Month: January 2010

Classic TV

Weird old title sequences: The Professionals

7 January 2010 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

The Professionals

Britain is in crisis. Criminals are literally getting away with murder. Crime is common in Britain’s cities, and the ordinary decent citizen is scared for his or her life. What can be done?

Well the obvious solution, surely, is to create an autonomous criminal investigation organisation with minimal oversight, recruit agents to it from the police and armed forces, train them in commando tactics, arm them, then let them do anything they like, provided it catches criminals.

That solution’s sound as a pound, isn’t it?

Anyway, that’s the background to The Professionals, a late 70s/early 80s drama created by The Avengers supremo Brain Clemens and starring Lewis Collins, Martin Shaw and Gordon Jackson as Bodie, Doyle and their boss Cowley. Each week, these agents of CI5 would stomp around, either undercover or badges-flashing, and do whatever it took to stop those crims. Maybe get some heroin and threaten to addict a dealer if he doesn’t give them information.

Or how about release a hostage-taker’s brother from prison then threaten to shoot him in front of the hostage-taker if he doesn’t surrender?

The Professionals

Whatever it took.

Liberal nightmare though this was, it was an insanely popular show, the 24 of its day and far grittier, and in many ways better. Sure Bodie and Doyle could get away with murder if they wanted and the show’s attitude to women was beyond misogynistic, but their buddy-buddy relationship was well drawn and humorous, the show was incredibly well cast, it had a wonderfully catchy theme tune and it was written by people who knew how to plot to a tee.

So popular did it become that the army would frequently lend it weaponry in a pre Top Gun bit of boys’ toys-placement designed to inspire the nation’s young men to join up. And there are men today who would gladly drive a Ford Capri, purely thanks to its constant usage in four of the five seasons of the show.

To show you just how ridiculously action-packed it was, here’s a clip of one protracted stunt scene followed by… the weird old titles of The Professionals. Note the crashing car – there’s no reason for that; and Martin Shaw never once did Kendo (or whatever he’s pretending to do with that stick) in the whole series as far as I know.

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – An Earthly Child

7 January 2010 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

An Earthly Child Big Finish occasionally come up with some nice ideas for subscriber bonuses. Okay, Return of the Krotons wasn’t one of them but Company of Friends was at least a good idea, even if it was poorly executed. However, every time they do it, they say it’s going to be exclusive to subscribers, don’t manage to get many people to subscribe on the strength of it (what? I get three Sylvester McCoy plays and the Key2Time season? Whoopee), so end up releasing them anyway.

So it is with An Earthly Child, a potentially very good idea, which is already available to pre-order, having been sent to subscribers in December. In it, Paul McGann journeys to the now defunct future in which the Daleks mined out the Earth’s core to turn it into a spaceship, so he can visit Susan, his granddaughter.

Yes, the Doctor not only has kids, a wife and probably a mum, he also had a granddaughter – the very first companion to the very first Doctor, William Hartnell, in the very first story, An Unearthly Child (which you can watch all of on YouTube). Played by Carole Anne Ford, she stayed behind on Earth to help rebuild the planet and married a man called David Campbell.

Ford is back as Susan for this story, set 30 years after the invasion, and she’s accompanied by Paul McGann’s son, Jake McGann, who appropriately enough plays Susan’s son, Alex – the Doctor’s great-grandson.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – An Earthly Child”

Random Acts

Random Acts of Ali Larter: having a giant white circle stuck to her hand

7 January 2010 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Ali Larter with an iPhone

Poor Ali. She’s got herself a lovely iPhone, which (very) coincidentally happens to be the exact same model I have, and then a giant white circle sticks itself to her hand. That’s the worst luck. Did you reckon it got in the way of her skiing?

Still, at least she managed to buy a nice Christmas gift:

Feed Bear

and finally do some Heroes filming this week.

Have you seen Ali Larter acting randomly? If so, let us know and we’ll tell everyone about it in “Random Acts of Ali Larter“

The writers for series five of Doctor Who

7 January 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

According to DWM (apparently. You think I’d buy it?), the writers on the fifth series of Doctor Who are:

  • Steven Moffat (six episodes); past work – Coupling, Press Gang, Jekyll et al; The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead
  • Mark Gatiss (one episode); past work – The League of Gentlemen et al; The Unquiet Dead, The Idiot’s Lantern, The Lazarus Experiment
  • Gareth Roberts (one episode); past work – The Sarah Jane Adventures; The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn and the Wasp
  • Richard Curtis (one episode); past work – Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley, Four Weddings and a Funeral et al
  • Toby Whithouse (one episode); past work – Being Human et al; School Reunion
  • Chris Chibnall (two episodes); past work – Torchwood, Law and Order; 42
  • Simon Nye (one episode); past work – Men Behaving Badly et al

What are we all thinking? Interesting choice of Chris Chibnall, certainly, but the rest look potentially good, IMO, especially since Nye, Gatiss and Curtis are primarily comedy writers.