Month: March 2010

Steven Moffat’s take on Doctor Who c1995

31 March 2010 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

He’s apologised, he’s said he was drunk and trying to wind up Andy Lane, but c1995, Steven Moffat had a few things to say about Doctor Who. Choice comments include:

…when I look back at Doctor Who now. I laugh at it, fondly. As a television professional, I think how did these guys get a paycheck every week? Dear god, it’s bad! Nothing I’ve seen of the black and white stuff – with the exception of the pilot, the first episode – should have got out of the building. They should have been clubbing those guys to death! You’ve got an old guy in the lead who can’t remember his lines; you’ve got Patrick Troughton, who was a good actor, but his companions – how did they get their Equity card? Explain that! They’re unimaginably bad. Once you get to the colour stuff some of it’s watchable, but it’s laughable.

If you look at other stuff from the Sixties they weren’t crap – it was just Doctor Who. The first episode of Doctor Who betrays the lie that it’s just the Sixties, because the first episode is really good – the rest of it’s shit.

Peter Davison is a better actor than all the other ones, that’s the simple reason why he works more than all the other ones. There is no sophisticated, complicated reason to explain why Peter Davison carried on working and all the other Doctors disappeared into a retirement home for lardies. He’s better and I think he’s extremely good as the Doctor

What do you think? Was he telling the truth? Do you even agree with him?

Wednesday’s “Private Faris” news

31 March 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Film

Theater

British TV

US TV

Question of the week: is it Doctor Who or isn’t it?

30 March 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

There was, of course, a British TV show that ran for 26 years from 1963 to 1989 called Doctor Who. There was a TV movie that followed it, along with books, comics and audio plays.

Now on TV there’s a TV show called Doctor Who. It has many similarities to the original, ranging from TARDISes to Time Lords, the Doctor through to actors from the first series playing the same roles in the second series.

But are they the same?

On the one hand, obviously they are since they’re so similar and the production teams say they are. But they still refer to their show as being series one to five, rather than series 27 to 31. There are contradictions and a gap of 16 years or so between series. 

So despite the same name, is the new Doctor Who to the original Doctor Who what Star Trek II/Star Trek: The Next Generation was to Star Trek or what the remake of Battlestar Galactica was to the original series?

And is it, any sense at all, important? (You may have guessed this started as a discussion on a mailing list…)

As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog.

Tuesday’s “Men and motors drives off” news

30 March 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

  • Modern Family‘s Sofia Vergara joins The Smurfs
  • New trailer for Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz’s Knight and Day
  • Trailer for George Romero’s Survival of the Dead

Theatre

British TV

US TV

What did you watch on TV last week (w/e March 28)

29 March 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

I’ve given up the ghost on The Bridge and Sons of Tucson. They’re not happening. But I did watch the following on TV last week.

  • Chuck: Bit rubbish actually, although it did have a few good moments, none of which unfortunately were Morgan. Oh, by the way – Buy More DIE DIE DIE.
  • Clash of the Gods: History Channel documentary on (predominantly) the Greek gods that was broadcast in August but which I’ve only just got round to watching. Turned off after 15 minutes because although it was mostly right, turfing out complete kack like “the first idea of Zeus we get in writing comes from Hesiod” is going to make me seriously doubt any factual information the show is trying to impart.
  • House: An enjoyable mystery to solve, but the Taub stuff was where it was at. Interesting to see House developing some kind of conscience.
  • Justified: Nice, but nowhere near as good as the first episode, which given they’re not using an Elmore Leonard short story anymore shouldn’t be too surprising, I guess. Wry, but without the decent character interaction between the goodies that the show started with.
  • Lost: That was pretty groovy. Those were, like, answers. Wow. Most of the episode was in Spanish. Wow. And wasn’t Nestor C just great?
  • Life Unexpected: Yey, Alexandra Breckenridge is back as a regular by the looks of this. For the first half of this, I was thinking, “God, this is some terrible soap opera style writing.” But by the end, everyone’s character trajectories were making me go, “Ah! Isn’t that sweet?” Yes, even Lux and Bug. What I will say though is there’s almost no point analysing this show. It’s just a bunch of characters who go in various directions with no real message to impart other than “being a parent is hard. Being a kid is hard. But everyone just tries to do the best they can.” Loved Baez getting together with Alex B, too – that seems the most balanced set of relationships. It does make me wonder where the show is going to go next, other than to break everything up again.
  • Parenthood: Quite a nice ep for Erika Christensen’s character, but the show is still lacking proper female interaction and indeed seems to have the message that “women only cause problems, even for other women.”
  • Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Has mysteriously turned into an adult programme (in the true sense of the word), albeit it one with a potty mouth and a loving of soft-core sex and hardcore violence (that would be the other sense of adult, then). It’s actually a reasonable show now I’ve suspended my brain.
  • Supernatural: A so-so episode by Supernatural‘s usually high standards. Semi-poignant in places, but lacking real teeth.
  • 24: Well, it’s been cancelled now. Told you they left it too late. All the same, a cracking episode last week, with an episode-long fire fight. Yes, still as dumb as 24 planks, right down to the CTU agents who can’t do what they’re told so mess everything up. But great to see Katee Sackoff’s character finally proving that she hasn’t been a complete waste of our time, and to make it look like there was a reason for her stupidity for the last 12 eps.

But what did you watch?

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might ge