Review: Doctor Who – Brotherhood of the Daleks

Brotherhood of the Daleks

Hands up anyone who’s not a Charley fan. Right, get out: you’re barred.

Since we’re now left only with people of pleasing intellect and taste, we can begin the review. First, as a brief aside, is "Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks" really a major selling point, worthy of the cover? Okay, so he does the TV voices, too, but who, other than committed fans, knows that and cares. More to the point, won’t they already be buying at least three copies of every Big Finish release already? You don’t think it’s because Briggsy is one of the Big Finish producers that his voicing mysteriously warrants a cover praise, do you?

Anyway, moving on. When you sit down to write a piece of intelligent fiction, more often than not, you tend to want to make it "multi-layered" – ie "not too basic". The audience need brain stimulation, you convince yourself, so let’s add some plot twists. All well and good so far.

The problem is when you go overboard and start to cackle to yourself as you add in every single plot twist and clever idea you can possibly think of. Suddenly, your play lurches from minute to minute like a rodeo bull, throwing off audience members willy nilly.

Oops Alan Barnes. I’m looking at you here.

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Sitting Tennant

Today’s Sitting Tennants (from Rullsenberg and Persephone): Love’s Labour’s Lost

DT sitting down

Love's Labour's Lost

DT sitting

A veritable treasure trove has been found in the Sitting Tennant squat today. Rullsenberg and Persephone have located some pictures of David Tennant in Love’s Labours Lost and its rehearsals. Both submitted the third picture, while Ms Rullsenberg, obviously keen to leapfrog to the front of the pack, submitted all three. Feast on their loveliness.

That means the current Sitting Tennant league tables are as follows. For pictures, Rosby still in the lead now on seven entries. But both Persephone and Rullsenberg have five and a half points each, Toby has five, Poly and Scott both have three and a half points each, Anna and Jane have one and a half, while Marie has just one.

The Witty And Amusing Captions league table has changed a bit, too. Toby is still tops with 15 captions, Persephone has nine captions, Marie eight, and Jane Henry five and a half, thanks to a particularly current caption. Rullsenberg has five captions, Electric Dragon is still on four entries, Rev now has three entries and Poly and Stu_N have one each.

Feel free to leave captions below for this entry, too, and keep those eyes peeled for any new pictures of David Tennant sitting down that you can find. And yes, more bonus points for Love’s Labour’s Lost or other current pictures if you can find them.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. You can also enter the witting and amusing captions league table by commenting on existing photos in the gallery.

Monday’s unlucky Valentine news

Doctor Who

Film

  • Remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes?

Theatre

  • Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart to star in Waiting for Godot
  • Matthew Horne and Imelda Staunton to star in Entertaining Mr Sloane

British TV

US TV

Review: Quantum of Solace

I don’t normally do reviews of current films. There’s not much point since I always see them too late. But when I do see a film just as it comes out, invariably my review would be almost identical to Mark Kermode’s. Case in point: Quantum of Solace. Here’s Mark Kermode’s review, which is pretty much word for word what I would have said. Loved the fight scenes though.