24: As long as something exciting happens all the time, I can watch the most mindless drivel.
30 Rock: Manatee. Hee, hee!
Battlestar Galactica: It is possible for Starbuck to be boring.
Heroes: Even people you suspect can’t act will start acting if you give them something to do. “Claire-bear” can reduce a grown man to tears. Sniff.
Jericho: Flashbacks are only interesting if you give a monkey’s about the flasher. If you know what I mean.
Lewis: Occasionally the writers can be funny. Lewis “not a professional Northerner”? Hee hee!
Lost: Oh yes. Lost used to be fun. I remember now.
Primeval: As long as something exciting happens all the time, I can watch the most mindless drivel. Also, the right backing track for a flock of dodos is Kasabian’s “Club Foot”.
The Unit: Eric Haney should be allowed to write episodes, too, not just Lynn Mamet as I suggested last week – another lesson learned. Also, all previous attempts to write realistic war dialogue have been rubbish: if it was authentic, we wouldn’t understand a word of it, as Haney has just proved. I had to watch it twice to work out what was going on.
Year: 2007
US TV
Review: The 50 Greatest TV Dramas
In the UK: Saturday, C4, 9pm
There’s nothing quite like a list of “best anythings” to get people talking – or annoyed – as anyone who’s ever been on the new steam-powered InterWeb will tell you. But how about something as controversial as the “50 Greatest TV Dramas”?
Ooh aye? 50 greatest ever? Is that just shows that have been on British TV? Within recent memory? Who’s voting? And surely it’ll just be the most popular rather than the best that come out on top? And is it really possible to have a great debate about whether Fall of Eagles or Cold Warrior is better, when no bugger remembers either of them?
All valid criticisms of The 50 Greatest TV Dramas, which polled legions of the great and the good from British television history to compile said list. But, despite those criticisms, it was actually a pretty good list.
Audio and radio play reviews
Review: The Companion Chronicles – The Blue Tooth
As a notorious Liz Shaw fan, I was looking forward to this entry in the Companion Chronicles range. One of the more adult companions (in a good way), she was one of the main elements of a short-lived strategy to make Doctor Who less childish, way back in season seven. However, she never got so much as a leaving scene when she was replaced by Jo Grant and hasn’t yet appeared in any of the Big Finish range. So it was good to hear she would be featuring in this brief set of audio books.
The Blue Tooth sees Liz returning to Cambridge to meet an old friend. In true Who style, it all goes very wrong when an outer space monster intrudes – no less a beastie than the Cybermen, in fact. And it opens with a promise: to reveal why Liz decided to leave the Doctor.
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Monday’s March news
Doctor Who
- Video footage of the possible last scene for John Barrowman in the next series of Doctor Who. No sound to spoil things
- David Tennant’s video diary is on YouTube, now the Beeb has done a deal with Google
Film
- There’s a film version of Death of Superman on the way. Adam Baldwin is the voice of Supes (it’s animated)
- Idris Elba talks about 28 Weeks Later
- Balactus. Sorry, Galactus will be in the Fantastic Four sequel
- The British government messes up the tax system again
- Gerard Butler might be in Watchmen
- Daniel Radcliffe’s up for the last two Harry Potter movies
Art
- David Lynch has a disturbing art show in Paris
British TV
- Neil Gaiman gets bewildered by the UK release of Neverwhere
US TV
- Sort of spoilers for Tuesday’s House. And for The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll. Yey?
- Chris Showerman (what did his ancestors do?) has been cast as Flash Gordon
- Spoilers for Heroes. And more spoilers. And more!
- Sarah Connor Chronicles talk. Yes, Summer Glau is an evil female terminator
- Joss Whedon talks about Buffy, Firefly, Wonder Woman and the Buffiverse movies that never happened
- How Lost got a VW camper van onto the island
- Spoilers for BSG
- Pamela Anderson has a new TV show in the works
- Amber Tamblyn is to star in the disturbing Babylon Fields pilot
- 24 spoilers
Audio and radio play reviews
Review: The Companion Chronicles – Fear of the Daleks
Skipping neatly over various generations of companions, we move from Vicki to Zoe for the second of the Companion Chronicles, slightly dramatised audio books in which former Doctor Who companions recount missing tales of their youthful exploits with the Doctor.
There’s a slight problem with creating tales for older companions. Do you write the stories in in the same style as the stories of the time, or adapt to changes in taste, audience, etc? With the former, you risk losing the audience through lack of pace, simplistic plot devices, et al; with the latter, you can end up losing the charm of the original stories, while making them look stupid.
Fear of the Daleks tries to have the best of both worlds by marrying modern-day writing with 1960’s style stories. Unfortunately, it fails just horribly.
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