Private Passion

One of those things people always asked in those annoying MySpace (or My [ ] as I understand it's now called, in a witless move that reminds me I'm not sad I left it) questionnaires that went round, aside from "do you have a crush on one of your top 8 friends?" was "What's your favourite TV program?" Occasionally you'd get a "What's your favourite book?" but more often that question was left out for the naturally important "Who's the last person you texted? Was it a girl? Was it? Was it? Do you have a crush on someone?" In conversation too it's always "Did you see Sherlock at the weekend?" or whatever the TV talking point is at the time or "What music do you like?"

They're all great questions and tell you a lot about me (Yes. Have I Got News For You or Doctor Who. The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Lee. He's not a girl though I can understand why you'd be confused. Yes wasn't it excellent, I have theories but bloody Moffat is gonna make us wait another 18 months isn't he!!! and Ska & Rock. In case you were interested) but they miss out something I love almost on a par with TV:

Radio.

Specifically Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra (for the even more sad). I feel for those of you who didn't close the window the second I said Radio 4, I should explain. I don't love ALL of Radio 4. The only point to The Archers as far as I can tell is so we have an equivalent to "it's like watching paint dry" for blind people: "It's like listening to The Archers." Nor do I care for shipping forecasts and even though I love books I never listen to The Book At Bedtime mainly because 10:45 is not bedtime. Until they move it to 3am and have someone reading aloud from the weeks FHM magazine, Radio 4 is never gonna shake off it's elderly image.

But comedy. Comedy I love as an art above all others and Radio 4 does it fantastically. 6:30 every weekday is home to some of the funniest jokes I have ever heard and Claire In The Community (If I tell you the name is the funniest thing about it, you start to see what I mean). I used to use Radio 4 to give me the edge when it came to comedy. By that I mean, I stole the jokes and told them at school coz nobody was gonna have listened to it. It keeps me one step ahead when it comes to comedians to watch out for, thanks to his excellent series What To Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else on Radio 4, I was very excited to go and see Andrew Lawrence live at the Frog and Fiddle even if no one else knew why I was THAT excited to be going to the pub and staged an intervention in case I had a drinking problem. Then eventually when Andrew Lawrence appeared on Mock The Week I could be smug and happy coz I already knew about him.

But the time for my secret passion is over, because I think everyone should be talking about and enjoying these quality shows. So, with that in mind, here are 10 Radio comedies, I think everyone should give a go. Think of these as the 10 shows I would take with me if I was stranded on a desert island.

10. You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings Of Hamish and Dougal

This series of 15 minute visits to the glens of Scotland is a spin-off of another radio comedy, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (more of which later). It's also a great one to start this list with because it demonstrates some of the things radio comedy can do which it's TV counterparts can't. For example, one episode involves Hamish and Dougal getting stuck in a massive London department store in between floors. After five minutes of jokes about them panicking and having to eat each other, it is revealed that they aren't in a lift but are on an escalator that has stopped and can't be bothered to walk up the remaining stairs, obviously on TV that joke would be ruined from the start, on radio it's great. It's written by and stars Barry Cryer (Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies) and Greame Garden (The Goodies) with Jeremy Hardy (more of whom later) and Alison Steadman (Gavin's mum in Gavin and Stacey) Hamish and Dougal is a world of puns (*Lots of glasses raised and clinking* "To the ladies!" *everybody runs to the women's toilet. and the homeless man selling Bigger Shoes.) and surreal stupidity. The great thing about radio is that budget's really don't matter hence this crazy film parody with Volcano. It's not quite brilliant out of context, but there isn't enough of this show on the interweb, still funny though:

9. That Mitchell and Webb Sound

David Mitchell (That Mitchell and Webb Look) and Robert Webb (The Mitchell and Webb Look) write and star in this precursor to TV's That Mitchell and Webb Look. It's a good example of how TV shows start out on the radio. Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh, Hancock's Half Hour, Armstrong and Miller, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Alan Partridge... is a very short list of others that started on Radio. A lot of Mitchell and Webb's radio sketches were done again in the TV show, because sometimes Radio is a good testing ground for comedians to try out material before showing it to millions of people on TV, so listening to this put you one step ahead of the comedy game. A lot of their radio sketches were just inspired dualogues between the two of them some quite surreal and inspired ramblings. Here they are playing inanimate objects and someone has made some pictures for it

Also a little bonus clip for big comedy fans, a sketch which references loads of other comedy sketches

8. Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show

A traditional sitcom this time, about an elderly old "celebrity" (how famous he was is pretty vague, but it's obvious he wasn't that famous, definitely not as famous as he thinks) who has gone senile and is very often drunk. Barely knowing where he is or what he's saying, hilarious misunderstandings ensue. Steve Delaney has created a very good character, which he plays really well, I've seen Count Arthur Strong live and met Count Arthur Strong and he never breaks character once. He's a bumbling forgetful old idiot, so it is appropriate that I left my signed poster on the train on the way home.

In this clip, he is giving a speech to Oxford University on Creation vs. Natural Selection, but they've provided free drinks so he ends up rambling on about Cremation vs. Naturism.

7. Bleak Expectations

This big epic parody of Dickens has been running for four series now. In it Pip Bin (inventor of the bin) relates the story of how, when he was young, he and his loyal if useless friend Harry Biscuit battle the evil plans of Mr Gently Benevolent played by Antony Head (Buffy and everything else on TV ever) and various members of the Sternbeater or Hardthrasher family. The situations get increasingly complicated and surreal with bizzarely silly metaphors and the kind of big budget comedy stunts TV can only dream of. It's set in the Victorian world of workhouses and the industrial revolution and yet boasts "Shipwrecks, time-machines, the wild west, volcanoes, the underworld and a sinister new kind of cake." It's all a bit daft, I love that. I feel bad putting it as low as 7, but there are some proper classics coming up. This is definitely one of my favourite shows though.
There's not many clips on youtube (though whole episodes aplenty to check out) this wouldn't be my clip of choice but it is funny and sets up a bit of the story from the first episode

6. The Now Show

Steve Punt is the man I feel most sorry for in the world of comedy, because he is Hugh Dennis's comedy partner, the other half of the double act and you hadn't heard of him. Perhaps because when Punt and Dennis are put together it sounds too much like rhyming slang for rude bits. But in this awesome radio satire Punt and Dennis are united as hosts and very funny too. I always say I think Hugh Dennis is the best and most underrated panelist on Mock The Week because the younger comedians don't give him much of a chance to shine. In this, him and Steve do witty satire, silly voices and sketches without the interuption from Russell Howard whose just happy to be on TV and that his mum let him go out. Throw in funny songs from Mitch Benn and stand up from Marcus Brigstocke, Jon Holmes, John Finnemore (he writes a lot of David Mitchell's stuff) and guests and you have a hit. This clip trended on Twitter last year because it's an assault on News Of The World:

5. The News Quiz

Well the name pretty much says it all really. Basically the forerunner to Have I Got News For You which was originally pitched as "The News Quiz on TV." It's hosted by Sandi Toksvig who is the Danish lesbian you may have seen on QI of late. Actually the show's current regulars include Susan Calman and Sue Perkins too, making it the show with the most lesbians that you don't have to pay-per-view. It also features Andy Hamilton (the short guy with the beard who is on Have I Got News For You a lot) and Jeremy Hardy (who I mentioned earlier and will do again). They read out funny bits from Newspapers and shoot the breeze about the weeks events. When I've been to see it live they also stray off into chatting about any old thing and they're always witty and clever and funny. Here's Jeremy Hardy explaining Christmas:

4. Old Harry's Game

It's a sitcom. It's set in Hell. The main Character is Satan. Do you really need me to say anything else to justify loving this show?

OK then, it waltzes between character comedy, traditional sitcom, political and religious satire, social commentary and subtle emotional development without you even noticing it's doing it. It's jokes about religion are subtley woven into the story of the series and aren't likely to be branded "offensive" - and they certainly aren't judgemental which most religion jokes seem to be - but it's clever and suggestive and singularly fun. It's also another show that would never work on TV: It's kinda funny when Satan mentions ironic tortures he's having performed on various groups, probably less funny to see actual torture. Even Frankie Boyle might say that is a bit much...nah he wouldn't. For anyone who is a fan of both torture and comedy I recommend listening to this or sitting through an episode of Sky1s Trollied. In this scene, Satan has a meeting with God:

3. The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is my favourite book trilogy (of 5) of all time. It's also a TV show, a computer game, a play, a comic book, a film and a towel, but it all started back in 1978 on BBC Radio 4. The epic space adventure begins with the destruction of planet Earth. Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect escape and encounter Vogon Poetry (the third worst of the universe), a clinically depressed robot ("Life. Don't talk to me about life."), find a planet that builds other planets, discover the meaning of life (SPOILERS: It's 42), dine at the end of the universe and encounter a spaceship full of dead hairdressers and telephone cleaners that have special significance...and that's just series 1. You wait till series 3 when our heroes get tangled up in the most deadly form of conflict known to the universe that was so badly misunderstood by the English (cricket).
What I'm trying to say is this is an insanely fun romp through space and time with batty characters and wonderfully clever and silly asides from the outstanding mind of the late Douglas Adams. Oh and a manically depressed robot.
This clip is from the TV series, although it's pretty much unchanged from the radio version and the special effects in the TV series are so bad, it's pretty much radio:

2. Just A Minute

This is the first radio comedy I remember being properly into as an adult. I'd heard the odd bit of radio comedy as a kid, but was too young to fully appreciate it, then one day I discovered that my hero, Paul Merton, did this thing on Radio 4 and I started to grow up listening to it, which is awesome because that's just what Paul Merton did. It's the longest running panel show ever, it started in 1968 and is still going today with TV episodes planned for sometime in 2012. The ever old Nicholas Parsons has not missed an episode since 1968 and a constantly changing and updating list of regulars keeps it fresh. It's success comes partly from the fact it's such a simple game - you get given a subject and you have to talk about it for a minute without repeating yourself, hesitating, deviating from the topic or repetition.

1. I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

I cannot stress enough how much I like this program. One of the things that made me want to write this blog was that I feel this is as good as my favourite TV shows and better than almost everything on TV. The point of this show is that there is no point. All panel games have a point to them Have I Got News For You is about the news, Never Mind The Buzzcocks is about music, the idea of Clue is just to be silly. Regular rounds include New Definitions where panelists invent new definitions for existing words based on what they sound like (Arsenic: To steal buttocks. Feckless: An Irish Virgin. Countryside: To kill Piers Morgan), One Song To The Tune Of Another (If you need me to explain that one, this isn't for you), Sound Charades, Missing Words games, Pun-based games like those ones you see on Twitter hashtags eg #awfulprequels or #builderssongs. It's also pure filth. Utterly disgusting trash. The rudest, smuttiest innuendo you will ever hear while you eat your dinner. Despite being a panel show, at Christmas it's branched out and done Dickens and Alice In Wonderland parodies and has a brilliant spin-off sitcom (remember back that far.)

It was hosted by Humphrey Lyttleton from 1972 until 2007, he hosted an incredibly 50 series of the show and is the funniest jazz trumpeter you will ever hear. That's not even a joke, he genuinely was a jazz trumpeter and he genuinely reduced me to tears of laughter more times than probably anyone else. I'm increadibly pleased that my mum pushed me into buying tickets for myself and my friend Ben to see an episode of this being made in Peterborough - which I assumed was far away and hard to get to - because it turned out to be the last show he recorded before his death at age 86 - he was as funny as he ever was, if not more so.

These days Jack Dee hosts, and the show keeps going in style and is as mental as ever. Recent additions include a "Name-That-Celebrity-Duck" round...need I say more.

Here is some of that smut:

And Rob Brydon singing:

Please note: The clips I've used are the ones available on youtube. I love them all, but I'm not sure they're always the one's I would use to persuade you to check these shows out. Hope you do want to though. Every weekday 6:30 Radio 4, there's something funny...or Claire In The Community.

Now to "sing" us out, the star of three of these shows. Jeremy Hardy. This really is him trying his best!

WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T READ THIS BLOG

DONT SEE DONT SEE DONT SEE - Well this is clearly spam
DONT SEE DONT SEE DONT SEE - Ok, I wont then.
DONT SEE DONT SEE DONT SEE - Maybe you just shouldn't have posted it in the first place?
DONT SEE DONT SEE DONT SEE - Well I'm curious now, I'll have a look
ONCE YOU'VE STARTED READINGTHIS YOU CAN'T GET OUT! Alt+F4 folks. rEAD ON IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE wELL in that case why did you warn me that I couldn't get out of this? Surely I want to carry on reading. I feel bad about all the people who pushed Alt+F4 when I said now. Actually nah, they don't wanna read my blog; fuck 'em.
... ... .........A year ago A girl named Kathy was hated by everyone. Everyone made fun of her. She was ignored. Make your mind up! Made fun of or ignored. Even by messages. Was she actually ignored by messages, or did people just not send her any messages coz they didn't like her? All, I'm saying is don't blame the messages, blame the people - Unless I've drunkenly text you ever, in which case the messages did it. One day she decided to kill herself. Because even her parents ignored her. She jumed out her window. (yeah, it's missing a P, but I'll let it off that one) No one noticed utill people started dissapearing. What does that mean? "People are disappearing. Hey! I've just noticed Kathy hasn't been around in a while. She still hasn't cleaned up that giant blood splat on the driveway too...wait a minute!" Kathy haunted them. She made them suffer like the way she did. Quick point: The way she suffered was that she was ignored. Are you telling me she came back as a ghost and ignored them? I mean, I get pretty freaked out by ghosts, but if my house was haunted by a ghost who just ignored me...it'd be annoying, but I could live with it. I mean, my DVDs flying around the room by themselves = some scary shit. Being ignored by a girl = standard. She hung them slowly and stabed them over and over very slowly so they could suffer like she did. Well, that's just not how she sufferred at all. I'd be on her side if that had happened to her.
If you don't send this message to 15 diffrent comments you will die tonight by Kathy. Is that what it says on the death certificate? "Death by Kathy." Because she considers it ignooring her. I thought Ignoorance was meant to be bliiiss.
Example 1:
Dave looked at the first sentece and said, "Spam" Hey, I like the sound of Dave. And the next day the neighbors found him in his backyard, dead. Well, it would have been nice to know you Dave.
If you don't send this, Kathy WILL find you

Is that it?! "Example 1." I just assumed that if you say "example 1" it would be followed up by further examples. I mean, the evidence in example one is hazy enough as it is.

Doctor Who: The Movie Part 3: 1996 And All That

Last blog I looked at the 1960s Dalek movies on the grounds that there was a rumored Doctor Who movie with it's own actors and it's own separate continuity. It turned out I thought this was quite a good idea. Then Steven Moffat tweeted: "To clarify: any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and certainly NOT be a Hollywood reboot." So I figure we've got to look at the only official/cannon Doctor Who movie. The 1996 TV Movie.

The movie opens with a cool atmospheric graphic of an alien planet and a monologue voiceover from Paul McGann as The Doctor: "It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy, The Master, was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil crimes was read and sentence passed. And then he made his last, and I thought somewhat curious, request. He demanded that I, The Doctor, a rival Timelord, should take his remains back to our home planet, Gallifrey. It was a request they never should have granted." And then it hits us with a bloody fantastic arrangement of the theme tune.

But hang on...Was that Skaro, the planet of the Daleks? Or is it some other Skaro, like how there's a Manchester in America? No, the Dalek planet. Oh yes, here they are. I'm not familiar with these actors work myself, but I hear their collaboration with Alvin and the subsequent Squeakquel were very good, but I question whether getting the chipmunks to voice the Daleks was really appropriate. The opening scene did get one thing right though: "It was a request they never should have granted." They really shouldn't. Since when did the Daleks care about last requests and holding a fair trial? The Daleks aren't even a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kinda race, they're shoot-first-shoot-again-later guys. And what was the Doctor thinking? *ring ring* "HE-LLO DOC-TOR, CAN YOU COME TO SKA-RO, HOME-WORLD OF THE DA-LEKS AND PICK UP YOUR OTHER EN-EMY THE MAS-TER?" You'd be a mug to go!!

Cut to inside the TARDIS and it's the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy. Awesome. I liked him. And he looks so much better without the question mark jumper John Nathan-Turner's gran knitted him. I do have to question though, given that this film was meant to bring new audiences to Doctor Who is it not confusing for new fans to be watching Sylvester McCoy but hearing a voice over from the bloke who played And I in the film Withnail And I? Still it's good to give him a proper regeneration and a decent send-off. At least it would be if they did that. Instead, the TARDIS materialises in the middle of a gang battle, the gangsters then unload their automatic guns into the TARDIS doors. The Doctor then steps out and is, predictably, shot a fair bit. We don't know what happened between Survival, the last story in 1989, and now but whatever it is, the seventh Doctor clearly went senile or suicidal. "Hmmm...sounds like someone just unleashed a load of bullets into the TARDIS door, I'll just stick my head out the door and find out who could be doing that." DEAD! "What's that? Pick the Master up from the Dalek homeworld? Well I've got 20 minutes, and I can't see this going wrong, why the heck not?" DEAD!

That said the Madame Butterfly death scene on the operatin - oh by the way, I'm ignoring that whole Snake-Master thing because that's just plain weird. The scene in the hospital with Madame Butterfly and the Doctor waking up mid-operation is really good. I love that scene. The contrast of the music and the quite horrendous operation is really good. The Frankenstienesque regeneration is pretty cool too, I'm not sure they needed to intercut it with the bloke from the morgue watching the film on a telly - the only purpose for that bit seems to be to prove how clever they're being. And the new Paul-McGann Doctor sits up and then there's this shot:

Maybe it's pinikity to complain about one shot, but Where is that light coming from? He's locked in a drawer! The thing that really frustrates me with this movie is how many little silly things happen that are so easily avoidable. It's very cool and stylish but it makes no sense at all - like Heroes or the world of banking.

Now, although I'm very critical towards this film here, I want to make clear that I will not say one word against Paul McGann as the Doctor. I think he is an excellent actor and a great Doctor. I would really love to have seen more of him and am glad that he's done so many series with Big Finish. Actually, I will say one word against him. (Falls to knees) "Who...am...I? Who am I? WHO! AM! I!?!" is an awfully done, over-the-top stupid bit. But then I really don't know how you ever make that line not-stupid.

If terribly stupid things float your boat though, then this scene is definitely for you. The hospital administrator has come to see Dr. Grace about this double exposure thing (The Doctor's two hearts which turned out not to be a double exposure) he is fuming and burns the X-Ray to leave behind no evidence of the hospitals incompetence because "I have to keep this hospital open." Not ridiculous in itself, but as this scene comes a minute after we've seen The Doctor walking though a room with smashed-in windows, a leaky roof, flowers all over the floor, beds thrown everywhere, creepy kids toys all over the place and a big pile of smashed up shards of mirror, why is he bothering about a damn double exposure. Surely even the NHS must realise that the room the Doctor's in is unacceptable. Even the hospital administrator in Diagnosis Murder is less laughable than this guy and he's the comic relief (that says as much about the jokes in Diagnosis Murder as it does about the drama in this).

The Doctor steals his new outfit from the hospital changing rooms. So did his third and eleventh incarnations. That's three times he's stolen clothes from a hospital! I'm starting to think this guy just calls himself a doctor to avoid the queues in Primark.

As I said, Paul McGann is fantastic in this movie, full marks on his performance as the Doctor. But what of the new Master? The Master not getting human stuff is funny ("HAHA You kill me man!!" "You want me to kill you?"/"You're sick!" "Thank you.") It's a little bit let down by the fact that if Russell T. Davies wrote an episode of Torchwood where Captain Jack had to team up with Dale Winton in order to battle this incarnation of the Master, The Master would be the camp one.

Those little Master-not-getting-human-things lines are very good though and fit the Master's character well. I also really like The Master: "Gengis Kahn?" Chang-Li: "What about him?" The Master: "That was him." And the writers capture the Doctor perfectly in these bits. The slightly crazy scenes where he follows Dr Grace to her car trying to remember where he knows her from are superb. "I was with Puccini before he died...it was sooo sad," is such a Doctor-ish thing to say, it's bang-on for the character. And this line...this line is wonderful, a contender for best bit of the film:

And yet the problems and stupidness persist. For example, why does Chang-Li believe that the Master is not evil and the Doctor is the bad-guy just because the Master tells him so? The master has evil green eyes, speaks with a scary snake-like voice when he gets annoyed which is a lot, possesses Grace, calls himself The Master, has stolen a body and "What's in it for me?" "You get to live." All classic good-guy traits. Why on Earth would you trust this guy?

I love this gothic TARDIS design. I think it's really awesome. But then we see the bats and the dead leaves. Like the light on the Doctor's eye these are kinda stylish, but who has bats on a spaceship? To be fair, the TARDIS is infinite and it wouldn't surprise me to find that the Doctor is the kinda madman who likes to keep bats in his spaceship because it looks cool, if that happens in series 7 I could live with that. But I don't think that's the reason they're included here. I think they're in this film because the director thinks they look cool, but it's not justified in the script or in logic at all.

I probably haven't picked quite so many nits as this since infant school - I was very scruffy, in hindsight bath time isn't so bad - but this is a kinda big-stupid one. The Eye of Harmony only opens for Chang-Li because it needs a human eye. So you're saying if an all-knowing Timelord needed to open the Eye of Harmony for some reason they couldn't, but if Rory dropped his pen into the hole and bent down to have a look he could accidentally destroy all of time? Why would the Timelord's ever design that? I know Americans like their sci-fi to have a man with pointy ears going on about how illogical it all is, but this is just nuts.

This is where the line "The Doctor is half human" comes up. I wont get involved in this debate too much. Personally, I don't think the line needed to be in there. I don't see what it brings to the story. We can connect with the Doctor perfectly well if he's an alien and I like him best when he's oddly not-human. That said, if Moffat or someone chose to confirm or deny the half-human claim one way or the other, I wouldn't care. It doesn't make as much impact on the show as some fans seem to think. Personally, I think, until someone says other, he's 100% Timelord coz that's cooler.

Who cares? We don't have time for this half-human debate now! The Eye is open and that means that the world will end at midnight. I'm not gonna complain about this too much, because I never could resist a ticking clock, but I don't understand why midnight. There's not any real reason for the world to end at 00:00 on 1/1/2000. All I can think of is either 1) The writers thought it would be cool to tap into that late 90s millennium excitement, but neglected to come up with a reason to explain it in the story OR 2) The Eye Of Harmony infects everything with the millennium bug, which with hindsight is far less scary or exciting than it sounded.

The Master correcting Dr. Grace's grammar is a lovely bit, very Masterlike. The Master then vomits all over Grace and his vomit burns her flesh. So the Doctor sprays the Master with a fire extinguisher at which point the Master squirms and starts speaking in tongues and shouting "get it off me" in a silly voice. I want to make this a semi-proper sensible review with a bit of wit to it, but there are times when WTF? is really all I can say, and this is one of them.

The next bits are genuinely very very good and I would like to list the things I like about them:

1. The Doctor threatening to kill himself rather than the cop. Funny and brilliant.
2. "This planets about to be destroyed and I'm stuck in a traffic jam."
3. The music for the chase (and to be fair, the film in general) is very good. You can tell it influenced Murray Gold who composes the music for the new series.
4. "Yes, we're a...team."
5. Aside from the Master voming on some more people and turning them into statues (because that makes sense) all the business at the party is decent and witty and entertaining.
6. *Sets off fire alarm* "Why did you do that?" "Liven the mood." These lines make you realise how good this film could be. They've got the Doctor written perfectly.

The Doctor and Dr. Grace get back to the TARDIS and a police motorbike with no brakes comes zooming round the corner drives into the TARDIS and then, after a comedy pause, drives back out. There is a prize for the first viewer to tell me the relevance of this. Why is it there?

Inside the TARDIS, Grace knocks the Doctor out, I guess because the Master has some power over her because he threw up on her, it's never made entirely clear but the Master's vom seems to have odd powers. The Doctor is strapped to a table and the Master enters in full Timelord robes.
The Master: "I always like to dresssss for the occasion." Very Masterlike, good characterisation, but very camp.
The Doctor: "I'm glad you're aware of the gravity of the situation." Good Timelord banter.

Things get worse when the Master forces Grace to look into the Eye of Harmony and she goes blind. Even though when Chang-Li did it earlier he was fine. Bloody hell! This film doesn't even follow it's own continuity let alone that of the series as a whole!

Now here I have a really big question, because it's kinda crucial to everything. I've seen this film loads of times now, because there's a lot to really like about it, but for the life of me, I haven't a clue how they save the day. Can anyone explain what happens at the end? I know Grace rewires the console in some way (because you know, everything about her suggests she's an expert in Gallifreyan engineering, I'm sure she knows how to rewire a TARDIS, who doesn't? (hope the sarcasm comes over there)).

With the universe saved (probably, I don't have a clue what's going on at this stage), Grace helps the Doctor escape to fight the Master. The Master kills Grace and Chang-Li in unneccessarily graphic and brutal ways - I don't mind that, bit horrible for the kiddies but as a grown-up I liked it. Then the Doctor and The Master fight and trade cutting insults ("You want dominion over the living and yet all you do is kill" is a favourite line. "Life is wasted on the living" makes me laugh everytime.) and I LOVE that the Doctor tries to save the Master, this is the most right thing about their whole relationship in this film. Perfect.

So universe saved (somehow), Master defeated, the TARDIS decides to bring back Grace and Li, because it's a "sentimental old thing." Is that a bit of a cop out? To be fair, it did the same for Captain Jack in The Parting Of The Ways but why just those three companions? Of all the people the Doctor has known and lost, why only those? I guess the TARDIS must have been as fed up with Adric travelling inside it as we viewers were.

Final word: Lot's to enjoy, but lots of wasted potential, silly mistakes that just needn't have been made, and a baffling ending. Great theme tune and fantastic Doctor though.

PS. 2 mins, 38 seconds into this clip. The room that the hospital administrator isn't worried will get them closed down:

Doctor Who: The Movie Part 2: And Now In Colour

Steven Moffat promised his Twitter followers the other day: "To clarify: any Doctor Who movie would be made by the BBC team, star the current TV Doctor and certainly NOT be a Hollywood reboot." I think I think this is good news, but as I said, it could mean IF there is a movie, that the TV show will be off air for a couple of years while they film it. That would be not good. Anyway, as I'd all ready started looking at the previous movie attempts, I thought I'd share some thoughts anyway. Fandom always has room for one more critic. Let's start with the 1960's Dalek movies:

The Daleks

First criticism: The Doctor isn’t called ‘The Doctor,’ he is a Doctor whose surname happens to be Mr Who, which is blatently stupid and insane and clearly the show is called Doctor Who because the character is shrouded in mystery not because of....Look it’s just clearly stupid and makes the character sound like the punchline of a joke...Yes, I know the TV series did this on occasion, but it's idiotic.

The Doctor is also human and living in a quite horribly decorated house in England. I have no problem with this to be honest, the word Timelord hadn’t even been heard in the series in 1965 and even if it had, it doesn’t ruin the character to make him an eccentric human inventor who builds a time machine.

Actually, the opening shot shows his granddaughters reading science text books while he’s getting ‘most excited’ by a comic, which is more like the character we know and love today than William Hartnell’s portrayal was on the show. Ian is also a bit of a slapstick eejit in this version, rather than the hero who often saved the day on the TV show, so he is more like Mickey or Rory. Not that there’s anything wrong with the TV’s interpretation of the roles, in fact I like Hartnell’s grumpy Doctor and heroic-Ian just as much as silly-old-Cushing and daft-Ian, but it’s interesting to note how Who echoes these films in some ways more than the 1960s TV show. I do prefer though, that it is the Doctor who comes up with how to persuade the Thals they need to fight the Daleks, not Ian. The Doctor taking the chocolates clearly meant for Barbra and manoeuvring them so Ian sits on them is much more cheeky-Troughton than serious-Hartnell who was the Doctor in the TV original. Interesting to note too that they make Susan a much younger kid, again how many Moffat episodes put a kid at the heart of the action? (A: Lots). And watch Ian seeing inside TARDIS for the first time and then watch Rose seeing the inside of the TARDIS for the first time, Ian isn’t quite as hot but other-than-that spot-the-difference? (A: None) (Is that a little Weeping Angel in the garden? (A: No (But nice thought eh?)))

It seems odd to have a DVD in my collection that boasts that it’s “Glorious Technicolor” but for fans in the 60s, it must have been very exciting to see Doctor Who in colour. I guess the only 21^st century equivalent for a film would be to do it in 3D. I hate 3D though, so I hope not. But it would be cool to see it in a new light. And here the multi-coloured Daleks look great. It makes you appreciate what they were trying with the Victory Of The Daleks look.

The Daleks and their control room look pretty good on the higher budget, but there is still something reassuringly crap and dated about it all (that dead Dalek hand is just naff, as are the many attempts when Daleks try to push buttons with their claws, they are just plain rubbish). They’ve clearly got a bigger budget but don’t let it mess too much with the story – David Yates take notice! I mock it’s daftness a bit, but also I love that this is a movie where Daleks are beaten by pushing them down a lift shaft or shoved into walls. It’s barmy, silly and fun, in other words it’sDoctor Who.

At 1 hour 20 minutes, it is also considerably better paced than the original 174minute TV version. It’s hard to see what they’ve edited out. The plot remains almost totally intact. They’ve just tightened up the script and got rid of the tiny little bits that matter less. These days with 45 minute or, at most, 90 minute episodes this won’t be an issue with the new film, but it does mean that if I had some time to kill before work or something, I’d probably choose this over the awesome TV story.

Different but equally valid and brilliant performances from the original make this a great film. The fact that so little changes but everything just looks that little bit better is what the new movie should take from this.

Dalek Invasion Of Earth

Most of what I said about the last film is true of this one too. Slightly better looking sets and spaceships, held up with ultra-realistic pieces of string. And Robomen have the least effective crash helmets ever – just saying. There are two totally new companions in this one proving that 1) Doctor Who movies can develop their own characters and 2) Bernard Cribbins is an absolute legend - Playing a great down-to-earth slightly silly companion, so similar but also so very different from Wilfred Mott. Again they make the male companion a bit of a comedy character, but again it’s funny so...meh. It’s hard to complain about things that are funny, unless you write letters to the Daily Mail.

Unfortunately, this one doesn't perform quite so well in some areas. Those epic shots of Dalek's in deserted London from the TV show are missing. Those are brilliantly atmospheric and chilling. So it's a shame. Also, because of Susan's age and time constraints, the whole David/Susan love story and that heartbreaking conclusion when Susan leaves is gone. In a way, the emotional subplot had to go to make a tighter film, but that subplot was one of the main reasons Dalek Invasion Of Earth is my favourite Hartnell-era story and I really miss it when I watch this film.

Doctor Who: The Movie: Part 1

The big news this week is that there is going to be a Doctor Who movie. There was also some stuff about Saif Gadaffi, the government capping benefits in a way that will screw the poor, the eurozone going into meltdown, Burlesconi quitting - which is great for the people of Italy but bad for hookers and topical comedians - David Cameron going to Germany and asking their chancellor what the word for Bazooka is in German - clearly the "don't mention the war" memo never reached him - but we all know the real important story is there is going to be a Doctor Who movie. As in actually there might be this time, not just some sad fangirls/John Barrowman going "oh, there should be a movie with David Tennant coz I miss his face," starting rumours.

David Yates, the director of Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix, which is definitely in my top 8 favourite Harry Potter films (top 9, if you count puppet pals, which I definitely do)*, announced to Variety magazine that he was "in talks" with BBC Worldwide about a potential Doctor Who movie. Lots of fandom have decided that this is terrible news, for a show that's had 11 leading men, Doctor Who fans have very little tolerance for change. To be fair though, I think this time there is a case for doubting this film. David Yates said "It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into a bigger arena...Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch." Words like "Radical" and "transformation" can be a bit worrying especially since they seem so needless.

If the late, great Doctor Who Confidential (God rest it's soul) were still with us, I'm sure they'd be interviewing somebody who says "every episode of Doctor Who is like a mini-movie" anyway. An entire drinking game could be built around the number of times people say that on confidential:
1 shot every time someone says "it's like a mini-movie",
2 shots every time someone explains green screen,
A pint when Steven Moffat has to slowly and carefully explain his plots,
Half a pint whenever Matt Smith and Karen Gillan seem to be having too much fun,
A vodka for every time it seems Christopher Eccleston is taking it too seriously.

As for ignoring what RTD and the Moff have done with the show, well what they did was make an unloved show that was treated by most people as a joke and turned it into the biggest show in the UK that doesn't have Simon Cowell in it. They made a clever and emotionally engaging TV show fit for the 21st century that is loved by loads of people worldwide. By all means take it in your own direction, RTD did that, The Moff gave it his own spin, but he didn't just brush aside what had come before.

The implication is this is gonna be separate from the TV show. Made by BBC Worldwide and Hollywood, it will have it's own Doctor, its own companion and its own writers. I have no problem with that. The same thing was done in the 60s, when 2 films were made with Peter Cushing as the Doctor allowing the series to carry on churning out episodes. If it was to star Matt Smith and be written by the Moff - who are my favourite Doctor and favourite writer by the way - it would mean they're tied up making it for 2-3 years, and we'd have no TV series in that time. Fans are all ready not happy with having to wait till Autumn for the next series, so imagine waiting 3 years! Personally I think the TV series should always come first, it's just so damn good. And how exciting would it be to go into the 50th anniversary year in 2013, knowing that a film is just around the corner.

It's kinda hard to judge it at this stage. I think Yates leaked the news far too early. It's only under consideration. We don't even really know that Yates will direct it although it's a safe guess. It's only a little bit more substantial than fangirl/John Barrowman led rumours at this stage. I wont condemn or get excited for this film yet. I suspect this will change with announcements of actors, writers, plots, villains etc. But for now:

Things I Want To See In This Film

• Darker stuff. Doctor Who should never be too dark, and I'm not looking for anything scary like The Hills Have Eyes or as bleak or grim as The Waters Of Mars but I think doing a film that's separate allows them to go a bit more mature and scary, but still keep it a kids film.
• Plenty of references to 'real' Doctor Who. Not so many that it's annoying, but maybe a few jokes for the fans in the know. Something akin to the 11th Doctor phoning the Brigadier in The Wedding Of River Song would be nice too.
• British talent. Harry Potter had loads of British stars in it, so I'm hoping he brings that to this film. An all-American Doctor Who would be naff. And don't make this another Torchwood: Miracle Day where you say it's 50:50 but all the good parts go to Americans and the British parts are extras or people we've seen before.
• Steven Moffat's name in the credits as "adviser." I know the film needs it's own identity and all, but it would be great to get some official seal of approval or at least get someone in the know to proof-read the scripts.
• Something that establishes it's own continuity but respects the shows past. I'm happy for them to start with a new actor and call him "the first doctor" and for him not to be like William Hartnell's Doctor, but he has to keep the basic characteristics common to all Doctors

Things I don't Want To See In This Film

• A prequel where the Doctor becomes a timelord/leaves gallifrey/anything like that. The TV show has always been ambiguous about his past. It's part of the character's appeal. Hints are fine, but don't tamper with the myth of the character.
• The Time War. This is always mooted as good idea for the film, but is it? As the people at Big Finish productions put it: "How can you show a time war? 'Firing time-onic missile' 'oh no the past is coming out of my ear!'" Fans love to imagine what the time war would be like, but how do you make it that epic on the screen. David Tennant's Doctor talks about saving Davros from the jaws of the Nightmare Child and mentions "the horde of travesties, the could-have-been king with his army of meanwhiles and never-weres" excellent metaphors, but difficult to live up to.
• With the exception of characters who regenerate, no new actors playing existing parts. I don't want them to decide that Rose Tyler was popular so they're gonna bring her back played by Lindsay Lohan. For that matter, I don't want to see Billie Piper playing Rose Tyler, stop being lazy and write your own damn characters.
• Anything that's not true to the series and it's tone, message and philosophy. The Doctor is not an action hero, he shouldn't hold a gun. At most he can be like Pertwee was, that's as action hero as he gets.

*I have since learnt that David Yates directed other Harry Potter films, including my favourite the last one. Also he's working with Jane Tranter who was partly responsible for Doctor Who returning to TV in 2005, so....

And in tribute to the way movies seem to work these days. This blog is being split into two parts in the hope of making more money. Next time, I'll be having a look at the previous attempts at Doctor Who films to see what we can learn from them.