Dir: Gordon Flemyng
Star: Peter Cushing, Roberta Tovey, Roy Castle, Jenny Linden

The revival of Dr. Who by the BBC, beginning in 2005, has been one of the most spectacular successes of recent years. It resurrected a series which had, for all practical purposes, been dead and buried since 1989 – the previous reboot, in 1996 with Paul McGann, having been a one-shot TV movie flop. But McGann wasn’t the only person to play the Doctor outside the well-known regulars from the series. Indeed, if you add in Comic Relief spoof, The Curse of Fatal Death, and the list includes Richard E. Grant, Joanna Lumley, Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Grant – all of whom would have been interesting choices as the permanent incumbent.

Back in the 1960’s, Peter Cushing played the Doctor in two spin-off movies. The potential here was huge: after all, Cushing had already become the canonical Baron Frankenstein and Van Helsing, as well as, arguably, Winston Smith and Sherlock Holmes. The concept of him playing a stern, Frankenstein-styled Doctor appealed enormously. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got: rather, the words “disastrous misfire” come to mind, particularly for the first movie.

I can’t categorically state this is not due to my expectations having been radically revamped by the new series. Much as I loved Tom Baker growing up, I haven’t dared watch any of the earlier series since we fell in love with the reboot – it could be a disaster, in line with the re-viewing of Blake’s 7, which only succeeded in shattering forever, my fondly-held teenage illusion that it was a good programme. Certainly, it seems likely the sixties Who was aimed more directly at kids, not the general audience for the new version. But even so… Sheesh, this is pretty bad.

And it’s bad, right from the opening credits. Excuse me, where is the Dr. Who theme? Y’know – OOO-weeee-ooo… Instead, we get some smooth jazz, over which it was just about possible to fit the “real” theme, if you hummed it loudly. And, trust me, we did. When we get to the Doctor, things get even worse, for he is simply a doddery old human, reading a comic in his arm-chair. Hello! Alien? Two hearts? Gallifrey? Time-lord? Not here. Cushing was only in his early fifties, but plays the part about twenty years older. And “Who”? Here, it’s his family name. I’ll repeat that: it’s his family name. Pause to roll eyes. Though unfortunately, his grand-daughters are named Barbara (Linden) and Susan (Tovey), rather than Cindy-Lou.

There is still the Tardis, here invented by the Doctor, and it whizzes the three of them, along with Barbara’s boyfriend, Ian (Castle), off to a distant planet, after Ian sits on the lever which operates it. That’s basically his role: to be a clumsy, inept and generally useless sidekick, and this may be the way in which the film differs furthest from the current series. The planet has largely been destroyed by a nuclear war, with the two races then diverging. One has retreated inside a city, donning metal suits to avoid the radiation and rolling around as the Daleks. The others, the Thals (above right), appear to have reverted to a culture based on a Las Vegas floor-show. They have a medicine allowing them to withstand the radiation; the Daleks want that, and when they discover it doesn’t work on them, prepare to explode another nuclear bomb that will jack the radiation up to lethal levels.

The Daleks are, frankly, a bit crap, and I speak as someone terrified of them as a child.  A major plot point is that they get their power through the floor, like dodgem cars, so have all the mobility of Scalextric models and can be stopped by pushing them onto anything insulated. When the humans works this out, it leads to Ian climbing into one, though the Doctor and Barbara then have to drag him around by the exterminating nozzle. It still proves capable of fooling the other Daleks. One wonders how they ever conquered the universe, since slopes and open lift shafts also prove… troublesome.

They… speak… very… very… slowly… and don’t even redeem themselves by yelling “Exterminate!” Their taste in interior design is interesting, with the decor including flanges made out of gold tin-foil and, of all things, lava lamps. Yes, lava lamps. As the screenshot above shows, we’re not kidding. We wondered if, perhaps, they also had one of those swing chairs and a few Roger Dean posters elsewhere in the complex.

Of course, this Doctor and his companions are a match as far as sharpness goes. After they escape, they head back to the Tardis to leave, everyone completely forgetting – teehee! – that a key component was still in the possession of the Daleks, having been taken when they “searched” the Doctor following his capture. Quotes used advisedly there, since it doesn’t even qualify as a cursory patdown from a bored night-club bouncer at the end of his shift. In their defense, you can’t do much, when you have a sink plunger and a pincer instead of opposable thumbs.

They team up with the Thals, who need to be convinced they must fight the Daleks. Again, this runs absolutely counter to the modern Doctor, to whom violence is abhorrent, to be avoided at all costs. Here, not so much: Cushing basically calls them a bunch of fags and makes clucking sounds until they agree to attack. Just in time, too, as the Daleks have started their 100-second countdown to exploding their nuclear weapon.

Two things stand out here. Firstly, it’s very accommodating of the Daleks to use Earth units – heck, they label their control panel in English, too. Secondly, what follows is the longest 100 seconds in cinematic history, the timer apparently only working when the camera is on it. The countdown runs for a full five and a half minutes before Ian causes the Daleks to turn all their weapons onto their own control panel, destroying both it and themselves. Oops. Like I said: how the hell did this lot ever become the terror of the universe?

Undaunted, much the same team created a sequel the following year, Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 AD, whose main distinguishing feature is that it doesn’t entirely suck. The storyline is better thought out, some of the flying saucer special effects are surprisingly good (except for the crash at the end, which is clearly about eight inches high), and the supporting cast is helped by stalwarts such as Andrew Keir and Philip Madoc. There’s a nice resonance with the current series, in that one companion is Bernard Cribbins, who plays the grandfather of new companion Donna Noble for the reboot. Mind you, I could really have done without seeing him and Cushing in black PVC catsuits (left). That sort of thing needs to be strictly reserved for Honor Blackman.

Even by the low standards of mid-sixties science fiction, they are marginally tolerable at best, and the intervening near half-century has not been kind. Often reaching the jaw-droppingly bad level, it’s no wonder both films are treated with contempt bordering on loathing by Whovians, with the series canon denying their existence, due to the changes made to the beloved series. I’ll close with this exemplary example, from Invasion Earth, demonstrating how you can dispose of a massively-superior alien threat.

D+

Dead Set Dir: Yann Demange Star: Jaime Winstone, Andy Nyman, Kevin Eldon, Riz Ahmed I largely avoided the Big Brother phenomenon, leaving the country mere months after the programme started in 2000, though it was clearly already gaining some steam. My ignorance probably added some extra resonance to this five-part series, which centres on the effect a zombie outbreak would have on show participants, from both sides of the camera. Certainly, there is no dodging the parallel drawn between the reality show devotees who gather outside the studio with their signs and chants, and the living dead chewing on human flesh later – both mindless zombies, of one kind or another.

The Walking Dead Dir: Frank Darabont and others Star: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden The hero is Rick Grimes (Lincoln), a cop who is shot, and comes back from unconsciousness – like the protagonist in 28 Days Later – to find the world has gone to hell. He returns home to find his wife Lori (Callies) and son have vanished, and heads off towards Atlanta to find them. What he doesn’t know is that, while his family are safe, Lori is now in a relationship with Rick’s old partner, Shane (Bernthal), hiding out in the country.  Rick has first to track them down, and then figure out how to survive in a world with very little infrastructure left.

Read More

This week marks the tenth anniversary of my permanent arrival in the United States of America. What a long, strange journey it has been: like all of life, there have been ups and downs, highs and lows, and moments to remember in both directions. After the jump, you’ll find ten such memories, some personal and others global, to mark my decade as an American citizen…

1. November 2000: Arriving in the US.
The biggest leap in my life: quit my job, sell my house and pack up all my possessions to move over five thousand miles to live with a woman I’d only spent brief periods with. Was I insane? But on arrival, Chris told me that VNV Nation were playing in Phoenix the following day. It was not just one of the best concerts of my life, but in hindsight, a positive omen that my faith in true love would be rewarded.

2. September 2001: 9/11
This was the Kennedy assassination of our generation: everyone remembers where they were. We were hosting a film-maker whose movie we had screened at a local college the previous night. He and we watched as events unfolded through the day, but what sticks in my memory is going out for dinner that evening, to the appropriately-named Streets of New York. We were the only people in there. Phoenix and the restaurant were more deserted than I’ve ever seen them.

3. July 2002: Married Bliss
Having proposed to Chris after the Diamondbacks won the World Series the previous November, the wedding took place – by order of my parents – back in Scotland. The ceremony was in Aberdeen, at King’s College Chapel, with a busload of family having come through from Forres; we then took the bus back for the reception at Brodie Castle, and then honeymooned for two weeks in Europe. It was utterly unforgettable. But let’s not do it again, okay?

4. October 2004: Home Invasion
This was simply weird. Very late at night, we hear a banging down the corridor, as someone goes into our daughter’s room. At first, we thought it was one of her friends, but turns out to be some drunk woman, who had gone into the wrong house – we had left the front-door unlocked. And now she wouldn’t leave. We ended up having to call the police, who took her away to dry out. I guess, in the same category, there was my mid-night encounter with a Palo Verde beetle, which I saw on the floor of the kitchen and mistook for a bag of beads. The phrase “I can’t believe I picked the fucker up!” has now entered house legend.

5. April 2006: Life Begins at Forty
I turned forty and Chris decided to throw a comedy roast for me; we’d been putting on a lot of stand-up shows, and so she had easy access to a lot of comedians. You haven’t lived until you’ve been sat on a stage and been mercilessly ripped a new one, both live and “by satellite”, though I did get to fire back at the end, and think I gave as good as I got. The event also featured a set by The Strand, who supported VNV Nation for #1, who played a one-off cover of Trash City.

6. August 2006: My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult
No, not the band (though we did see them at the Mason Jar in 2002).  I mean our association with convicted serial-killer Dale Hausner: admittedly, we knew his brother much better, but had actually done Dale’s website for him – I was working for Go Daddy at the time. And then Dale got arrested. The shock of the news was only exceeded by the speed with which my employer escorted me off the premises, subsequently dismissing me, after I came forward voluntarily, and told them what had happened. Fuck Bob Parsons.

7. March 2007: Up the Ying Yang
Trash City Entertainment has hosted many fabulous, highly-successful events. But who remembers those? The one that sticks in my mind was putting on The Ying Yang Twins at The Sets in Tempe: a monstrous fiasco which left us several thousand dollars out of pocket and, in hindsight, should have sent us running and screaming rather than taking it on. The first rule of event-planning is stick to what you know. And we don’t know crap, about rap. Lesson learned.

8. August 2008: Pheel the Phear
On the other hand, we do know about horror movies, which may be why this was a far greater success! It wasn’t our first Phoenix Fear Film Festival – but it was our first “proper” one, as the original took place in an art gallery, which required us to spent some hours taping garbage bags on the windows, to get it dark enough to show films! Tn contrast, the second took place at Chandler Cinemas, a “proper” venue, and so represented the fulfillment of a lifelong ambition.

9. June 2010: Getting Press Ganged.
The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team have become an increasing  part of my life here, since the won the World Series in 2001. But I never thought I’d end up covering their games from the press-box at Chase Field. But that’s what happened, as I guested there, in an online chat for Fox Sports Arizona. The whole “You’re not supposed to cheer in the press-box” thing proved harder to do than I thought, but it’s amazing what a fit of coughing can cover up…

10. November 2010: Another Moving Experience.
I end my decade here much as it began – by moving. Chris and I have just taken occupancy of our first home. It’s not the first we’ve lived in together, but it is the first we have bought together, and it’s surprising what a significant difference that makes. This move was less stressful than last time – November rather than June, and also felt like a positive move, being to a bigger place we own, rather than a smaller rental.

Of course, like all new houses, it’s a work in progress – and, I suspect, one that will take well into the second decade to complete. What else will the next ten years provide? Looking at the list above,  I think it would be pointless to try and predict! But whatever it is, I’m ready…

First off, I have never watched an episode of Glee before this week. So for those of you as ignorant of the surprise hit Fox TV series as I am, let’s summarize. It’s about the members of a school choir in Lima, Ohio, as well as teacher Will Schuester, who runs the club (Matthew Morrison), and is about a 50/50 mix of high-school drama and musical numbers. The latter cover pretty much the gamut, from show tunes to Beyonce [sometimes even in the same number], and has become a cultural phenomenon. The show has sold 13 million digital downloads, and last year the cast had 25 songs reach the Billboard Top 100, the most by any act since the height of Beatlemania in 1964.

Still, you’ll probably also understand from that description why it wasn’t of much interest to me until last Tuesday, when the show delivered one of its themed episodes. Previous ones had included Madonna and Britney Spears (yawn…), but this one was themed on The Rocky Horror Show. Having seen more incarnations of that show than I care to think, dating back bordering on 25 years, this had to be seen. However, I had my pointy boots on, ready to administer an appropriate kicking, having accidentally stumbled open a scene where a fat black girl was playing the part of Frank N. Furter. Affirmative action at it’s most horrific? Lock and load, people.

Fortunately, it wasn’t that terrible. While I had not imagined the scene, it was at least provided with some justification – the original Frank having dropped out after his parents objected to the role, and the replacement choice fits in with the life-affirming messages for which the show is apparently renowned. But it also showed up the most obvious flaw in the endeavour: the need to water down the transgressive nature of the show (with its mantra, “Don’t dream it – be it!”) for network television. It’s not even allowed to use the word “transsexual”. When the aforementioned Ms. Furter was singing Sweet Transvestite, the lyric became “I’m a sweet transvestite, from sin-sational Transylvania.” Really. That wasn’t the worst moment of such TV censorship. Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me went from:

• Original:
  I thought there’s no use getting into heavy petting
  It only leads to trouble and seat wetting…
  
• TV Version:
  I thought there’s no use getting into heavy sweating
  It only leads to trouble and bad fretting…

Really. If you’re going to have a sanitized version of Rocky Horror, what’s the point? It’s like doing a remake of She-Wolf of the SS and making Ilsa Jewish. Missing the point much? I did enjoy the cameos from original movie cast members, Meat Loaf and Barry Bostwick, as TV executives – I can only presume Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry were “otherwise engaged”, filing their taxes or something. That drove the main plot-thread, which had cheer-leading coach and part-time TV pundit Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) joining the cast of the upcoming school production of The Rocky Horror Show, so she can do an expose on the filth your tax dollars is paying for, etc. etc.

Actually, she makes some interesting points, about how art whose only motive is to provoke, is usually bad art. But Will suddenly realizes that his motives for putting on the show are not even anything to do with ‘pushing the envelope’, being far more self-centred, and cancels the show. Damn. Just when a potentially-interesting confrontation was looming. Instead, the show closes with the cast performing The Time Warp for themselves, after some pseudo-philosophical justification that Rocky became a cult phenomenon due to the outcasts who embraced it. So they’re just like the glee club! [Only with significantly worse complexions and teeth].

Lob on the implausibility of, apparently, going from conception to near-finished show in about three days, and the show was on wobbly ground, plotwise. We were also unimpressed by its perpetuation of the myth that school is a place where people from all different social groups, races  and backgrounds get along, in a way actually only seen in seventies’ Coke adverts.  And teenage guys are just as insecure about their bodies as girls! Who knew? Which is why there are so many of the former getting plastic surgery before they can legally have sex. Oh, wait…

Still, as with any musical, it stands or falls on the strength of the songs [let’s face it, The Sound of Music? Totally implausible]  and while the songwriting ability of Richard O’Brien is undimmed here, the performances delivered are almost entirely forgettable. With the exception of Sweet Transvestite – which, whatever its flaws, did at least bring something new to the party – at their best, they were adequate re-stagings of the versions from the original play. However, much of the time, they felt more like a homage to High School Musical than Rocky Horror, bland karaoke versions that were a shadow of the original.

I have to say, I have my suspicions that the episode may perhaps have been connected to the 35th-anniversary release this week of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on BluRay. By Fox. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. I don’t think I’ll ever watch Glee again – not unless they do a Front Line Assembly or VNV Nation-themed edition. Seems unlikely, shall we say…

It may be tied to the decline in our cinema-going, but we’re watching more TV at this point that any time I can remember. There have been occasions recently when our living-room Tivo has been unable to cope with the scheduling, as we try and record three programmes simultaneously – fortunately, there is also the bedroom DVR which can be used as a back-up. After jump, you’ll find the ten shows which have entertained us most reliably this year – unlike our 2008 listing, we’re just going in alphabetical order this time.

Note: there’s a couple of new shows in the fall season, Nikita and The Event, that have potential, but we haven’t seen enough episodes to be sure. They’ll qualify for next year’s listing (if I do one…).

Burn Notice (right). Now in its fourth season, it took a little while for the series to gain a hold – we might not have bothered, except for the presence of Bruce Campbell as a supporting character (we’ll cut anything with him in it some slack). Its tale of disenfranchised spy Michael Weston, stuck in Miami, didn’t initially seem to have much potential, and it wasn’t until the second season that the four central characters began to take hold. While largely a bunch of misfits, they are now gelling, and the stories are peppered with little nuggets of spycraft, explaining the tactics and procedures being used. The scripts do a good job of combining single-episode stories with the over-riding arc, but it’s the characters that make this addictive.

Caprica. I never watched Battlestar Galactica, so the prequel aspect of this show for that is entirely lost on me, yet that doesn’t impact my appreciation of the imagination on view. What I like is the all-encompassing nature of the universe it depicts, with some thought having gone into every aspect of the alien world from sports to gods – it’s recognizably humanoid, yet distinctly non-human. It does a good job of blending politics and religion, with the “terrorists” beliefs closer to those of Western civilization than those against whom they are fighting. Add in ruminations on what it means to be human, and this is more thought-provoking than I expected it to be. Of course, SyFy cancelled it this week. Bastards.

Dexter. Ok, we may not have liked Dexter’s wife Rita all that much, finding her increasingly whiny and controlling. That said, the end of season four packed an enormous wallop, and the ramifications of that shock are rumbling through the new series, with Dexter having to come to terms with several new roles as a father and mentor. Hall’s performance continues to help take a character who should, by all “normal” standards, be a villain and turn him into someone with whom the audience can sympathize, even as he does things far beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour. Inevitably, claims of copycat killers have already begun to surface…

Doctor Who. The news of the departure of David Tennant from the show was greeted with dismay in TC Towers. Who could ever replace, arguably, the finest Doctor ever? And replacement, Matt Smith, was only 26, barely an adult. Tennant signed off at the very start of 2010, in a heartrending episode, as his Doctor had the chance to say farewell before bowing out; we caught Smith’s debut when we were in Scotland in April and… Well, initially he seemed a bit of a young clone of Tennant, but as the series developed, he brought more of himself to the role. The results proved acceptable, even to hardened sceptics like ourselves, and occasionally magnificent, as in Vincent and the Doctor. Smith? He’ll do.

Fringe. Now into its third series and developing nicely, alternating episodes between the two worlds, with FBI agent Olivia Dunham now trapped on the other side, “infected” with the memories of the self from there, while said other Olivia operates undercover on our side.  This duality gives most of the other cast members a similar chance to stretch out a bit, playing two versions of the same character; most notably, Walter Bishop (John Noble), whose alter ego is radically different from the gentle, confused genius we’ve grown to love. Quite some way from the X-Files clone it initially appeared to be.

Haven (left). And similarly, this show has come quite some way from the Fringe clone it initially appeared to be. FBI agent, with a black boss, investigating interconnected paranormal occurrences known as the Pattern, sorry, Troubles? Hmm. Fortunately, the series has found its own path, with Audrey Parker trying to penetrate a close-knit community, and discover the truth about her own past as well. To be honest, perhaps too similar to SciFi, sorry, SyFy shows Eureka and Warehouse 13, but we don’t watch those, so who cares? Certainly, the last scene in the final ep wins “Rug-puller of 2010”, leaving us going, “Whaaaaat?”

The IT Crowd. Creator Graham Linehan has brought much the same quirky, slightly surreal quality to this show about “freaks and geeks,” as he did to Father Ted. But as someone who works in tech support, I can particularly relate [“Have you tried turning it off and on again,” is genuinely how we start troubleshooting customer’s server issues, though we usually put it in terms like, “Have you executed a power cycle?”]. At its best, the show has the same sense of delirious, snowballing chaos as Fawlty Towers, where the best intentions spiral off into unintended consequence

Modern Family. It’ll be ten years come Thanksgiving I’ve been out here, and I finally found an American sitcom that is actually enjoyable. Seinfeld, Friends, Arrrested Development, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? All left me stone-cold. But the comedy here flows naturally from the characters, who are the disparate bunch of dysfunctional individuals that you find in any…well, modern family. If you can’t find someone in this show that’s a carbon-copy of someone you know, check your pulse. And no longer will Ty Burrell just be, “that jackass from the Dawn of the Dead remake.”

Spooks. PBS have been showing all the episodes (here known as Mi-5, presumably to avoid confusion with Ghost Hunters International), from its beginning, and we’ve grown totally hooked, to the point where “unofficial sources” have been used to obtain the latest series. It’s like 24 on crack, condensing an entire terrorist incident into a single hour, rather than over six months episodes. And having now also condensed so many series into a year, the high fatality rate for which the show is justly famous, makes it seem the average life-expectancy of an MI-5 operative is about four weeks. But who’d win if Adam Carter (below) and Jack Bauer had a fight?

24. And speaking of whom, we bid a fond farewell to Bauer, who finally exited our television screen approaching nine marvellous years after his first “Dammit!” We had our up and downs, didn’t we, Jack, and it’s probably right that the show departed, rather than lumbering on until Special Agent Bauer was pushing himself gamely about on a Zimmer frame. The final series was as solid as ever, with the usual mix of terrorists, slimy politicians, betrayals, Chloe’s furrowed brow and Jack’s not-so veiled threats. There’ll be a gap in our lives next winter that will be hard for any other show to fill.