News from over the weekend

It might be news, it might not: I’ve been in a bubble for a week. Have we started any new wars?

Doctor Who

Film

Theatre

British TV

  • Kim Cattrall to play Daniel Radcliffe’s mum in a World War I ITV1 drama. I thought Rupert Grint was supposed to be ITV’s saviour?
  • Which of the forthcoming new US shows are the British networks interested in: news from the LA screenings
  • Reality TV: the US has a show about pirates, we get one about local planning offices

Polish TV

US TV

UK TV

People Elevated to God-like Status: two new members

People elevated to God-like status logo

Time to induct two new members to the group of people elevated to God-like status: Douglas Camfield and Graeme Harper. They’re not especially well known names, except within a certain group of (charitably) TV aficionados or (less charitably) geeks. But they are two of the best directors Doctor Who and possibly British TV has ever seen.

Now it would be unfair to say that early Doctor Who didn’t have very good direction. Directed by Waris Hussein, the opening episode, An Unearthly Child, was a particularly splendid piece of work: whenever Anna and I talk about how flat some episodes have looked, I at least am thinking of An Unearthly Child as an example of how well lit and directed Doctor Who can be (Anna can tell you what she’s thinking about!).

Here below is the opening to the world’s longest running sci-fi series. Imagine it’s 1963. Kid’s TV has been Muffin the Mule and Bill and Ben. There are no synthesisers, special effects or anything else on television. Then this hits the scene at Saturday tea time. Just how severely blown away would you have been?

But post-Unearthly Child, it all went a bit flat. After all, we’re talking about a show that initially had to put out a new episode every week, all year round, with no budget, no time, no real ability to do re-takes if scenes messed up and technical issues aplenty. It’s a miracle the sets stayed up.

Douglas Camfield was one of the first to change that.

Continue reading “People Elevated to God-like Status: two new members”

Friday’s lovely, lovely news

Doctor Who

  • Maybe Kylie after all…
  • Gareth McLean interviews Jessica ex-Stevenson [free registration required]
  • Plus Freema Agyeman – aka Sweet FA – is on Jonathan Ross tonight. Sorry on Jonathan Ross tonight.

Books

Film

Music

British TV

  • Noel Edmonds to host the badly re-titled Sky version of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
  • Kirsty Young‘s leaving Five News
  • Anyone who thought Xena: Warrior Princess was in any way about female empowerment, think again – or at least send Universal Playback a rude message. Mud-wrestling glamour models to launch a DVD?
  • What happened to some of the former contestants of The Apprentice and Dragons’ Den [free registration required]
  • Celebrity Big Brother was more racist than anyone suspected. Full transcript here. Which is handy because it’s clear some celebrities haven’t read it

Australian TV

  • It could be worse: the father of one of the contestants has died in the Australian version of Big Brother and no one’s told her

US TV

  • CBS’s Moonlight gets recast, while Prison Break looks for some more inmates
  • And The IT Crowd needs a new Jen while Heroes needs some more heroes
  • Footage from the new Babylon 5 DVDs

And a great big shout-out to The Stage’s TV Today blog which is now one year’s old. Happy Birthday guys!

Thursday’s exciting news

Film

British TV

US TV

UPDATE: Kudos going to do a series set in space for the Beeb