Year: 2007

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles – The Beautiful People

7 March 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Companion Chronicles - The Beautiful PeopleWe’re now at the last and least explicable of The Companion Chronicles range, with Lalla Ward (aka Romana II) the final companion to fill the dimensionally transcendental Jackanory armchair. With the previous entries, there’s been a semi-reasonable excuse for the story’s existence – the actor who played the companion’s Doctor being dead and therefore no tasteful or faithful way to have a play featuring the companion alongside her Doctor. Here, we have a simple disagreement between the actor (Tom Baker) and Big Finish that’s resulted in Tombo not appearing in any Big Finish plays, leaving the companions to fend for themselves.

This would still be a good enough reason for the play if Tombo’s companions had had no other opportunities to appear in stories. But of the surviving fourth Doctor companions, Sarah Jane has had two series of Sarah Jane Smith adventures and now has her own TV show; Leela, Romanas I & II and K9 have had three series of Gallifrey to mess about with; Tegan and Nyssa have both had fifth Doctor stories; and the less said about Adric the better. They’ve all been well-mined for dramatic nuggets.

So I think it’s pretty clear that the Big Finish luvvies really just wanted another excuse to work with lovely, lovely Lalla again.

Putting that to one side though, in the form of The Beautiful People, we do have a perfectly acceptable piece of season 17 hokum to while the hour away, and a reasonable enough conclusion to the series.

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The by-jingo it’s early Wednesday news

7 March 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Do you know you have to be at the US embassy at 8am for your i-visa interview? Bah.

Doctor Who

  • Troughton story The Web of Fear gets its first episode aired on BBC4 on Sunday 18th March as part of a London Underground season.

Film

  • Just when you thought there was no way for cinema to get crasser, now come plans to adapt John Milton’s Paradise Lost, getting rid of the dull bits, Adam and Eve being nude, etc.
  • M Night Hasbeen’s new film has been greenlit by Fox

Music

  • As though we cared, The Wurzels reveal who the mystery guest vocalist is on the re-release of “I Am A Cider Drinker” (it’s for charity though)



British TV

  • The DVD of Life on Mars, series two, is out on 16th April. It’ll feature a documentary about the Camberwick Green moment from episode 5.

US TV

  • The Black Donnellys gets okay ratings for its second episode, although others argue it’s a worrying slide.
  • Heroes will be back on April 23rd. Here’s the promo with clips from the next episode.
  • Zach Braff’s sorted himself a good deal to stay with Scrubs
  • An interview with Ronald Moore, exec producer of Battlestar Galactica
  • More pilot casting news. Anyone remember Party of Five?
  • Steve Coogan is to appear in Curb Your Enthusiasm as a psychiatrist
  • Create your own BSG video using SciFi’s BSG videomaker toolkit. You could win a prize
  • He may had jury duty, but he still has spoilers. Michael Ausiello lets us know useful things about Lost. Plus he seems to think a certain thing wasn’t permanent after all on BSG. Was RDM conning us?
  • Kristin talks to the producer of House about what’s to come and what’s past
  • Tim Robbins has a pharma-related drama planned for Showtime
  • Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver’s The Riches is going to premiere online this week
US TV

Review: The Winner 1×01-1×02

6 March 2007 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

The Winner

In the US: Sundays, 8:30/7:30c & 9:30/8:30c, Fox

In the UK: No one yet, but Paramount looks a fair bet

Fox does like its comedy broad, doesn’t it? Broad, male-oriented and just a little bit stupid. But, hey, for once, here’s a show that’s actually quite funny. Starring The Daily Show‘s Rob Corddry as a man in his mid-30s who hasn’t quite hit adolescence yet, The Winner picks easy targets, makes no innovations in plot or style, yet mysteriously manages to raise laughs.

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BSG: Maelstrom changes permanent?

6 March 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

So, US viewers who watched Battlestar Galactica on Sunday. Something happened, didn’t it? You all know what it was. I won’t mention it for the sakes of those in the UK who haven’t seen it yet. But it’s quite a big change.

Many people are wondering if this change is permanent, whether various elements of the story were hinting that something would undo it all by the end of the season. If you want to find out one way or another, this week’s podcast is pretty unequivocal.

Rubbish episode though, wasn’t it? Bored me rigid and the ending was obvious. Damn. Don’t tell me BSG has jumped the Lost… sorry, shark, too.

Tuesday’s “rivers of water” news

6 March 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

I think I saw Noah a moment ago.

Books and comics

  • A comic book version of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game is on the way

Film

  • Iron Man info from Jon Favreau
  • McG may direct a remake of The Fantastic Voyage
  • Angelina Jolie to star in The Day The Earth Stood Still?
  • Oded Fehr won’t be in The Mummy 3
  • Premiere magazine is no more.

British TV

  • Virgin Media threatens to sue Sky
  • ITV has suspended ITV Play, pending investigations [free registration required]

US TV

  • ABC has yanked Knights of Prosperity from the schedule (Kristin says it’s been axed)
  • Ian Wright’s Unfit Kids now has a US version: presumably Shaquille O’Neal’s Unfit Kids
  • An interview with Katee Sackhoff from BSG [spoilers for last Sunday’s episode]
  • More BSG spoilers
  • Monday night at 9 is a little too popular
  • Six Degrees might get a reprieve
  • One for you Toby: is there a connection between Heroes and Lost? The creators reveal…
  • An interview with 24 writer Michael Loceff
  • Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg are teaming up for an HBO series about Atlantic City
  • James van der Beek joins Football Wives
  • No one wants to be Lost any more [some spoilers for Jericho]
  • The pilot episode of Raines is now on the NBC web site
  • News and spoilers from Kristin: chances of renewal for Supernatural and The Class are poor; a great big Lost spoiler