If you’ve watched enough movies and TV shows, the idea of the ‘ticking bomb’ should be familiar to you. You know: there’s a bomb, it’s got to be defused, usually by snipping either a red wire or a blue wire, and there’s only a few minutes or seconds to do it in.
Normally, you’ll find this in a single episode of a TV show or maybe in the final act of a film and it’ll usually be just a regular cop or soldier doing the disarming, rather than a heroic bomb disposal expert – typically they‘re running late. Equally rarely will the ticking bomb scenario last the length of the entire movie or TV show or the bomb be any more complex than just that red-blue question.
In fact, off the top of my head I can only think of Danger UXB and occasionally The Unit really focusing on bomb disposal on TV; in the movies, even Speed didn’t dwell on disarmament, only evasion, and Quatermass and the Pit didn’t have a bomb, only a spaceship everyone thought was a bomb.
Juggernaut (also known as Terror on the Britannic), released in 1974, is perhaps the only instance of a movie that deals exclusively from beginning to end with the defusal of a single bomb and that features a heroic bomb disposal expert at the centre of the action.
Set on board a luxury liner travelling across the Atlantic, the movie sees Richard Harris try to disarm seven identical and highly complicated bombs designed by a man calling himself ‘Juggernaut’. The first film to develop the ‘red wire/blue wire’ dilemma, it’s a tense piece directed by Richard ‘Superman II‘ Lester, with dialogue by Alan ‘Beiderbecke‘ Plater, that while featuring an all-star cast is in reality a mesmerising monologue by Harris and a musing on the nature of death. It’s a movie you should own.
Here’s the very 70s, slightly judgemental trailer narrated by a bored American man.
Do you know what my wife said when she saw this had arrived through the post? "Oh, lush."
I’m not saying she is Joanna Page or Stacey, just that sometimes the similarities get a little spooky.
Anyway: Gavin & Stacey, bit of a sleeper hit during its first series on BBC3, won surprising amounts of awards, then suddenly went through the roof during series two, which went on to win even more awards.
Now series two is going to be repeated on BBC1 (starting this Friday) just in time for a Christmas special, also to be aired on BBC1, and for this DVD release.
It’s a lovely little sitcom about a girl from Wales and a boy from SE England who meet, fall in love and get married (rings some bells. Hmm). But as the tag line almost says, it’s not just the two of them and the story is as much about their best friends and family as it is about them.
Today’s Sitting Tennant comes courtesy of Ms Rullsenberg and sees the Labour-supporting David Tennant enjoying himself thoroughly sitting next to current London mayor and arch-Conservative (and arch conservative) Boris Johnson on Andrew Marr’s breakfast show. Captions please.
That gives us the current Sitting Tennant league tables: for pictures, Rosby’s still in the lead on seven entries, but now Rullsenberg is just half a point behind on six and a half points and Persephone isn’t too far away on five and a half points. Toby has five, Poly and Scott both have three and a half points each, Jane has two and a half, Anna has one and a half, while Marie has one.
The Witty And Amusing Captions league table is getting tighter, too. Toby is king of the hill with 19 captions but Marie is queen on 12. Persephone is on 10 captions, Jane Henry is very close behind on nine and a half, Rullsenberg has seven and a half, Electric Dragon and Rev are now tied on four entries, and Poly and Stu_N are marooned on one each.
As always, keep your eyes peeled for any new pictures of David Tennant sitting down that you can find, and keep coming up with those captions – there’ll be bonus points for topical captions and pictures if you can find them.
Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. You can also enter the witting and amusing captions league table by commenting on existing photos in the gallery.
