| R.B.7 4 A V I E W 2 0 1 0 |
 |
1
IM 448199 |
| R.B.7 4 A V I E W 2 0 1 0 |
|
1
IM 448199 |
(click here for the ration book rules) (red text = new items; + = new points to existing items) (pale text = repeated items unseen; murky text = taped items) |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| WEEK THREE This weekend's Doctor Who (that is, the episode that's not been scored yet, the one with Graham Norton dancing on the Doctor's face) was unsurprisingly somewhat better than the one a week before. I was not happy to see the statues back (an abuse of a past success) but they (and River Song) were thankfully used to good effect and the result was really rather enjoyable: definitely the best of the series so far. So that's something of a relief. I was out of the house for the second of the leaders' debates so didn't get to see Sky's coverage, just heard bits on R4. The novelty seems to have worn off already. The Snooker has been quite entertaining over the weekend. Most importantly, this Wednesday on ITV4, the second series of Dollhouse arrives through our aerials! WEEK TWO The second ep of Doctor Who proved to be fine (space whales and all), though far too hurried to really work (the assistant has got a handle on what drives the Doctor a damn site too early). The third ep, which has not been scored on the above tables yet (but which will be getting 0pts) was, however, bloody awful. I didn't really mind that the Daleks were back, or even that they're in pretty colours. I don't even really mind that they look like they've been cross-bred with Fiat 500s. What I do take offence to is the dreadful, awful, utterly terrible story we got. It's fair to say that the ep wasn't helped at all by a surfeit of Dalek-based news coverage that was a) for absolutely no good reason and b) dripping with spoilers. But that really has nothing to do with this episode being shit. It was shit mainly because it was written by Mark Gatiss, who should clearly stick to writing sketches about killing animals. In fairness to Gatiss, I thought the one with the TV set was not abominable and that the Dickens one wasn't too embarrassing save the unfortunate subtext. But this was painful. Not only did it show the weaknesses in Matt Smith's acting abilities (cf. oh so very boldly with Eccleston's deeply engaging first Dalek encounter which oozed with far more venom and hatred than Smith's cartoonish spanner attack), not only did it a) reveal the Daleks far too quickly but also b) reveal their evil even further too quickly and c) perpetuate this terrible mis-use of the Daleks we've seen in the modern Who: Doctor and Daleks stand in spaceship, facing each other and shouting a lot. That is not how the Doctor and the Daleks should interact: it's an utter waste of the Daleks. Daleks shoot on sight, and there has to be a very good reason for them not to zap the Doctor. Daleks should lurk around corners of corridors... they should be used as an approaching menace from which to run away from or otherwise avoid in some game of cat and mouse. One false move and all that... Not "look at our new paint job!". It's an abuse of the Dalek, the one Doctor Who baddy I can still have nightmares about (though increasingly for the wrong reasons, given this living nightmare). Yeah, Dalek-abuse, showing up the bad acting, some really embarrassing dialogue, such as we've come to expect from historicals (very little educational content, likewise), some Star Wars shit (don't get me started on that), and as for the robot time-bomb being defused by some fond-memory-of-a-past-assignation bullshit... that was really the final straw. This was a bad episode of Doctor Who. I did not like what I saw or what I heard. Is it, in fact, the worst episode since the programme was revived? Yes, I rather think it is. What? Worse than those Christmas specials, and that painful finalé with Davros? Worse than those: because at least they were either well acted, or had some slightly emotional content, or perhaps a joke or two that worked, or something... this was just deeply uncomfortable and painfully floppy, like trying to have sex after passing a gall-stone. Meanwhile, there was an Election Debate, in which, unsurprisingly, Cameron looked like a pillock, Brown said some sensible things that weren't supported by past actions, and Clegg mopped up, partly because he had everything to gain and Brown, at least, was happy to let him gain it on account of him playing for a hung parliament. As for Alistair Stewart, he seemed the most nervous of all involved, and started to bark like Christopher Morris at one point. I listened to the first hour on the radio, then turned to the telly to see if anything was noticeably different. On the telly, people smile more. The new Radio Times layout has been annoying me this week, and will doubtless continue to do so until they make it even worse. WEEK ONE See the end of last month's column for my thoughts on the new Doctor Who. The team I was rooting for in University Challenge didn't win. And Wonders of the Solar System was truly beautiful. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||