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The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House

Tag: doctor who

April 14, 2013

Doctor Who: Tension And Rubbish Skaldak In Submarine

So I was wrong. And I was gutted. I wanted the Sea Devils so much that it cast a shadow over an otherwise very decent episode. Ice Warriors? Pfffffffft. I-sorry-iors more like.

Spewed forth from the genius pen of Mark Gatiss (incidentally, for anyone who hasn’t seen League of Gentlemen and incidentally has a very strong stomach for very dark comedy, I’d recommend it heartily), this episode was set against the wonderfully claustrophobic of a nuclear submarine-think Das Boot meets The Thing but in British teatime television format. It was, with no doubt, the weakest episode of the series so far-a complete damn cop-out of a third act saw to that-but that’s not to say Cold War didn’t have it’s warmer moments.

Game of Thrones alumni Liam Cunningham really got his ‘tache around the role of a u-boat captain with a deadly cargo. Another one of those real thesps who just seem to fall into roles in Doctor Who, the part isn’t particularly subtle or nuanced, but doesn’t need to be- he’s got the appropriate gravitas and urgency for the role, and that’s fine. Matt Smith continues the performance in a slightly darker vein- I couldn’t help but notice the lighting this week, often casting him half in shadow, half in light- I am a media student bastard so I desperately want this to mean something, but it probably doesn’t. Whatever, Smith did himself proud against the adversity of the questionable script, and Clara-facing her first real alien- also continued her streak of being both rather good and especially pretty.

Gatiss is a passionate horror fan, and this is palpable throughout his forty minutes-the whole John Carpenter fellatio aside, this episode had a lot of genuinely tense moments. The choice not to show the Ice Warrior (Skaldak, by the way)  till the third act was a good one, especially considering it looked like a scaly turd with teeth and it was a whole lot less scary once you’d clapped eyes on it. Seriously. They must have blown all their special effects and prosthetic budget last week, and it bloody well showed.

But then-BAM!-the third act turned the  whole thing on it’s head, just when it was reaching a wonderful emotional crescendo. This isn’t League of Gentlemen, Gatiss; you can’t just have outsiders turn up and make everything better. That said, I can’t wait-and I mean, can’t wait- for next week. No sea devils, but definitely ghosts. Hurrah! On a side note, the way the Tardis in the opening credits opened up onto the first scene was fucking awful. I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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April 11, 2013

The Great British Television Revival

Britain, eh? Just sitting there, in the middle of the sea, getting the craic. My home and native land. What may not strike you about this teeny little craggy island drifting about like a philosophy student is that it’s television has suddenly become….well, very British.

You can’t click on anything on BBC iPlayer just now without being faced with some gurning “quintessentially British” personality or other fronting another show prefixed with “THE GREAT BRITISH” *insert seemingly arbitary activity here*. The Great British Bake-Off. Great British Railway Journeys. The Great British Sewing Bee, for Christ’s sake. Victoria Wood, grandmother of all British female comedians, can currently be found peering coyly out from the front page of iPlayer presenting a show about tea. The final of The Great British Bake-Off last season was watched by 6,743,000 people-just to put that in perspective, more people tuned in to watch Paul Hollywood make accidental double entendres about buns than live in the country of my birth. That’s mad, but also kind of understandable; I’d rather watch people baking than live in Orkney. It’s not just over here, either- Doctor Who, the gleaming jewel in the crown of the BBC’s schedule that’s celebrating it’s fiftieth anniversary this year, has been regularly broadcast in 48 countries-that’s means pretty much one in four countries in the entire world enjoying the exploits of a space cowboy with a light-up dildo.

So what’s brought this on? Well, we’ve got the obvious patriotic nonsense that’s we’ve been fish-slapped with over the last year-the Olympics, the Jubilee, the impending birth of a royal sprog. The whole year has been spent trying really, really hard not to talk about the Good Old Days-Christ, I’m surprised the Spice Girls weren’t strapped to a taxi emblazoned with “THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE GREAT BRITISH EMPIRE”. As a nation, the BBC wants to think that we’re shakily saluting the flag with our eyes glistening with tears, and it’s reflected in their dredging up of every British insitution-cookery, industry, Stephen Fry- while we still care. And you know what? I’m alright with it.

Bloody hell. Anyway, next time: lols.

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April 9, 2013

Doctor Who: Terrifying Aliens Reasonably Discuss Infant Sacrifice

Several things have filled me with joy in recent days. Picking flowers after lectures like a bollocks Jane Austen character, wearing my hipster-vacumn-inducing pinstriped trousers that make me feel like a Sultan in public, eating crisps in bed. But none have filled me with more joy than Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who.

As I mentioned previously, these first few episodes are  about establishing the role of the assistant. Rose was the Doctor’s moral compass, Donna was his mother figure, Amy was the girl who waited (to start acting), and Martha was….well, moderately attractive, I guess. And in The Rings of Unspellable, Clara set herself up as all of the above and more; Jenna Louise-Coleman (who I find myself falling further and further in love with every time she’s on screen) power-acted her way through being charmingly guileless, kick-arsingly ballsy, tenderly maternal and bloody gorgeous within the space of forty minutes. I am sold on her, and I like it.

There was a lot to recommend this episode- the wonderful prosthetics,  the song that the plot hinged on, the special effects good enough wiping every memory of the Tardis pulling what was essentially a poo vaguely shaped like the Titanic through space- and all this was enough to negate the rather flimsy plot. But Matt Smit out acted- well, everyone on television, I’d wager. His climatic scene-facing off against a God who feasted on stories-featured one of the most jaw-droppingly audacious and powerful scenes I’ve scene on Doctor Who in years. It could easily have been cheesy or cheap or childish, but Matt Smith nailed it- and I mean, he nailed it. We’re so used to him being the kiddy, slapstick  Doctor, but here he transformed completely, lines on his face standing out, replacing his mid-twenties charm with year upon year of bitterness and loss and betrayal. Backed by the breathtaking climax of the Murray Gold score, it really was a joy to behold.

Most excitingly, though-and this is purely speculation, but I’m calling it now- it looks like the Sea Devils might possibly be back next week. The fucking sea devils! Do you know how long I’ve waited? Those vaguely flatulent aquatic footsteps have haunted my nightmares for years. For years. Please, PLEASE. Either way, the twisted mind of the delicious Mark Gatiss spewed forth next week’s offerings, so I’ll be there with bells-and rings-on.

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March 31, 2013

Talent and Relative Decency In Space

I’m angry just now. This is mostly due to the fact I slept in the most comfortable bed in the world last night: not only did it have the consistency of a cloud wrapped in a condom of love, but it had enough room to fit both me and one other full-sized human in it without one of them, say, waking up to find her boyfriend has rolled completely on top of her in his sleep and all unconscious six-five of him is now planking on her. Just hypothetically. And by the end of the night I had become quite emotionally attached to the bed; we weren’t thinking long long term but I had invited it to move in at the end of April. When I was made aware that I couldn’t live here till I died fat and happy years down the line, I was not best pleased. And now I’m back home, in my bed, feeling like I’m nipple-deep in dirty needles and Aberdonians. And furious.

I feel very similar  in fact, to the way I felt at the start of the last few Doctor Who seasons. I thought Freema Aygeman was a disgrace, Matt Smith was far too young to play the Doctor, and David Tennant wasn’t (swoon) Christopher Ecclestone. Something just wasn’t right. But, hand-on-heart, I loved this seasons rollicking opener, The Bells of Saint John.

Introducing the new assistant Clara Osmond, played by sexy Bambi Jenna-Louise Coleman, this episode focuses on something dodgy in the Wi-Fi  in a Black-Mirror-style techno kiddy thriller. I mean none of that in the disparaging sense; I found, for the first time in years, a few scenes to be genuinely tense, mostly due to a fabulously pinched Celia Imrie basking in the delight of a classically villainous Milf-from-hell role. And I’ve never liked any assistant straight off the bat except Billie Piper, but Coleman was surprisingly inoffensive  which is exactly what she needs to be right now. Let the Doctor do his thing and show off while the assistant gasps away and is alternately maternal and spunky-plenty of time to characterize  her later.

Shout out to a supremely entertaining script from Stephen Moffat aided by some cracking direction from Colm McCarthy-this episode set a gold standard that, with two episodes penned by Mark Gatiss and one by legendary Neil Gaiman coming up in the next few weeks, looks set to be continued. But tonight wasn’t about what was to come in the rest of the series; it was tea-time self-contained adventure that was all nicely resolved in forty-eight minutes- clapping-my-hands-together-and bouncing-up-and-down throwaway reference to U.N.I.T the icing of the Tardis . It was, in short, Doctor Who at it’s best. Apart from their continuing bastardization of the theme song. I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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March 27, 2013

If I Were Stephen Moffat

You know about the new series of that BBC rip-off of the  Time Traveler’s Wife, yeah? That one with that pseudo-fun science teacher we all had in high school running about with his dildo torch? But once he was Hamlet and before that he had big ears (no, like, really big)? Aye, Doctor Who or something. Well, this Saturday it’s back. Despite my cunningly nonchalant air, I am borderline gnawing my own face and those of people around me with excitement.  And I have some suggestions for Stephen Moffat, the lead writer and generally Mafia Don of the show. So, Stephen, if you’re listening (and you best be doing whatever I tell you after the Fiji affair), lick your nib and sit attentively. 

1. No More River Song

There comes a time when people gather together. People of every class, every colour, every creed,  bind together as an unoppresible, silent army against some monolithic enemy, and they take a stand. An unstoppable force meets an immovable object. And sometimes all it needs is one voice, one single voice against the darkness to make a difference, to hold their own against what might be Hell itself. And that voice says “ENOUGH.”

Seriously, Stephen. Get your head out of your arse. I was bored of her by the third episode.

2. The bloody Ood.

If you bring back the Ood, I will forfeit my Whovianship. Now, now, Stephen, stop crying- I know it seems harsh for a big shot télévisioñ critic like myself to threaten you so. But you’ve done well the last few seasons (aside from fucking up the Angels. I don’t care how many violent arguments I have about it, I never wanted to see them move), so if you bring back the less criminally and more a-convincing-argument-for-capital-punishment-lly overused Ood I will see no reason to continue watching your show. Though, I’ll admit the name is pretty fun to say. Ood. Ood. Oooooood.

3. I want the Master back.

You could find a loophole into heaven, Moffat, don’t say you couldn’t, and I want the Master back. Not the magnificent John Simm, obviously, but no-one else can stand in for the Doctor’s real nemesis. I have a few suggestions, too: Benedict Cumberbatch would be great but almost too obvious, so I put forward Jeremy Clarkson or Neil Patrick Harris, or maybe my brother. He’s pretty tall.

So, that’s what I’d do. If I were Stephen Moffat. Which I’m not. I’m just his next regeneration.  Do do dooo……

 

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September 10, 2012

This Week: Stephen Moffat in Drugs Shock

I believe that I may finally have proof. My long-held belief that the proliferation of distractatory cocaine use within the BBC has begun to affect the programming. And last night, hunched in front of iPlayer, underlit, with a glass of wine, I saw the results played out before my eyes.

Popular-with-late-teen-bastards-but-really-a-kid’s-show Doctor Who this week played the episode “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”, a merry romp featuring the voices of Mitchell and Webb and the actual corporeal form of Mark Williams. It was an intellectually challenging as listening to Tommy Wiseau read The Cat in the Hat, but, as many people seem to forget, Doctor Who is a children’s teatime show. And as that, it was thunderingly good- exciting and silly and fun and in space.  But, increasingly, the show descended into situations so blisteringly outrageous and finally, finally I have proof. Below are a list of the top moments of the episode (or Exhibit A, as I like to call them).

Dinosaurs in Space, in a spaceship, flying about. Mr Weasely/Him Out of the Fast Show riding a triceratops. Rory looking increasingly like a squawking     wallaby with eyes the size of palms. A poor replacement for Captain Jack waving his metaphorical dick in an ancient Queen’s face. A large Mech voiced by Robert Webb replying to the exclamation “They’ve stolen the dinosaurs!” (delivered by a large Mech voiced by David Mitchell) with a tetchy “I know”.  Mr Weasely/Him Out of the Fast Show making a joke about his bollocks. David Bradley bringing the Jigsaw killer to teatime television. And, most stunningly of all, Amy being completely bearable for forty minutes.  It’s…..SATURDAY NIGHT!

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