series is at the peak of its popularity and The X-Files: Fight the Future is looming large in the horizon. I hope this was a fun and interesting discussion.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 5, Episode 1 (“Redux I”)

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Darren

The X-Cast just kicked off its season coverage, and I’m back with Tony Black to discuss the first part of the fifth season premiere Redux I.

Redux I was famously the second-most watched episode of The X-Files, behind Leonard Betts. It’s easy to see why. Not only was the episode following on from an edge-of-the-seat cliffhanger involving the supposed suicide of the male lead on one of the buzziest shows of the decade, but it was also the launch of the season that would lead into the feature film adaptation, The X-Files: Fight the Future. As such, it was a pretty daring move on the part of Chris Carter to devote so much of the premiere to purple prose monologues playing over Mulder walking down grey corridors.

I think this is a pretty fun and interesting discussion. Redux I is always an episode that I’ve have complicated and conflicted feelings about, and the podcast was a nice opportunity to work through some of those strange emotions. Anyway, I hope there’s something worthwhile in here.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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New Podcast! The Pensky File – Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Season 7, Episode 16 (“Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges”)

Posted on November 21, 2019 by Darren

I was thrilled to be asked back to join The Pensky Podcast to for one last conversation about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I joined Wes and Clay as their coverage of the seventh season winds down, as the pair prepare to jump into the so-called “Final Chapter.”

I got to talk about Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges, which is one of my favourite Deep Space Nine episodes ever produced. Arma Enim Silent Leges is the last episode to air before the multipart closing epic that launches with Penumbra, and feels like as worthy a capstone to Deep Space Nine as its companion piece Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang. It’s an exploration of moral compromise and realpolitick, but also about the practicalities of planning for a postwar status quo. It is a clever, ambitious and effective episode of Deep Space Nine, a thoughtful exploration of the show’s core themes.

We also had a lot of fun saying the title out loud multiple times.

You can find more from The Pensky Podcast here, and listen to the podcast by clicking the link or just listening below.

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New Escapist Column! On the Cautious Conservatism of the Mandalorian…

Posted on November 20, 2019 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine late last week. This one looking at the big streaming news of the week, the release of The Mandalorian.

I have very mixed feelings about The Mandalorian. There are parts of the show that I enjoyed, like its obvious debts to samurai cinema or its exploration of the aftermath of Pax Imperiosa as a way of anchoring the franchise in the present moment. However, I was much less convinced of how decidedly retrograde it felt. So much of The Mandalorian seems designed to assure viewers that “this is Star Wars“, retreating away from the relative ambition of projects like Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi or even Rogue One: A Star Wars Story for the safe and the familiar.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

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New Escapist Column! “His Dark Materials” Could Only Exist in a Post-“Game of Thrones” World…

Posted on November 12, 2019 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine yesterday evening. This one took a look at the new BBC/HBO co-production of His Dark Materials, adapting Phillip Pullman’s fantasy epic for a new generation.

It feels appropriate that somebody should take another crack at Pullman’s novels now. New Line Cinema attempted to adapt The Golden Compass back in 2007, using the same model that they applied to The Lord of the Rings. However, that was never going to work; Pullman’s work was too subversive and too radical to ever fit the traditional cinematic narrative template. In contrast, this feels like the perfect moment for another adaptation, as Game of Thrones has pushed the boundaries in terms of television fantasy, both in what is possible and what audiences will accept.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

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