Sitting Tennant

Friday’s Sitting Tennant (first week of Tennadvent, 2011)

2 December 2011 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Hebbie's Sitting Tennant

So that’s what was behind Hebbie and Sister Chastity’s advent windows!

  1. Hebbie: 350
  2. Sister Chastity: 330
  3. Erin C: 150
  4. Rullsenberg: 55
  5. Janice: 20
  6. esgaril: 10
  7. theriverlady, Toby: 5

Don’t forget Tuesday’s caption competition!

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it’s judged suitable and doesn’t obviously infringe copyright, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. Don’t forget to include your name in the filename so I don’t get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

US TV

Review: I Hate My Teenage Daughter (Fox) 1×1

1 December 2011 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

I Hate My Teenage Daughter

In the US: Wednesdays, 9:30pm(E/P)/8:30c, Fox

Sometimes, I feel like I’m psychic. Do you?

I’ll tell you for why. I looked at the title of this show – I Hate My Teenage Daughter. I saw what network it was on – Fox.

And I knew in an instant that watching it would feel like being slowly licked by the Creature from the Black Lagoon, assuming that the lagoon was black because it was under a sewer outlet.

And hey! Guess what! I was right.

I wonder if I can use my powers to win the lottery.

For those of you whose psychic powers aren’t as well developed as mine, let me fill you in on the plot: we have two single mothers, one of them played by Jaime Pressly from My Name is Earl. Both of them were nerds at school, but have since developed okay. But they both have pretty, popular daughters. And oh my lordy, it turns out the daughters are turning into the same sort of mean girls who made their lives a misery at High School.

Cue zero hilarity and an overwhelming desire to take a shower. Here’s a trailer – one minor character has been recast since the pilot, otherwise these are the highlights.

Continue reading “Review: I Hate My Teenage Daughter (Fox) 1×1”

Really Lost Gems: The Adventures of Don Quick (1970)

1 December 2011 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Adapting the classics is something that science-fiction does a lot of. The Forbidden Planet is Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for example, while (if you squint a bit) Gene Rodenberry always claimed that Star Trek was based on the Hornblower books.

Cervantes’ Spanish-language classic The Adventures of Don Quixote doesn’t get a whole lot of adapting these days, but way back in 1970, ITV decided to do it as a science-fiction series called The Adventures of Don Quick. Starring Ian Hendry (the original star of The Avengers), this saw intergalactic maintenance man Don Quick, together with his second-in-command Sam Czopanzer (Ronald Lacey) – can you see what they did there? – travel from planet to planet each week. On landing, Quick would proceed to interfere with the way the planet was run, because he knew best.

The planets were varied – and symbolic. The Higher The Fewer sees a population that lives in 2,000 storey skyscrapers organised by class; The Love Reflector has a planet of beautiful women – and one six-inch male astronaut; and The Quick and The Dead sees Aphrodite, Hera and Zeus (Graham Crowden) saving Sam and Quick from a volcano.

Lasting all of six one-hour episodes, Don Quick saw guest stars including Roy Marsden, Leigh Lawson, Patricia Haines, Yutte Stensgard, Madeline Smith, Gay Soper, James Hayter, Kate O’Mara, Bryan Mosley, Colin Baker and Anouska Hempel. Mike Newell even directed an episode.

However, only one episode of the show survives and it’s not on YouTube, so I’m only going to be able to give you the theme tune, as preserved on the album “Top T.V. Soundtrack Themes”. Sorry about that – blame ITV.