Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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US TV

Review: The 50 Greatest TV Dramas

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

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.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles – The Blue Tooth

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The Blue ToothAs 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

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

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

Art



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

2 March 2007 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Cover of Fear of the DaleksSkipping 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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Embarrassing impulse purchases meme

2 March 2007 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

There are certain risks involved in going into shops like HMV or Virgin Megastore: the DVD sections. Ooh, so many tempting things.

I have to keep these impulses under control. Last time I went in, those Man From UNCLE movies looked pretty tempting: nothing quite says mid-80s BBC2 at teatime like the Man From UNCLE films. Well, except for box sets of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes films, The Invaders or The Martian Chronicles.

If I gave in, I’d be bankrupt.

But I do have, languishing on my shelves:

  1. Clint Eastwood’s Firefox
  2. He-Man and She-Ra’s A Christmas Special
  3. Four different versions of Dune: the original David Lynch movie, the extended David Lynch movie, the special edition David Lynch movie with documentary and the SciFi Channel mini-series version.

Oh dear.

But now I’ve shared, it’s time for a meme: fess up, everyone – what are the three most embarrassing impulse-purchase DVDs sitting on your shelves. They can either be embarrassing for you or something that others consider embarrassing. I don’t care whether it’s TV, film or even Jade’s workout programme. Just name those DVDs!