I think I must actually be the adult audience that the new series of Doctor Who is aimed for. After last night’s episode, the series finale, I decided to have a quick look at one or two fan sites to see what they said and was quite surprised at the amount of - well, I don’t know what but I think it may have involved flaming torches, pitchforks and probably tar. And feathers. And no small amount of radishes (but not this dinky little british ones - those mediterranean jobbies that are the size of a small house.)

You see, I quite enjoyed last nights episode and I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever. Spoilers, obviously, ensue.
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So then, Doctor Who. The Stolen Earth. Far be it for me to break a habit and speculate about next weeks season finale, I’m stuck on a train, going to be very late to work and have just watched selected highlights again on iPlayer. This is going to be spoilerific (in terms of what we’ve just seen , not in terms of what may or may not happen next week) so if you don’t want to know anything, stop reading now. Really.

Right now.

If you carry on after the jump then you’re going to be sorry.
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Dr Who Spoilers abound. Deal with it.

Do you know what I loved about the recent Doctor Who two parter that just about everyone loved? No? Well I’ll tell you. I like the fact that they actually made something of the fact that he was a time-traveller and that if you think about the relationship between Alex Kingston’s River Song and the Doctor then it’s all kind of mind fuck that makes Kyle Reese coming to the present day to become the dad of the man who sent him back in time actually seem quite straightforward.

It’s brilliant.

The virtual reality world and all it’s time-bending ways was all manner of mind fuck too and completely ace as well. However we’ve had quite enough of the Doctor being about to sacrifice himself only for someone to take his place at the last minute for this season thank you very much. No more of that please. Just have him do something which should kill him but which he survives because he’s hard as fucking nails and we’ll say no more about it.

So.

Stephen Moffat, not content with getting inundated with BAFTAs for his Doctor Who episode, “Blink“, is now gunning for one with part one of his latest two parter, “Silence in the Library” which, as seems to be the general consensus, is bloody brilliant. It’s just as simple an idea as Blink was - taking a very normal something (like shadows, or blinking) and making it a threat. It works very well. Nice one. Let’s hope that the second part is just as good (which, barring a glitch in the time-dilation adjustment matriculator, I’m sure it will be.)

I have a guilty secret - well, one of many. This one regards my occassional habit of watching Eastenders - not compulsively but enough to know who’s who and what’s going on. I can’t call it a guilty pleasure like, for example, shooting up with crystal meth might be although it’s probably just as bad. It sometimes passes the time and sometimes distracts but more often than not in totally annoys me. The main cause of my frustration? Simple - why oh why oh why do characters in soap operas never change? Why are they so devoid of any character growth or any type of personal story arc?

This is largely a rhetorical question because the answer (I believe) is that the viewers like familiarity and need to have it clearly defined who the bad guys are, who the good guys are and who’s going to provide the comic relief. If Grant Mitchell came back to Walford having spent the intervening years in learning yoga in India under the tutelage of some Swami (which is not an entirely implausible story point for the character considering that he is a veteran of the Falklands War ) then the viewers are not going to be happy. They want the tough guy, the hard man, the thug, the lad and the bald headed brother of Phil Mitchell to be exactly that - no more, no less.
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I’ve just finished watching the Dr Who episode Blink that everyone’s been raving about. I didn’t get to see a vast majority (i.e. any) of the episodes when they first aired earlier this year on account of timey-wimey being all non-linear and wibbley-wobbley and stuff. Well, that and not having any television reception for 9 months. “Blink” was indeed very good. Wonderfully written and so very, very clever. There was one thing that bugged me all the way through it though, and that was the character of Larry Nightingale.

I kept trying to work out where I’d seen him before. He seemed so familiar that I knew I must have watched something with him in but I just couldnt’ remember what. When I saw his name on the credits, Finaly Robertson, I remembered exactly where it was: he came to the auditions for the short film I helped to produce a few years ago. In fact, the director and I spent a long time agonising over it because the choice for the male lead (I say lead - there was only one male character) came down to him and another actor. We both agreed that he was very good but in the end he wasn’t quite right for the role so we didn’t go for him. I want to say that I’m glad to see he’s doing so well now but that sounds patronising and an awful lot like we were going to give him a big break which is not what I mean. I am glad to see he’s doing well and I thought he was very good in the role.
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You may have noticed over there ( –> ) that there’s a little badge I’ve put up. Good innit! Took me all fucking morning to make because I am that shit hot with graphics software. I digress.

The Writers Guild of America are on strike. You may have heard about this in the news. If you already have an interest in screenwriting then you will probably know more about it otherwise you may only know what you’ve heard or read from your other news sources, most of which say something along the lines of “The writers are on strike because they want more money”. Essentially, this is true - certainly in the case of residual payments (i.e. royalties) from DVD sales. Writers would like to get double their current payment for the sale of a single DVD unit which, for a $20 sale, would amount to 4 cents.
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Or, more precisely, MI5’s Adam Carter vs CTU’s Jack Bauer.

FIGHT!

Actually, no contest - Jack Bauer would win, hands down. Unless it was a Sudoku play off in which case I’d back Adam Carter all the way. Crosswords too. Okay, so Adam is quite hard - he got infected with some biological weapon but survived but old Jacky boy has died. Twice. (Apparently - when was the second time? I don’t recall it - unless it’s in season 6 in which case I don’t recall it because I haven’t seen it.)
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I watched the first episode of Holby City that I’ve seen in, ooh, months. Since about March probably. Two things I noticed:

1. The production values have gone up. Where the hell did they get all that lighting from? There’s shadows and everything. It actually didn’t look as much like a studio as it did before.
2. It seemed so much worse than it did before - well, up until about the last 10 minutes. I don’t know whether it was the writing or the direction or what but it seemed so… contrived is the best word I can think of.

Then I watched Spooks. Saw the second episode of this series (having missed the second half of the last run when Hermione Norris joined and the other woman, the one who fancied Harry, left.) and then this one. Wow! Talk about suspenseful! Now, normally with bombs counting down, you generally know everyone’s going to get out safely. But ever since the deep fat fryer incident in the 2nd/3rd Episode of Season 1, you’ve never known with Spooks. Making the decision to off characters every now and then means that you never know who might be next for the chop. It certainly helps with tension building in even the most clichéd of plots.

Excellent stuff.

You may not have heard about the recent revelation in Variety that there’s been talk of doing a US version of the classic series “Spaced”, written by Simon Pegg and Jessica Stephenson (as was) and directed by Edgar Wright. Yes, it’s the same people who went on to make Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

If you’ve never seen it, stop reading, go away, watch it, come back.

If you’ve never even heard of it - WHY ARE YOU HERE?

Anyway, the original article suggested that both Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg were likely to be involved in the new US series, (that is going to be directed by McG - the man responsible for Charlies Angels: Full Throttle amongst other things). This has caused much wailing, gnashing of teeth and general calls of “sell out” amongst the rabid fan base.

However, in his MySpace Blog, Edgar Wright sets the record straight. Having originally said that a) he’s not been contacted and isn’t involved and b) he doesn’t approve of the idea and neither does Simon Pegg, he’s now written a very honest post detailing exactly what the situation is. (He also asked, prior to today’s post, that people refer to it as McSpaced. He asked so nicely, I felt it would be disingenuous not to.)

He’s right though - it’s a fucking terrible idea. Some of us still remember Red Dwarf USA!