Torchwood Season 3

I thought that Torchwood season one was generally bad, and that season two was downright terrible, but I've stuck with the series because it has potential. I felt that if the writers would only recognize the strengths of the premise -- and brutally stomp out all of the self-introduced weaknesses -- they'd end up with something truly great.

Usually my prayers go unanswered, but season three of Torchwood is absolutely amazing. They've darkened the tone, chucked the juvenile sexuality, trimmed off the extraneous character complications, and written within the budget. It is five episodes of perfectly-maintained suspense, anxiety, and outright horror. The aliens -- known as the "456" -- are the most terrifying creatures I've seen since...well, Alien.

In true Russell T. Davies style, however, the focus of the show -- and the REAL monsters -- are the buerocrats and functionaries who serve to represent humanity at its worst. It's bad enough that the 456 exist...what makes it TRULY bad are the petty foibles of those we expect to protect us.

If you've never watched Torchwood, go out and rent season three. Skip seasons one and two entirely; don't worry, you'll catch on quick enough. You might squirm when John Barrowman does his obligatory crying, but this time around it's kept to a tolerable level, and he really DOES have something to cry about.



PS: Actually this was very similar in tone and theme to a 1998 British mini-series called "Invasion: Earth." You might even accuse Davies of (perhaps unconsciously) copying it. Still, the particulars are different enough to make both series' distinct AND worth watching.

Reassessing Peri

I was an avid Doctor Who fan as a child, but I stopped watching the program midway through the Peter Davison era. So when I resurrected my fandom as an adult I was unpleasantly surprised by Colin Baker's incarnation as a clownish, brash, bullying, smug, but somehow impotent know-it-all.

Far worse, though, was the huge-breasted presence of Nicola Bryant as Peri Brown, the Doctor's assistant. She simpered and bounced and bitched a lot. She had a range of exactly two emotions: stuttering fear or eye-rolling sarcasm. And her American accent sounded weak and terrible, sprinkled with incorrect word usage and lapses in pronunciation. Every time she appears in a scene I want to scratch my ears out.

I developed a serious Nicola Bryant hate-on.

But like many of the more obnoxious aspects of that era -- the pantomime acting, the crap-synth music, the Doctor's outfit -- I've slowly begun to realize that Bryant wasn't really the problem. All of these failings started at the very top of the hierarchy -- John Nathan-Turner's potentially-compromised vision for the program -- and trickled down to the poor people like Bryant and Baker who didn't have any real say in the matter. Colin Baker HATED his coat and he was BAFFLED by what he was told to do. And, likewise, Nicola Bryant was simply Doing What She Was Told.

It was Mindwarp that really changed my mind about Bryant, first because she does some really first-rate villain acting, and second because the Peri/Yrcanos love story is so ridiculous that it spells the whole issue out for all to see: the Peri character was poorly scripted, not necessarily poorly acted. What's more, during the commentary for Attack of the Cybermen, Bryant specifically mentions Peri's incorrect American word usage, and reveals that she was told to speak that way so British viewers would understand her.

Well blow me down.

So even though I get annoyed every time Peri Brown gets stuttery and out-of-breath, my respect for Nicola Bryant has actually grown, and I can see moments -- usually funny ones -- when she managed to REALLY act in the role. I feel a bit sorry for her being written as T&A eye-candy "for the dads." I can still hate Peri...but I can finally appreciate Nicola Bryant.

And she's great on the commentaries, by the way.

Transcript of a Night of Pain

Ten o'clock. Good puss. Yeah, she's a good puss. Goodnight, puss.

Groan. Try the left side. Oh, that's pretty good, if I bend my elbow and put my right hand up near my chin. Hmmm. Still okay.

OH! Ouch, no, try the right side. That's not working. Ouch! Maybe if I...OUCH! Okay no. If I put my hand on the pillow...okay...whew! That's a bit better. Not hurting. Hmmm. Still okay. Hmmm. Zzzzzzzz...

Ouch! Ow, what is it? Ow. Eleven-thirty. That really sucks. If I lie here on my back and just put my right hand in my left hand that feels...okay, that's better.

I must have pulled a muscle. YEAH! GREAT! Aw jeez, yeah, hello puss. How're you? How's my puss? Pretty girl! Goodnight, puss!

Maybe if I...OW! All locked up. Just to the right a bit...a bit more...sigh. Doesn't hurt much. I should be able to...zzzzzzzz...

OUCH! Ouch, my shoulder. What time is it? Two o'clock. Oooh, I'll just lie here, ow. K-9 and Princess Astra. Princess Strella. "Just to break-a-my fah...ah-ah-ah, ah-ah." Astra. "People tell me it's gonna get bet-tah, gonna get bet-tah." Hmm. Left side maybe. OW! Oh, that's better. Zzzzzzz.

OW-OW-OW! This is the bad--OW! Gotta get...OW! Four o'clock. Oooo, get lost puss, need an ice pack, why don't I put all this crap away...ahh, that's better. Ice ice ice. I wonder if Zsa Zsa will get sick from licking the ice pack. I wonder if she'll wreck it. Rough tongue. Ahhh. High blood sugar. Gotta sleep, this is a really awful sleep tonight. Hmmm. Princess Strella. No, Astra. "Just to break-a-my fah...ah-ah-ah..." Maybe if I... "I've never loved nobody fully..." Hmmm.

OW! Roll over. OW! Okay, if I really push my shoulder down. If I grab my shoulder and push it DOWN. Aha. Can I sleep like this? Hmmm. K-9. "Yes, master." Good puss. Zzzzzzz.

Wha...huh...five o'clock, what? Low blood sugar, eat some...OW! Jeez. Eat some candy. Ice pack is warm. Maybe if I lie here. That's okay. Don't look at the clock. Don't think about it. Hmmm. Zzzzzzz...

Russell T. Davies, The Writer's Tale, Doctor Who, Bob and Rose

I like the new Doctor Who series. Sometimes I even love it. At other times, however, I hate it. And the things I both love AND hate usually come down to the show's writer, producer, and script editor, Russell T. Davies.

He's written some of the worst episodes of the show, and many of his more bombastic ideas have come under criticism, but there's no doubt that the actual TONE of the show -- that is, the underlying approach and feel of every single thing that happens -- is pretty darn brilliant...and Davies controls that portion of the program with an iron fist. And when he actually pulls off one of his more audacious stunts, you can only sit in awe.

If I simply loved or hated him I'd have had no reason to buy "The Writer's Tale", but I was SO CURIOUS to know what goes on in his head...so after considerable delay and hardship (not to mention cost), I managed to track it down.

It's a collection of emails exchanged between Davies and journalist Benjamin Cook, all written during the development of Doctor Who's fourth season. Much of the book is Davies agonizing about scriptwriting. Responsible for the program's highest-profile episodes, Davies is under immense pressure to come through with scripts that are on budget and on time, but he simply can't bring himself to write until the deadline has almost passed. In the meantime he's responsible for editing -- and often completely rewriting -- the scripts for other episodes, and also overseeing the show in general.

"The Writer's Tale" is an enlightening book in many different ways. Fans wondering why certain decisions were made can get an uncomfortably close look at Davies' scriptwriting process, from the first collection of ideas -- usually gags or momentous climaxes -- to the filming and editing. You begin to understand how those wonderful and stupid moments made it into the show.

But more importantly, the book is simply about HOW RUSSELL T. DAVIES WRITES, regardless of the fact that he's writing "Doctor Who." Benjamin Cook is constantly asking probing questions -- "How do you make the audience care about a character?" and "How do you write dialog that sounds natural?" -- and instead of replying with pithy (but vague and useless) writer's workshop responses, Davies REALLY, REALLY EXPLAINS IT. He positively AGONIZES over the answers. I've come away learning more about the actual process of writing than I ever got from those "Creative Writing" courses I took in university.

It helps that Davies writes excellent emails. They're essays in themselves, and usually very funny...in fact, they come out sounding like the characters in "Doctor Who" itself. He's also an accomplished illustrator, so the book is full of the sketches he drew of various scenes while he was writing the scripts.

Throughout the book, Davies constantly refers to the way he wrote his other shows, the ones before "Doctor Who." Curious, I went to the local video store to see if they had anything...and I was fortunate to stumble across "Bob and Rose."


Holy cow, this show is amazing.

Besides the great actors and straight-forward direction, you've got a truly original storyline: a woman (Rose) who is dissatisfied with her long-term boyfriend ends up befriending a gay man (Bob) who is equally dissatisfied with his mating prospects. Spontaneously, and almost accidentally, the two of them have sex...

...and all hell breaks loose. Bob has a quietly insane female friend who sabotages all of his promising relationships, for fear that he'll care about somebody other than her. Rose breaks up with her boyfriend and decides not to move away from home, where her mother has just invited a decidedly shady man to live. Most importantly, Bob is gay...but he sees something in Rose that is more attractive and offers more kinship than anybody else he's ever met. How can Rose deal with his ambivalence? How can their friends deal with the fact that they're going out? Will Bob's rabidly gay-activist mother accept that her son, for whom she's thrown herself into the cause of worldwide equality for all homosexuals, is...gasp...dating a woman?

The show is ingenious. Davies simply knows how people behave, and the actors portray these behaviours to perfection. He has a knack for perfect-pitch dialogue and zinger pronouncements that suddenly sneak up on you and make you (literally) shout "HOLY SH*T!" It has the perfect balance of comedy and drama, sociology and artifice...it is in my eyes, as of the third episode at least, The Best TV Show I've Ever Seen. Ever.

So if you know something about Davies' personality then you understand the problem with "Doctor Who." He loves the science fiction, but he also loves people and reality and the everyday stuff that all of us do. In "Doctor Who" he feels a need to cram all that stuff into 45-minute episodes that somehow gel...sometimes they do, and sometimes you end up with aliens that fart.

It doesn't help, too, that Davies seems to be surrounded by "yes men" who are too in awe (or afraid) to tell him when something DOESN'T work. He acknowledges this a bit in "The Writer's Tale," and coupled with the ridiculous workload and responsibility that the show saddles him with...well, it's no wonder that he's quitting now.

Previous to reading the book and watching "Bob and Rose," I was just happy that Russell T. Davies would no longer write for "Doctor Who," leaving behind a legacy, a fan base, and a story arc that a more disciplined writer (Steven Moffat) could inherit.

I'm still happy about that...but now I'm eager to see what Davies comes up with next. I think that with a less schizophrenic format and a brand new start, he could come up with something amazing. And now that he's famous, maybe shows like "Bob and Rose" will be appreciated.

PS: The show's funniest moment so far. The desperate female pack go to a straight bar in order to pick up men. One of the women yells "There's a man in a rabbit suit!" A ridiculous man on the dancefloor -- who is indeed wearing a scruffy rabbit suit -- pouts at the women and flips his floppy ear.

All of them go "Awwwwwwwwwww," as though this were just the cutest thing.


Well, you have to see it yourself. Like so many moments in the show, it speaks volumes in a simple, ridiculous scene.

Doctor Who Season Four

For the last few months, friends on Facebook had been dropping hints at how wonderful season four of the new Doctor Who was. With each episode broadcast, they'd update their status: "This is AMAZING!" and "I can't BELIEVE it!" and "Better and BETTER!"

In the meantime I have been totally in the dark, waiting for the DVDs to arrive. Now that I've watched the complete season -- and the commentaries -- I can only say...

...well, yeah. It's pretty incredible.

For some reason these new Doctor Who seasons always fail to grab me for the first five episodes. During the process of introducing the new companion, and "seeding" the story arc, and exposing us to gobs of Russell T. Davies' envelope-pushing wonkiness, the initial stories always seem a bit DESPERATE. And coming on the heels of the previous year's Christmas special -- in which we learned oppressively heavy-handed truths about the Great and Wonderful Goodness of People Who Will Sacrifice Themselves For The Greater Good -- well, I found it hard to swallow the season four setups.

Part of the problem was that I couldn't watch Catherine Tate without thinking of the "Go On, Just GUESS!" woman.



So even though I had a tough time taking Tate seriously as Donna -- not just her, but also the season's somewhat desperate theme that she is the Most Important Person In All The Universe -- and even though the first "two parter" was pretty rotten (as usual), suddenly there was...

..."The Unicorn and the Wasp." The Doctor and companion find themselves in the middle of an elaborate murder mystery which involves Agatha Christie and a giant wasp, and the wasp is actually an illegitimate love-child who tends to "buzz" his esses when he gets very angry...

...and it's just about the funniest thing I've ever seen. Next comes the "Silence of the Library / Forest of the Dead" two-parter, surely one of the SCARIEST Doctor Who episodes ever...until the NEXT episode, "Midnight," which is not just terrifying but also an enormously risky dramatic venture which Davies refers to as "The Goblin in the Corner." I'm amazed that "Midnight" ever got made, and I'm even more amazed that it worked so perfectly.

After that the totally bleak "Turn Left" -- complete with nuclear destruction, refugees, and concentration camps -- and the season finale that brings past companions and spin-off characters together for an amazing punch-out with Davros, and Sarah Jane looking her worst nightmare right in the face...

...and then, to finish it all off, the most tragic and depressing companion farewell in the history of the series, as she is sentenced to forget all of her triumphs and once again become the shallow, pathetic, doomed and blinkered person she started off as...

Wow. Brilliant. Far too often it's wanky and ridiculous and WAAAY too confusing -- the final episode in particular -- but at its best, season four is some of the most amazing television I've ever seen. If you don't feel I've spoiled everything for you, you really should check it out.

PS: Want some great fun? Listen to the commentary for "The Doctor's Daughter." It features Catherine Tate and Georgia Moffett, who have an absolute blast remembering the filming of the episode...but sitting on the same couch with them is the poor guy who conducts the orchestra for the musical score. Tate and Moffett totally exclude him in a way that could be interpreted as deliberately cruel...by the end he goes completely silent, steamrollered by the overpowering girl-party "no boys allowed" estrogen bond. It makes you want to cry.

Torchwood Season 2

Yes, okay, my loyalty to Torchwood is mostly because I'm a Doctor Who nerd. SUE ME!

But I also watch the show because its POTENTIAL is so huge. You've got a diverse, quirky cast -- most of whom are amazing actors -- under the guidance of one of the most wonderfully-conceived action heroes in history. Their mandate is open-ended and they have a dedicated pool of creative writers. Their fan base is such that they can hardly do wrong, allowing the show to experiment without fear of losing popularity.

So why did the first season mostly suck? And why did the second season suck even WORSE?

You don't have to be Tosh to figure out the reasons. There are three of them.

First, the budget is simply too low, so when they attempt to pull off Doctor Who-style scenes of mayhem they end up looking like a CGI version of...well, the '80s Doctor Who. I'm thinking mainly of the "space whale" and the "exploding Cardiff" scene, which left me wondering if I'd developed an astigmatism or if it really DID look like crap.

Second, John Barrowman can only play one role well, that of the sexy, flippant, mostly-likeable hero. When forced to branch out -- particularly in the presence of more capable actors like Eve Myles, Burn Gorman, and Naoko Mori -- he's a space whale out of water. When he was forced to cry in the first series he looked like he was taking a dump. I'm pleased to report that he's a better crier in the second series, where instead he looks like a small child about to blubber. I expect this is how Barrowman really cries.

All this would be fine, however, if it weren't for the third and most heinous problem with the series: the producers seem unaware of Barrowman's limitations -- and the obvious strengths of the Torchwood premise -- and therefore constantly shoehorn emotionally over-the-top moments into plots that don't NEED them.

This is (mostly) fine in the new Doctor Who, where the characters and mythology provide plenty of fodder for emotional blowouts. But in Torchwood, putting a requisite ten-minute weepy scene into every episode is like adding emotional depth to a Flash Gordon serial: unnecessary, distracting, and obvious.

So season two's Mostly Random Arc involving Jack's lost brother ("GRAY!!! GRAY!!!") is ridiculous, and just gives the characters yet another opportunity to say "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry."

Try contrasting "Something Borrowed," the only really good episode in the series, with one of the crappy ones like "Meat." In "Something Borrowed," the Torchwood team runs around battling a sexy alien in a ridiculous setting, cracking witty jokes and being self-referential and basically having a good time. Captain Jack gets to strut around and be tough, Gwen gets to be funny, and even Rhys is a welcome (and essential) part of the episode, instead of just saying "Darn it, Gwen, YER NEVER HOOOME!"

But in "Meat" you have an overly-ambitious, budget-free bunch of crap effects, and a pointless subplot about Rhys perhaps being evil (though we know he's not), and a heavy-handed message about...cruelty to animals, or something. You even have the conscious-stricken younger brother shouting "I DIDN'T AGREE TO THIS!" and Rhys complaining that Gwen is (yes) never home, and Jack's first opportunity this season to say (snicker) "I'm sorry..." and then (yes) "...I'm SO SORRY."

"Something Borrowed" knows that Torchwood can just be FUN. "Meat" wants to be relevant and complicated and heart-rending. One passes, one fails. WAKE UP, PRODUCTION TEAM!

Add to this yet another limping climax full of random obstacles (for which each member has a relevant skill) and the main character saying "I forgive you" to the evil mastermind (where have we heard that before, a year ago, in the climax to a show which is an anagram of "Torchwood"?) and you have, essentially, a load of whatever Barrowman was trying to crap out in the first series.

It's not ALL bad. I loved the "Owen's dead" subplot, and the cast reductions in the final episode were brilliantly performed (and tear-jerking, not least because those actors represented 66% of the team's acting talent). And whenever the show DECIDED to be funny, I laughed. And I thought "Maybe they've figured it out...maybe they understand that they should titillate me, and scare me, and make me laugh?"

Then, seconds later, Gwen would start mooning about how Torchwood had hardened her, and Owen was covering up his soft interior by being a brash jerk, and somehow Ianto still had security clearance after sneaking his cyberwoman girlfriend into the Hub. Oh, give me a break.

Gay Mafia in Anoraks

It's hard not to look at the new series of "Doctor Who" -- and its accompanying series "Torchwood," AKA "Campier Doctor Who with Sex and a Backwards Guitar Sound" -- without noticing how most of the high-ranking people involved are gay (or at least "sound INCREDIBLY gay but have wives"). What's more, they're gay RABID FANS. I don't think anybody has done a study to find out how skewed the demographic is, but it has long been acknowledged that something VERY gay is going on there, in all departments.

I figured this was just due to Russell T. Davies bringing his long-term acquaintances along, some of whom are exceptionally "out" in the same way that he is. But long-time fan Tat Wood devotes a section to this phenomenon in his terrific (and very funny) series "About Time."

The section is called "What's All This Stuff About Anoraks?" and is on page 167 of volume 6 (accompanying the writeup for a story starring Kate O'Mara, appropriately). The section is a mini-essay about British Doctor Who fandom in the '80s. After explaining the stereotype of the British Doctor Who fan (geeky, cynical boys who wear anoraks) versus the American counterpart (obsessive and slavish young men who wear Doctor Who scarves), he leads into the relevant stuff with the sentence "...but the real statistic anomaly was how gay it all was."

Perhaps spending so much time in an environment where people already knew the most embarrassing thing about you made it easier to make the second-most awkward admission of your life. Perhaps some people found that a hero who never quite belonged, and had other priorities than getting the girl and looking cool, helped them through difficult school years. Or perhaps it was the fact that the Nathan-Turner years were the most overtly homosexual mainstream TV ever transmitted at that point... a significant percentage of fandom in the UK -- and a very high proportion of the high-profile fans and future spin-off creators -- were gay or bi.

Wood doesn't try to explain it much beyond this, but I'm sure he has a point.

Incidentally, it never seemed to me that classic "Doctor Who" was particulary gay, but then I stopped watching shortly into JNT's producership...going back now and seeing those stories for the first time I can only say...wow. Total camp and a bit mortifying.

Single-Camera or Multi-Camera?

Watching the commentaries on classic Doctor Who DVDs I find myself learning an awful lot about the technical details of the show. Sometimes I come across the answer to some odd question that I've always wondered about, but never known how to find the answer for.

This week's revelation is about single-camera filming versus multi-camera filming.

I've often wondered why directors don't ALWAYS film with multiple cameras. By filming the same scene simultaneously from several different angles, wouldn't that reduce the amount of time needed to film the different scene elements? Wouldn't it reduce continuity errors?

Multi-camera shooting certainly IS faster, and it DOES make doing continuity a little easier -- requiring continuity checks only for re-takes of entire scenes, as opposed to whenever a scene is shot from a different angle. Another benefit of multi-camera shooting is that foley work becomes less necessary; everybody's voices and movements naturally sync together, instead of needing to be spliced up in an editing room later.

But these Doctor Who commentaries have given me insight into the NEGATIVE aspects of a multi-camera shoot...and there are a lot of them.

First off, there's the obvious drawback of needing to hire and coordinate several different cameramen. The actors also need to know their lines better, as there are fewer opportunities to check the script. Multi-camera shoots are by necessity more "theatrical" -- everyone in the right spot, everybody blocked out, all hitting their cues exactly -- which means that scenes MUST be rehearsed beforehand. This is a time commitment that might negate the time saved by shooting with multiple cameras.

More important, however, are concerns of lighting and sound. When you're only filming with one camera the director of photography can set up the lighting of each shot individually, paying close attention to those aspects of cinematography which make films look so much better than television programs. The boom operators can likewise record each shot in an optimal way, without needing to worry about actors wandering around the entire set and getting out of range.

But when you shoot with multiple cameras, the lighting is compromised: it must be adequate from every potential camera angle. And boom operators need to cover everybody no matter where they end up, instead of focusing on a small segment of dialog which must be recorded.

Finally, it's difficult to do really nice, elaborate close-ups of characters when multiple cameras are involved, for the obvious reason that the camera doing the close-up would become visible to all the OTHER cameras. This is one reason why fight scenes in the old Doctor Who tended to be filmed with single cameras, allowing tighter shots and therefore making it all look more tense and action-packed.

Nowadays it seems that multiple-camera techniques are rarely used except when a big, one-time-only practical effect is being shot, or when filming in front of a live studio audience. Otherwise, for reasons of lighting, sound, and general flexibility, single cameras are most desirable.

Lullaby In An Apartment House

My good fortune can't hold out forever; someday people will move into the unit adjacent to mine, and all my neighbour-troubles will begin again.

When I come here to whine and moan, please sing me this lullaby from the October 6, 1928 issue of The New Yorker.

Sleep, little one, sleep.
The sandman's going his rounds once more,
While red-hot jazz from the Palais d'Or
Steals in from Apartment 24.
Sleep, little one, sleep.
Hush-a-bye
Sleep, little one, sleep.

Sleep, little one, sleep.
Drift off to the land of slumber, pet.
The Smiths have a brand new five-tube set.
If you wake at twelve 'twill be going yet.
Sleep, little one, sleep
If you can.
Sleep, precious one, sleep.

Sleep, little one, sleep.
Skim the sky on a fleecy cloud,
As Jenks next door makes drinks for the crowd.
In another round they will get quite loud.
Sleep, little one, sleep
For your own protection.
Sleep, angel one, sleep.

Sleep, little one, sleep.
The silver moon casts a magic spell.
From the Roxy organ comes "William Tell,"
As Dr. Cadman discusses hell.
Sleep, little one, sleep.
In your trundle bedlam
Sleep, harried on, sleep.

(Howard Cushman)

Admittedly my potential neighbours may require a verse for themselves:

Sleep, little one, sleep.
Permit your tired mind to heal
While 'cross the wall shouts Schnapps the Seal,
With "Doctor Who" on endless reel,
Sleep, little one, sleep
Or that freak will getcha,
Sleep, little one, sleep.

The Unofficial "Torchwood Declassified" Drinking Game

If you find yourself watching the bonus "Torchwood Declassified" DVD in the season one box set, set up the booze and follow these rules. You'll only survive if you're very, very drunk.

• When somebody uses a string of one-word adjectives to describe an episode, take a sip for EVERY adjective.
• If the episode is described as "dark," take two additional sips. If it's "SO dark," finish your drink. If somebody says "it's SO dark," and then laughs, polish off the liquor cabinet.
• When Russel T. Davies, Julie Gardener, or one of the executives tries to explain why the sex and violence is "important to the plot," nod your head knowingly and drink a shot. When this explanation is followed by an extended, exploitative montage of sexy clips from the series, simply admit that you knew it all along.
• Whenever it sounds like a cast member is in a "watch Torchwood" commercial, throw your shot glass at the screen. This doesn't count if the cast member is John Barrowman because he ALWAYS sounds that way.
  
• When a cast member talks about their character in the third person, take only a tiny sip, or you'll quickly lose your eyesight.
• Drink a glass of wine every time somebody is described as "lonely."
• Whenever somebody describes Captain Jack in a way that could equally apply to Doctor Who, drink the entire bottle of wine. Destroy your wine cellar if this is within five minutes of somebody saying that the series premise is totally different from Doctor Who.
• When Russel T. Davies "gushes" about a plot twist, that's okay. When the plot twist is horrible and should never have been conceived, let alone filmed, drink your brandy and write him a nasty, fannish email.
• When John Barrowman is slick, Eve Myles is goofy, Burn Gorman is deadly serious, or Naoko Mori is wide-eyed sincere, take a sip of whatever you're drinking and then ask Gareth David-Lloyd for another, please. When Gareth David-Lloyd appears on the screen and you wonder why you never noticed his teeth before, clasp him tightly like John Barrowman would and say "I'm SO SORRY" in a broken-voiced way.
  

Doctor Who, Season X.3 - Conclusion

Give me strength to write short reviews of episodes 5 to 13, which I watched for the first time during the past two nights.

Evolution of the Daleks

This has to be the worst episode of Doctor Who ever, including anything involving Colin Baker. I can only assume that everybody involved KNEW it was awful, but they'd already committed so much time and money -- and it was the only Dalek two-parter they had on hand -- so they had no choice but to follow through. They shouldn't have. They should have just gone into reruns.

Besides the cobwebby, desperate plotline, it's the dialog and the acting that kills this one. By requiring American accents they ran afoul of what I think of as "Xena Syndrome"...they needed to hire either Americans living abroad -- in which case the talent pool is very small -- or they needed to hire local actors who could put on a credible accent, in which case the actors were too busy maintaining the dialect to actually, you know, act.

It can't help when you're a guy with a prosthetic pig-nose being forced to be sad all the time, or when you're a horribly mutated human/Dalek hybrid who has to say "If you seek...death and destruction...then death and destruction...will find you!" Without vocal distortion. In a Brooklyn accent. When you're a crap actor.

It was so bad that if I could physically remove this episode from my DVD, I would. So bad you expect a Slitheen to be in it. So bad that it's worse than "Fear Her."

The Lazarus Experiment

Sometimes you need a good old-fashioned "run from the monster" story. It helps if the monster is as freaky and goopy as this one. The inevitable Jones-family conflict slows things down a bit, and for the life of me I barely remember the details...but at least I remember it was fun.

42

Non-stop action! This was a real surprise, and I'm amazed they managed to pull it off: forty-two minutes of frantic running, fighting, screaming. I think it worked awfully well and I even liked the characters.

It's been so long since the Doctor got possessed by something.

Human Nature / The Family of Blood

Complex, multi-layered, character-driven. Ingenious idea. Martha's turn to shine, and wow does she shine. The nasty folks (see above picture) were all excellent actors, and scary. Next to the first season's "The Empty Child" I think these were the most frightening of the new series, and it really comes down to the convincing performances (how hard must it be to be so AWFUL?)

Extra points for the fairy-tale quality of the conclusion, wherein we see an uncompromising and quite disturbing Doctor mete out impossible (but somehow appropriate) punishments. Again, wow.

Sadly, as so often happens, the production team doesn't know when to quit. They often try to extend the episodes just a BIT longer, to squeeze out a few more drops of meaning or character development. Noble yes, but almost always anti-climactic.

Blink

I really do like these once-a-season "outside the box" episodes, and this is another one with excellent cast and a great concept. It progresses in a suitably eerie, step-by-step fashion, interspersed with surprisingly sweet moments. Like, yes, the creatures do something awful to people, but their victims end up pretty happy with their fates.

The problem is, after such a carefully-woven plot, the last ten minutes are so full of impossible holes that the scary stuff -- which is awfully scary -- is eclipsed by the shoddy bits. And the "spooky-boo" ending was just stupid, though kids probably liked it.

Utopia / Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

I've been praying for a three-parter since the new series began, and I think it worked pretty well. Apparently, in Russell T. Davies' universe, all time lords are manic goofballs, but in The Master's case...well, it sort of worked, because he was so endlessly CRUEL. I mean really, his scheme was TERRIBLY cruel, and irredeemably so. Yet I still understand the Doctor's anguish at the end. It worked.

And Martha's exit was probably the best of all the companion exits. I also liked the Face of Boe zinger, though maybe I'm the only one.

On the downside, however, somebody needs to put a leash on Davies, and perhaps electrify it. Did nobody think to sit him down and say "Russell, tell us again why you want to turn Doctor Who into Gollum?" At the same time they could have asked him about the wisdom of a Toclafane theme song, shortly before firing whoever was in charge of the "get-older spasm" effect, which could only have been the result of a time/money crunch.

All in All...

I'm happy with the season. It suffers the usual excesses but also contains more than the usual number of good (even great) episodes. I liked the relative soberness of Martha Jones as a companion; I enjoyed having Captain Jack back doing what he does best (action-joke-flirting); and I've finally warmed up to Tennant's Doctor (or maybe he's finally warmed up to me?)

What would I like to see next season? Longer stories, a darker tone, and a momentary reprieve from soap opera moralizing, please.

Doctor Who, Season X.3

During the past three years I've been through all the usual stages -- denial, anger, depression -- but I've finally reached acceptance: the new Doctor Who will continue to contain a mixture of brilliance and skin-crawly badness. Fortunately there seems to be an emphasis on brilliance, here, but still.

Long ago I'd downloaded the first bunch of season three episodes, and I'd finished "Runaway Bride" and got halfway through "Smith and Jones" before -- for some reason -- losing interest. So the recent arrival of the third season's DVDs is full of surprises for me, both good and bad.

I did enjoy "Runaway Bride," partly because of scary-funny Sarah Parish, and partly because I like Catherine Tate*, scheduled to be the fourth season's companion...is the world ready for that? I could also excuse the rampant silliness as "Christmas Special" fodder.

Sadly, the silliness continues. David Tennant has actually RAMPED UP his goofy behaviour, though fortunately it's confined to shorter periods (at least so far). Murray Gold's music continues to annoy, especially his "tink-a tink-a tink-a" stuff for the "hysterically cheerful" scenes and his "dah-dah-dah...(pause for pop-culture joke)...BLATBLAT" riff.

To get my last complaint out of the way: the soap opera elements in the first two seasons (lonely time lord, reluctant love, "is Rose safe" family dramas) were just barely this side of "too blatant." This season's soap opera elements (lonely time lord in denial, unrequited companion love, missing Rose, and whatever Jones family tensions they're obviously leading up to) seem a tad clunky and random in the vein of:

SOMEBODY: Where are you from? Who are you?

DOCTOR: {Sadly} I'm... {Pause} {Cheerfully} Anyway, let's get back to saving the earth! Wacka-wacka choo-choo!

With all that in mind, however, I've reached this resigned state by watching all the 1960s episodes in sequence. C'mon people, was there EVER a perfect episode of Doctor Who? And there sure were a lot of stinkers. So if you think that the current series is in some way perverting the pristine originals, go back and watch "The Gunfighters" or "The Ark," but wear sunglasses or you'll scratch your eyes out. The series has ALWAYS been dodgy, so give RTD and crew some slack.

And season three is really quite good so far. "Smith and Jones" managed to introduce a new companion and STILL have an interesting story with a fully realized alien species. "The Shakespeare Code" had some tiresome moments, but the cackly witches were fun. I just finished "Daleks in Manhattan" and I'm always a sucker for horrible mutation (though they could give the overblown Brooklyn accents a break).

I saved the best for last: "Gridlock," which I thought was about as good as Doctor Who can get: smart, scary, funny, weird, sad. Emphasis on SCARY. Nice to see the Macra make a return, and I thought the entire concept was unusually intelligent. I'm not looking forward to the commentary, though, since I see the insufferable Julie Gardner is there ("Awww, Murray's score is just BRILLIANT here, hooray for Murray! We are SO LUCKY to have him. We brought back the cat people because everyone LOVES Russell's cats, the cats were BRILLIANT, and you're brilliant too, Russell! We are SO LUCKY to have you on this show, Russell...bless! I am SO LUCKY to be part of this absolutely BRILLIANT team.")

So yeah, this is the perfect collection for a sickly weekend, but I wonder what RTD has planned for the conclusion...a big Macra vs. Daleks battle, with more time lords and the return of Mickey, perhaps?

* A small chunk of my blog traffic is due to Wikipedia's "hyper-gyp" article. The article links to my short blog entry about Catherine Tate's "foreign language interpreter" sketch, which has nothing to do with hyper-gyp at all. Thanks, inaccurate Wikipedia link!

The Classic Doctor Who DVD Commentary Skin-Crawling Game

I'm no good at drinking games, so instead I present a "Skin-Crawling Game." See how far your skin can crawl away from your body next time you watch a classic Doctor Who DVD commentary track.

• 20 feet every time Matthew Waterhouse mimics a line that has just been said on-screen. An extra 10 feet if somebody else tries to talk over him because they're embarassed for him.
• 10 feet when Tom Baker flirts with his female co-stars. 5 extra feet if he says something blatantly sexual.
• 5 feet when Mary Tamm says "awww, bless."
• 5 feet if Anthony Ainley makes a cheesy and obvious joke, but acts like he's not joking.
  
• 15 feet every time Matthew Waterhouse describes the obvious emotions of a character ("Oh, look at him, he's CROSS.")
• 5 feet when a person simply interrupts Lousise Jamieson as though she weren't saying anything important. 5 bonus feet if that person is Terrance Dicks.
• 10 feet every time Terrance Dicks feels hard-done-by.
• 5 feet for every story told about William Hartnell's grouchiness. 5 additional feet if another actor follows up with a story about how nice he could be in certain situations, really.
  
• 10 feet for every tantalizing lead-in to a story about Tom Baker throwing a tantrum. 5 bonus feet if the person stops telling the story because it sounds like they're afraid Tom Baker will hurt them.
• 15 feet for Katy Manning suddenly talking in a funny voice.
• 5 feet each time one of the '60s personalities (eg. William Russell, Verity Lambert, Richard Martin) confesses that they have only a vague, confused memory of the show. 5 more feet if Carole Ann Ford jumps in to fill in the details for them. A final 5 feet if it's obvious that they still don't remember.
  
• 10 feet for each backhanded swipe at John Nathan-Turner.
• 5 feet whenever somebody says that the show would be different nowadays (longer credits, faster credits, CGI effects, better sets, more convincing monsters, no rehearsals, jump cuts). 10 feet additional feet when somebody says "oh, but I like it BETTER the old way!" A whopping 25 feet if somebody else says "oh, sure, but the new series is BRILLIANT, have you seen it?"
• 10 feet when Richard Martin portrays himself as a maverick.
• 15 feet when somebody says they used to watch the show "from behind the sofa." 5 bonus feet if everybody laughs.
• 10 feet every time you wonder why Nicola Bryant doesn't just state outright that her acting was horrible and her fake accent sucked.
• 5 feet each time a guest star admits that they had no idea what the script meant, they only did it to make their children happy.
• 5 feet every time Philip Hinchcliffe says "I think we went too far on this one." Subtract 5 feet every time he's correct. Aww, bless him.
• 10 feet each time it becomes obvious that Nicholas Courtney's life has dwindled down to a depressing string of convention appearances.
• 10 feet for each sexual comment made by Frazer Hines. Subtract 5 feet if it's obvious that his co-stars considered him to be charming instead of creepy.
• 5 feet if a female says she liked her costume back then because "that was the fashion at the time."
  
• 5 feet any time a female says it was hard to run in Those Boots.
• 5 feet any time a female says it was awfully cold, but they weren't allowed to wear practical cold-weather clothing, you men sure were lucky.
  
• 5 feet if ANYBODY says it was awfully cold, but it was supposed to be summer so they weren't allowed to look cold.
  
• 10 feet if a "moderator" asks a question as though he doesn't know the answer, but you know darn well he does.
• 10 feet each time John Levene confesses a deep, personal insecurity.
• 10 feet if Debra Watling sounds senile, but cheerful.
• 15 feet if somebody is about to tell an interesting story, but somebody else jumps in and says "no, you'll give the ending away!" as though people will watch the commentary before watching the actual episode. 10 more feet if the story remains forever untold.
  
• 5 feet if somebody laughs and says "we're all so absorbed in the show, we're forgetting to talk!" 10 more feet if you suspect they just can't think of anything to say.
  
• 10 feet if somebody starts pointing out mistakes that were made during filming, and somebody else says "nobody wants to hear about that stuff!"
• Your skin is not allowed to crawl when Sophie Aldred is on the commentary.

Torchwood Thoughts

A few thoughts, now that I've just finished watching the final episode of Torchwood:

• Everything from "Countrycide" to "Out of Time" was very, very good.
• The other episodes ranged from flawed ("Small Worlds") to embarassingly bad ("Cyberwoman").
• The final two episodes of the season were bungled. So bungled, in fact, that I can't even figure out where the screw-up began. What's with the horrible shadow-killing monster that we first hear about during the last twenty minutes of the program? Considering the effort they've put into programming us for future episodes ("BAD WOLF! TORCHWOOD! MR. SAXON!") couldn't they have given us SOME foreshadowing?
  
• Eve Myles is an exceptionally good actress. I mean really, she's fantastic. The sad thing is, watching her go bonkers over the death of her hubby, I knew that the writer would cop out in the end. WHICH HE DID, THAT JERK! I can't take a second year of "Ack, Gwen, y'bloody well nevah home!"
  
• John Barrowman is an exceptionally bad actor. This does not bode well for the series, as he's the main character. But he simply CANNOT convey sincerity. Every time he cries, I laugh. Every time he says "I'm sorry" I have the urge to bite styrofoam.
• Why does it still feel like a children's program?
  

I will buy this series when it comes out on DVD, simply because the middle portion was so successful. And I'll even look forward to watching Borrowman flap his trenchcoat around in season two. But c'mon people, get it together, will you?

Xena?

I've long suspected that I'd enjoy the "Xena" TV series, but I've never actually seen any episodes. The ever generous Team Toronto Daily Muffy (Jason & Craig) loaned me the first two seasons so I can give them a taste and...well, I'm not sure what to think yet.

First off, it's not meant to be significant or monumental, and I'm still getting over that. It's a flippant, ironic, action-adventure series made for...who?

Disregarding the people who use their DVD's zoom and Step features to find out if Lucy Lawless has a meticulous wax job (she appears to), I'm trying to figure out who this show is aimed at. I've watched the first two episodes and they veer between sly adult jokes and little-kid moralizing. The best I can gather is that it's meant to be a "family show" with something for everybody, and it certainly excels at that.

I'm not hooked yet, but I'm going to watch a few more episodes to see how much it grabs me. It certainly is fun, and every episode has its exciting moments, but I tend to get easily bored by chariot races. I'm hoping they give Lawless some more substantial material, because she is a superb actress, and she waxes meticulously.

Incidentally my trip to Toronto reaped other rewards as well. On my way back to the bus station I decided on a whim to check out a used bookstore (because I'm looking for textbooks on object-oriented design, but more on that later). Since the aisles were small and I was lugging a huge suitcase I quickly realized my search was doomed, but I was too embarassed to just turn around and walk out. The only section accessible to me was the VHS tape collection, containing -- wonder of wonders! -- every videotape for the first six seasons of Doctor Who...for $2.99 each!

So now I've rounded out my Hartnell/Troughton collection, though I really don't know if I can sit through "The Gunslingers" a second time.

Synchronicity: The Manual

Henning (HE FIXED MY BLOG TEMPLATE!!!) has occasionally loaned me some rare and wonderful CDs by KLF. While their overblown and strangely beautiful "stadium house" sound is fun to listen to, and their collaboration with Tammy Wynette ("Stand By the Jams") is outrageously funny and odd, I reserve most of my affection for one-off KLF side-project The Timelords. They produced one mega-hit single, and then -- in typical quirky style -- produced "The Manual."

Subtitled "How to Have a Number One the Easy Way," it's their tongue-in-cheek guide to constructing the ideal hit single. Amazingly, many people have read The Manual and then produced number one hits, usually before fading away into obscurity. Close to my heart were Edelweiss, who in 1988 combined ABBA and yodelling to create one of my all-time favourite "fun" songs. They credit The Manual. So does (shiver) Chumbawamba for (shiver) "Tubthumping."

Now I find out that "The Pipettes" ALSO give The Manual credit for their success.

So what the heck is IN this manual? I'd love to read it, but until I can find a copy I can only guess, based on the examples provided above. All of these songs have simple repetative beats. Excluding The Pipettes, the songs also juxtapose different song segments that are surprising and seem slightly bizarre. Most importantly, they all have a sarcastic/base/simple/ironic tone reflecting elements of popular culture: The Timelords rip off (among other things) Gary Glitter and Doctor Who, Edelweiss rips off ABBA and German ski resorts, Chumbawamba combines a drinking anthem with "Danny Boy."

From what I hear, the original Manual focused more on electronically sampling other sources, but later groups show that simply referencing those sources is enough to score a hit.

The Invasion

The Doctor that *I* grew up with was mostly Tom Baker, with just a hint of Pertwee. But I have to say that, by far, my favourite Doctor/companion combination is Patrick Troughton, Zoe, and Jamie.

I can't really explain why I like Troughton so much; I think it's because he so convincingly switches between glee, silliness, fear, and viciousness. As others have said, he's like a wonderful, slightly scary, crazy uncle. Throw in Jamie and Zoe, who are the most lovable non-sibling siblings ever, then add the fact that the three of them got along so INCREDIBLY well off-screen, and you have almost as much fun watching them as they supposedly had during rehearsals. Not to mention Zoe with That Catsuit.

Along comes the release of 1968's "The Invasion" on DVD. The cyberman story that doesn't really have cybermen in it. Instead it's got the debut of UNIT (who I've always enjoyed), Tobias Vaughn (best villain ever), Sally Faulkner as the rude mod gal (empowered just long enough to get a soldier killed, then settles down to tea-making duties)...somehow it's eight episodes that DESERVES to be eight episodes, never dull, always something new, even if you DO have to see the same stock footage of missile silos over and over and over again.

What's more, the BBC has gone out on a limb and animated the two missing episodes, synced up with the surviving audio soundtrack. It's cheap but absolutely watchable. Particularly fun is seeing animated characters try to sell the trademark Hines & Troughton mumbling ad-libs.

But best of all -- yes, it gets better! -- is the 15-minute documentary about the sad people who recorded the soundtracks off their TVs. Yes, the kids who audio-taped every episode of Doctor Who, some of them from the time of Marco Polo. The kids that everybody probably made fun of. The kids who, after the infamous wiping of 109-odd episodes by the BBC, are now the only source of those long-lost soundtracks.

They're slightly-embarassed middle-aged men now, but they chatter about the lovingly obsessive care they took recording the shows, and Mark Ayres (audio guru) explains the process of lovingly and obsessively cleaning them up for DVD. My brain just about exploded when he explained his technique for restoring a complete 10-second audio drop-out during "The Abominable Snowmen": sampling Patrick Troughton's phonemes from other episodes, then pitching, equalizing, and splicing them together to make a mostly understandable replacement.

Personal sentimental anecdote: I never recorded Doctor Who off the TV, mainly because I didn't have enough audio tapes. But I DID consider "Phantom of the Paradise" to be tape-worthy, though it ended up being grumbly City-TV jingles and me yelling at my sister to keep quiet.

Sarah Jane Smith

I figured: okay, I just spent a great night in Guelph with wonderful people at a wonderful party...I can go home and enjoy a totally nerdy persuit, right?

So I watched the pilot episode of the "Sarah Jane Adventures."

Gah! Okay, it's a show aimed at pre-teens. Obviously. But those of you (like me) who grew up watching Sarah Jane Smith in the late '70s during the heyday of "Doctor Who" can't help feeling a little nostalgic about her. Or in this case, a LOT nostalgic.

The Sarah Jane character got unceremoniously dumped in 1976, the way many of the Doctor Who "companions" got dumped when things just weren't working out. Elizabeth Sladen (the actress) felt that the character wasn't going anywhere, and she was right...there's only so many times you can say "Doctor, WHAT'S HAPPENING?!?" before things get a little tiresome.

But the problem is, Elizabeth Sladen never went anywhere afterwards. She'd been typecast. And we all loved her and wished we could see her again (though I admit that Leela and Romana kicked butt as travelling companions afterward).

On the heels of her brief return during the second season of the new Doctor Who, introducing a whole new set of neuroses, Elizabeth Sladen stars in her own TV series -- "The Sarah Jane Adventures" -- which is really darn fun. I mean sure, I'm twice the age of the target demographic, but that doesn't matter: Elizabeth Sladen has aged beautifully, she's got a killer pair of boots, and the production team does a great job aiming at children while still being fun for adults.

Besides whatever entertainment value the program has, it makes me happy to see Elizabeth Sladen back on screen again. She has justified her talent, she's a great actress, and if the only way she can prove it is by playing the same character again...well, sad but okay. And need I mention John Leeson as K9?

Okay, okay, the core of this post is the little kid in me screaming "YAY! K9 AND SARAH JANE! AND THEY'RE GREAT!" Nothing else matters. Tomorrow, life goes on.

Broadcast Signal Intrustion

I try not to stick too many YouTube videos on here -- it gets repetative, slows down the page loading time, and seems sort of a cheap thing to do -- but this is a particularly strange one with an interesting history.

On November 22, 1987, the only two successful cases of "broadcast signal intrusion" ocurred. During the 9:00pm WGN news broadcast, somebody managed to hijack the signal and insert their own video signal into the program. The signal was without audio and only lasted for twenty seconds; engineers quickly corrected the problem.

But the same hijack was attempted at 11:15pm on WTTW, this time with audio. Since the engineers weren't on duty, the inserted signal seemed to run its course...this time with audio. Nobody knows who the hijackers were, but whoever they were, they were very very strange.

Here's a recording of the incident, which occurs during a broadcast of Doctor Who's "Horror of Fang Rock."



Yes, he's wearing a Max Headroom mask and his voice is being pitch-shifted. Here's what some folks think he is actually saying, and for more information visit this site.

"He's a freaky nerd!"

"This guy's better than Chuck Swirsky." [another WGN sportscaster at the time]

"Oh Jesus!"

"Catch the wave..." [reference to a Coke commercial at the time of which Max Headroom was a spokesperson]

"Your love is fading..."

"I stole CBS."

"Oh, I just made a giant masterpiece printed all over the greatest world newspaper nerds." [??]

"My brother [mother?] is wearing the other one."

"It's dirty..."

"They're coming to get me..."

Incidentally, I loved Max Headroom. Hey, I was young, but after he teamed up with Art of Noise for "Paranoimia" -- a video which really messed up THIS 14-year-old's head -- I was hooked:



I even switched to Coca-Cola. It was at a time when people still thought he was computer generated, which made everything all the more mysterious. And the TV show was darn good too.

Also incidentally, "Horror of Fang Rock" is one of the best Doctor Who serials out there. Made during the Hinchcliffe-Holmes era -- when their mandate was "let's scare the little buggers" -- "Fang Rock" was one of a series of particularly nasty, out-of-control programs that eventually lead to Philip Hinchcliffe's ouster. And yes, it terrified me, and it's disturbing to watch even now. It's been given the full DVD restoration treatment. Sadly the Max Headroom video isn't part of it.

What's the Story with Torchwood?

I had high hopes for the "Torchwood" TV series. A spin-off featuring Captain Jack Harkness, a character who shone so brightly during the first season of the revived Doctor Who? A crime/mystery drama with ramped-up sex and violence? Lots of actors and actresses with those exotic Welsh accents?

Sadly Torchwood arrives with a millstone already around its neck; not only is it suffering from conflicting aims of being both SIMILAR to Doctor Who (to keep the fans) but still very DIFFERENT from Doctor Who (to appease those of us looking for something a bit grittier)...it's also suffering from the continued presence of Russell T. Davies. The man's brilliant, but let's just say that somebody needs to put a leash on him. And on David Tenant too, incidentally.

Anyway, I watched the first two episodes of "Torchwood" and was bitterly disappointed. John Barrowman just isn't a strong enough actor to carry Captain Jack beyond brave/hunky/funny sidekick. The "Torchwood" base of operations looks too much like a Scooby Doo hideout (c'mon guys, a GIANT FAKE-LOOKING GEAR for a doorway?). The sex-and-violence seems awkwardly inserted, as though we were watching a children's script re-written so that everybody has at least one bisexual encounter an episode...just 'cause! It DOES look like a children's program, and tends to be even more childish that anything in the first season of the new Who.

But tonight I decided to give the third episode a try. And while it's still sloppy and amateur, and while I still cringe hearing Captain Jack wax philosophical, I have to say it's beginning to draw me in. Maybe this is the blessing/curse of a Russell T. Davies project: you need to watch at least three episodes before you realize you're actually starting to CARE. I thought Eccleston was a goof until "Dalek."

What's more, this episode has the first Torchwood scene that's managed to genuinely surprise and shock me, and which shows that Eve Myles can really act when she's given a proper scene to act IN. Oh, the blood.

So if anybody out there turned off after the second episode (and I know at least one person who turned off halfway through the FIRST), I encourage you to at least stick it out for a few more. Maybe they'll end up sucking horribly, but I see glimmers of potential genius in the background...