Fear of the Dark

Doctor Who – Silence in the Library

[SPOILER ALERT - NO, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. Watch out for those spoilers ...]

I was looking forward to this two parter, simply because Steven Moffatwas writing it. He has written some of my favourite New Series Who and always gives something dark, scary and clever with a peppering of great comedy. Silence in the Library didn’t disappoint.

The Doctor and Donna arrive in the biggest library in the universe, only to find it deserted. But they are not alone. There are over a million million lifeforms there, and a little girl who isn’t really there at all. And the shadows are closing in …

Soon they’re joined by a team of archaeologists who’ve come to find out about the library, headed by the enigmatic River Song. We don’t know who she is, but she knows the Doctor and has a book about him, which she says contains ’spoilers’ (there was also a reference to spoilers at the beginning when the Doctor was talking to Donna about turning to the last pages of a book to find out what happens before reading it) – a great comment on the spoiler obsessed fan community?

But there’s something in the shadows. It’s called Vashta Narada and you can’t see it (apart from the dust in sunbeams) but it strips flesh from bone. And it’s there in the library, bringing the darkness and shadows in.

The Doctor teleports Donna back to the safety of the Tardis, only she never makes it, and as he leads the team through the library, pursued by the now dead Proper Dave he finds out by finding her face on a Node (the library’s information points which have ‘real’ faces). So it looks like Donna’s dead and Proper Dave is closing in. The the lights start to go out at the other end of the corridor. The best cliffhanger ever.

Who knows what’s going to happen next week?? How will they escape? And who is the mysterious little girl? And who is River Song and how does she know the Doctor? It’s good, proper Doctor Who when there’s so many questions to be resolved next time.

I must just make mention of the announcement last weekthe Steven Moffat is to be the new man in charge of Doctor Who for the 2010 series. I actually heard that he’d been appointed before I heard that Russell T Davies was leaving, so I was very happy and excited by the news until I got to the bit where Davies was going. It’s sad as he’s done so much great stuff for the series. But the show couldn’t be in better hands. Moffat has given us a whole spectrum of fantastic Who elements in the stories he’s written; scary gas-mask monsters, statues that move when you don’t watch them, romance and heartbreak for the Doctor, and the most wonderful comedy, nostalgia and old series tribute in last year’s Children in Need special Time Crash. Things are going to be great.

A Murder is Announced

Doctor Who – The Unicorn and the Wasp

[SPOILER WARNINGS]

I loved this episode, so much so that it has quickly become one of my favourite New Series stories. The Doctor and Donna travel back in time to 1926 and meet Agatha Christie, bestselling author and ‘Queen of Crime’, who just happens to be my favourite author. So a fusion of my favourite television programme with my favourite author – what could go wrong.

Well, potentially lots of things. I have to say I wasn’t looking forward to this episode and I was concerned that a Doctor Who whodunnit wouldn’t work, and that the characterisation of Christie wouldn’t do her justice. But, fortunately I was wrong on both counts and Fenella Woolgar played Christie in a very sensitive way. Obviously the fantasy elements of a Science Fiction programme allowed the world created to not be exactly as a 1926 English party would have been. There were no alien creatures in the world of Agatha Christie, no giant wasps and certainly no one surviving cyanide poisoning.

My one gripe with the story concerned the ‘explaination’ of Christie’s disappearance. This was one of my concerns, but I think the altering of the facts (she disappeared from her own home, in December, Silent Pools isn’t a pretty lake and she had been staying at the Harrogate Hydro since the day after her disappearance) made it clearly an ‘alternative’ disappearance which took place in the Doctor Who universe.

Who’s the Daddy?

Doctor Who – The Doctor’s Daughter

[SPOILER WARNING]

A great little episode, although it did feel like there was too much going on for just a single episode story. The pace was good throughout the whole episode, but it just felt like there could have been more exploration of the characters and situation than the single episode allowed.

The Doctor has a daughter – shock, horror! (Well, no. We’ve always known he had a granddaughter… ) But this daughter was created by a cloning process from a tissue sample that was forcibly taken from the Doctor. The episode saw the Doctor trying to stop the war, while his daughter Jenny tried to understand how there was more to life than fighting. Donna was very good at reconciling the two, and showing that they were more alike than either of them wanted to see.

I loved the idea of the war having only taken place over seven days, but had been fought for ’several generations’ due to the daily creation of humans and Hath to fight. The Hath did seem a little pointless though, mainly due to the fact that they couldn’t speak clearly and we had to rely on Martha’s interpretation of what they were saying. (who in their right mind creates a race of fish/human hybrids and forces them to breath through gills??!)

And I wonder if it’s the last we’ve seen of Jenny … ?

Unbelievably Funny

You may remember last year I wrote about a new radio comedy panel game called The Unbelievable Truth. Well, it’s back! The new series began yesterday on Radio 4. I’d managed to get to two of the three recordings (again), but I got distracted from writing about them, so thought I’d post something now.

The first one was great fun. I arrived nice and early, so as to be able to get good seats and waited for Cand Wackywales (from GROK) to arrive. The recording was at the Shaw Theatre, which I like as a venue, although it would be better if there were more seats to sit on whilst waiting – it’s a long time to stand, especially when it gets crowded. While we were waiting I spotted Tim Vine arriving and a little later C spotted Adam Buxton, so we suspected that it was going to be a good panel. They were joined by Ed Byrne and Lee Mack and all four of them seemed to be on the same wavelength for both the shows they recorded – there was some great banter between them, some of which I suspect won’t make the final edit.

I won’t say much about the content of either of the recordings, as the shows have yet to be broadcast, suffice to say they were all very funny and I was laughing a lot. I think the show seems to be improving with each series (of two – yes I know there’s not a lot to go on, but I think it’s definitely a grower) and I hope there’s some more to come.

The second recording I went to was the final one of the three. C was there again, but we also met up with two of The Giddies. Much chatting and giggling was done before the show – spotting Fred Macaulay arriving, discussing iphones and trying to see what was going on in the theatre through some tiny windows. The most we got to see was that one on the panelists was wearing a pink shirt (now who do we know who wears shirts that colour??). After what seemed like years of waiting we were finally let in to the theatre and managed to grab four front row seats.

The producer, Jon Naismith, surprised us all in his usual intoduction by telling a new ‘genuinely funny joke’. Well, I say new, but I had heard him tell it before (I suppose it was less ‘new’, more ‘different’), but it made a pleasant change from the one he’s been telling recently (I still prefer the goldfish one though). Then the panel was brought on – Michael McIntyre, Fred Macaulay, Lucy Porter and Graeme Garden. They were all very good and very funny, although they didn’t seem to have quite the same rapport between them as the previous week’s. And I’m not sure Michael McIntyre did himself any favours beginning the evening by saying that he didn’t understand why anyone would listen to the radio! At the recording of a radio programme, in front of an audience probably made up of radio listeners, I’m not sure this was a good idea. But generally much fun was had and I surprised myself as to how much I knew about a couple of the subjects, spotting the truths myself and waiting to see if anyone else did.

I can’t wait to hear how both recordings turn out on their broadcasts. I’m sure they’ll be very funny and highly recommend listening if you haven’t already.

The Air That I Breath

Doctor Who – The Poison Sky

[SPOILER WARNING]

The second part of the two parter definitely lived up to my expectations. There were some great plot twists, like the ‘evil’ Martha clone actually preventing UNIT from causing a nuclear war. Wilf was saved from the fume-filled car by Donna’s mum smashing the window – an idea so obvious I can’t believe no one else thought of it!

There were some lovely moments with the Doctor putting all his faith in Donna alone on the Sontaran ship. And Rattigan came good in the end, and used his genius to save the world rather than destroy it. There were also some great mentions of previous Doctor Who stuff – the Doctor spoke about the Brigadier (a classic series reference. It would be good to see the character again though) and when they all put on gasmasks in the fumes he asked “are you my mummy” (from The Empty Child). There was also the reappearance of the Valiant, the UNIT ship seen at the end of the last series.

The graphics were amazing, as always, but I must just mention the scenes where all the fumes were being burnt out of the earth’s atmosphere. That was truly amazing to watch and so brilliantly realised.

And then there was another, very brief, shot of Rose …