Quick Round-up: Movies

I seem to have seen so many films recently, on TV, DVD and at the cinema and I've not had time/inclination to write a lot about each one. So for the sake of completeness, I'm going to zip through what I've seen here, starting with TV drama Page Eight (2011), a slow yet solid tale of espionage starring Bill Nighy. Then there was Bringing Up Baby (1938), the hilarious screwball comedy that sees Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn trading barbs as they try to track down the titular Baby, a pet leopard on the loose, and Hepburn tries her darndest to snag her man. I've seen this film before and it's an absolute hoot, so I was eager to get Andrew to watch it to see what he thought - for the same reason we watched The Birdcage (1996), the hilarious US remake of La Cage aux Folles starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as a gay couple who are shocked to learn 'their' son is to marry the daughter of a Republican senator. Funny and unexpectedly touching, The Birdcage doesn't do a great deal for the gay cause, but it's hard to be offended when everyone's having so much fun. 

A change of tack to documentary and Sarah Palin: You Betcha! (2011), where Nick Broomfield investigates the strange world of the one-time VP hopeful through interviews with family and friends. And once it becomes clear that Broomfield is making an honest documentary rather than a puff piece about how amazing Palin is, the access to family dries up pretty quick. I didn't think that Broomfield set out with a liberal agenda per se, but he soon uncovered a lot of dodgy back story and delusion behind the soccer-mom smokescreen that painted a convincing and scary picture of Palin. 

Panned by the critics and shunned by audiences, I went into John Carter (2012) with an open mind (and a buy-one-get-one-free email voucher from Disney) and was completely blown away. I cannot see why everyone is down on this movie, it's exciting, it's funny, it's original and it is much better than many other CGI sci-fi epics I can think of (yeah, Phantom Menace, I mean you). I've not stopped talking about it to friends and colleagues since. Taylor Kitsch is hunky and a hero to route for as the title character, a widowed US Civil War veteran who is mysteriously transported to Barsoom/Mars where he gets caught up in the red planet's own internal fights. Filled with spectacle, non-irritating CG characters, suprisingly dark moments and much more, John Carter's fully-realised world is one I'd love to go back to in future films, but alas that's unlikely. 

Special effects on a much smaller budget and screen made last Christmas' The Borrowers (2011) a believable and fun tale that up-dated Arrietty's family and found them living under Victoria Wood's floorboards. Stephen Fry's scientist gets wind and determines to expose the little folk to the world in a plot that is bigger than the Ghibli movie but less sweetly engaging. A much more odd interpretation of a classic children's story, Wes Anderson's stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) features an assortment of indie voices plus George Clooney and Meryl Streep as Mr and Mrs Fox, and a laconic tone that suits the story to a tee. 

After reading William Goldman's novel I revisited The Princess Bride (1987) on DVD. I didn't get the big deal the first time around, and while I can see why it has earned cult status, like the book before it I still felt it was lacking an extra something to expand the idea of a parody fairytale into a roaring success. What the movie did was make me want to watch Cary Elwes really letting loose in Robin Hood: Men in Tights again! The Princess Bride felt oddly low key as a whole, something that could also be said of Monsters (2010), the economically made movie about two characters who are thrown together to travel across alien-infested landsThe low budget meant that this was more a character study than a John Carter style action-fest, with the CGI aliens only briefly glimpsed. Perhaps actually it is more of a love story than anything else, as well as a pretty trip around the jungles of Central America. 

Finally, last Wednesday we went to the cinema to see The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! (2012), in 3D, Aardman Animation's latest claymation feature. The most joyfully silly movie I've seen since The Muppets, The Pirates is packed full of sight gags and witty lines, run through with an earthy Britishness and randomness reminiscent of Monty Python. While not as consistently laugh-filled as Chicken Run, I found The Pirates more satisfying than Curse of the Were-Rabbit and left the cinema with a massive smile on my face. And that concludes the movie part of the update!

Doctor Who: Series 32 (2011)

basics...
Matt Smith returns as Doctor Who for a series split in two (There's no time poetry corner!). Opening with the Doctor's supposed future death, witnessed by Amy, Rory (full time companion now!) and River Song, the first part of the series ends with Amy giving birth and a revelation about who her daughter actually is. The second part of the series builds to the Doctor's inevitable end... or does it?

brilliant...
The on-going saga concerning the identity of River Song gets a whole lot of answers this series, some of which I really should have seen coming, but mostly you only realise they were obvious moments before they are revealed. The increased presence of River and of the excellent Rory meant that the Amy-Doctor love story got less screentime, a good thing, and even better everytime you thought Amy was pining for her raggedy Doctor she actually wanted her loving husband. Aside from the ongoing story there were some top notch 'monster of the week' episodes, from the chilling minotaur/hotel/purgatory one, to the funny James Corden one, and all those ones back at the beginning of the year that have slipped my mind. It was good to see new monsters pushed above series favourites, such as the Gentlemen-like Silence, effectively creepy, and the sinister lady with the eye patch. The whole 'Amy's not really with the Doctor' bit in the first part of the series was audacious and I'll need to rewatch those episodes, like I will a lot of these, to fully grasp what's going on.

but...
One of the problems with Stephen Moffatt at the helm of Doctor Who is his propensity for time travel stories that completely confuse and discombobulate. I'm utterly baffled as to how River's time stream works. The rapid fire delivery of explanations by Matt Smith don't always have time to sink in before another explosion's happening or someone cracks a joke. Of course, watching Doctor Who one already has one's disbelief suspended, but sometimes you want to try to make some sense of the story!

briefly...
A return to form after last series, where I felt grumpy Amy dominated, proves that Doctor Who needs non-young-female companions to truly soar. Splitting the series in half made for effective, suspensful cliff-hangers too.

Torchwood: Miracle Day (2011)

basics...
Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) are called out of retirement when 'Miracle Day' happens... and everyone on earth becomes immortal, except for Jack. Cue CIA assistance, a death row paedo, incineration units and a whole host of bad guys and evil stuff for international Torchwood to deal with.

bollocks...
Torchwood's first and second series were patchy affairs at best, with unlikable characters, gratuitous plots and a general air of trying too hard to be 'adult' in comparison to Doctor Who. Series 3, Children of Earth, was properly brilliant, a serialised, single story, with real menace and heart. Miracle Day, the first Torchwood American-UK co-production has a bigger budget than the previous series, and mixes the best and worst of what has gone before - so there's an imaginative, genuinely intriguing plot catalyst, with lots of interesting ideas (what would be the implications for society and the planet if no one died anymore?), but played out with more unlikable (American) characters, streaks of nastiness and a whole lot of nonsensical explanations. 

Miracle Day wasn't a complete disaster, but it was also no where near as good as Children of Earth. Jack and Gwen were reliably ballsy and funny, when they got a chance to be. There was far too much time spent with angry, shouty Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) and pathetic Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins). And then there was the utterly pointless story of Oswald Danes (a creepy Bill Pullman), a convicted child killer - were we ever supposed to feel sympathy for this character? He got grandiose speeches about not very much and kept popping up at odd times - and once the whole purpose behind the miracle was explained... well there still didn't seem to be any point in his manipulation by the Blessing. Likable Dr Vera Juarez (Arlene Tur) was dispatched far too early on, while sledge-hammer subtle Rex and useless Esther hung around til the end, and sadly one of them remained. 

but...
Ok, it wasn't all bad, and that was mainly down to the Welsh/British sense of humour that didn't appear often enough, and some great guest casting, chief among them Lauren Ambrose as Jilly Kitzinger. A world away from Six Feet Under, Ambrose lit up her every scene and made her character much more interesting than she had any right to be - especially when, like Danes, there appeared to be absolutely zero point in her being co-opted by the families, except perhaps to act as a way in for the viewer. It's implied she'll come back should this mess be given another series, so that's potentially good news. Kai Owen's return as Gwen's long-suffering husband also offered a welcome breath of light air in his too-few scenes, as did new character Allen Shapiro (John de Lancie) - so naturally the funny, likable CIA guy was blown up. Torchwood doesn't like to keep personable characters around, just the obnoxious ones.

briefly...
A truly original premise that promised big things is let down by traditional Torchwood nastiness and hokey explanations. If this comes back, and I'm not bothered if it doesn't (I mainly watch it for Doctor Who continuity!), lets hope lessons will have been learned. 

Ghost (1990)

basics...
Ghost surely needs no introduction, particularly that iconic pottery wheel sex-scene soundtracked by Unchained Melody (so memorably parodied in the Naked Gun) but then before Saturday night Andrew had never seen it. A romantic-comedy-drama with a supernatural, even horror angle, the film sees Patrick Swayze's Sam stabbed to death in the opening 20 minutes. Then he's back as a ghost trying to work out why he's still around, and enlisting the assistance of once-fake medium Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg, in an Oscar-winning turn) to protect girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore).

best bits...
One of Ghost's main strengths is the tight script that finally balances the tragedy of Sam's death with the hilarity of Oda Mae, with room for romance and some disturbing visions of souls being dragged off to hell. None of the drama feels cheapened by the humour, which is often laugh out loud funny - it's refreshing to see such a comic role from Goldberg being rewarded by the oft-fusty Academy Awards. Every time she comes on screen she shines a light on some of the sadder moments, mostly those with Demi Moore - she is grieving after all. The ghost/medium device could have been so misjudged, here everything is played perfectly. This isn't just the Whoopi show though, Swayze is brilliant in the lead, going through a range of emotions upon learning he has been killed, and then finding out it's murder, and then the identities of those involved! The murder-mystery element adds yet another dimension, and Tony Goldwyn is a great sweaty, corporate banker villain. I don't think I realised how much I enjoy Ghost until this last viewing, every element is a winner.

but...
The only bits that let Ghost down are a result of age. I like the 1980s computers with their black screens and green text, and the whole yuppie look that bad guy Carl pulls off, but the special effects could do with a polish. I'm sure they were groundbreaking at the time, and they do look pretty impressive - my main problems is with the 'shhhhmf' sound effects that accompany Sam's attempts to move his ghostly body through physical objects. They're unnecessary.

briefly... 
Ghost is one of the most pleasurable, enjoyable multi-hyphenate genre movies I've ever seen, with characters and a script that remains fresh over twenty years later. This must be one of Whoopi Goldberg's finest hours, alongside Sister Act of course. I'd be interested to see what the new musical version is like, especially considering that Dave Stewart has co-written the music.

Doctor Who: The Daleks (1963)

The second ever Doctor Who story saw the introduction of his most enduring arch nemesis, the Daleks. It's a William Hartnell story, with companions Barbara, Ian and Susan and as such the quality of the surviving footage isn't amazing, but it's still an imaginative romp, with lots of running down corridors, scary Daleks and wooden Thals, the race who is/was at war with the Daleks on the planet Skaro. The Doctor and his companions land on the planet sometime after a nuclear war has wiped out much of the population, and the Daleks are living in a vast underground city with metal floors to enable them to glide around. 

It's amazing how fully formed the Daleks are, and how little they've changed decades later. They don't want to 'exterminate' and show some compassion and structured thought missing from the later killing machines, but they look and sound the same, and this is the first time they learn not to mess with the Doctor. Hartnell feels like a supporting player here, with Barbara and Ian taking centre stage - Ian carrying out most of the hero duties while Barbara proves she's made of stern stuff when exploring the jungles of Skaro. Susan screams a lot and is generally fairly irritating, while the Doctor is grumpy and variously unconcerned about helping the Thal race, and even pretends the TARDIS is broken in order to keep everyone on a planet that has dangerous radiation levels. 

The Daleks felt more exciting than the first story, An Unearthly Child with its warring, unfantastical cavemen. The accompanying featurette on the creation of the Daleks was also fascinating and covered everything from inception to design.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Yesterday I watched the fifties' The War of the Worlds, and today was the turn of that decade's The Day the Earth Stood Still, another portentiously titled piece of sci-fi about aliens visiting Earth. While the Martians in War were alien-looking and bent on destroying all they came into contact with, the singular human-looking alien lifeform in Day, Klaatu, and his robotic assistant Gort, are here to save the Earth from itself. Or rather, to save his planet and others from the violent inclinations of the third rock from the Sun.

Where War explored themes of weapons/science vs god, here the Cold War serves as a backdrop to a cautionary morality tale about the nature of war itself. Klaatu lands his saucer in Washington D.C. and is shot in the shoulder when attempting to present a gift, from here on his visit to our planet is not a particularly happy one. Hysteria leads to his being hunted down like a monster, while he tries to blend in and learn about the people he is trying to save. To do this he rents a room in boarding house and gets to know little Bobby (one of those perfect fifties kids who says 'gee' and is generally agreeable, have they ever existed outside of movies?) and his mother Helen. He also tries to get in touch with every leader on the planet to impart his wisdom about how to save their future, but due to Cold War tensions, the world's leaders won't play ball, so he tries his luck with leading scientists.

There's more going on here than in the War of the Worlds, at least in the script, if not in terms of action, and for this I believe it's the superior film. Again starring a load of unknowns, the actings better than in War, and Michael Rennie gives the character of Klaatu a quiet dignity as he faces the sheer stupidity of mankind and it's resistance to be saved. It's a subtly that I assume will be missing in Keanu Reeves' 2008 portrayal in the remake. The 1951 movie can quiet rightly be called a classic of the science fiction genre.

The War of the Worlds (1953)

A couple of weeks ago Channel 4 put on some classic sci fi films over consecutive days, as they often do from time to time, and I recorded three of them - well I nearly did until I realised I've seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers already! The first one I watched was the original movie adaptation of HG Wells' The War of the Worlds from 1953. I've seen the Steven Spielberg directed, Tom Cruise starring one from 2005, which was action packed but hampered by a weak ass ending, so I was intrigued as to what a pre-CGI version would make of the story. 

Plotwise, the earlier film has the edge. And while it has no stars to speak of, and special effects that are fairly primitive, it is still more entertaining and the aliens are just as creepy, if not more so than in the remake. Martians land on Earth and begin wiping out huge swathes of the population, while mankind fires every weapon it has - including nukes, at a time when the Cold War was simmering - to no effect, until the spacecraft begin falling out of the sky, a result of contagion by Earth's bacteria. And that's the plot in a sentence - nothing too fancy - there's some science vs religion debate that seems to have been won by the latter at the end (it's God who created the bacteria that saved Earth you see, not science-made nukes), and an uninspired romantic angle, but the action is exciting and the world-wide nature of the invasion is well done. I seem to recall the 2005 movie is typically US-centric, but then I think the focus of that film was on a particular family, not the bigger picture as in the 1953 version. 

There's some ropey acting, particularly from wooden lead Gene Barry (who?), and screaming from the stereotypical female in the cast. This is par for the course with this sort of movie though, I wasn't expecting anything Oscar worthy! The special effects are effective and I can imagine they blew people away at the time. I thought that this take on War of the Worlds' ending was much better done here, as the narration of the ending in the 2005 film rushed over the explanation and suddenly the film ended - here there was more of a sense of relief, and closure. It's a good film then, just not as chilling and effective as Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Marchlands (2011)

One of the best series I've watched this year was on ITV1 - my world is spinning on its axis. Since I'm a bit of a cultural snob, I generally find most programmes the channel puts out pretty terrible and lowest-common-denominator. So I was intrigued by Marchlands mainly by the interesting cast, which included Tessa Peake-Jones, Anne Reid, Alex Kingston, Denis Lawson, Jodie Whittaker and Dean Andrews - none of whom are 'TV a-listers' but all bring something special to a role. 

Marchlands' central conceit was telling a story in the same house of the title, set across 1968, 1987 and 2010, with three different families caught up in the story of Alice, a little girl who drowned in 1968. The earlier segments dealt with the aftermath of the death and her mother Ruth's refusal to believe that she simply ran off and drowned. In the eighties, my favourite segments with Kingston and Andrews, were a little lighter in tone - although filmed with a warm glow in comparison to the stark 2010 scenes - and involved the couple's young daughter making friends with Alice's ghost. Then in 2010 a young couple move into the house, with the woman pregnant and experiencing odd poltergeist-type activity, the husband grew up in the area, and Ruth returns to find out once and for all what happened to Alice.

It's a concept that could have been really hard to follow and episodic, but in the hands of some great writers and directors, not to mention editors, the whole flowed really well. Although the ultimate resolution to the story after 5 episodes was a little humdrum for my liking, the journey to get there provided an effective, creepy thriller, with excellent character work and some genuine jumpy-bits. I liked the way the scene would have the characters eating breakfast in 1968 and then seamlessly move into a similar scene in 1987 and 2010. It was all pulled off so effectively that I found myself wondering at how intricate the writing and the filming must have been. A little self-containe gem this.

Outcasts (2011)

This is an unusual entry for the blog. It’s for a TV series that hasn’t yet finished being broadcast, but it’s one that I haven’t got beyond 2 episodes of, because it’s rubbish. Well, it might not turn out to be so bad, but I’ve decided there’s too much quality product out there to watch to waste my time on cr*p new content.

A po-faced sci fi drama from the BBC, the cast promised much – Eric Mabius from Ugly Betty, Jamie Bamber from Battlestar Galactica, and the main draw, Hermione ‘Ros from Spooks’ Norris – but sadly the flat action and unexciting dialogue left me feeling cheated. Also it’s got Daniel Mays in it, who’s got a horrible accent, face and style of acting and ruins most everything I’ve seen him in (with the exception of series 3 of Ashes to Ashes where he was annoying but the character was supposed to be horrible so it worked). Sadly, the premise was good, with humans who have fled Earth marooned on a distant planet, filmed among gorgeous South African vistas, it’s not enough. Where’s the humour? Where are the characters I can care about? I’ve plenty more to watch instead.

Explorers (1985)

The fact that it was River Phoenix’s first film, and it was directed by Joe ‘Gremlins’ Dante, drew me to Explorers. A movie I’d never heard of before, it turned out to be a classic 1980’s children’s adventure movie, at least for the first hour, and then it turned into a very bizarre and funny science fiction piece.

Geeky Wolfgang (Phoenix), wholesome and only just staying the right side of annoying Ben (Ethan Hawke, looking about 10, but actually 15) and bad boy Darren (Jason Pressan? No, me neither) are the film’s heroes, brought together through strange dreams that leads Wolfgang to programme his clunky computer to create some sort of force-field bubble. The boys manipulate the bubble and build a spaceship to go inside it in order for them to explorer space.

They eventually make it to space, where their ship is taken over by a UFO and they’re brought aboard to meet… two very rubbery aliens, who have been watching American TV for years and only speak in over-the-top TV presenter styles and using quotes direct from movies – the male alien’s first utterance is Bug Bunny’s ‘What’s up, doc?’ It’s very odd. And also very funny. And in the best 80’s adventure movie tradition, not a lot of it makes any sense, but that doesn’t matter you just go with it and revel in the fantasy and the silliness.

I enjoyed this much more than The Goonies, another supposed ‘classic’ of the era and genre. There’s a real spirit of fun, camaraderie and adventure, and the young cast are great. The adult cast is barely given any screen time, other than a guy I recognised from Gremlins, and James Cromwell as Wolfgang’s father is about the only other ‘name’ in the cast. Ben gets a bit of a ‘romantic’ subplot, i.e. he fancies a girl in his class, and this feels a bit shoe-horned in, especially since the girl in question gets screen time but only about 2 lines of dialogue. That doesn’t stop Explorers being a whole load of fun.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)

One of the only programmes I could truly have claimed to be waiting for this Christmas season was the special of Doctor Who. Thankfully the TV wasn't saturated with trails for it as it was last year when David Tennant was bowing out, and also appearing on QI, Buzzcocks, TOTP, The Queen's speech... well maybe not, but it felt like he did. 

Doctor Who has never looked better than A Christmas Carol, with a massive filmic quality to it. Michael Gambon played the Scrooge character who the Doctor must manipulate by interfering in his past in order to imbue him with good will enough to prevent a spaceship carrying Rory and Amy which is currently hurtling through thick fog surrounding this particular planet. This planet also features fish who swim in the air, in a bizarre yet very Who twist on normality. The Doctor meets young Gambon as a 12 year old and older as well as a singing beauty played by Katherine Jenkins. What follows is a touching story of love and loss, and the meaning of Christmas, but not in any cloying way.

Matt Smith is convincingly the Doctor now, and his fast talking, quirky behaviour is endearing. His inability to understand human relationships is also very funny, particularly when his advice is sought on how to speak to crying girls or kiss them generally. Amy and Rory are relegated to the sidelines in this show, and really the star is Michael Gambon, who's performance draws you through the story. It's nice to see Arthur Darvil's name in the opening credits though, this bodes well for Rory being a main character next series. A Christmas Carol lived up to expectations, and surpassed them on several levels, and has certainly whetted my appetite for the Doctor's return in 2011.

The First Men in the Moon (2010)

The first of the 7 movies I've watched over the last few days and thus need to update my blog with, was the British TV-movie, The First Men in the Moon, adapted from H.G. Wells' novel by and starring Mark Gatiss. Julius Bedford, played by Rory Kinnear, encounters scientist Professor Cavor sometime in the early twentieth century. Cavor has managed to manufacture a substance named Cavorite that does some mumbo jumbo with gravity, and basically, some garbled sci-fi explanation later, the two have decided to coat a vessel in Cavorite and fly it to the Moon. Can you tell I didn't really follow the psuedo-science involved?

What follows is a funny, old-fashioned adventure on the Moon with some curious CGI aliens, which Cavor dubs Selenites, and which Bedford finds feel like cinder toffee when punched. It was a diverting 90 minutes and Mark Gatiss is fun to behold - his Cavor is a great creation, punctuating all of his sentences with a quiet '...probably', while Kinnear does solid stuff with Bedford. It didn't blow me away, but for a BBC television movie, the CGI was good, and I liked the old-fashioned style, compared with the modernist takes of Doctor Who and the like. It has made me interested to read the book, though I wouldn't watch the movie again.

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child (1963)

Aside from the new series starring Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith, and the Paul McGann TV movie, I've only ever seen bits of the old Doctor Who from my Dad's videos. I wanted to go right back to the beginning, where it all started, and see what it was all about back then, so I recently settled down to watch the first ever, 4-part story that introduced William Hartnell's Dr Who to the BBC viewing public, An Unearthly Child. 

It's hard to compare a black and white, cheaply made 25 minute per episode multi-part drama with the modern, self-contained 45 min episode that is full of special effects and excitement. However, the first Dr Who story still stands up as an enthralling drama, at least so far as the first episode goes. The first episode follows teachers Barbara and Ian as they share their concerns for the slightly weird 15 year old Susan, and they trail her to an old warehouse where she supposedly lives with her grandfather, who turns out to be a cantankerous old man who appears at first to have Susan kept prisoner in a police box... Of course then the TARDIS doors open and Ian and Barbara, and the viewer, learns that things are not always what they seem...

Episode 1's Cliffhanging Ending...

As an introduction to the basic tenets of Dr Who lore, the episode succeeds admirably. There's not too much jargon, and each character is given time to be introduced, with the teachers forming a focal point as a proxy for the audience watching at home. At episode 1's end the TARDIS transports the 4 characters across time and possibly space to a land of cave dwelling people, who do not know how to make fire. It's here that things slow down a bit, with lots of eloquent actors in furs and dirty faces talking over and over about making fire, while they stand huddled around a small cave set. As opening adventures go, being captured by cavemen, escaping, being recaptured and escaping again, it's not that exciting, but already the Doctor and his companions are carving out roles. Susan's the screamer, Barbara is quite practical, and Ian shows a brave streak, while the Doctor is more difficult to pin down. 

It would probably have been easy to jet the Doctor off to a futuristic location for the first episode, so I like that the prehistoric setting (though it's by no means certain the story takes place on Earth, or indeed in the past at all - the TARDIS time display read out is broken) suggests that this series will be more than just aliens with laser guns. 

Barbara and Ian sneak up on the Doctor

Alongside the episodes, I also watched the special features - the Doctor Who DVDs are excellent for these - which included a different, longer version of the first episode, with enlightening commentary by producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein, and a collection of comedy sketch parodies starring Mark Gatiss and David Walliams. And then I read about the story in About Time, an unauthorised guide to the series, with fascinating background and analysis. This gave me a full experience with which to enjoy the story and I look forward to seeing more of the chronological adventures of the Timelord, in his earlier incarnations. 

True Blood: Season 2 (2009)

I don't know why Season 2 has only just finished on Channel 4 since it was first broadcast in the US in 2009, but anyway, I should be grateful it's on and not stuck on Sky somewhere (as Mad Men is shortly to be). True Blood is a weird show when you think about it - I don't mean the vampires and the mind-reading and the whatever-the-hell-Maryann was - I mean that over a dozen episodes, that seem to be set over a short week or two, so much happens. I mean a crazy amount happens in the short time span, even for a TV show! 

This season saw Sookie and Bill travel to Dallas to infiltrate an anti-vampire cult who were holding Eric's maker (or 'sire' if this was Buffy) Godric captive. It just so happened that at the end of Season 1, Jason was brain-washed by a member of the Fellowship of the Sun church and this season he was in Dallas, in training with them for a war against vampires. At the same time back in Bon Temps, Tara and hot walking-abs Eggs had a lot of sex while Maryann shook about a bit, made the rest of the town have sex, and was eventually revealed to be an ancient demon who believed herself immortal. Sam was her number one prey during this time for his supernatural morphing ability, and he found solace in a fellow animal-changing-friend, until she was murder and her heart ripped out. Meanwhile, Sheriff Andy was stripped of his badge and dignity, Lafayette was rescued from Eric's bar, mummy's boy Hoyt got a vampire girlfriend, and by the end of the season, Bill and Sookie were back in town to save the day. 

That's quite a packed show! Even though in some episodes, not a lot seemed to happen to move things along. I've not even mentioned Jason's relationship with the head of the Fellowship's wife, nor Godric's decision to die, nor the introduction of an intriguing vampire Queen. Throughout it all, the writing has been strong, characters (a whole myriad of them) are interesting and plot twists come thick and fast. On reflection you wonder where some plots are going, or where they've gone - once she got back from Dallas, Sookie barely mentioned what she'd been up to there, for 6 or 7 episodes. Will we see her fellow mind-reader again? What exactly did she do to Maryann when that light came out of her hands? These questions make me want to see more and more episodes and now the damn season's finished!!

Maryann was one of my favourite characters this season, played deliciously by Michelle Forbes, who I'll always love from the movie Kalifornia. Her plot was intriguing and felt different, and almost felt like what the Cordelia-gives-birth-to-a-God plot arc at the end of Angel's 4th season should have been. The show will need a really decent villain to fill her place next season! There are so many other great characters it's hard to pick favourites... Jason's sweet and hot, and also really funny; Tara was a strong, witty woman in season 1, but here she got a bit bland, which I'll blame on Maryann's influence; Eric continues to intrigue but little is given away; Bill is not very excitin, although he's got a bit more humour about him now; Sookie continues to grow and Anna Paquin is just brilliant in every way... Oddly enough one of my favourite characters is Tara's mother Adina, played by Lettie Mae Thornton. In the first season she was a drunk, and she's now developed into a tee-total God-botherer, but she is becoming less selfish and wants to help Tara. Her motivations and the fact she's a guest star leave you guessing what she'll do next and when she might pop up. Why a drunken religious human would turn out to be so interesting in a show packed to the rafters with freaks and supernatural beings I do not know, or perhaps that's the very reason - she's so human.

Roll on Season 3! Perhaps I could just get the DVDs, although I have so many I haven't watched, I've time to wait until Channel 4 gets round to showing it without having to buy new stuff. 

Doctor Who: Series 31 (2010)

It's a couple of weeks since the Doctor Who finale, and there's a gaping hole in the Saturday night TV schedule. This series seemed to pass fairly quickly. My verdict on the new Doctor and his show then... 

Matt Smith has been great as the new Doctor, initially there was more than a hint of David Tennant in his portrayal, but as the series has gone on he made the role his own, with flashes on anger and panic that never troubled the previous incarnation. I've enjoyed the numerous references to his old faces too, and Steven Moffat, the new show runner, has done an excellent job in making the series feel fresh yet familiar. 

There have been some really strong episodes, mostly towards the latter half of the series, including the one with Vincent Van Gogh, 'Amy's Choice' and the two-part finale - the first half of which was among the best TV I've seen. Rory, the new semi-companion, was good fun, and the way all of the adventures tied together at the end was great. There were also a few ho-hum episodes such as the obligatory Dalek one and the drawn out two parter with the Silurians.

I've not been convinced by the new companion Amy Pond though. She seems permanently set to shout mode, and doesn't have a great range of expression. I'm sick of the sight of her legs too - why are they trying to sex up Doctor Who? I must add a caveat actually - adult Amy Pond as played by Karen Gillan I find a little annoying, young Amelia Pond as played by Caitlin Blackwood in the cracking season opener and finale was a joy to behold. I and others I know would much rather watch young Amelia than Amy. But towards the end of the season Amy got a little less annoying, though she never became as good as Donna Noble. 

Alex Kingston's River Song was probably the series highlight - whenever she appears in the Doctor's timeline ('spoilers!') she's always an enigmatic, charismatic bonus. I hope we don't learn too much about Song in coming series, and that she remains at least partly shrouded in mystery. If only she could be the Doctor's full time companion, having an older actress adds a bit more gravitas and a counterpoint to young Matt Smith's performance, and the chemistry between the two has been just great. Maybe she could have a spinoff of her own?? I'd certainly watch it (as long as it was better than the first two Torchwood seasons). 

So this series has been a big hit with me, with the only slight downside being that I've never really got behind Amy Pond. Hopefully she'll be a bit more 3-dimensional next series, and I'm hoping that now Rory is Mr Pond, Arthur Darvill will get promoted to star billing in series 32.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

It's my experience that CGI does not a good film make, but it can help. I like to watch old movies that have little or no effects and rest solely on performances, scripts and good direction, so I was intrigued to watch the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I didn't know much about it going in, but once absorbed in the plot I realised that 'pod people' is a pretty common phrase that must have originated from this classic of the sci-fi genre. 

The movie opens with an apparent madman relating how he got into such a state, and goes on to tell how Dr Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns to his hometown of Santa Mira, Calif. and slowly discovers that all is not well - it turns out that the residents of the town are being replaced by pod people - replicants grown from pods that appeared from outer space. He and his companion, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) must try to stay awake or else be turned into unemotional replicants themselves. I don't think it's ever explored why exactly everyone is being replaced - it confuses me as to why an alien species would want to colonise a planet... by becoming everyone on the planet - I just think, well why bother?

That plot niggle aside, Invasion is a taught little gem, full of great B-movie performances and lashings of tension and intrigue. The lack of special effects (aside from some pod props) is to the movie's credit since the pod people are identical to humans in every way, except they don't get over-excited, so there's no need for men in rubber suits or computer-generated trickery. This is also the scariest aspect of the movie - these pod people could be anyone, and their only goal seems to be to make more pod people, so it's not like they're running round sucking people's blood or bursting out of stomachs. 

I figure with the film being made in 1956, during the Cold War, that the fact that the pod people could be anyone, even your own husband or wife, is speaking to Communist paranoia of the period. The end of the movie, with Miles running into traffic screaming like a madman about the danger humanity faces while cars drive by him, is very effective - much more effective than the studio-sanctioned ending following this showing Miles' story being believed and the FBI being called in. That happy ending lessens the impact of the threat, but it cannot spoil a fantastic all-American classic.

Being Human: Series 2 (2010)

It's only a few short months since I finished watching series 1 of Being Human after it was shown on BBC1, and I was eager to see series 2 as it went out on BBC3 (I've only had digital TV for 12 months!) and now the second series has just finished I want more!

It was great to be back with George, Mitchell and Annie in their cosy house in Bristol, although this series things turned a bit darker and less comedic than previously. There were still many moments of pleasingly British touches to the sci-fi canon - one minute Mitchell may be slaughtering people  in a scarily-directed train carriage scene, and the next he's rubbing his body with a men's magazine to utilise the free deodorant pages! Being Human is great at grounding the supernatural with the humdrum existence of a life in middle England. 

I've very much warmed to Annie and she's become my favourite of the main trio - she's become more powerful, been visible and then not, and escaped the afterlife several times, all while wearing the same grey-coloured outfit. When she was visible there was a great storyline involving her becoming a barmaid at the local (empty) pub, which involved an ex-Spooks actor who was talked to through his TV by none-other than Sir Terry Wogan! Very surreal.

After George turned Nina into a werewolf last series he went off the rails a bit, suffered a bout of Tourette's and had to deal with some serious anger-management issues. And then when Nina left he jumped right into a relationship with a lovely woman who was completely wrong for him. I wasn't that satisfied with this aspect of George's series 2 'arc', but George is always reliably funny.

George and Mitchell's love for The Real Hustle was a great running gag this series, although Mitchell had most of the dark stuff this time, as he did last time I suppose. This year we got to see more of Mitchell's past in flashback sequences that amused and repulsed in equal measure, and everything went a bit Angelus by the end of the 8 episodes when the good vampire fell off the wagon after his love interest turned out to be the series' Big Bad. Well, ok, she wasn't as bad as the creepy, God-bothering bloke who claimed to want to heal George and Nina. 

Thankfully, what with all the cuts the BBC is planning to make, a 3rd series has already been commissioned, but it's going to be a loooong wait until 2011. Boo!

Medium: Season 4 (2008)

After a break for Xmas, BBC2 has finally got round to finishing their repeat showing of Medium's 4th season. And as far as I know, that's it's last appearance on free-to-air TV as the rights have gone off to a satellite channel somewhere. Thank goodness for DVD box sets!

Following the waves that were made at the end of Season 3, when Alison was 'outed', Season 4 rearranges the show so that both Allison and Joe are out of work, Devalos is no longer District Attorney, and Scanlon is wary of Allison's assistance for fear of her reputation rubbing off on him. Allison initially works for the curmudgeonly Cynthia Keener, portrayed by Anjelica Huston over a number of episodes during the first half of the (short, strike-hit) season. 

Unfortunately, as good as Huston is in the role, she's not Devalos! And due to the re-jigging of the format, Manuel is often no where to be seen, appearing in only a handful of episodes, despite Miguel Sandoval's name in the opening credits each week. Thankfully, Lee Scanlon, after initial hesitancy, begins to seek out Allison's help more often. The conclusion of Cynthia Keener's story was powerful and unexpected, and then made me miss her! While Allison is often quite grumpy (usually with Joe) it was nice to have a character who was even more irritable to make Allison seem a bit happier. 

There was a new guest star this series too, in the form of a coffee shop where everyone now gets together, despite never having gone there before. I do like it when that happens - the same thing occurred in Kyle XY's second season. Elsewhere in the show, Joe had a brilliant idea for an invention (through his own inspired dream that took place in an animated world), and eventually got taken for a ride by his beautiful financier; Marie got glasses; and... Allison had a lot of dreams! I've been able to work out a few of the cases before Allison this season, which either means I've watched too much detective TV, or the cases are getting easier - yet every time she dreams she has to convince Scanlon (and often Joe) to listen to her. You'd think they'd learn to trust her more! And it would also save a lot of time each episode if she had the full dream at the start, rather than having bits of it over different nights. Though I guess that would make for a boring show. 

By season's end, Devalos was DA again, and Scanlon and Allison are there to help come season 5, and Joe has a well-paid new job, so the money-worries that plagued the DuBois' this season are no more. Despite feeling a little cheated by this series 'reset', it's good to have the gang back together. Now, when's season 5 out on DVD? (And actually I need season 4 as the snooker made me miss 2 episodes!)

The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham, 1951)

 'Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him - and even her - brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised: even in women it is a gap to be deplored' - p. 148

At Christmas I watched the decidedly boring BBC big-budget adaptation of The Day of the Triffids. Distinctly under whelmed, I picked the original novel off the shelf last Friday, and from the first page I was hooked. I can’t remember the last time a book drew me in so quickly, and then kept me going until I finished it on Wednesday, less than a week later.

The first few chapters were very closely adhered to in the BBC version, and there were certain story elements that survived in one way or another, but the book was much more satisfying and a really pleasurable read. There was no superfluous Nun character, no Eddie Izzard pantomime villain, and no bloody Dougray Scott!

The strangest thing about The Day of the Triffids is how little the book contains the titular killer plant life. They’re always lurking in the background, but the core of the story is made up of the after effects of a catastrophic (man-made?) celestial event that leaves all but a few people around the world blind. Bill Masen is our sighted narrator, guiding us through his experiences from the morning he wakes up from an eye operation sighted, while everywhere around him lies chaos as everyone fails to adjust to their blindness. Wyndham spends more time exploring how such a blighted society can possibly function without electricity, medicine or wide-scale food production. He explores themes of anarchy, dictators, and free-loving through interesting characters, particularly the compelling Masen.

The Triffids merely add an extra science-fiction layer to the problems the blind world faces. It is suggested that the Triffids were engineered in Soviet Russia and then stolen by the West for their oil production, and Bill theorises that the celestial event was not a comet shower, but a man-made toxin released in space. These extra layers add a great deal of intrigue to the plot, and reflect the Cold War era in which the action takes place. Also indicative of the era is the occasionally sexist views taken by the characters (and Wyndham?) towards women, and what roles they could (and should) have in the coming rebuilding of society. Should they just be having babies, or should they work with the men? Having said that, Josella, Bill’s companion through much of the book is a strong female character who knows her own mind, and who has faced prejudice as she gained infamy by writing a sexy novel.  

A lesser book would not have been able to handle such great themes as society’s destruction and rebirth, let alone with the added science fiction element, but The Day of the Triffids works wonderfully, and I would recommend it to any fiction lover. There’s also a distinct vein of humour running throughout that adds another edge.

Farscape: Season 1 (1999-2000)

We’ve just finished the first season of Farscape, the Jim Henson sci-fi series that features, human, puppets and CGI all working together. This was a new achievement in TV back in 1999, and as far as I know, there still aren’t (m)any adult TV shows using puppets to tell their stories today.

I first watched Farscape when it showed on BBC2 at 6pm on a week night, back when Buffy, Due South, The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air made that a must see hour, right after Neighbours finished on BBC1. But then the BBC decided cult shows such as these were for graveyard slots or the digital realms, so I think I only actually saw a couple of seasons of Farscape – though I’ve definitely seen all of season 1 before.

Watching season 1 again, I found more to enjoy in the series than I’d seen previously. I appreciated how well drawn the characters are, and how subtle some of their interactions are. The concept of Farscape – John Crichton, a human, ends up on a prison ship with a collection of fugitives and tries to find his way back to Earth – has always intrigued me. These characters were (mostly) prisoners, although prisoners of the nefarious and falsely named Peacekeepers, so their crimes are not as cut and dried as they first appear. This show has no basic ‘explore the galaxy’ remit, rather the ship and it’s inhabitants are on the run from the Peacekeepers they escaped from, and each is trying to get to their home planet, although they are currently, inconveniently, in the Uncharted Territories. Each character is distinct and has their own priorities, and each is selfish in different ways. As the season evolves so too do the characters’ relationships with each other, as they develop respect and learn how to interact with others.

Crichton (Ben Browder) is the hunky, pop-culture-referencing Earthling stranded on Moya, a living ship (although as hard as they try, she doesn’t really ‘look’ like a living being, but it’s a very interesting concept, especially when she gives birth at the season’s end), and he is the audience’s way in to this world. Very occasionally, Browder’s performance edges on annoying, but mostly he’s both fun and funny. Claudia Black plays Aeryn Sun, one of favourite characters for she grows immensely from her role as a simple Peacekeeper grunt into a compassionate member of the crew, and her relationship with Crichton is so playful they’ve just go to get it on any minute!

The non-human looking members of the crew are: Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe), a Luxan warrior who is initially very head strong, but like Aeryn learns to use his head before his Qualta Blade; Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan (Virginia Hey), a blue woman who’s actually a plant, and the slightly hippy one with a knack for medicine; Dominar Rygel XVI, a hilarious puppet creation who resembles a toad or a large slug, but in a nice way!; and Pilot, the massive animatronic at the heart of Moya. Gigi Edgley joined the regular cast for the last few episodes, playing Chiana, and she created some excellent new dynamics with the rest of the cast.

I love the humour in Farscape, and not just Crichton’s pop culture references. The fact that Rygel farts helium is brilliant in itself, and when he’s stuck in a pod with Chiana and can’t help but break wind it lightens a very tense episode. Initially made up of monster of the week style episodes featuring either a new planet or a new visitor to Moya, the latter half of season 1 really ups the stakes with story arcs and recurring villains Crais and Scorpius (re)introduced into the mix, creating more jeopardy and a chance for the actors to really show their acting chops. That is not to say that the first episodes are poor, far from it, although sometimes the ideas on display are better than their execution, it is that the later episodes are noticeably more exciting and tighter scripted. Any new series needs time to find it’s feet, just look at The X-Files and Buffy’s first seasons.

One of the other distinctive features of Farscape that set it apart from other sci-fi series (other than the imaginative puppet and costume work that Jim Henson’s workshop creates every episode) is that it was filmed in Australia, and thus most of the cast and guest cast are Australian. Although our hero, John Crichton, is as American as they come, everyone else in this part of the world usually speaks with an Aussie twang. It’s refreshing to hear that Crichton’s translator microbes work with an Australian accent!