TOP CAT
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Doctor Who Review: Frontier in Space
One day very soon I’m going to write an article
on the BBC show Blake’s 7 and why you
should give it a try. In it, I may mention how close in feel that show is with
this particular episode of Doctor Who. It
was a show about an evil empire and everything always went wrong for the small
band of rebels and it was overall a rather bleak and depressing look at the
future. It had grainy outdoor film sequences and drab and dark indoor sets,
with an army of uniformed Earth police who were rather trigger happy. These are
some of the things that made that show so good, and what makes this story
great, and also ahead of its time, seeing as this was made years before Blake’s 7.
The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee and his companion Jo arrive on a cargo ship in the future. A strange noise is heard and the crew of the spaceship believes the Tardis crew to be the Earth Empire’s former enemies, the Draconians. The two races are at peace, but it’s a very shaky peace and an outbreak of all out war seems likely. The cargo ships are being attacked on both sides and both sides blame each other. However when the ship the Doctor is on is attacked, it is only Ogrons, a race of unintelligent mercenaries who attack, but the human crew sees them as Draconians. Who is trying to trick the Empires? Why would they want to start a war? Is there a greater force at play? And how can the Doctor convince the humans to listen to him when they think he is a spy?
That’s basically the plot. Most of the story involves the Doctor moving from place to place trying and mostly failing to persuade people to believe his story. Now, from the sound of that, you’d think the story would be long and boring, but it’s really not. This is because of a lot of different reasons. The Cold War theme worked very well at the time, but it surprisingly still works now, but more in just a building tension way, rather than in any topic sense. It’s still great though, there’s an atmosphere of dread and depression over the whole story and it works very well. It helps that the sets and direction make the worlds and ships visited all seem rather dark and washed-out. You really feel like these are real Empire run, almost wartime conditions. The aliens the Draconians are fantastic creations, they seem like Japanese Samurai, and even have a feudal system. Their make-up looks amazing and their costumes are luxuriate and a deep green colour, to contrast with the functional and grey uniforms of the Earth. There are also some great locations in this story, the Earth command, a Moon prison, a number of very different looking ships, the Draconian Court, the barren wasteland of the Ogron world and even deep space. The whole look and feel of the story seems like it’s had a lot of detail into it and works very well.
The other main reason this story works is the actors. The supporting cast does a good job, but this is obviously a show run by three people. The Doctor, Jo and ‘spoilers’ the Master. All three of them do a fantastic job and have great chemistry between them. Jon Pertwee brings a touch of class and conviction to the role that’s seldom rivaled, Jo is one of the best companions, fun, pretty, but a bit of a ditz and of course Roger Delgado as the Master, well… No-one is as good as him. I like the other Masters, the actors all do a great job with the part, but, Roger Delgado just is the Master. He’s suave, smart, arrogant and the perfect foe for the Doctor.
There are only two problems with this story.
1. It does at some points drag, especially when there are whole episodes which are fun, but don’t really further the plot.
2. This is the last story with Roger Delgado, before he died in a tragic car accident. And although he’s brilliant here, he doesn’t get a proper send-off. The end of the story is a bit confusing and we never really see what happens to him, so there’s never really a final confrontation. It’s a shame, but it isn’t this story’s fault.
Overall this story works really well. There are a couple of problems which stop me giving it a 5/5, but I really enjoyed it. It’s very well made and the cast are great. Definitely one to watch.
4/5
This however was all build-up for the reveal of the Daleks in Part 6, which leads us directly on a cliffhanger into the next story Planet of the Daleks. So come back next week to see what I thought of that one.
The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee and his companion Jo arrive on a cargo ship in the future. A strange noise is heard and the crew of the spaceship believes the Tardis crew to be the Earth Empire’s former enemies, the Draconians. The two races are at peace, but it’s a very shaky peace and an outbreak of all out war seems likely. The cargo ships are being attacked on both sides and both sides blame each other. However when the ship the Doctor is on is attacked, it is only Ogrons, a race of unintelligent mercenaries who attack, but the human crew sees them as Draconians. Who is trying to trick the Empires? Why would they want to start a war? Is there a greater force at play? And how can the Doctor convince the humans to listen to him when they think he is a spy?
That’s basically the plot. Most of the story involves the Doctor moving from place to place trying and mostly failing to persuade people to believe his story. Now, from the sound of that, you’d think the story would be long and boring, but it’s really not. This is because of a lot of different reasons. The Cold War theme worked very well at the time, but it surprisingly still works now, but more in just a building tension way, rather than in any topic sense. It’s still great though, there’s an atmosphere of dread and depression over the whole story and it works very well. It helps that the sets and direction make the worlds and ships visited all seem rather dark and washed-out. You really feel like these are real Empire run, almost wartime conditions. The aliens the Draconians are fantastic creations, they seem like Japanese Samurai, and even have a feudal system. Their make-up looks amazing and their costumes are luxuriate and a deep green colour, to contrast with the functional and grey uniforms of the Earth. There are also some great locations in this story, the Earth command, a Moon prison, a number of very different looking ships, the Draconian Court, the barren wasteland of the Ogron world and even deep space. The whole look and feel of the story seems like it’s had a lot of detail into it and works very well.
The other main reason this story works is the actors. The supporting cast does a good job, but this is obviously a show run by three people. The Doctor, Jo and ‘spoilers’ the Master. All three of them do a fantastic job and have great chemistry between them. Jon Pertwee brings a touch of class and conviction to the role that’s seldom rivaled, Jo is one of the best companions, fun, pretty, but a bit of a ditz and of course Roger Delgado as the Master, well… No-one is as good as him. I like the other Masters, the actors all do a great job with the part, but, Roger Delgado just is the Master. He’s suave, smart, arrogant and the perfect foe for the Doctor.
There are only two problems with this story.
1. It does at some points drag, especially when there are whole episodes which are fun, but don’t really further the plot.
2. This is the last story with Roger Delgado, before he died in a tragic car accident. And although he’s brilliant here, he doesn’t get a proper send-off. The end of the story is a bit confusing and we never really see what happens to him, so there’s never really a final confrontation. It’s a shame, but it isn’t this story’s fault.
Overall this story works really well. There are a couple of problems which stop me giving it a 5/5, but I really enjoyed it. It’s very well made and the cast are great. Definitely one to watch.
4/5
This however was all build-up for the reveal of the Daleks in Part 6, which leads us directly on a cliffhanger into the next story Planet of the Daleks. So come back next week to see what I thought of that one.
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Friday, 18 May 2012
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Doctor Who Review: Victory of the Daleks
I was less than
impressed with the episode this story followed, The Beast Below, so I was reasonably hopeful when I heard this one
would feature the Daleks. However rubbish a story with the Daleks is, it still
has them, and they are always very entertaining. I mean, how could you mess up
the Daleks? Well, I’m not sure how or why, but they managed it in this episode.
To begin with let’s think of this as a story in two halves. Part 1 is up until the new Daleks appear, Part 2 is after. Part 1 is very good. The Cabinet War Rooms are a very cool location and looks very convincing. The characters are brilliantly acted and very well rounded, especially Churchill. Ian McNeice had played Churchill before Doctor Who and it really shows here as he knows exactly what he’s doing giving both a moving and a hilarious portrayal. Bracewell is very interesting, the regulars do their jobs well, especially Matt Smith when conveying the anger of the Doctor and even minor character like the woman who loses her boyfriend are well done if a little underdeveloped. The Daleks as the obedient soldiers is a nice homage to Power of the Daleks and is incredibly creepy as we know at some point they’re just going to snap. It also allows us to see the Doctor in a different light as he tries to convince everyone the Daleks are evil when everything seems to point the other way, we’ve never seen the eleventh Doctor as frustrated as he is here before. Basically it’s a very good build up for a brilliant scene where the Daleks reveal their plan and how they’ve tricked the Doctor. One problem with the scene though is they have a perfect opportunity to kill the Doctor but don’t take it, for no reason at all. But hey, we can let that go for how good the rest of the story has been so far. The action then moves onto the Daleks’ spaceship, which is basically an empty room, but for the position the Daleks are in, all broken down, in this story, it kind of works. We hear more details of the Dalek plan, which was to build a new set of Daleks and there is some nice interactions between the Doctor and his enemies, especially the hilarious jammy dodger moment. All this leads up to a door opening to reveal the new Daleks. Now, I will admit, this half is very good. It’s not the best Dalek story, but it’s nice to see them being smart instead of just mindless killers, it has some very good acting and it’s got an intriguing plot. However all this would go to waste, if the buildup had been for nothing or for something rubbish. And, unfortunately this is the moment where Part 2 starts and everything goes very wrong.
Spitfires as spaceships, Bracewell is a bomb that gets deactivated by love, the Doctor leaves the Daleks so he can go back to Earth to deactivate the bomb and it ends up being Amy who does it so the Doctor just wasted his one chance to stop the Daleks. The Doctor isn’t that bothered about the Daleks escaping. All these things seem strange, out of character or over the top. Although this is a story about a time traveler fighting aliens on a spaceship who build an android who hangs out with Winston Churchill, the first half was relatively serious and grounded. The second half just goes mental and the change in tone is jarring and doesn’t work. It’s almost like the set-up was written first then the writer, Mark Gatiss didn’t really have a way out of the situation he’d devised, and the pay-off is just a disappointing mess. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s not very exciting and it doesn’t live up to the expectations the first part of the story creates.
And of course, I couldn’t go through this story without mentioning the worst thing it does. Change the Daleks. First, why? Steven Moffat’s only reason seems to have been because he could. This is not a good reason. The Daleks have never changed as radically as they did here before. Sure they’ve changed colour, and little details have changed but the biggest redesign ever done before was in 1965 and that was just to add the slats on their sides. So to make such big changes just for fun seems wildly irresponsible. Add to that in story, the Cybermen’s design doesn’t make any sense and they actually need to be changed, then why change the Daleks? No reason (except to sell toys). So what went wrong? The new eye is static, so has less expression than just a light. They’re too tall, Daleks were never supposed to tower above you. They are now very plastic-y which means they seem less like the metal war machines we’ve seen before and more like toys. The colours. I don’t mind a coloured Dalek but these ones are too bright and look cartoonish. The gun is the same length as the arm. The arm’s for touching things further away, this is why it’s longer, now it doesn’t make sense. You can see through the top section. They have a weird hunchback which ruins the sleekness of the design. And the slats have been removed so the proportions are all off, the bottom half looking far bigger than the top. Basically they do everything wrong, and for no reason. While this isn’t really a fault with the story of this episode, it does ruin any tension in the second half, as I find it completely impossible to take these cartoonish monstrosities seriously.
In conclusion then, the first half is a brilliant build up to a second half that completely fails in almost every way. It’s not the worst story ever, because this is a lot to like at the start, but as the story goes on, it loses these good ideas and becomes rather lucklustre.
2/5
To begin with let’s think of this as a story in two halves. Part 1 is up until the new Daleks appear, Part 2 is after. Part 1 is very good. The Cabinet War Rooms are a very cool location and looks very convincing. The characters are brilliantly acted and very well rounded, especially Churchill. Ian McNeice had played Churchill before Doctor Who and it really shows here as he knows exactly what he’s doing giving both a moving and a hilarious portrayal. Bracewell is very interesting, the regulars do their jobs well, especially Matt Smith when conveying the anger of the Doctor and even minor character like the woman who loses her boyfriend are well done if a little underdeveloped. The Daleks as the obedient soldiers is a nice homage to Power of the Daleks and is incredibly creepy as we know at some point they’re just going to snap. It also allows us to see the Doctor in a different light as he tries to convince everyone the Daleks are evil when everything seems to point the other way, we’ve never seen the eleventh Doctor as frustrated as he is here before. Basically it’s a very good build up for a brilliant scene where the Daleks reveal their plan and how they’ve tricked the Doctor. One problem with the scene though is they have a perfect opportunity to kill the Doctor but don’t take it, for no reason at all. But hey, we can let that go for how good the rest of the story has been so far. The action then moves onto the Daleks’ spaceship, which is basically an empty room, but for the position the Daleks are in, all broken down, in this story, it kind of works. We hear more details of the Dalek plan, which was to build a new set of Daleks and there is some nice interactions between the Doctor and his enemies, especially the hilarious jammy dodger moment. All this leads up to a door opening to reveal the new Daleks. Now, I will admit, this half is very good. It’s not the best Dalek story, but it’s nice to see them being smart instead of just mindless killers, it has some very good acting and it’s got an intriguing plot. However all this would go to waste, if the buildup had been for nothing or for something rubbish. And, unfortunately this is the moment where Part 2 starts and everything goes very wrong.
Spitfires as spaceships, Bracewell is a bomb that gets deactivated by love, the Doctor leaves the Daleks so he can go back to Earth to deactivate the bomb and it ends up being Amy who does it so the Doctor just wasted his one chance to stop the Daleks. The Doctor isn’t that bothered about the Daleks escaping. All these things seem strange, out of character or over the top. Although this is a story about a time traveler fighting aliens on a spaceship who build an android who hangs out with Winston Churchill, the first half was relatively serious and grounded. The second half just goes mental and the change in tone is jarring and doesn’t work. It’s almost like the set-up was written first then the writer, Mark Gatiss didn’t really have a way out of the situation he’d devised, and the pay-off is just a disappointing mess. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, it’s not very exciting and it doesn’t live up to the expectations the first part of the story creates.
And of course, I couldn’t go through this story without mentioning the worst thing it does. Change the Daleks. First, why? Steven Moffat’s only reason seems to have been because he could. This is not a good reason. The Daleks have never changed as radically as they did here before. Sure they’ve changed colour, and little details have changed but the biggest redesign ever done before was in 1965 and that was just to add the slats on their sides. So to make such big changes just for fun seems wildly irresponsible. Add to that in story, the Cybermen’s design doesn’t make any sense and they actually need to be changed, then why change the Daleks? No reason (except to sell toys). So what went wrong? The new eye is static, so has less expression than just a light. They’re too tall, Daleks were never supposed to tower above you. They are now very plastic-y which means they seem less like the metal war machines we’ve seen before and more like toys. The colours. I don’t mind a coloured Dalek but these ones are too bright and look cartoonish. The gun is the same length as the arm. The arm’s for touching things further away, this is why it’s longer, now it doesn’t make sense. You can see through the top section. They have a weird hunchback which ruins the sleekness of the design. And the slats have been removed so the proportions are all off, the bottom half looking far bigger than the top. Basically they do everything wrong, and for no reason. While this isn’t really a fault with the story of this episode, it does ruin any tension in the second half, as I find it completely impossible to take these cartoonish monstrosities seriously.
In conclusion then, the first half is a brilliant build up to a second half that completely fails in almost every way. It’s not the worst story ever, because this is a lot to like at the start, but as the story goes on, it loses these good ideas and becomes rather lucklustre.
2/5
Sunday, 13 May 2012
Review: How I Spent My Summer Vacation/Dark Shadows/Piranha 3DD
HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION
DARK SHADOWS
PIRANHA 3DD
Friday, 4 May 2012
Review: The Lucky One/American Reunion/Silent House/Safe
THE LUCKY ONE
AMERICAN REUNION
SILENT HOUSE
SAFE
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Doctor Who Review: The Seeds of Death
This week we look at story from the last season of the
second Doctor, Patrick Troughton. Often described a joker or buffoon, this
jokey exterior hid a brilliant mind inside, in fact; Troughton’s influence is
easily seen in Matt Smith’s portrayal of the role. At this moment the Doctor is
travelling with Jamie, a Scotsman from the time of Culloden and Zoe, a genius
from the future. They make a very good team, each being played brilliantly and
all the actors sharing a great chemistry which makes any scenes with them great
fun to watch. So, we already have a good basis for this story to sit on with
one of the best Tardis crews, my favourite since the original. But does this
episode show them at their best, or is it a bit of a disappointment?Well, the main leads put in their usual strong performances, although at times it seems like they haven’t got enough to do, as quite a lot of the action revolves around the other characters. That would be a problem, however in this story it really isn’t because of the quality of the supporting cast. There’s a disgruntled old professor who can’t move on from his time, a super serious professional woman (unusual for the time), a hapless technician who begins to break down over time, a coward who gains inner strength and a desperate leader who’s willing to risk anything to save his people. This rich set of characters really adds a level of depth to this story and each is well written and acted and interesting to watch. And of course, there are the villains, the Ice Warriors. They’re basically Martians, but they have a rasping, hissing voice and unique visual design that make them hard to ignore, and they became one of the best known recurring aliens in Classic Who. They’re very like Viking warriors and have a great screen presence. Also in this story they have a gun effect which basically just is a bending of the film, but it looks absolutely brilliant. In fact that’s true of most of this story; it’s well directed, well shot and has very nice sets which along with some rather well done music provide a very creepy and tense atmosphere.
So it looks nice, has good villains and entertaining characters, so what else is there? The plot. And this is where things get more complex. Because there is a slight problem. The basic story is that aliens invade a moonbase which is the control centre for transmats which is the only method of transport in this future. They plan to use it to send pods to the Earth to change the atmosphere to more like Mars and invade with a huge fleet. The problem that I talked about is the length. This story is 6 25 minute episodes long. This means it needs padding. So instead of the Tardis landing on the moon, it lands on Earth and they need to get a rocket to the moon. This allows for some very atmospheric scenes on the Moon where the technicians there get attacked, however it means the scenes on Earth lack the tension and ruin the mood. The story improves immensely at the beginning of episode 3, when the Doctor arrives on the Moon and things can get started. Another problem is that the Ice Warriors’ actions supposedly affect millions, however due to the limitations in the budget, we’re only told of certain things and we don’t see them. And the final episode takes a rather dark turn, but this is never really brought up. The plot is interesting and has a lot of good ideas, just not enough to hold up a story of quite this length.
In conclusion then, The Seeds of Death is an above average story, due to it’s great characters and look, has a memorable set of aliens and has a lot of good ideas. It’s brought down a little however by an overlong running time and a limited budget and so misses out on the chance of being one of the all time greats. However if you’re feeling patient one day and up for a good adventure then give it a shot.
4/5
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