The Ultimate Answer?

Doctor Who – 42

[Spoiler Warning]

Despite my disappointment at the lack of Douglas Adams references in this episode (well, you can’t call it 42 and not expect any links) I was fairly impressed with the story. But there did seem to be something missing.

This had so much potential to be a great episode – fantastic premise, great cast and probably the best ever Doctor Who Director, Graeme Harper [see The Caves of Androzani or last year's Cyberman story] - and yet somehow it felt a bit flat.

The premise of the story was that the Doctor and Martha had 42 minutes in which to save the spaceship, which they had just landed on, from crashing into the sun. So the whole episode was able to run in real time, which made for great tension as the minutes ticked away. Added to that was the extra threat that the sun was somehow a living entity which infected crew members and began to kill them one by one. A race against time and a scary monster – surely this should have been tremendously exciting? I can only think that the script was a bit flat – everything else was so good.

Let’s hope it picks up again next week.

A Rosy Glow

You’ll have noticed me writing about a great sitcom, Not Going Out.

Well it’s won another award! This is the Rose d’Or, which used to be the Golden Rose of Montreux (and The Goodies only ever managed silver – twice!). Not Going Out won the golden rose for best sitcom, beating other shows like The Royle Family, The Thick of It and My Family. It’s easily better than all three (but that’s not saying much in a couple of cases!)

Read about the awards at writer Andrew Collins’ blog

Back from the dead

Doctor Who – The Lazarus Experiment

[WARNING - MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS]

A great episode with chases down corridors and a really scary monster – almost classic Who!

The Doctor and Martha return to present day Earth, after Martha’s had her ‘one trip’. But there’s something happening which the Doctor decides is more interesting, so he sticks around – Professor Lazarus is going to “change what it means to be human”. A bit of a party and a few whizzy effects later and Lazarus (brilliantly played by Mark Gattis, writer of The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot’s Lantern) has demonstrated his machine which alters his DNA to enable him to appear young again. But he’s been messing with forces he doesn’t fully understand (how often does that happen in Doctor Who??) and his restructured DNA causes him to mutate into a monster which feeds off the life of other people.

Cue lots of screaming and running down corridors. There’s some great moments, including the Doctor explaining that he’d “reversed the polarity”, which was a delight to hear again (this was one of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor’s favourite phrases). There’s been some great old classic Who moments creeping back into this series – what with the Macra the other week, and the reversing polarity this, not forgetting the mention of Gallifrey in the Christmas episode.

The episode also saw more than just a mention for ‘Mr Saxon’ (who’s first name it seems is Harold), who I think must be this year’s Bad Wolf. We’ll have to wait to find out more …

A Birthday Treat

It’s great fun when your birthday extends over a few days. My ticket for Monday night’s recording of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue had been paid for as a birthday present, so I was always intending on having a little birthday celebration then. I got more presents from Clair and Kate [thank you].

But the recording was a real treat. It’s always great fun wondering who the guest is going to be, and it was with great delight that this week’s turned out to be Stephen Fry. Clue tends to have people who regularly turn up as guests, but on my list of ‘ideally I’d like to see, but it probably won’t be’ people was Stephen Fry, so I was very pleased.

I won’t talk too much about the recording, as I don’t want to spoil anything before the broadcast (which should be on the 4th of June), but it was very funny – as always. It was a delight to watch Tim and Stephen almost collapse into heaps of giggles during one round, and Stephen’s utter embarrassment at anything musical. He also did a fantastically spot on impression of Robert Robinson. Graeme played a little bit of harmonica during Pick Up Song. We cheered at the mention of The Goodies, and there were extra giggles when Tim mentioned ‘crumpet’!

I was astounded at how many people in the huge audience (of 2400, which apparently is a record) hadn’t been at a recording before, but maybe that adds to the fun?

After the show and we took our usual trip to the stage door, along with half the audience it seemed! I managed to get my copy of Stovold’s signed by Barry, and then we went to talk to Graeme and Tim. It seemed such a long time since we’d seen them! I was very cheeky and asked Graeme if he’d mind putting ‘happy birthday’ when he signed my book (I explained that it was a few days earlier). He then passed the book to Tim to sign, who noticed what Graeme had written and so I had to explain again that it wasn’t today. I also had very lovely special birthday hugs. We had a bit more of a chat before they headed off to talk to some other people. And it was time for us to go too. Humph had a huge crowd round him, and we didn’t want to miss trains, so we headed off.

It was a great birthday!

Another Party’s Over

Another year, another birthday. (ok, so it was yesterday)

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about my birthday last year. And yet it seems like a a thousand years ago – so much has happened to me in the last 12 months that it feels like a completely different life.

I’ve also been thinking about 10 years ago, when I saw in my birthday by sitting and cheering away every defeated Tory candidate in the general election. I was so optimistic at the end of 18 years of Tory misrule, and I was so hopeful for the fresh, exciting new government formed by the Labour party.

What happened?

Whatever Happened to Fay Wray

Doctor Who – Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks

[SPOILER WARNING] 

The Doctor goes to America – again! This time to 1930s New York. There was a lot of good historical background to the story – explaining the depression, Hooverville, the Empire State Building. It’s always good to see that Doctor Who hasn’t lost its ability to inform and educate, as well as entertain!

Obviously this two parter was a dalek story (the clue’s in the title), and I had noticed at the end of last year’s Doomsdaythat the black dalek escaped being sucked into the void, so it was no surprise to see him turn up again. I was a little more surprised to see the other Cult of Skaro daleks too, but what seemed more odd was that these daleks, supposedly the more creative thinkers, were unable to find a way to reproduce. This has never seemed to be a problem in the past. The fusion of dalek Sec (and when did daleks have names??) with a human would have been abhorrent to the daleks of old.

I did, however, really enjoy one moment where the two daleks discuss their former leader’s transformation. The first dalek moved towards the second and spoke in a quieter voice asking if dalek Sec was fit for purpose. The second dalek the looked around to check no one was listening, turned back to the first and agreed. Hilarious!! But then I did enjoy the one-upmanship and one liners from the Cult of Skaro daleks in Doomsday.

But are daleks supposed to make me laugh?

The Clues are in

The I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue tour dates have officially been announced. An email was sent from producer Jon Naismith via the ISIHAC mailing list, which gave the following information -

The show is called “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue – The Official Stage Tour” and will be a kind of ‘best of’ show, featuring favourite rounds from the past 35 years. The guest panellist will be Jeremy Hardy. The show will not be recorded for broadcast on Radio 4.

The dates and venues are

• Thursday 30 August LEEDS GRAND THEATRE
• Sunday 9 September NOTTINGHAM THEATRE ROYAL
• Monday 10 September NORTHAMPTON DERNGATE
• Monday 17 September Assembly Hall Theatre TUNBRIDGE WELLS
• Tuesday 18 AND Wednesday 19 September BIRMINGHAM HIPPODROME
• Tuesday 25 September IPSWICH REGENT
• Wednesday 26 September NEW THEATRE OXFORD
• Friday 5 October READING HEXAGON (part of the READING COMEDY FESTIVAL)
• Monday 8 October BRIGHTON DOME (part of the BRIGHTON COMEDY FESTIVAL)

Jon also adds this in the email -

Apologies to those in the far North, far West, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – this is just a little tour and we’ve deliberately booked venues that keep travelling to a minimum for the teams. If all goes well, the plan is to mount a longer tour in 2008 which we hope will be more extensive.

Not Going Out Again

You may remember me writing a couple of times about a new, very funny BBC1 sitcom called Not Going Out.

Well I noticed last night it’s getting a repeat showing (first episode was Monday 30th April) on BBC1 at 10.35pm. If you missed it the first time, do give it a go. And if you did see it before, it’s still just as funny watching again.