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UK TV

Review: Doctor Who – 2×12 – Army of Ghosts

3 July 2006 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Army of Ghosts

And thus season two of the new Doctor Who begins to crank itself up for the finale, while simultaneously winding itself down. There was good, there was bad, there was ugly. But, in contrast to the last few episodes, there was far more good than there was bad this time.

Doctor and Rose return to Earth in the “present day” and drop in on Rose’s mum, Jackie. As it happens, Jackie’s waiting for the scheduled appearance of her dead father. As you do. Needless to say, when a ghost turns up as predicted, the Doctor isn’t totally convinced he’s what she thinks she is and tries to work out what’s actually going on.

He eventually narrows down the source of the ‘ghost’ activity to Canary Wharf and Torchwood, the launch site of the new spin-off TV series a top secret government institute that investigates alien artefacts. There we find a ‘Void Ship’ of mysterious origin and before you know it, a bunch of cyber agents who have infiltrated our universe from the parallel universe we saw in The Age of Steel. Using the hole in the universe created by the arrival of the Void Ship, the cybermen manage to bring their entire army over into our reality. The world is theirs.

But wait! The Void Ship isn’t cyber-technology. Inside are… a bunch of Daleks. Cue end titles.

So all in all, very exciting. The usual RTD hallmarks were on display – cameos by people from other TV shows (not all of which were awful); movie references; ‘typical’ teenage behaviour (Here’s me washing, Mum!); very sly continuity references (“The Eternals call it ‘the Howling’.” Those would be the Eternals from the Peter Davison story Enlightenment and also from the 2005 Doctor Who Annual), etc, etc. But while the Ghostbusters bit was excruciating, the rest of it was actually kind of fun and forgivable.

David Tennant was giving a relatively calm performance this time round and Billie Piper had a return to form, finally getting something to do that was all about Rose. Graeme Harper did a reasonable job of directing but not outstanding – I don’t feel he’s quite had the dark story he needs to really show off his stuff. Murray Gold still can’t do incidental music. Oh well. But all in all, pretty good.

Now for the niggles. The plot was full of holes, which can be forgiven. But… Torchwood built Canary Wharf to investigate to the anomaly in the sky. So where the hell was the Void Ship all this time? Just lurking there in the sky? Funny, I’m pretty sure most of London would have spotted it. Or did Torchwood somehow manage to carry the ship back up to the top of Canary Wharf (even though they can’t touch it) once they’d built it, with presumably the Void Ship lurking in East London in a pub or something until it was time to come up. And how come Torchwood was telling everyone when it was going to conduct its experiments so there would be ghost forecasts? Renovation work on Canary Wharf? It’s not that old and wouldn’t Torchwood’s director know about it. And wouldn’t the Cybermen have come through the anomaly and be spotted? And, and…

But any Who plot has problems when exposed to the cold light of day, so let’s not get too caught up in that.

The Cybermen. Obviously going to turn up so no surprise there, but they’re still just not as scary as they should be. They’re too friendly looking. You want something that has a stench of the graveyard about it, really. Instead, we get flares and a friendly face. Not good. Still, there’s enough of them to be frightening: one cabbage patch kid isn’t frightening; 10,000 cabbage patch kids coming to get you – very frightening.

So actually a pretty good episode. Could have been better, but actually not bad. Now for a few notes:

Mickey: Nice to see him back. I had a vague inkling we were being led up the garden path on that one. Consider this. The return of the Cybermen was inevitable. They wouldn’t be this universe’s Cybermen, so it would have to be the new-look Cybies. That means there was a way for Mickey to come back. Couple that with the fact that in the Mickey send-off retrospective, Doctor Who Confidential didn’t once ask Noel Clarke what he was going to be doing next and there’s been no media blitz at all on that subject (unlike Piper) and it just suggested to me that he might be coming back. Mickey for the new companion anyone (now that whatserface that The Sun suggested has been dispatched into the sky)?

Piper: Still not sure she’s leaving. Still convinced this is a bluff, although the return of Mickey does make it more unlikely. After all, if she’s dead yet mysteriously on a seashore, how can she be narrating? Or is she in Heaven? Or, as Marie suggests, on the other side of the portal? She’ll be back at some point. Maybe she’s in Hell, as suggested by The Satan Pit. Maybe it’ll be like Search for Spock next year, with the Doctor trying to find a way back to the other universe.

The Daleks: Saw them coming. Sorry. A fun cliffhanger all the same.

Now there have been some complaints about the Daleks coming back. But they Daleks had to feature, I’m afraid. Here’s why:

Firstly, every Doctor has to meet the old enemies as soon as possible or else you end up like Jon Pertwee, Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston and not get a single Cyberman story – or, indeed, like Paul McGann and not get a Dalek story at all (see Footnote 1). With CE buggering off ASAP last year, getting DT to meet the Daleks was vital.

Secondly, the Daleks are the Doctor’s arch nemesis. You can only be an arch nemesis if you turn up regularly, despite all previous attempts to kill you. Otherwise, you’re rubbish. And since we’re looking at a new generation of kids who don’t really know that the Daleks are the Doctor’s arch nemesis yet because they’ve only had one series to work with, the Daleks absolutely had to be in this series as well to make kids understand all other enemies come second to the Daleks.

The important third point is that they’re necessary for the plot – or what I imagine the plot to be. If you think I’m likely to be on to something with my theory (which given my track record is unlikely), that it won’t be blindingly obvious and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read any further.

Footnotes

1) Technically, Paul McGann did get a Dalek story since they appear in voice over at the very beginning of Doctor Who: The Movie. Also Pertwee meets the Cybermen in The Five Doctors. Plus there are all those Big Finish audios where Paul McGann meets both Cybermen and Daleks. But they don’t count really. It’s just not the same, I tell you.

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Download CSI to your desktop. Subject to technical requirements

12 October 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US, if you want to watch TV shows on the Internet, there’s the iTunes Music Store and numerous free streaming services from all the major networks that frankly, make it pretty easy to watch what you want, when you want it.

In the UK, well, we don’t quite have what it takes yet. Five has just launched its video on demand service and after a couple of experiments, I’d have to say it’s a little lacking.

Let’s compare and contrast. iTunes Music Store: you install QuickTime, you install iTunes (if you have a Mac, you already have those built in so no download is required). Then you go to the iTunes Music Store (US) in iTunes, you find your programme (there are hundreds to choose from now), click the “Buy” button and iTunes downloads it for you once you’ve set up your account, something you only need to do once. It stays in iTunes forever and you can play it on your video iPod as well if you want. It costs about $1.99 (+sales tax), which is a little over £1 right now, to download each TV programme.

Now let’s try the Five web site’s version. First, let’s check the system requirements; I’ve only included the ones that are narrower than the iTunes/QuickTime requirements.

Operating system: You need Microsoft Windows XP or 2000

Web browser: You need Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

Active X: ActiveX must be enabled in your web browser

Cookies: Cookies must be enabled in your web browser

Javascript: Javascript must be enabled in your web browser

Media Player: Users of Windows XP must use Windows Media Player 10. Users of Windows 2000 must use Windows Media Player 9

Connection Speed: You need a broadband connection of at least 500kbps

System Clock: You need to set the clock on your computer to the correct UK time, time zone and date

Assuming you pass all these requirements, then you can download and view CSI/CSI Miami/CSI New York episodes as often as you like on your PC for 14 days, all for the lovely price of £1.49-£2.49.

Now, obviously Five’s web site has the slight advantage over iTunes in that it works in the UK, whereas iTunes doesn’t – at least as far as ordering TV shows or movies is concerned.

But, somehow, I’m not predicting massive uptake of this. It’s not exactly easy to use. It has an “interesting” set of requirements that shuts out quite a few people. I don’t think many people are going to be interested in a relatively expensive service that stops working after a fortnight. And if anyone does have the skills, etc, to use the service, I suspect they also have the skills, etc to use Bittorrent and get many more US programmes, more quickly, that don’t self-destruct and don’t cost them anything.

I’ve not tried the Channel 4 VOD service yet, because I don’t meet those system requirements either. Oh dear. Try harder British networks!

UK TV

Review: Doctor Who – 2×13 – Doomsday

10 July 2006 Rob Buckley 22 Comments

Doomsday

Cyberman: Dalek?

Dalek: Cyberman?

Cyberman: Did your sensors detect the fluid that I just expelled from my right lateral articulator joint?

Dalek: My probes observed the phenomenon

Cyberman: Are they able to analyse it?

Dalek: They report it is composed of waste oil and grease and certain biochemical solutions

Cyberman: Where is it now?

Dalek: It is sinking into the floor where it is being absorbed by human excretions such as dandruff and hair

Cyberman: That’s your void ship that is. Your mum made that. It’s like the best thing she’s ever done.

Dialogue from Doctor Who episode Doomsday.

So it’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for. The Daleks and the Cybermen had a great big fight and Rose is stuck in another universe. And it was all just so mediocre.

I wanted to like this. I really really wanted to like this. But I was bored. I may reconsider if I ever get round to watching the episode again. Already, my brain is trying its hardest to filter out the dross and crud surrounding the few good things in the episode.

But nothing can alter the fact that from about 7.20pm on Saturday night I was clock-watching.

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Corporate
US TV

Review: Corporate 1×1 (US: Comedy Central)

19 January 2018 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, Comedy Central

Normally, my go-to take-home going forward from a review of a Comedy Central comedy is that it would have been funny – or at least funnier – if I’d been smoking something illicit while watching, which is pretty much what most of the target audience will be doing.

However, Corporate would fire me for that, unless I managed to find a scapegoat instead.

Set in the completely evil conglomerate of ‘Hampton Deville’, Corporate is actually a marvellously dark and edgy piece that looks like something David Fincher might have done in his Fight Club days, given half a chance. It’s written by and stars Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman as two minor executives at the aforementioned evil corporation who are already on their own life’s Plan B and have seen all hope and joy leave their existences thanks to Hampton Deville and its corporate culture.

Episode one is ostensibly about the company’s launch of a new tablet “eight times as large as the iPad”, which goes wrong when someone in the social media department creates an ill-taste Tweet about hurricane victims. CEO Lance Reddick (The Wire, Fringe) is enraged so sets mid-tier execs Anne Dudek (House, Covert Affairs) and Adam Lustick to find the culprit. They in turn delegate to Ingebretson and Weisman, who react very differently to being given power for the first time in their five year careers at the company.

Office Space

The first episode’s jokes are mostly about corporate culture (eg who gets first dibs at bagels, how open you should be about stress caused by your job, who should be cc:ed v bcc:ed and why, how to get free cake), which are reminiscent naturally enough of Office Space and its TPS reports. It’s also done very well and raised plenty of laughs from me along the way.

However, this is clearly Office Space for the social media generation, and the show understands the Twitter and the Facebook well, as well as its limitations, with the second half a great take on the power of social media to create bad publicity – and how easy it is for a ‘social media guru’ to change that and for corporations to end up not actually doing anything.

The void

However, the show’s equally interested in darkness, depression and crushed dreams. Plenty are the jokes on suicide and the death of hope – indeed, the first episode is called ‘the void’.

“Plan B failed – time for Plan C”

“Suicide?”

“That’s right! You’re such a good friend to know that.”

Flailing against corporate culture? Don’t. You can’t fight it. No good deed will go unpunished. All you can do is climb to the top so that you’re no longer under anyone else’s thumb.

Again, here it’s as accurate as with its analysis of office politics…

Conclusion

The fact it’s attracted the cast it has should be enough to convince you that this is at least a cut above the normal Comedy Central output. The more you know of the corporate world, the funnier you’ll find it, I suspect. Bleakly funny.