UK TV

An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.

Top 10 – and bottom 10 – sci-fi title sequences ever

10 August 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

An enterprising gentleman in the US has decided to organise troll bait top ten lists of the worst and best sci-fi title sequences LIKE EVER!!! To save you the effort of going there, they are, complete with YouTube links:

Best

  1. Firefly
  2. Space: 1999
  3. The Six Million Dollar Man
  4. Doctor Who (Tom Baker and Eccles Cake versions)
  5. Star Trek: Voyager
  6. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  7. Star Trek: The Next Generation
  8. Mystery Science Theater 3000
  9. The Greatest American Hero
  10. Battlestar Galactica (original series)

Worst

  1. Enterprise
  2. Cleopatra 2525
  3. Battlestar Galactica (new series)
  4. V
  5. Babylon 5
  6. Charmed
  7. Xena: Warrior Princess
  8. The Bionic Woman
  9. Manimal
  10. Land of Lost

Now, clearly the man has both atrocious taste in title sequences as well as a somewhat limited viewing range. Otherwise, how else did all those Star Trek sequences get in there? At the very least, the original series of The Tomorrow People should be in there, as should The Prisoner. On the other hand, he does correctly slam Charmed for mauling a classic Smiths track, and The Six Million Dollar Man titles are classics indeed.

What other title sequences should be in there, do you reckon? If we include serials, I’d definitely include The Day of The Triffids‘, and if we were to expand beyond SF, I’d add in Callan, Penn and Teller’s Bullshit (titles are about a minute in) and Touching Evil. But what would you include?

News

The children of Who

10 August 2006 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

FA and DTBlah, blah, blah. Season three starts filming this week. Big press release with gushing stuff from Freema and RTD in all the papers.

The Daily Star – which should perhaps be called the Daily Start Making Stuff Up – has chosen to go one better with a ‘revelation’: next season is going to hint the Doctor has a son.

“Everyone knows that Time Lord’s have 13 lives and then that’s it, they finally die. Since there are only two regenerations left, the BBC need a plan to make sure the show can carry on.”

“So the only way to stop Doctor Who from being killed off completely is by bringing on a successor.”

Apparently, this news flash to the world will appear in the final episode of the season. However, as always with the Star, you have to question just how true this is likely to be, particularly given its ‘source’ continues:

Last year it was hinted that the Doctor had a child following a doomed love affair with someone from a forgotten planet.

Really? I must have missed that. Which episode was that in? Saying “I was a Dad once” is somewhat different from “I had a child following a doomed love affair with someone from a forgotten planet”.

Also, and correct my maths here if necessary, 10+2, no matter which way you spin it, is still not 13. There are at least three Doctors left before it all falls apart – and the Master proved that doesn’t have to be a permanent problem. Since we can be pretty sure there’s going to be at least two seasons per Doctor, following the Eccles Cake® debacle, that’s at least seven years of Doctor Who left before the wheels are going to come off. Even that’s assuming that DT legs it at the end of the third season, which given his obvious relish of the role and that he no doubt has ambitions of longevity to rival Tom Baker’s, I don’t see that happening just yet.

And they’re working on the back-up plan now? What do you think?

Incidentally, just to pre-empt future fans, I will try to claim credit for a Freema Agyeman nickname, assuming no-one’s already done so. In future, if any of her fans describe her as “Sweet FA”, they will have to pay me royalties. I declare that now.

Do I have to pay Stu_N royalties for my repeated use of the phrase “Eccles Cake” to describe Christopher Eccleston, I wonder?

UK TV

Review: Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe

7 August 2006 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Screen Wipe Series 2

In the UK: BBC Four, Thursdays, 10.30pm (repeated later and on Fridays)

Ah, Charlie Brooker. Anyone with any sense and love of TV reads his Guardian ‘Screen Burn’ column every Saturday. It’s usually the funniest thing you’ll read that week.

However, his Screen Wipe review show, which pretty much translates ‘Screen Burn’ into pictures, hasn’t been so compelling. The first season, now entertainingly described as “three pilot episodes”, was all over the place, as I pointed out in my Off The Telly review at the time.

Watching this season, I have the oddest feeling he’s read it because he’s fixed most of the problems.

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