TV reviews

Review: Doctor Who – 5×8 – The Hungry Earth

The Hungry Earth

In the UK: Saturday 22nd May, 6.15pm, BBC1
In the US: Saturday 5th June, 9/8c, BBC America

Sorry to anyone who was desperate for a full review of Amy’s Choice (Why? Who are you?) last week, but I just ran out of time. All the same, I did do a mini-review of it on Friday in case you missed it.

But let’s move on to this week’s episode. With a song.

Who’s the writer who
puts terror in your heart?
He rips off everything
and he makes it three times worse.

Who’s the writer who can’t plot?
He made Torchwood what it was
and…

Oh screw it. I can’t be bothered doing any more. The chorus just goes Chris Chibnall, Chris Chibnall, Chris Chibnall, anyway.

Chris Chibnall is responsible for far and away some of the worst episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood: Cyberwoman, 42, Adrift. You can usually pretty much guarantee as soon as you see our Chibber’s name in the writing credits that the following story will go down as smoothly as milk with a sell-by date of March 1998.

Yet it seems that while he still can’t produce a classic, with Steven Moffat overseeing things, he can at least produce something with a few good moments and that doesn’t suck anywhere near as badly as Victory of the Daleks. Of course, if you were expecting him to turn in something original, you really do believe in Stevie miracles, don’t you?

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US TV

Series finale: Lost

Lost

In the US: Sunday 23rd May, ABC, 7/6c
In the UK: Monday 24th May, Sky 1/Sky 1 HD, 5am

So that’s it. Six years. It’s all over now. The final episode of Lost has finally aired. All the mysteries have finally been answered. Woo hoo!

Where is the island? What is the island? Who is Jacob? What is the smoke monster? How did Jacob arrange for everyone to end up on the island? What’s happening in the flashes sideways? What is the source of Jacob’s power? What are the rules of the game? Why was Charles Widmore expelled from the island? What did he and Ben have to fight about? What happened when the nuclear bomb went off at the end of season five? How did Faraday’s mum know so much about time travel, etc?

Yep. All answered in the series finale.

Oh wait…

Spoilers and more after the jump.

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Big Train

Big Train sketch of the week: hypnotherapy

Big Train

It’s Monday, so it must be time for the Monday Big Train sketch!

Oh wait, y’all probably didn’t know that since I’m improbably launching this exciting new feature for the blog this week, despite the fact I’m on holiday next week. But, yes, the plan is that every Monday we’ll have a choice sketch from late 90s/early 00s sketch show Big Train, which starred Simon Pegg, Julia Davis, Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap, Amelia Bullmore, Catherine Tate, Rebecca Front, Tracy-Ann Oberman and many other talented people – it was also written by Father Ted creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews.

We’re launching the Monday Big Train sketch slot with one of my faves – the hypnotherapy session with Mark Heap, Julia Davis, Simon Pegg and Kevin Eldon. Enjoy, and if you’d like to nominate a sketch for week two, let me know.

You can, incidentally, get the whole of Big Train on DVD since it does have highly entertaining commentaries. But you probably guessed that already.

Monday’s French Smithy news

Film

  • Trailer for Going The Distance with Justin Long and Drew Barrymore
  • Orlando Bloom and James Corden join The Three Musketeers

British TV

  • Five acquires Eli Stone, Fiver acquires Archer second season, Five USA acquires Justified second season
  • SyFy acquires web drama [subscription required]
  • Married, Single, Other cancelled
  • Luther loses another 1.3m

Canadian TV

US TV