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Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen (Review)

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Revenge of the Cybermen originally aired in 1975.

Then what is it? You’ve no home planet, no influence, nothing. You’re just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking about the galaxy in an ancient spaceship.

– the Doctor pretty much sums it up

To be fair, the title should the first clue that something is not quite right here.

Tom Baker’s first season of Doctor Who contains two genuine classics in the form of Genesis of the Daleks and The Ark in Space, along with the quite good Sontaran Experiment, but it was bookended by two absolute clunkers. Indeed, Revenge of the Cybermen and Robot both feel like holdovers from the Barry Letts era of the show, and they’d both probably seem a whole lot more entertaining as vehicles for Jon Pertwee rather than Tom Baker.

Sadly, we’ve got what we’ve got, so let’s just try to work through this.

Sadly it’s A bomb, not THE bomb…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Ark in Space, bbc, BBC Archives, Cyberman, Cybermat, cybermen, Dalek, doctor, doctor who, DVD, Jon Pertwee, List of Doctor Who planets, Revenge Of The Cybermen, Tenth Planet, Time Lord, Tomb Of The Cybermen | Leave a comment »

House of Cards (US, 2013): Chapter 5 (Review)

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Darren

Friends make the worst enemies

– Frank Underwood

There is a sense now that House of Cards has figured out what it wants to be and how it wants to go about being that sort of thing. After the first three episodes were surprisingly non-committal, the fourth and fifth episodes make it clear that Frank has a plan for revenge against those who betrayed him, one that stretches a bit further than scuttling Michael Kern’s chance to be Secretary of State. There’s a wonderfully understated moment in the middle of this fifth episode where it looks like Frank has finally figured everything out, the pieces have aligned in such a way that he is positioned to speed up what is likely to be a pretty far-reaching payback scheme.

A name you can trust…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, business, Chapter 7 Title 11 United States Code, Claire, david fincher, Francis Urquhart, Frank, Frank Underwood, House of Card, House of Cards, kevin spacey, netflix, Peter Russo, Robin Wright, twitter, Underwood, United States, Zoe | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest (Review)

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Darren

The Infinite Quest was originally broadcast in weekly instalments on Totally Doctor Who in 2007.

… And then I’ll have my revenge! Revenge! REVENGE!

– just in case you didn’t get that Baltazar was evil

The Infinite Quest is a 45-minute animated episode of Doctor Who that was broadcast as part of Totally Doctor Who in 2007, during the third season of the revived show. It was written by Alan Barnes, who has written a number of Big Finish audio plays for Doctor Who, and was directed by Gary Russell. The animation was produced by Cosgrave Hall, who animated the missing episodes of The Invasion for its 2006 DVD release. So there’s a fairly considerable amount of talent involved in this project, which is notable as not only the first full-length animated Doctor Who episode to be broadcast on television, but is the first fully serialised story to be told since the show was revived. It was originally broadcast in chunks of three-and-a-half minutes.

Flight of fancy…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Ark in Space, arts, bbc, david tennant, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, Douglas Adams, Freema Agyeman, Infinite Quest, Key, Last of the Time Lords, Martha, matt smith, science fiction, Shopping, Starship Titanic, Story arcs in Doctor Who | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Shada (2003) (Review)

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Darren

Shada originally broadcast on the BBC website in 2003.

Doctor, a fool would realise that it was written in code!

Skagra, this thing is written in code!

– Skagra and the Doctor have some communication difficulties

Has a failed Doctor Who story every haunted the collective consciousness in the way that Shada does? There’s a wealth of adventures that were proposed and never produced, from the last Master story that never happened in The Final Game, through to the laundry list of unproduced adventures that would have made up Colin Baker’s second season if the show hadn’t been parked by the BBC. However, Shada is something different. So different, in fact, that it has been told quite a few times. In fact, it might be the only Doctor Who story I end up covering twice.

This was a webcast version, a very simply animated version of the tale produced for the BBC website, using an audio play adapted from Douglas Adams’ original script by Big Finish, the fan collective who produce a range of celebrated audio plays for the classic series. Starring Paul McGann, the Eighth Doctor who never really got a chance to develop the role in live action, it’s an interesting glimpse at what might have been.

Lost in time…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: Adams, arts, bbc, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, Douglas Adams, Five Doctors, Gallifrey, Graham Williams, Horns of Nimon, John Nathan Turner, Malcolm Hulke, paul mcgann, science fiction, Shada, tardis, Time Lord, Tom Baker, Unearthly Child | Leave a comment »

House of Cards (US, 2013): Chapter 4 (Review)

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Darren

So you lied to his face?

No. I revised the parametres of my promise.

Which is lying.

Which is politics.

– Bob Birch and Frank Underwood

After spending three episodes lining everything up and getting all the plot points and characters to where they need to be, it looks like House of Cards is finally ready to kick into high gear. There’s still a sense that show isn’t as comfortable with its amoral and sociopathic lead character as it should be, but there’s finally a sense of what Frank Underwood is capable of. We’ve seen him topple the incoming Secretary of State using just a college article that the man didn’t write, but that sort of politicking should be second-nature to Underwood at this point. Here, Frank is a bit more ruthless, a bit less concerned about collateral damage.

That’s really the key here. House of Cards needs us to root for Frank despite his drive for power at all costs, without excusing it. It looks like we’re getting to where we need to be.

Speaking Frankly…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Bob Birch, David, david fincher, Francis Urquhart, Frank, Frank Underwood, Freddie, House of Card, House of Cards, kevin spacey, netflix, Republican, republicans, Underwood, United States, Zoe | 1 Comment »

Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka (Review)

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Darren

Scream of the Shalka originally streamed in 2003.

Doctor Who survived its cancellation across a variety of media. There were unofficial videos starring Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. There were audio plays. There were mountains of books. The BBC even came up with the clever idea of offering on-line content, with a series of illustrated audio plays, including the Seventh Doctor story Death Comes to Time and the Sixth Doctor adventure Real Time, as well as an adaptation of the aborted Douglas Adams serial Shada. Most of these were little more than powerpoints with sound playing over them. However, for the show’s fortieth anniversary, the BBC came up with an altogether more ambitious idea – a brand new fully animated adventure starring a new Doctor and promising a wave of new adventures, striving boldly forward into the new century.

The Doctor is in…

You can hear the serial, free, here.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: animated, arts, bbc, Derek Jacobi, doctor who, DoctorWho, Master, Paul Cornell, Richard E. Grant, russell t. davies, Scream of the Shalka, steven moffat, Sylvester McCoy, the doctor, the master, Third Doctor, Webcast | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: Death Comes to Time (Review)

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Darren

Death Comes to Time originally broadcast on the BBC website in 2001.

I’m just another alien…

Alien to where?

Everywhere.

– the Doctor and Bedloe

There is quite a lot to like about Death Comes to Time. It offers a conclusion to Ace’s character arc. It features a stellar voice cast. Tannis is great villain. The script isn’t mired in continuity or slavishly devoted to the letter of the continuity of Doctor Who.

On the other hand, there’s quite a lot to loathe about Death Comes to Time. In moving away from Doctor Who continuity, it feels like a generic space opera. There’s a loss of the intimacy that defined the series. There’s a central revelation that makes no sense and a central moral philosophy which seems at odds with the very heart of Doctor Who. On top of that, it seems rather clumsily constructed. If it was intended as a pilot, the wrong characters are in focus for most of its not-insignificant runtime.

Hello, stonehenge!

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Colin Baker, Death Comes to Time, Dictators, doctor, DoctorWho, Kane, Parting of the Ways, paul mcgann, Peter Davison, russell t. davies, Salla, Sylvester McCoy, tardis, Time Lord, timelord, tony blair | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Real Time (Review)

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Darren

Real Time originally broadcast on the BBC website in 2002.

Why do you talk so much?

You never know who is listening.

– Cyberwoman Savage and the Doctor discover why he lends himself to audio

It’s remarkably how much energy went in to keeping Doctor Who alive for those years when it was off the air. There was, of course, the fiction produced outside the BBC. Virgin produced The New Adventures in book form, there were comics and various “spin-off” projects. However, these lacked the sort of gravitas that came from having an iconic performer in a classic role. So Big Finish began producing a range of audio adventures (“full cast dramas”) centred around the show. More than that, though, they actually managed to recruit some of the actors. Paul McGann, for example, has had a great run in audio despite only appearing in one televised adventure. Colin Baker has arguably reinvented his take on the Doctor, free from the dodgy writing and behind-the-scenes turmoil that rocked his two-season tenure.

At the same time, the BBC was trying to figure out what to do with the property. There had long been talk of resurrecting the Timelord, the failure of the television movie notwithstanding. BBCi had even produced an official webcast with Sylvester McCoy from writer-director Dan Freedman, named Death Comes to Time. However, while I’ll admit that Death Comes to Time has its strengths, there was something missing. When the time came to do a second webcast, BBCi teamed up with Big Finish, with Big Finish founder Gary Russell stepping up to write and direct an adventure especially for animation.

The result is Real Time. While it’s pretty far from perfect, it is intriguing, smart and fun. More than that, though, it supports the oft-heard argument that Colin Baker has been vindicated by his involvement in these projects. In fact, I didn’t want to strangle the Sixth Doctor once while listening to Real Time. It might even inspire me to check out some of the Big Finish range.

Face off…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Colin Baker, Cyberman, cybermen, doctor, DoctorWho, Gary Russell, paul mcgann, Realtime, science fiction, Sixth Doctor, Sylvester McCoy, tardis | 1 Comment »

Alfred Hitchcock at the Space!

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Darren

Hitchcock is released in the UK and Ireland this week. I actually quite enjoyed it, but – then again – I am a big fan of the director and his work. I was notified this week that The Space, Britain’s on-line cultural hub run by the BBC and by the Arts Council, is celebrating the director’s legacy and has collected a host of Hitchcock-related materials from its archives, all of which are available via their website. It’s a great service, and I’m remarkably fond of it. It’s also nice to see a celebration of Hitchcock, and the sharing of material from the archives, free to the public at large. You can find the website here or click the picture below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: alfred hitchcock, anthony hopkins, arts, Arts Council, bbc, hitchcock, Psycho, space | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice (Review)

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Darren

The Vampires of Venice originally aired in 2010.

Tell me the whole plan!

…

One day that will work.

– the Doctor

The Vampires of Venice is interesting because it looks very different in 2013 as compared to when it was originally broadcast in 2010. In 2010, it looked a bit overly familiar, a collection of the tropes and storytelling tricks that we took for granted in the show under Russell T. Davies. The elements felt, at the time, a little over-familiar. Indeed, it seemed like Toby Whithouse’s script owed a great deal to his earlier adventure School Reunion.

However, Doctor Who looks very different in 2013. The show has definitely radically changed, so that these familiar plot points don’t seem quite so familiar any longer. Whereas The Vampires of Venice didn’t feel so strange after five years of Russell T. Davies, it does seem a bit more unique after three years of Steven Moffat. It doesn’t seem so much an attempt to repackage these story elements as it does one final celebration of them, a fond farewell to many of the narrative bits and pieces that we’d come to take for granted.

How times change.