PAUL MOUNT'S WORLD OF STUFF

TV review: Dr Who - 'The Waters of Mars'

2009-11-15T21:57:00.008Z

The Doctor arrives in the midst of a small, isolated band of human beings who are being infiltrated by an outside alien force which slowly transforms them into something monstrous which has its owqn designs on Humanity. The survivors of the group rush to an escape capsule but it, too, has been compromised by the alien force and the pilot has no choice but to self-destruct it to save the rest of the crew and, possibily, all Mankind... But enough about the 1975 Tom Baker story 'The Ark In Space', tonight we're looking at 'The Waters of Mars', the latest of David Tennant's final four hurrahs in the role he'smade his own since December 2005, a story which, if not the first episode of a three-part 'goodbye' is very much a story which leads deftly in to what looks like some pretty cataclysmic stuff come Christmas/the New Year.

The purpose of 'The Waters of Mars' is very clearly to add an extra moral dimension to the outoging Time Lord. Since the show was resurrected back in 2005 we've seen the Doctor wracked by survivor guilt, becoming increasingly touched by human emotions in ways he never was before his people were wiped out in the Time War and, in his latest (and greatest?) incarnation, becoming increasingly - and worryingly - omniscient and God-like. Russell T Davies has touched on the theme of Doctor-as-Messiah more than once, most famously in the eye-opening 'floating angel' sequence from 'Last of the Time Lords' where an aged Doctor is returned to youthful vigour by the simultaneous chanting of everyone left alive on earth after its decimation by the Master/Toclafane alliance. Elsewhere throughout the series we've seen the Doctor toying with the temporal power at his disposal, sometimes mercilessly dispatching his enemies to the alarm of his companions, most of whom have been wary of the darkness he seems capable of displaying in moments of crisis and sometimes just issuing threats of the wrath that he, as the last of his kind, can visit upon those who cross him. Not unnaturally, as he draws the Doctor towards the end of his tenth life-cycle, Russell T Davies (and, here co-writer Phil Ford) takes the Doctor not only to the edge of his own dubious morality but, at last, right over the line, to the point of no return and, in the end, right beyond it. By the time 'The Waters of Mars' ends the Doctor realises he's gone too far and the audience suddenly feels as if they really don't know this character they've spent so much time with these last few years as well as they thought - and it's quite an uneasy feeling in a series so keen to be family-friendly and warm and reassuringly comforting.

The narrative peg upon which the Doctor's latest personal crisis hangs is your fairly bog-standard base-under-seige yarn. Taking its cues from some of Davies' own favourite classic Dr Who serials - the aforementioned 'Ark In Space' (giant insects invade a space station aboard which sleep the survivors of Mankind after solar flares have left the Earth uninhabitable) and 'Fury from The Deep' (its images of alien-possessed humans, mouths agape, emitting poison gas evoked by the water-spewing Flood-zombies here) 'Waters of Mars' puts a small group of human pioneers (another favourite Davies motif) on Bowie Base One on Mars in 2059. In textboot 'Dr Who' tradition, the Doctor is captured by the suspicious colonists and, inevitably, things start to go wrong almost immediately (and after a slightly clunky bit of exposition which enables the Doctor to introduce the characters and give them all a bit of a potted bio). Bowie Base One has a place in history, it seems; the Doctor is uncomfortably aware of the fate it and its occupants face the very day he arrives and, recognising the events about to take place as a "fixed point in Time" which will lead to landmark strides in the development of the human pioneering spirit. The Doctor has long been aware - demonstrated most recently in 'The Fires of Pompeii' from the 2008 series - that there are some fixed moments in history which just can't be tampered with whilst, it seems, many others are just fair game, in a state of "flux" as he puts it here. The nature of which ones are which throw a fascinating new dramatic dynamic into the series, one which has rarely been explored before and, in all honesty, now it's been touched upon it can't really be ignored in the future. Meanwhile, back on Bowie Base One, a terrible water-based infection has seeped into the Base and one by one the crew are turned into cracked-skin, black-mouthed zombies using water as a weapon. The Doctor and the survivors - including the Base's chief Adelaide Brooks (a star turn by guest Lindsay Duncan) - look on in horror as the complex is slowly, fatally compromised. The Doctor, knowing that the base and all its crew must die for the sake of future history, walks away and heads back to the TARDIS, the sounds of mounting carnage ringing in his ears. Our hero is agonised, of course; wherever he's gone he's done all he can to prevent death and destruction but here, he knows, there's nothing he can do because he really can't do it. He mustn't do it. But when the shuttle ship expldoes and the Doctor is flung to the red soil, fire and debris raining down around him, something inside him flips. History and the consequences of meddling with Time mean nothing; his over-riding imperative is, as it always has been, to save the day and to Hell with all the rest. It's a scintillating and pulse-pounding ten minutes as the Doctor changes the flow of Time and saves the day for at least a few of the crew of Bowie Base One.

But back on Earth any sense of euphoria is short-lived. The few survivors - including the cute/annoying robot Gadget - bury their gratitude under confusion and fear - "Who the Hell are you?" screams crew-member Mia Bennet as she rushes off hysterically into the snowy night. If the audience has been chilled by the water-gushing zombies and the thrills and spills so far, it's now that the show takes a serious turn for the dark and the spines start to tingle. For now, when challenged by Adelaide who knows she should have died back up on Mars because history records that she did, we see how the Doctor has changed. He's no longer the benificent, wise-cracking adventurer who comes and then goes, having saved the day. Now he's the "Time Lord victorious", the man who has conquered Time and destiny, the man who thanks that it will now forevermore bend to his will because his will is all that counts. There's a new coldness about the Doctor at the end of this episode, a superiority and arrogance we've never seen before and it's as uncomfortable and unsettling as any of the horrors he's faced in his long, long lives. He's a man who has gone too far. As the Doctor wanders back to the TARDIS, triumphant yet again, having defeated Time itself as well as adversity, Adelaide takes it upon herself to put right the Doctor's interference and, to the Doctor's horror, does it the only way she can. A vision from his recent past materialises in the snow and - just for a second or two - the Doctor thinks his moment of death has arrived. But not yet. Back in the TARDIS a defiant Doctor steels himself against his fate and with a resolute cry of "No!" sets off for pastures new...

This is a genuinely outstanding piece of 'Dr Who'. The usual cadre of old series die-hards may complain about 'sentimentality' (it's called characterisation and humanity) and, their old favourite, the 'deus ex machina' ending and anything else they can lay their hands on. But really the point of the story isn't so much the story - it really is your basic runaround - but what the story means and where it takes us and the Doctor. That's not to say that the production itself was second-rate or just a means of getting the Doctor in the right frame of mind for his regeneration. Much has been made of this being the 'scariest' 'Dr Who' episode ever and whilst I can't make any real comment on that as I don't find anything much scary these days, there were certainly moments here which were edgy and creepy and may well have caused some nightmares and gibbering amongst the very young. Some sensitive adults may have been a bit freaked out by the drooling, black-mouthed zombies and their relentless pursuit of the Doctor and Adelaide and their remorseless invasion of the Base. But as Russell T Davies has pointed out again and again, these are healthy scares; non-gratuitous, bloodless, the sorts of scares which get the heart pumping and get the viewer right on the edge of their seat. Everyone here is at the top of their game as far as this show is concerned. Veteran director Graeme Harper gave the episode the pace and energy he always delivers, the Mill's CGI Martian landscapes and computer-modelling are pretty much faultless and the Flood zombies themselves are spectacularly realised by Neill Gorton and his Millennium FX team. Good to see David Tennant, in his final hours in the series, being given yet more meaty material to work with as the Doctor starts to unravel and although the supporting cast isn't exactly a starry crowd (save Duncan and former 'Neighbours' stalwart Peter O'Brien in a fairly thankless supporting role) everyone throws themslves into their role with absolute relish - and only the coldest of hearts could have failed to be moved as Steffi Ehrlich (Cosima Shaw) faced her final moments trapped in a room slowly filling with infected water by taking one last look at a video recording of her young daughter, safe and far away on Earth. Moments later Steffi's body shudders and quivers as her terrible transformation begins... Terrific stuff.

In fact, I'd say that 'terrific stuff' pretty much sums this one up. Though his style may not sit well with some traditionalists, Davies knows how to tell a rattling good yarn which can appeal to a wide modern sensibility and he knows just how to tug at the emotional heartstrings when he needs to and to maximum effect. Who could have been expecting Adelaide's story to be tied so closely to the Dalek invasion in 'Journey's End' from the 2008 series and who could have been expecting that beautiful, majestic Dalek cameo as we flashback to the young Adelaide in 2008? Sometimes the very best of modern 'Dr Who' hasn't been about the spectacle, the special effects, the gun battles and the noise and bluster; sometimes it's been about quiet moments, emotional moments, human moments - the very things the classic series didn't touch upon because they just weren't its remit. So despite all its zombies and its spacesuits and its robots (and having sad that, how I loved the FX scene of the souped-up Gadget racing across the Martian landscape towards the TARDIS, waiting patiently for the return of its owner) it's the stuff about the people - including the Doctor - that matters the most, maybe never more so than in 'The Waters of Mars'. It's a superb episode, worlds away from the fun and froth of 'The Next Doctor' and 'Planet of the Dead' and just about the best possible way of setting up the explosive events of Tennant's swan-song.

Why isn't it Christmas yet, dammit???

DVD Review: Moon

2009-11-15T02:28:00.009Z

Good science-fiction films - proper science-fiction films not set in a Galaxy far,far away or else inspired by a popular range of kid's toys - are a bit like buses. You wait an age for one and then, lo, two come along at once. Or, for the purposes of this analogy, two in a year. Which, frankly, is two more than we usually get. Chances are you probably saw Neill Blomkamp's 'District 9' - about a giant alien spaceship full of alien 'prawns' suspended over Johannesburg and the eviction officer infected by alien DNA during the repatriation process because it became the darling of the genre and tabloid Press. It was good but it wasn't that good. Sadly Duncan Jones' debut feature, a science-fiction movie called 'Moon' didn't get the same treatment, despite being regarded by those who saw it as a bit of a cult classic in the making. Now 'Moon' gets its own shot (geddit?) at glory as it hits DVD and Blu Ray and, hopefully, finds a wider and more appreciative audience than it managed in theatres.

Actually, the home viewing experience is probably where 'Moon; comes into its own. It's a much smaller, more intimate movie than most in its genre. despite its 200+ visual effects sequences, 'Moon' isn't about spectacle, it's about humanity and, to quote a well-worn and sometimes rather tedious cliche, it's about the nature of humanity and...gulp...what it means to be human. Seriously. 'Moon' stars the superb Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell, a space engineer coming to the end of his three-year stint as supervisor of a Lunar Industries base mining a vital source of energy from the dark side of the moon. His only company is Gerty, the base's cool sentient computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Not unnaturally Sam's going a bit stir crazy and is looking forward to his return to Earth and his wife and young family. But an accident out on the moon's surface changes everything; knocked unconscious when his lunar rover crashes, Sam wakes up in the base's infirmary, being tended by Gerty. But he's no longer the only human on the moon base. But in a sense, he is...

Channelling similarly-themed deep space 'solitary man' movies like 'Silent Running' and 'Solaris', 'Moon' is a strange, dislocating and uneasy film. It's not exciting in the traditional sci-fi style but then it's not supposed to be. It's a movie which intrigues and captivates, drawing you into the story and Sam's dilemma despite the fact there's little real sense of danger or palpable threat. Here's a man who is unravelling through solitude and neither he nor the audience can really ever be completely certain what's real and what's pure fanciful imagination. For Sam awakes to find himself joined by a clone of himself and before long he realises that he, too, is a clone, one in a long line of Sams engineered to man the base, replaced when damaged or worn out, their individuality and humanity buried long ago. Aware of the truth of himself and yet struggling to accept it, Sam is devastated to find out that time has passed, his wife on Earth is long-dead, his baby daughter now a teen who doesn't know him, and that his entire life is both meaningless and lifeless. Sam and the next clone Sam clash but ultimately work together for the sake of their own 'lives', the clock ticking as a relief ship approaches from Earth.

Writer/director Duncan Jones (he wrote the script especially for Rockwell when the actor told him he'd love to make a science-fiction movie) handles the dense and yet sparse narrative with style, the camera prowling around the cramped, stark lunar base set and what a joy to see a return to traditional special effects values with the table-top lunarscape models, the lunar rover trundling across the dusty regolith and the great clunky, ugly spaceshiop landing at the base in the film's final moments. The FX here remind us yet again of what we've lost in the age of CGI as modelwork has a realism and believability no amount of hurtling pixels can replicate. And of course this is Rockwell's film (there are a few other performers such as benedict Wong and Matt berry from 'The IT Crowd') but the movie stands or falls by Rockwell's performance and he's mesmerising here as both Sam and his clone replacemnent; the former is battered and bloodied after his lunar accident, the latter fresh and clean and newborn and as yet unsullied by the pressure of a lonely existence millions of miles from home. Rockwell inhabits Sam (both of them) and it's probably the most electrifying and real performance I've seen in a genre movie in years.

'Moon' is a film you'll want to watch more than once and I suspect it's a movie which will reveal more and more of itself on repeat viewing. I'm currently watching a review disc of the 'Transformers' sequel and, one hour in, my senses are black and blue from the visual and aural overload and my brain is leaking out of the side of my head from the vacuity of the script. 'Moon' is the absolute and perfect antidote to mindless popcorn stuff like this. Beautifully-crafted, sensitively-filmed and with a mesmerising central performance and subtle visual effects, 'Moon' is a genre film to cherish.

The DVD: Not the most colourful film you'll ever see but the cold moonscape and the functional greys and whites of the moon base are pinsharp clear on DVD. Copious extras too with two commentaries (both featuring Jones), an early Jones short, a coiuple of short but interesting 'making ofs' and a couple of Q&A sessions.

'Moon' is released on DVD and Blu Ray on 16th November 2009 in the UK.

TV Review: 'Collision'...an ITV drama triumph???

2009-11-13T00:37:00.006Z

This week I have been mostly watching a new drama on ITV1. I know, crazy, isn't it? Who knew I'd ever be writing a sentence like that again? I admit I've been largely contemptuous of the output of the self-proclaimed "brighter side" (I have been known to refer to it as "the sh**er side" from time to time) since it fell under the spell of the grotesquerie known as Simon Cowell and his associated Hellspawn minions. I don't do the talent shows, the reality shows, the endless soap episodes. All that's been left has been the turgid drawn-out detective dramas and an addiction to 'The Bill' which has been killed stone-dead by the new post-watershed format which has sapped the show of its life and energy. But that's another story. ITV's just not been for me - and don't get me started to the advertising breaks everey thirty seconds. I even recently considered tuning ITV out of my snazzy new HD TV but reckoned that'd be stupid as I might, one day, miss something worth looking at. That day, it seems has come. Five of 'em, in fact.

Inevitably, ITV have found favour with me again by ripping off a format pioneered and championed by the BBC. This week ITV have been screening, at 9pm, every weekday evening, a drama 'event' called 'Collision', in the style of BBC1's 'Five Days' 'Criminal Justice' and 'Torchwood 3.' In the absence of a full new series of 'Dr Who', 'Torchwood' has easily been the best UK drama on TV this year. Easily. That may change if 'Collision' doesn't fumble the ball in its final episode later tonight (Friday). If you've not seen 'Collision' do yourself a favour and track it down on the ITV Player or whatever TV catch-up service is available to you - this is British TV drama at pretty much its contemporary best and it's worth the five hour commitment to watch something this absorbing, this classy.

'Collision' is the very best sort of car-crash television. Created by the prodigrous TV and film writer Anthony Horowitz ('Foyle's War', 'Stormbreaker', er...'Crime Traveller') and co-written by Horowitz and one Michael A Walker, this is a complex and non-linear thriller which tells of the events leading up to and the aftermath of a multi-vehicle pile-up on the A12. There are a number of fatalaties and, due to the presence of a Police car at the scene, fears that the Police may even have had some responsibility for the crash. DI John Tolin (former 'Primeval' star Douglas Henshell) is back on duty following the death of his own wife months earlier in a traffic accident which also left his teenage daughter paralkysed and in a wheelchair for life. Tolin, embroiled in an affair with his colleague SIO Ann Stallwood ('Shaun of the Dead' and 'Secret Smile' star Kate Ashfield) at the time of his wife's death, begins his investigation into the crash and is dismayed to find Smallwood is on the Police investigation team. Their frosty working relationship begins a slow thaw when Tolin's investigations into the accident reveal a few things which just don't add up; it seems that even the dead had their secrets and some of the survivors aren't telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Any drama series ultimately stands or falls on the strength of its first episode. This is where the story is set up, the characters put into place, the narrative given its momentum. Due to the poor attention span of TV audiences these days, audiences happy to sit for hours gawping at gormless karaoke singers or watching people who were vaguely famous in 1976 eatings insects in the Outback but uncomfortable with the notion of actually sitting and absorbing an intelligent story for a change, it's essential that the story is engrossing enough to draw the viewers drawn into the drama instantly, compelling to keep watching night after night. 'Collision' manages this feat admirably, despite the fact it introduces literally dozens of characters into the mix - some of them appearing for just a handful of minutes - and then throws away the rule book by telling, in numerous flashbacks, how the various characters involved in the actual crash found themselves on the A12 at the fatal moment. It's cleverly done, albeit a bit jarring for an ITV drama audience more used to the simple story-telling of a 'Midsomer Murders' or, simpler still, a soap opera. The first episode even builds up a palpable sense of dread as we slowly get to feel comfortable with the characters and prepare ourselves for the collision itself, the moment which changes things forever for all of them.

But once episode one is out of the way, ending with the crash itself - perhaps not as spectacular as we might have imaged, but powerful and dramatic and heart-in-mouth enough as it is, the series really picks up its pace and never lets the audience sit back and relax, demanding increasing attention as the episodes roll by, introducing new characters, new backstory, leaping back to characters barely referenced since the first episode, picking up oin threads hintyed at back at the start and, in some cases, gradually developing relationships and storylines. Horwitz and Walker tell their mutli-layered story deftly and with style and whilst, on occasion, some characters seem neglected for just a bit too long, their scripts are slick and sophisticated, laying on the intrigue and the mystery as the story weaves around between people-trafficking, industrial espionage, infidelity and, it seemed at first until the actual outcome was something a bit more prosaic (if a bit unlikely!!), even a bit of paedophilia. Yikes. 'Collision' has assembled an impressive and frnakly-astonishing rosta of acting talent, including faces we don't get to see much of on TV any more, old school character actors who remind us what a wealth of real talent being wasted out there as TV continues its obsession with cheap rerality tosh at the expense of good drama. So here we get, as well as Henshell and Ashield, the always-watchable Paul McGann, the brilliant Phil Davis, jan ("Juyst Good Friends" David, the edgy Dean Lennox Kelly and his brother Craig, veteran Sylvia Sims, Brian ("Get Some In!") Pettifer, Claire ("Carrie and Barry", "Dr Who") Rushbrook as well as newer faces like Leonora ("Being Human") Critchlow, Lucy ("Robin Hood") and Billie Piper lookey-likey Jo Woodcock, a real talent and a name to watch out for in the future. With a cast of this calibre and scripts of this confident quality, 'Collision' could hardly fail and, by episode four we're completely sold on the series, embroiled in the labyrithine lives of its characters and anxious to find out where it's all heading and where it will all end. Special kudos for the slap-in-the-face climax to episode four which sees one major character - and star name - come to a surprising and grisly end.

I really can't praise 'Collision' highly enough. With the BBC floundering badly this Autumn season, ITV have raised their game spectacularly and whilst much of their output is still a bit too tacky and disposable for my tastes, they're to be absolutely congratulated for freeing up five slots they'd normally have occupied with cheap tabloid documentaries or - worse - the ghastly Rrinny and Susannah - and given its audience a proper, meaty adult drama. 'Collision' has been a pretty substantial hit for the ITV Network; let's hope this is the start of something good for ITV, rather than just a flash-in-the-pan one-off cast aside in favour of the easy quick-fix of more gurning "I want this more than anything" reality show losers. TV should be about so much more - and 'Collision' shows that, even on ITV, it could yet be. Brilliant and unmissable TV.

UK TV Chart - w/e 1st November 2009

2009-11-11T22:21:00.004Z

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 1st November 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film

1) The X Factor (ITV1)......................13.13 *
2) Doc Martin (ITV1).........................9.95
3) Coronation Street (ITV1)..................9.53 *
4) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)..............9.14
5) EastEnders (BBC1).........................8.92 *
6) Emmerdale (ITV1)..........................7.06 *
7) Countryfile (BBC1)........................6.90
8) All-Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)...........6.77
9) (Murderland (ITV1).........................6.61
9) (Benidorm (ITV1)...........................6.61
11) Midsomer Murders (ITV1)...................6.43
12) Merlin (BBC1).............................6.14
13) Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1, Sat)..........5.94
14) (Holby City (BBC1).........................5.86
14) (Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..................5.86
16) Casualty (BBC1)...........................5.63
17) Life (BBC1)...............................5.55
18) P**** M*****'s Life Stories (ITV1)........5.29
19) Waterloo Road (BBC1)......................5.06
20) Have I Got News For You (BBC1)............5.00

BBC: 10 ITV: 10

DVD Review: 'Frozen River'

2009-11-09T01:42:00.009Z

Tired of spandexed superheroes hitting seven shades of CGI out of each other? Bored with boy wizards and moody vampires mooching about your cinema screen? Slightly fed up with outsized robots demolishing one another? Yep, me too. Allow Stuff to offer you a 93-minute cinematic penacea to your celluloid ennui in the form of 'Frozen River', an absolute gem of a movie without an explosion to its name and a film which, whilst being set in the snowy wastes of upper state New York, will bring a rosy glow to your heart and remind you just what it was about cinema you fell in love with in the first place.

Ray Eedy (Melissa Leo)lives with her two kids in a ramshackle static home on the icy plains of the Canadian/New York state border near a Mohawk Indian reservation. She earns a pittance working at a local hardware store and what money she does earn is stolen by her errant husband who slopes off and gambles it all away. It's nearly Christmas and Ray is in danger of losing everything including the family's dreamed-of new luxury (well, compared to the one they currently live in) new static home. Desperate and at her wit's end Ray tries to track down her husband before he can blow all their hard-earned cash and she finds his car outside a tatty Bingo hall. Much to her surprise a chunky young Mohawk girl comes out and casually drives off in the car, having seen its owner leaving the vehicle behind and therefore assuming it was fair game. Ray follows the girl to her own grubby caravan home. This is Lila (Misty Upham, sister of Theydontlikeit...oh, please yourselves) a surly short-sighted girl with her own problems and a reputation as a people smuggler. Somehow Ray allows Lila to persuade her to use the trunk of her car as a means of smuggling Chinese immigrants across the unpatrolled border via a potentially-perilous drive across the frozen St Lawrence River. Ray and Lila strike up an uneasy alliance and the money their partnership brings in eases Ray's financial burden. As the New Year dawns Ray embarks on one final trip with Lila...a trip which will have devastating consequences for Ray.

This is a powerful, raw and yet ultimately heart-warming movie from first-time writer/director Courtney Hunt, a film which picked up a string of festival accolades and led to a well-deserved Oscar nod for star Melissa Leo who delivers a striking and compelling performance as Ray, a woman on the edge who'll do whatever she has to do to keep a roof over her family's heads. The stark, snowy, muddy backdrop gives the film a detached and rather stately otherworldliness and there are echoes of the classic 'Thelma and Louise' in the edgy story of two women bound together in adversity and yet never even considering giving up. Both women become tougher and more ruthless as they become more deeply embroiled in their illegality and there's a palpable edge-of-the-seat excitement and sense of dread as one particular trip sees Ray forced to dump one immigant couple's luggage out into the snow only to find, at journey's end, that they've thrown a living cargo out into sub-zero temperatures. The race against time to rescue the hold-all, at dead of night in the freezing cold, is stomach-churningly agonising.

'Frozen River' is a passionate and realistic film full of spot-on performances (apart from Leo and Upham there are great turns from Ray's two kids), beautifully crisp and cold cinematography and the lack of a substantial music score reminds us just how much modern cinema's insistence on big, bombastic background music can take us out of the fiction. If you're looking for a breather from action movies and clumsy American comedies, Stuff can't begin to recommend 'Frozen River' highly enough. Intelligent, thought-provoking and, above all, a real human story (for a change), 'Frozen River' is a film you'll cherish and remember far longer than the latest 'Transformers' or 'X-Men' effort. A clear contender for 'film of the year' as far as this blogger is concerned.

The DVD: The film looks gorgeous despite the fact it's not exactly the most colourful movie you'll ever see, the charactersd being uniformly drab and unglamourous. But DVD brings out nthe pinpoint clkarity of the film's snowy locales and whislt the disc isn't exactly bulging with extras - there are fairly substantial interviews the star and the director - this is a disc that's about the film far more than the frills. An essential purchase for lovers of quality movies.

Coming soon to Stuff: Moon on DVD, Braveheart on Blu-Ray, ITV's fabulous five-night drama 'Collision', 'Sarah Jane' update, 'Waters of Mars' reviewed, 2010, the new CD from Robbie "The Robster" Williams and much more...

UK TV Chart - w/e 25th October 2009

2009-11-06T16:05:00.004Z

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 25th October 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film

1) The X Factor (ITV1).......................13.41 *
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)...................9.88 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)..........................9.45 *
4) Doc Martin (ITV1)..........................9.23
5) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)...............8.88
6) Question Time (BBC1).......................8.35
7) All-Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)............7.41
8) Murderland (ITV1)..........................7.32
9) Harry Hill's TV Burp (Sat. ITV1)...........7.05
10) Emmerdale (ITV1)...........................6.98 *
11) Benidorm (ITV1)............................6.68
12) Countryfile (BBC1).........................5.90
13) Jimmy's Food Factory (BBC1)................5.70
14) New You've Been Framed (ITV1)..............5.57
15) Merlin (BBC1)..............................5.53
16) Holby City (BBC1)..........................5.48 *
17) Casualty (BBC1)............................5.45
18) Have I Got News For You (BBC1).............5.43
19) Harry Hill's TV Burp (Sun, ITV1)...........5.39 (rpt)
20) Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)...................5.06

BBC: 10 ITV: 10

Chart commentary: Another level-pegging week with BBC and ITV both managing ten entries in the 20...but most of the BBC's are in the lower half of the chart. Say what you like about ITV (and I frequently do) they do at least make an effort now in the Autumn and throw their 'big guns' at the screen to great effect. Their ratings and share performance is on the increase because they're carpet-bombing the schedule with the sorts of shows their audience likes to watch. The BBC schedule has been poor at best this autumn with barely any new dramas or comedies and just the tired old warhorses like Holby City and Casualty staggering across the week like wounded animals on their last legs and Merlin -a reliable Saturday night performer - shunted around the night at the whim of the horribly-overlong dancing extravanganza. Come on, BBC, where are the new dramas? The comedies? The only real new impact they've made this week is with a huge edition of 'Question Time' (which usually manages 2 - 3 million) ballooning to over 8 million thanks to the controversial appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin - and some cheap daytime cooking filler promoted to the evening schedule. This isn't good enough. Still, the new series of 'Waterloo Road' and 'Spooks' have made strong starts in the last week or show and should boost BBC1's presence and of course the forthcoming new Dr Who special should make a strong top 5 showing in a few weeks.

Dr Who: here's to the future...

2009-11-01T19:21:00.011Z

The 21st century reboot of Dr Who is, I think all right-thinking people would agree, a pretty remarkable thing. One of the most consistemntly remarkable things about it is the way that, after nearly five years back on our screens, it hasn't started to wear out its welcome yet. The audience isn't getting bored, they aren't drifting away, they're as enraptured and engaged by the series as they were when it exploded back onto BBC Tv in March 2005. Series three and four, in particular, have seen average viewing figures climbing steadily and the most recent Christmas episodes have pulled in an astonishing 13 million viewers. Much of this is down to the show's brilliant publicity machine and the way it's been (and is being) stage-managed by Russell T Davies and his crew. 2009 has been a prime exmaple of how the show has kept a bubbling presence in the nation's consciousness even when it's only aired one episode so far this year.

The Dr Who internet fan community (largely represented by self-important little fan forums which take themselves a bit too seriously) has spouted a lot of old rubbish about 2009 being a 'gap' year. Of course it's not a gap year - Dr Who has been on the telly and will be on the telly again this year. No, the show's been on reduced duties in 2009 for all sorts of reasons - one of which is precisely so the audience doesn't get sick of the series rolling around year after year like The X Factor or the dancing thing. But Dr Who is never far away from the nation's hearts even when it isn't broadcasting; all year we've had little teasers of what's to come, photos and features in the press about the new cast, the filming of Tennant's last few stories, photos from the set of the new series. The public knows the show is out there even if it isn't on screen regularly at the moment.

Which brings me to the events of the last seven days when Dr Who has found its profile at its heighest since last Christmas and the is-he/isn't-he furore over 'The Next Doctor'. This week has seen David Tennant making his much-awaited guest appearance in two glorious episodes of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' (more of which later this week on Stuff), cleverly timed to coincide with the Press launch for the next of this year's special Who episodes 'The Waters of Mars' (now confirmed for broadcast at 7pm on BBC1 on Sunday 15th November) and the resulting Press coverage both in print on-line (all of it effusive and extravagenty-positive) along with reports of Steven Moffat's address to the Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival where be 'bigged-up' 11th Doctor Matt Smith and gave some tantalisingly-vague hints about what audiences can expect next year has made everyone sit up[ and takle notice and realise theyv'e actualkly missed the Doctor this year. Which, I suspect, has rather been the point of the 'reduced duties' year and all this sudden rush of publicity.

It's all clever stuff, beautifully-orchestrated and meticulously planned; hard not to wish the BBC could take these or similar techniques and deploy them for more of its output - these days new dramas and comedies slip into the schedule unannoucned and with little fanfare and are left to sink or swim on their own merits, the audience expected to seek them out rather than being constantly reminded of their existence. Sadly at this time of year the BBC is pretty much fixated on its Saturday night dance-a-thon and anything else takes its own chances. But meanwhile, as we anxiously await the end of an era for Dr Who - and having seen Tennant light up the screen again in 'Sarah Jane' this week, it's fair to say I'm dreading his departure more than ever, frankly - it won't do any harm to look over the horizon, into 2010 and wodner what the fickle finger of fate (and a potentially-fickle Tennant-loyal audience) might have in store for Dr Who series 5.

If it's not too inane a question to ask of a series about a time travller, what does the future hold for Dr Who? Are the glory days about to end? Will Tennant's fans - and that's pretty much everyone - turn awayu from the series when he leaves? Will they boycott the new boy before he's even met his new companion? I have no idea but at least we can look at what we know about what's to come and, ultimastely,. let's hope that Dr Whho's audience (who must be pretty smart to be watching this show in the first place) are smart enough not to let the exit of the most popular star the show's ever had sour them against the series for the future.

We've been here before, of course. In a sense this is a dilemma the show has faced ever since William Hartnell morphed into Patrick Troughton back in 1966. The idea of recasting the Doctor was forced on the show's then-production team by the fact that the ailing Hartnell had to bow out due to the poressures of the show's near year-long filming schedule. Recasting the star of a high profile TV show is pretty small beer these days but back in 1966 it was pretty much unheard of. But by casting the hugerly-=talented actor to portray a vastly-different sort of Doctor, the show pulled it off and forged on triumphantly for three more years. In 1970, teetering on the edge of cancellation in the face of declining viewer interest, the show did it again and surged into the 1970s in colour with Jon Pertwee dandifying the role for five successful years. In 1974 Tom Baker took over, becoming the lognest-running and, until recently, the most successful Doctor in the show's history. So successful was he that his successors - Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester Mccoy - never really stood a chance and the series finally slid off screen with a whiumper and tiny audiences in 1989. More recently we've seen the series relaunched in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as a dour, tougher version of the Time lord, all leather-jackets and big boots. The series was a massive hit all voer again from the outset - but the week after transmission of 'Rose', the first episode - news leaked that Eccelston had already quit the series and would be replaced for the already commissioned second and third series. Davies and his team maintained that this was always the plan, that Eccleston was always a one-year deal and the idea was to totally surprise the audience by killing him off and regenerating him at the end of the series. Other rumours suggest that Eccleston wasn't happy with some of the material and people he was working with and found the schedule too gruelling so unexpectedly quite - the truth is we'll very probably never know the real truth. However, before long relatively-unkown Scottish actor David Tennant was announced as Eccleston's replacement - amidst mumuring that there was no way this bloke could be as good, it was all voer, the show was finished before it had really had a chance to find its stride.

Watching Eccleston's episodes now it's easier to sit and wodner what might have been. How might he have developed the role in a second batch of episodes, basking in the glow of the success of the first run and extra rush of confidence it would have given him? We'll never know, of course, and fortunately, when tennant came on board iat Christmas 2005 we all stropped really caring. Thsi enw guy was good - he looked as if he was born to play this role. Lighter and efecter and more at home with the wackier side of Dr Who, tennant took the fledgling success and dragged the series to new heights across his three full series. More than that, in his geek-chic crumpled suit, overcoat and red Converse trainers get-up, he seemed to typify and embody an 'everyman' quality about the Doctor. Here's a man like you and me, a man on the street - but what things he can do, what secrets he has, what places he's seen.
Open, likable,w arm and witty - and even a bit dark on occasion - Tennant's Doctor was more welcoming than Eccleston's and as a result he enticed a bigger and, it seems, more passionmate audience. There's an element of rock star in Tennant's public personna too, evidenced by the hysterial screaming when he attends awards ceremonies and public events. I don't think that ever happened to Jon Pertwee, bless him.

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So Tennant has imbedded himself into the nation's Dr Who psyche. He is Dr Who. There's no-one else. This is the biggest hurdle Matt Smith has to face as he prepares to take over and make his (brief) screen debut on New Year's Day (when Tennant's finale is expected to screen). For a part of Dr Who's audience now sppears to be there because of Tennant as much as for Dr Who itself; hhow many of them will honestly wealk away when he's gone, no longer interested in the series and its new direction? How many of them just won't give Matt Smith a chance and won't want to?

Matt Smith has to hit the ground running. I suspect many viewers will tune in to his first episode just to see what he's like and satisfy themselves that they were right, that no-one can follow Tennant. So Matt has to do it all in his first episode, to grab the new audience with his new characterisationm, his new energy, his new style. Where Tennant captivated his audience - certainly a large female audience, too - by his style and sex appeal - Smith, twelve years younger and undeniably more awkward and angular-looking - will have a tougher job keeping the ladies on board. Moffat, not unexpectedly, says Smith's the best Doctor so far (well he would, wouldn't he?) and has, encouragingly, spoken of the fact that there's an 'ancient' quality in his performance which belies his youthfulness and, hopefully, will ward off some of the fan accusations that, with young, elfin-faced Karen Gillen on board as a younger companion figure, the series is being more deliberately skewed towards a younger audience than before. But in that all-important first episode, regeneration tramua aside, Smith needs to make the audience like him and want to spend time withn him fr thirteen or fourteen weeks every year. And to an extent, of coruse, that's also the job of the stories...

So the stories? What do we get? What do we know? Not a great deal. There's internet scuttlebutt a plenty out there and there have been some high profile location shoots in and around Cardiff (most recently in Llandaff village where Smith and Gillen were working on the first episode of the series) as well as some more remote ones (the usual factories, industrial units and graveyards). Thgere are cosmetic changes to the series - the new logo's been released, the TARDIS exterior has had a bit of a facelift and so, apparently, has the interior. Those hoping for a clean break from the rpoevious era may be vexed to learn that several old elements of previous shows are back - a Dalek episode set in World War 2 has already been filmed (and a leaked piece of recorded dialogue of Smith pronouncing the word "Daaaaaleks" caused much hand-wringing and hair-tearing amongst the hardcore crowd) and Alex Kingston is back as River Song from Moffat's series four two-parter in episodes 4 and five of the new series. Familiar characters and monsters always help smoothe the transition from the old to the new and waverers may be tempted to stick around if there's a promise of some unresolved old mystery (who exactly is River Song?) being explained and the Daleks are always worth a look, even if the new series hasn't always served them all that well. Beyond this we don't really know a great deal; there's rumour a-plenty out there but much of it is unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable. Moffat, like Davies before him, is writing the lion's share of the first series episodes and it'll be interesting to see what sort of stories he tells when he's not just contruting a high-concept one-off, as he has done in the past. How will he handle your fairly bog-standard Dr Who runaround? Will the series keep the sense of fun it often had in some of Davies' more joyous episodes? But certainly the new production tema are keeping their secrets close to their chests at the moment - which is really as it should be with so much still to look forward to from the Tennant era.

Interesting times ahead then for Dr Who. This is undoubtedly the trickiest 'transition' it's ever faced as it loses its biggest-ever star and replaces him with a (fine) actor most of the audience have never seen before. So while none of us know what's ahead I think we know the show's in good creative hands with Moffat (and fellow writers like returnees Gareth Roberts, Mark Gatiss, Chris Chibnall) so the end product has the potential, I'm quite sure, be as good as anything we've had these last four or five years. The only imponderable is how the audience will react, whether they'll be willing to give Matt Smith a chance or whether their devotion to David T is just too great. It would be such a tragedy is the series, quite right a British institution again the way it was in the 1960s and 1970s, sees its future threatened - as it was in 1981, in retrospect - by the spectre of the success of the man who gave it its greatest success of all.

Stay tuned, as someone used to say...

UK TV Chart - w/e 18th October 2009

2009-10-28T16:49:00.005Z

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 18th October 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film

1) The X Factor (ITV1)....................12.98 *
2) Doc Martin (ITV1).......................9.49
3) Coronation Street (ITV1)................9.10 *
4) EastEnders (BBC1).......................8.85 *
5) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)............8.44
6) Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1,Sat).........7.35
7) Football World Cup Qualified (ITV1, Wed)7.65
8) Emmerdale (ITV1)........................6.89 *
9) Life (BBC1, Mon)........................6.84
10) All Star Family Fortunes (ITV1).........6.64
11) Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix (BBC1,Sun)
6.63
12) New You've Been Framed! (ITV1)..........6.56
13) Benidorm (ITV1).........................6.38
14) Countryfile (BBc1)......................5.79
15) (Holby City (BBC1).......................5.73
15) (Have I Got News For You (BBC1)..........5.73
17) Blue Murder (ITV1)......................5.15
18) Casualty (BBC1).........................5.04
19) National Lottery draws (BBC1, Sat)......4.98
20) The Armstrong and Miller Show (BBC1)....4.68

BBC: 10 ITV: 10

Chart commentary: With the upper reaches of the chart still dominated by the powerhouse of The X Factor and with ITV1's Doc Martin growing in popularity and now overtaking the soaps, not much to see in the Top 10. In the lower reaches it's notable how trusty old Saturday night warhorse Casualty is losing support, slipping to the edge of the chart. This may because of the fact that X Factor and Strictly dominate Saturday nights (and indeed all TV coverage, it seems) to the exclusion of anything else or maybe that the show is a bit tired now and needs a long break. Elsewhere good to see the first episode of the second series of Armstrong of Miller edge into the Top 20 and a decent figure for the umpteenth series of Have I Got News For You. ITV's Family Fortunes and New You've Been Framed remain bafflingly popular and,as we'll see next week, BBC1's clever plan of resting Merlin for a week may have had a devastating effect on its future prospects as the episode screened most recently had the series' lowest ever figure, a number which will see it down at the lower end of the Top 20. Frustrating that BBC1 makes far and away the best shows but remains clueless as to how to schedule them properly. Way to go, BBC1!!

UK TV Chart - w/e 11th October 2009

2009-10-23T15:17:00.003+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 11th October 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)..................13.23 *
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)..............9.26 *
3) Doc Martin (ITV1).....................9.21
4) EastEnders (BBC1).....................9.01 *
5) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)..........8.82
6) (Emmerdale (ITV1)......................7.13
6) (Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1, Sat)......7.13
8) All Star Family Fortunes (ITV1).......6.37
9) Mirror Pride of Britain Awards (ITV1).6.35
10) Benidorm (ITV1).......................6.17
11) New You've Been Framed (ITV1).........5.90
12) Merlin (BBC1).........................5.69
13) Holby City (BBC1).....................5.64
14) Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..............5.62
15) Casualty (BBC1).......................5.52
16) Countryfile (BBC1)....................5.51
17) Blue Murder (ITV1)....................5.07
18) Criminal Justice (BBC1)...............4.97 *
19) National Lottery Draws (BBC1, Sat)....4.85
20) Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1, Sun)......4.57 (rpt)

BBC: 9 ITV: 11

UK TV Chart - w/e 4th October 2009

2009-10-23T15:08:00.002+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 4th October 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)......................12.40 *
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)..................9.14 *
3) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)..............9.06
4) EastEnders (BBC1).........................8.72 *
5) Doc Martin (ITV1).........................8.71
6) Waking The Dead (BBC1)....................7.09
7) Emmerdale (ITV1)..........................6.96 *
8) Benidorm (ITV1)...........................6.50
9) Casualty (BBC1)...........................6.37
10) Merlin (BBC1).............................6.09
11) All Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)...........5.60
12) Holby City (BBC1).........................5.52
13) UEFA Champions League Football (ITV Wed)..5.28
14) Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..................5.26
15) Countryfile (BBC1)........................5.08
16) Blue Murder (ITV1)........................4.96
17) Emma (BBC1)...............................4.84
18) National Lottery Draws (BBC1, Sat)........4.79
19) The Cube (ITV1)...........................4.71
20) New You've Been Framed (ITV1).............4.70

BBC: 10 ITV: 10

TV Review: Sarah Jane Adventures - Prisoner of the Judoon

2009-10-23T00:28:00.005+01:00

Business as usual (or should that be unusual?) at Bannerman Road as kid-friendly Dr Who spin-off ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’ returns for its third full series on CBBC, airing this year twice-weekly on Thursday and Fridays. The format remains as it has been for the past two years – former Dr Who companion Sarah Jane Smith (the ageless Elisabeth Sladen) and her alien construct son Luke (Thomas Knight) and his schoolfriends Clyde (Daniel Anthony) and Rani (Anji Mohindra) battle alien threats to Earth (well, mainly Ealing where Sarah Jane and co live it which seems extraordinarily prone to alien and/or supernatural incursions) with the help of the super-computer in Sarah Jane’s attic and, from time to time,robot dog K9. After a cracking and surprisingly-sophisticated first series in 2007last year’s second run saw a bit of a dip in quality. The show looked cheaper, the stories were derivative and too many characters and costumes were reused either from the show itself or from Dr Who, as the Sontarans from the then-recent Dr Who season reappeared in much the same way as the Slitheen from the first series of Dr Who appears in SJ’s first outing. The quality slide was disappointing because ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’ has so much potential and, when it’s on form, can tell intelligent and mature stories for its juvenile audience which don’t patronise or talk down to them and still have enough meat and drama to appeal to those…ahem…older viewers who are watching because of its obvious connection to the parent show. But when the show goes off-mission – or at least sails too close to the panto winds of traditional contemporary children’s drama – it resorts to running around, shouting, prat-falling and over-acting. Which brings me, sadly, to series three opener ‘Prisoner of the Judoon’. Oh dear…

There’s actually some good stuff dotted throughout these two episodes. There’s no denying the energy and commitment on display here as everyone gives their all to make sure this is a pacey, rattling yarn with loads of incident and some pretty good special FX – the rampaging nanobots, the reconstructed spaceship, the prosthetic make-up for renegede alien Androvax.. But the problem lies both with Phil Ford’s script and some rather iffy acting – astonishingly from the otherwise-reliable Lis Sladen herself. Here’s a story which really throws away the show’s sometimes-tentative foothold in the real world, often resembling a better-financed episode of 1970s ITV kid’s adventure ‘The Tomorrow People’. ‘Prisoner of the Judoon’ is a story which aims itself too squarely at its children’s audience and, in doing so, seems to be assuming, alarmingly, that its children’s audience isn’t quite as bright as it once thought. For this is pretty simple stuff indeed as an alien ship crashes in London and a planet-destroying reptile escapes, its Judoon captor (the integalactic space police rhinos introduced in Dr Who series three opener ‘Smith and Jones’) on its case. Sarah Jane and co arrive on the scene, team up with the slightly-bewildered but official Judoon Captain Tybo (cue much comic misunderstanding as the Judoon confronts human officiousness) and spend two episodes being boggle-eyed, running around and shouting, getting locked up and escaping and ultimately returning home in time for tea with another of Sladen’s now slightly-overplayed “the Universe is wonderful tra la la” homilies.

Dr Who has, to be fair, set up the precedent that series openers should be relatively straight-forward, great big romps which reintroduce the concept and characters of the series before challenging the audience with meatier fare. ‘Prisoner of the Judoon’, though, takes this to an extreme. Ford’s script is witty enough but the one-note gags and general lack of real tension or sense of danger in the story gets a bit wearisome after a while. Similarly an extraneous and farcical subplot which sees Rani’s mother (a florist) and father (a school headmaster) ingratiate their way into a Top Secret research institute – on a Sunday! – to persuade them to display some flowers on the premises! When they get there they indulge in repeated and increasingly-laboured comedy set-pieces as they boggle at aliens, confront witless security guard anbd joiun in the general running around and hiding. Where Rani's predecessor Maria had a dysfunctional family who worked as real people struggling with real emotions, Rani's folks have, at a stroke, become bumbling comedy oafs gurning and, having survived an encounter with big gun-wielding rhinos from outer space, decide to forget all about it and wander home at the end of it all as if it';s all in a day's work..

If this doesn't leave you shaking your head in despair and wodnering where the quality cvontrol's gone for this series, your jaw will be on the floor as the villainous Androvax, a creature who hides himself in human bodies, decide to yake over Sarah Jane. Now I'm quite a fan of Elisabeth Sladen, a fine and monstrously-underrated actress who, after her initial stint on 'Dr Who' in the 1970s really should have goine on to become a major TV star. She's a great, instinctive actress and over the years she's turned Sarah Jane from a running and screaming cypher into a fully-rounded, well-observed and rather melancholy older woman. But what the Hell was she thinking when she decided to play the possessed Sarah Jane as if she was auditioning for (and failing to get) a role in some shoddy provinical Pantomime? Playing the baddy may have been a lovely opportunity for Sladen and at our most generous we can probably say that she certainly threw herself into the performance. I can't really be sure though because I watched much of it from behind the hands flung over my eyes in embarrassment. This was over-acting at its most astonishing. Initially coming over as rather sexy; her confrontation with the super-computer Mr Smith - "Mr Smith, I need you" was pretty smouldering. but it all goes horribly wrong in part two when she prowls around hissing and growling like Christian Bale with tonsilitis (imagine that!), her eyeballs rolling in her sockets as she not only chews up the scenery but pretty much spits it all out in our faces. I blame the director; Joss Agnew should have had a quiet word and got her to reign it in a bit. But then in a fairly light and farcical story, maybe something darker and subtler would have flown in the face of the knockabout style of the story and left the whole thing a bit unbalanced.

It's always nice to see 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' back on screen because it's generally such a confident and competent series and, with the other Who family of series on reduced duties this year, it's good to be back in one of Russell T Davies's worlds again. But 'Prisoner of the Judoon' is really a pretty clumsy and dim-witted affair, exposing the show's inherent weaknesses rather than playing to its strength. It's a kid's show, of course, and that's the audience it needs to be aimed at no matter how much grizzly old fans like me think it belongs to us because we knew Sarah Jane when she was a fresh-faced young twenty-something. But with so little kid's drama on TV these days it's hard not to think that 'Prisoner of the Judoon' sells them short a bit with its rehashed old monsters and lazy hackneyed storyline and trite comedy stylings. 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' has done much better than this so let's hope that the best is yet to come in this third series. Don't be too down-hearted by 'Prisoner of the Judoon'; it's not a disaster by any means but it's just a bit of a misfire from a series which, when it's on top form, can scintillate almost as much as the show which spawned it. 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' works best when its stories are about its characters and how they react and inter-act with the astonishing things which happen to them, woven into clever, thoughtful adventure stories. Stuff is glad to report that the just-screened first episode of the second story, 'The Mad Woman In The Attic' is a marked improvement, playing as if it's from an entirely different series altogther. And then, of course, a certain Time Lord pitches up to join the fun next week...

UK TV Chart - w/e 27th September 2009

2009-10-10T02:58:00.003+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 27th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)......................11.13 *
2) EastEnders (BBC1).........................8.72 *
3) Coronation Street (ITV1)..................8.70 *
4) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)..............8.39 *
5) Doc Martin (ITV1).........................8.03
6) Waking The Dead (BBC1)....................7.22 *
7) Emmerdale (ITV1)..........................6.56 *
8) Midsomer Murders (ITV1)...................6.34
9) National Lottery Saturday Draws (BBC1)....6.33
10) Casualty (BBC1)...........................6.06
11) Merlin (BBC1).............................5.94
12) All Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)...........5.45
13) (Blue Murder (ITV1)........................5.35
13) (Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..................5.35
15) New Tricks (BBC1).........................5.32 (rpt)
16) Holby City (BBC1).........................5.28
17) When P**** Met Sir Cliff (ITV1)...........5.09
18) Countryfile (BBC1)........................4.96
19) The Cube (ITV1)...........................4.81
20) Formula One: Spanish Grand Prix (BBC1)....4.41

BBC: 11 ITV: 9

New Dr Who logo revealed!!!

2009-10-06T18:19:00.005+01:00

So here it is. Revealed officially online this morning at 8am (and I forgot to take a look at it until about 2pm!!) here's the all new, all shiny and fresh logo for the soon-come fifth series of Dr Who, starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillen. This is the logo which will be adorning Dr Who merchandise for the next few years, replacing the familiar eliptical logo the show has used since its return in 2005.

The Dr Who fan community often gets in a right old tizz about things like this - too much lens flare, too flat, too big, too tall, too squat - but to Stuff it looks like...well, a logo. I don't tend to get worked up about things like this; it's some words in a shape, after all. But it looks cool, modern, new and it does its job well. Here's to it.

What do you think of the new Dr Who logo? Over-react or under-react as much as you like...leave a comment and let me know what you think!!

Dr Who location filming clips - October 5th 2009!!

2009-10-05T19:57:00.009+01:00

After a relatively quiet period in the production of the fifth series of Dr Who (or first as the production team are apparently calling it!), this time starring Matt Smith as the all-new eleventh Doctor, the crew have been out and about at locations all over South Wales in the last couple of weeks filming sequences for the new episodes. This week they're on Stuff's doorstep - more or less - filming for four days in and around the picturesque Llandaff Green area, in the shadow of the impressive Llandaff Cathedral. The episode currently being filmed is the first in the new series (episodes three, four and five at least already 'in the can' - see how comfortable Stuff is with these technical terms!) and with Smith and his new companion Karen Gillen (playing Amy Pond) presumably comfortable in their new character skins, it's time to tackle that all-important first episode. Title and plot are pretty much a mystery but photos taken in the last day or so (they'll be all over the net by now) see Smith in a distressed version of his predecessor's familiar pin-stripes and his companion in an eye-catching Police woman uniform complete with mini-skirt!! Yikes! They don't dress like that in The Bill! Rumour has it Amy's off on a (fancy dress) hen night when she meets the newly-regenerated Time Lord... Stuff missed most of the big scenes being filmed today (curse you, work!) but pitched up on location at around 5.30pm, trusty little video camera at the ready, and managed to capture a few videoclips of the action. As usual, apologies that these aren't exactly broadcast quality but hopefully they'll give you a bit of the flavour and atmosphere of what's been going on this evening and won't be too spoilerific for those of you averse to knowing what's coming up... First up, there's something in the sky, it's transfixed the locals and they're gazing at it through their camera-phones? Who's Marcello? What's Bosley the dog got to do with anything?

Next up it's TV's Matt Smith appearing back on set. It's 6pm, the light's threatening to fade and Matt's ready to film. That's him in the middle pacing about in a Big Coat to keep out the Cardiff chill. Wuss.

And finally after a few moody close-ups, Matt is joined by Karen. The natural light is boosted by a big illuminated white screen and the pair rehearse and record a dialogue scene with Smith crouching on his haunches and finally getting up to look along the green and make a disparaging remark about humanity. Quite right too. It's a wrap and the pair are bundled off into their swanky car and whisked away into the night, Smith pausing to hurriedly sign a few autographs. What a nice man. David who???

Check out Stuff again later this week for more filming reports. Also don't forget that the new Doctor Who TV logo is due to be unveiled on the official BBC Dr Who website (whatever that is) at 8am tomorrow. It's all happening!!

UK TV Chart - w/e 20th September 2009

2009-10-04T21:27:00.004+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 20th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...........................10.97 *
2) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)...................8.68 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)..............................8.63 *
4) Coronation Street (ITV1).......................8.57 *
5) Doc Martin (ITV1)..............................8.30
6) Waking The Dead (BBC1).........................7.36 *
7) Emmerdale (ITV1)...............................6.53 *
8) National Lottery Saturday Draws (BBC1).........6.29
9) Casualty (BBC1)................................5.91
10) Merlin (BBC1)..................................5.77
11) All-Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)................5.74
12) Antiques Roadshow (BBC1).......................5.59
13) New Tricks (BBC1)..............................5.44 (rpt)
14) Holby City (BBC1)..............................5.43
15) (Countryfile (BBC1).............................4.83
15) (Blue Murder (ITV1).............................4.83
15) (The Cube (ITV1)................................4.83
18) Film: Casino Royale (ITV1).....................4.82
19) Football: UEUFA Champions League (ITV1, Weds)..4.12
20) The One Show (BBC1)............................4.08 *

BBC: 11 ITV: 9

Chart commentary: Another victory for the BBC with 11 entries over ITV's 9 (two of which were a film and a football match). Ighnoring the tedious slugfest between the two tiresome reality/talent behemoths at the top of the chart it's reassuring to see a stroing drama presence in the chart. ITV's Doc Martin kicks off its fourth run with a solid 8m plus and BBC1 will be relieved to see that their second series of Merlin hasn't been swamped by the reality show war and logs in a commendable figure which settles it nicely in the Top 10. Figures have remained constant for the second and third episodes too - the third actually up a bit - so the series clearly has its established audience and will occupy a nice mid-chart slot throughout its run (unless it starts to haemmorage viewers as Robin Hood did earlier this year) and further series seem guaranteed. Elsewhere warhorses Casualty and Holby City plod on and even a repeat of New Tricks manages the sorts of numbers ailing ITV dramas like The Fixer and The Bill can only dream of.

Coming soon: A look at a raft of new genre dramas dotted around the non-terrestrial schedule, reviews of some new comedy shows, film reviews and hopefully some footage and photos from the latest round of Dr Who location filming taking place on Stuff's proverbial doorstep and much more...

My Pod: New music track reviews...

2009-09-27T21:05:00.007+01:00

Stuff lends an ear to some soon-to-be-released new music tracks...

Bodies – Robbie Williams

He’s back!! When his ‘Rudebox’ album tanked a few years back the Robster very sensibly slunk off to lick his wounds, consider his position and...well, just live a life for a while. In his absence his old bandmates Take That reformed, released two albums and pretty much took up where they left off, cementing the place in the nation’s hearts with their slightly sickly, syrupy and largely anodyne brand of Grandma-friendly balladry. What place is there in the world now for Robbie, trundling into his mid-thirties and with a lot to prove? The signs are good as ‘Bodies’, the lead single from his soon-come new album, ‘Reality Killed the Video Star’, is as good a slice of pop perfection as Robbie’s released since...well, probably ‘Rock DJ’ in all honesty. Produced by former Buggle Trevor Horn (hence the album title) the new single is a muscular, burbling, crunching thing with at least two choruses to its name. It takes two or three listens for this one to lodge itself into your brain but its heady mix of Robbie’s usual lyrical arrogance – “Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?...All we ever wanted was to look good naked” – and Horn’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production are pretty much irresistible and a couple of plays are really all it takes for this one to work its magic. There’s room in the music world for Robbie’s more upfront, laddish pop and Take That’s safe soft rock – but I know which one I’ll be happier to see back atop the charts. The boy’s albums tend to be a bit hit-and-miss, a collection of good hit singles and some stodgy filler – all he needs now is to follow ‘Bodies’ with a real powerful album and he’ll find himself on top again. Welcome back, Robbie.

Want – Natalie Imbruglia

The music gig never really worked out all that well for Natalie after her storming international hit ‘Torn’ in 1997. Follow-up singles under-achieved and her perversely-uncommercial second album was pretty much career suicide. There’s been the odd flash since then – ‘Shiver’ was a decent single a few years back – but when her ‘best of’ selection died a death a couple of years ago, it looked as if the former Neighbours star was drifting back towards supporting roles in other people’ s movies and TV shows (hello, Holly Valance!). But maybe not yet... ‘Want’ is the lead track from Natalie’s latest album and it’s a corker. Written by charismatic Coldplay front-man Chris Martin this is a powerful, slightly-bleak pop tune powered by a pulsating rhythm and Natalie’s yearning, slightly resentful lyrical delivery. Urgent and strident, it’s a great song, well-produced and performed with style and should serve to thrust Natalie back into the UK pop consciousness.

Laroux – I’m Not Your Toy

Reasons to like Laroux. They make plinky-plonky synth pop songs which sound like Depeche Mode demos from 1981. Lead singer Ellie Jackson (she’s the daughter of June Ackland, ex-The Bill, you know) looks scary, has weird sticky-up hair, never smiles much and is a throwback to the days when all girls looked like Bananarama and not Beyonce. But with her musical partner BenLangmaid she crafts charming little pop ditties which wouldn’t be out of place on a ‘Hit Machine 1982’ K-Tel compilation album (on vinyl, natch). ‘I’m Not Your Toy’ is the third single from the impressive, if disposable, debut album and it’s the usual mix of cheap synthetisers, Ellie’s slightly wonky vocals and a tune so daft and sprightly it’s almost ridiculous. Great fun – just a shame Laroux are getting a bit up themselves with Ellie promising the next album may take some time. That’s not what pop’s about; good pop is fast and throwaway, it doesn’t need to be agonised over, it just is.

Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love

Shopgirl-turned-pop-star-turned-talent-show-judge Cheryl Cole off Girls Aloud chooses – gasp – the middle of the new X Factor series to launch her solo career. Who’d have thought it? It’s almost as if...her record company were capitalising on her sudden new media profile. But surely the pop world doesn’t work like that...does it? Of course we all know that Girls Aloud make great records despite the girls themselves and not because of them (the hard work’s done by production team Xenomania who have managed to make silk purses out of these cows’ ears) – a work colleague of mine recently saw the “band” live supporting Coldplay and her verdict was pretty much that “they couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket” - so go figure. La Cole’s debut single, then,clumsy title notwithstanding, is business as usual. This is a sinewy r’n’b lite number, a bit slower-tempo than the Girls usual offerings but it’s slick to the point of soulless and catchy despite itself. Cole’s voice, as we know, is nothing to sing about (arf! arf!) and it’s hard not to see this as the first-from-last track on a Girl Aloud album and wonder why, money-grabbing apart, Cole needs a solo career at all if she’s got nothing to say and no new musical direction she wants to travel in. Pleasant but pointless.

And finally...

12 Stone Toddler - Under the Weather

I know nothing - nothing I tell you - about the group 12 Stone Toddler apart from the fact that they have the best band name ever and they've just released their second album. They came to my attention when Mark Radcliff and Stuart Maconie played this, their latest single, on their Radio 2 eveneing show a couple of weeks back. It's been in my head ever since because it's barking mad, British musical eccentricity for the 21st century in a three minute pop song. Here's the promo video....why not download this instead of Cheryl Cole? Just a thought...

UK TV Chart - w/e 13th September 2009

2009-09-24T01:15:00.002+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 13th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...................11.31
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)...............8.80 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)......................8.18 *
4) Football World Cup Qualifier (ITV1)....8.08
5) Waking The Dead (BBC1).................7.18 *
6) Emmerdale (ITV1).......................6.23 *
7) Casualty (BBC1)........................5.85 *
8) Holby City (BBC1)......................5.60
9) Blue Murder (ITV1).....................5.42
10) New Tricks (BBC1)......................5.29 (rpt)
11) Countryfile (BBC1).....................5.15
12) The Cube (ITV1)........................5.06
13) Agatha Christie's Marple (ITV1)........4.86
14) Derren Brown: The Event (C4)...........4.82
15) Watchdog (BBC1)........................4.54
16) Last Night of the Proms (BBC1).........4.48
17) Rebus (ITV1)...........................4.43 (rpt)
18) Lost Land of the Volcano (BBC1)........4.38
19) The Bill (ITV1)........................4.18
20) The Fixer (ITv1).......................3.88

BBC: 9 ITV: 10 C4: 1

She's back...The Sarah Jane Adventures series three airs in the UK!

2009-09-17T21:34:00.003+01:00

Thursday October 15th is now finalised as the launch date of the first episode of the much-antipated third series of the children's Dr Who spin-off 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' starring Elisabeth Sladen as the classic Dr Who series companion in the third run of her own adventure series. This year the show's transmission format has changed a bit with CBBC screening two episodes across two afternoons - Thursdays and Fridays - in a slot yet to be confirmed but likely to be around 4.35pm. This means that the whole twelve-episode series will be done and dusted across six weeks. After the slightly-disappointing second series it's to be hoped that the show's mojo will be back in this new run, again executive-prduced by Russell T Davies and with scripts by Phil Ford, Joseph Lidster, Gareth Roberts and Rupert Laight. The signs are good as there's a lot to look forward to this year. SJ is again joined by her own Scooby gang - her adopted alien construct son Luke, his schoolfriend Clyde and their neighbour Rani. The series starts with the two-part story 'Prisoner of the Judoon' which sees one of Dr Who's interplanetary rhino Police coming to Earth in search of a reptilian alien renegade called the Veil. But all eyes are on the third story, 'The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith' in which our heroine apparently gets hitched to a smooth charmer played by Nigel Havers. But is the new man in SJ's life all he's cracked up to be? And will the old man in SJ's life - a certain skinny Time Lord - show up to celebrate the nuptuals? I don't think it's a huge secret that David Tennant crops up in a substantial role in these two episodes, a nice bonus for fans still dreading Christmas and the last salute for the tenth Doctor. SJ's faithful black-hole protecting robot dog K9 joins in the fun this year too, appearing intermittently across the series. Here are the series three episode titles in full:

Prisoner of the Judoon (two episodes)
The Man Woman in the Attic (two episodes)
The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (2 episodes)
The Eternity Trap (2 episodes ) guest starring Floella Benjamin who has appeared in two previous Sarah Jane yarns
Mona Lisa's Revenge (2 episodes) - guest starring Suranne Jones, Jeff Rawle
The Gift (2 episodes) - guest starring the voices of Simon Callow and Miriam Margoyles

A fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures is expected to go into production next year and series two is released on DVD in the UK for reappraisal on 17th November (see cover above)

UK TV Chart - w/e 6th September 2009

2009-09-16T23:04:00.003+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 6th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...................12.84
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)...............8.39 *
3) New Tricks (BBC1)......................8.33
4) EastEnders (BBC1)......................7.59 *
5) Waking The Dead (BBC1).................6.86
6) Emmerdale (ITV1).......................6.36 *
7) (Football: Spain v England (ITV1).......5.50
7) (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(ITV1).............5.50 rpt
9) Agatha Christie's Marple (ITV1)........5.39
10) (Holby City (BBC1)......................5.26
10) (The Cube (ITV1)........................5.26
12) Framed (BBC1)..........................5.02
13) Countryfile (BBC1).....................5.01
14) Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the
Black Pearl (BBC1)......4.83 rpt
15) Rebus (ITV1)...........................4.35 rpt
16) Edinburgh Military Tattoo (BBC1).......4.26
17) Wuthering Heights (ITV1)...............4.25
18) The One Show (BBC1)....................4.24
19) The Fixer (ITV1).......................4.33
20) (Crimewatch (BBC1)......................4.13
20) (Joanna Lumley: Catwoman (ITV1)........4.13

BBC: 10 ITV: 11

Commentary: A rare victory for ITV this week as they edge ahead of the BBC with 11 entries in the chart. But look closer at the chart and the titles they've done it with hardly shows the Network covering itself in glory with a schedule including a football match and a film, a couple of poorly-rating dramas (including Marple which shows how ITV have lost the big grip they once had on the Sunday night drama slot), a quiz which manages to lose an astonishing 7 million X Factor audience inheritance, their two 'big' soaps which are losing momentum and a pointless documentary about cats. Hardly a dream schedule. The BBC's entries are the usualy mix of popular drama - good figures for the charming Bank Holiday one-off Framed, a good solid rating for the first in the new series of Waking The Dead and a knockout number for the New Tricks series finale. Interesting weeks ahead with the BBC launching the new Saturday night series of Merlin in a slot which shoulds guarantee it a regular 6 million audience and nice to see the Corporation showing some guts and pitting Strictly Come Dancing against X Factor. Both shows may suffer lower figures than they might get if not clashing but it'll be nice to see the smile wiped off flathead C*w*ll's face when his talent karaoke circus starts to wilt. Happy days ahead, we hope!

DVD Preview: The Day The Earth Caught Fire

2009-09-15T22:37:00.005+01:00

The end of the world has always been fair game for science-fiction cinema. Nowadays when the apocalypse comes, Hollywood takes full advantage of modern movie-making technology and we're given visually-spectacular but emotionally-arid fare like Devlin and Emmerichs' double-whammy of 'The Day After Tomorrow' and the forthcoming '2012' where people and buildings are drowned, buried, burnt or flattened and the audience is expected to 'ooh' and 'aah' as world-famous landmarks crumble or are overwhelmed by Nature. Inevitably we ens up admiring the smart visuals but forgetting the people in the film ten minutes after they've left the theatre or turned off the DVD.

Twas not always thus. Sometimes the end of the world had a bit more depth to it and now and again earlier visions of the End of Days were done with a bit more style, panache and a palpable sense of human drama. Allow me to recommend a stonking 1960 black-and-white British movie called 'The Day The Earth Caught Fire', due for rerelease by Network on 28th September in the UK. You may have come across the movie before on late night TV or on some obscure movie channel and the chances are, if you've seen it, it may well have slipped your mind because, for some inexplicable reason, it isn't lauded as one of the great science-fiction movies even though those who know it love it and appreciate it and it's rightly well-regarded amongt the genre cogonscenti. Now's your chance to catch up with this gripping, enthralling - and above all astonishigly real - movie courtesy of this new vanilla budget DVD.

Apparently coincidentally Russia and America are testing nuclear weapons at opposite ends of the Earth. Slowly and subtly the world's climate begins to change and London, amongst other cities, is plunged into what is perceived to be a freak heatwave. But dogged journalists at the Daily Express (of all places) suspect a Government cover-up when the temperature keeps on rising and freak 'heat mists' envelop the city and bring the capital to a standstill. Scruffy alcoholic journalist Peter Stenning (Edward Judd) and science reporter Bill Maguire (Leo McKern) are ordered to dig for information by their Editor - and when Stenning begins a romance with MET centre secretary Jeannie Craig (Janet Munro) he soon discovers the terrifying truth, covered-up by a Government conspiracy. Nuclear testing has shifted the Earth off its axis and the planet is slowly drifting towards the sun. The Government struggles to keep a lid on the news but hysteria breaks out, looting and riots are rampant...and it appears that only an audacious scheme - more nuclear explosions to shunt the Earth back into position - can save the human race. But will Mankind prevail? As the streets clear and the population roasts, humanity waits to find out its ultimate fate...

'The Day The Earth Caught Fire', fifty years later, remains a remarkable piece of movie-making. Written and directed by Val Guest (who directed the 1950s Quatermass movies) the film has a pace and an energy rarely seen in modern genre cinema, let along in the early 1960s. In places the film is more a documentary than a drama, verisimilitude being added by Newsroom scenes filmed on location in and around the then-offices of the Daily Express, Guests's restless direction and uniformly superb performances from the cast. The script is slick, intelligent and erudite and the whole movie is given a sheen of reality with its constant overlapping dialogue and its generally naturalistic, gritty tone andf four-square, utterly believable characterisation. It's risque on occasion too with some fruity language, the odd double-entendre and even a bit of near-nudity. Whereas a similar film made today - and God forbid some bright spark bean-counter should decide this is a movie ripe for reimagining - would pile on the visuals at the expense of character, here Guest uses visual trickery sparingly. Decades before CGI Guest has just a few optical bits'n'pieces at his disposal but the sequences of London covered in 'heat mist' remain hugely atmospheric and effective and the scenes of society starting to panic and lose its veneer of civilisation are brutallty well-realised.

'The Day the Earth Caught Fire' isn't a particularly optimistic film. Kicking off with sequences where a sweat-soaked Stenning, prowls the deserted newsroom waiting for news of something (presented on DVD in their original heat-bleached brown tint) the film takes us back a few weeks as the crisis unfolds and ends where we began - with an anxious humanity waiting to discover if it has a future. The film's ending is a bit ambiguous and whilst we never really find out what happens there's a pretty big indication of how the situation resolves itself and it's hard not to imagine that the ending was forced onto the movie by a studio worried by the prospect of a downbeat ending to what they'd probably imagined would be a cheap and cheerful science-fiction thriller.

In truth 'The Day The Earth caught Fire' is anything but. It's an adult drama first and foremost, a prime example of the eternally-fascinating 'people coping in extreme crisis' school of story-telling and if you've never seen the movie or just dismnissed it as some cheesy bit of 1960s fluff, you really need to invest a few quid in this new DVD release because 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' deserves a prime position on the DVD shelf of any serious afficionado of good science-fiction.

The disc; Network released this title back in 2001 and the original full-price release boasted some decent special features- Leo Mckern revisitng the film's locations, a Val Guest commentary, trailer etc. Disappointingly this new cheaper release has jettisoned all the special stuff leaving just the movie. Even so, you can track this down on line for less than five quid and at that price it's an absolute bargain. Classic cinema and Stuff really can't recommend it highly enough.

Stuff is 1!!!

2009-09-14T02:13:00.003+01:00

They said it couldn't happen. They said it shouldn't happen. They said it wouldn't happen. Actually, they didn't say any of these things but I like a dramatic opening line.

I've just realised that my World of Stuff is celebrating its FIRST anniversary. 14th September 2008 was the momentous day (well, maybe not that momentous, it's just this rambling blog, y'know) I shifted my thoughts and ramblings over from a previous online host. One year of TV charts, music, film, TV and the odd book reviews, filming reports and assorted bits'n'pieces which might be of interest or at least pass your time not too unpleasantly. Hooray for Stuff. Many thanks to those of you who have taken time out to wander back and forth over the last year (nearly 10,000 hits now....but I suspect most of them have been me just nipping in to see how many hits I've had!) and even more thanks to those of you who've posted comments now and again - even the one or two abusive idiots whose comments, oddly, didn't get published!

So onwards and upwards. Posting has been a bit slack these last two months, I'll admit - that's down to sheer laziness on my part (loads of ideas for content, finding time to sit and write it all up's the hard part) and just generally being tied up with other less interesting things. But don't despair, don't drift away; there's plenty more of the same old same old to come plus, I'm hoping, some new stuff too including a regular TV Topic column (first up the state of modern TV comedy - and what a state!), more book reviews and hopefully even some Dr Who filming location reports if and when the new TARDIS crew get out and about a bit more.

Comments and suggestions always welcome! Again, thanks for your time and stick with me - the best is yet to come.

I hope...

Dr Who: The return of Tom Baker...

2009-09-13T12:38:00.004+01:00

Much excitement in the world of Dr Who fandom recently when it was announced that Tom Baker, until the arrival of David Tennant the most popular actor to play the venerable Time Lord on TV, would be returning to his career-defining role in a new series of audio-only releases for the BBC. Apart from an appearance in a dreadful 3D charity production in 1993 Baker has resisted all attempts to drag him back into the fictional world of Dr Who ever since he quit the part in 1981. Big Finish, purveyors of full-cast audio adventures featuring his successors – Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy (and even TV movie one-shot Paul McGann) - found all their approaches to Baker rebuked as the actor seemingly had no desire to turn back the clock and take control of the TARDIS again. But lately Baker’s been mellowing, narrating abridged versions of the old Target book novelisations of many of his TV episodes. From this it seemed only a small step – and some delicate negotiations, no doubt – to coax the actor back into telling some untold takes of the fourth Doctor, albeit in vocal form only. And now here they are with ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’, the first audio in a five part series under the umbrella title ‘Hornets’ Nest’, arriving on CD this month. It’s a name well-chosen for truly it is the ‘stuff of nightmares’; sad to say the return of Tom Baker to the Dr Who fold is not only a huge disappointment it’s also…I hesitate to say it…absolute rubbish.

Where to begin with this misbegotten and misguided project? It seems to me that if you’ve managed to get an iconic old actor back into a studio to recreate the role which made his name, you’re going to at least try to be true to the legacy of the show and tell a story which resembles, even in passing, the TV show itself. You also write your leading man so he vaguely resembles the character as seen on TV. ‘Stuff of Nightmares’ does neither of these and it does a whole lot more (or less, depending on your viewpoint) too. The audio is written by fan writer-turned-pro-writer Paul Magrs; I’m not hugely familiar with his work (I rarely read the 1990s Virgin New Adventures because their remit seemed to be to tell Dr Who stories so unlike their Tv counterparts they might as well be an entirely different series) but I’m aware he created a camp character called Iris Wildthyme (voiced on audio by Katy Manning, erstwhile Jon Pertwee companion Jo Grant) who travels through Time in a double decker bus. Like many fan writers who cut their teeth in the Dr Who books published when the show was off-air and barely surviving as a cult, Magrs seemed to delight in writing Dr Who stories which were Dr Who in name only. So it is with ‘Stuff of Nightmares; listening to this – and it’s an excruciatingly long and dull 60 plus minutes – it’s not hard to imagine that here was a writer who’d looked at a photo of Tom Baker, seen him being interviewed by Richard and Judy and then, having never seen him as the Doctor on TV, thought he had a pretty good handle on what his Doctor might sound like. Because I’ve seen every Tom Baker Dr Who episode several times and, trust me, he never sounded anything like the quaint oddball written by Magrs in this audio.

Baker’s Doctor was a wild, dizzyingly mercurial character, always on the go, always on the move, always seeking out the strange and the new across the Universe and doffing his cap towards it with a sly smile and a proffered bag of jelly babies. He was almost never – never at all, in fact – portrayed as a self-proclaimed “bucolic” living in a whimsical cottage somewhere in England in a state of semi-retirement with a housekeeper called Mrs Wibsey and battling a stuffed-animal curator named Percy Noggins. He never did this. This is Dr Who rewritten by someone who has entirely missed the point of the character they’re writing for; this is Dr Who with one eye on the Jon Pertwee portrayal depicted in the old ‘Countdown’ comic in the early 1970s where the third Doctor lived in a country cottage conducting arcane experiments for no readily-explained reason. So ‘Stuff of Nightmares’ puts the Doctor – this Doctor – in a ludicrous and twee situation this version of the character would never have tolerated for more than five minutes.

Part of the problem, it has to be said, is the creaky format Magrs has to work with. Because this isn't really a full-cast audio production; it's an awkward hybrid of radio play and narration and it's so clumsy and contrived it falls apart almost immediately. The story starts off with Mike Yates (Richard Franklin), a fairly minor if recurring UNIT character from the era of the third Doctor, answering a frankly-dubious and unlikely magazine advert: "Wanted: retired army Captain for light household duties and fireside companionship. Must tolerate mild eccentricity and strong scientific advice. Knowledge of Giant maggots, Super Intelligent Spiders and Prehistoric Monsters a positive boon." Not only is the first indication that we may be in for a script littered with dreary old continuity references because Magrs, being a fan-writer, can't resist throwing them into his script to show off how much he knows about the history of Dr Who (does this really impress anyone any more?) it's also the first indication that Magrs is writing for Tom Baker rather than the Doctor. Yates, reading from his diary or to some other unknown listener, recounts how he arrives at the cottage, meets housekeeper Mrs Wibsey (Susan Jameson - she gets about three lines in the whole thing) and finally meets a man he recognises as the Doctor. Magrs body-swerves the fact that Mike Yates never met the fourth Doctor so wouldn't have a clue who he was by a howlingly contrived "we met at the Brigadier's birthday party" explanation. With the Doctor now in the picture the production becomes, briefly, a play, as minute after minutes of creaky, tortuous dialogue which quickly becomes agonisingly verbose narration by Baker with Yates all but forgotten apart from the odd "You see, Mike" line - drags in what purports to be the plot. It's here that we finally see what a misfire Magrs has made of the Doctor. Despite cramming in some guff about the Doctor constantly crossing his own timeline and potentially meeting various versions of himself all the time (what's that all about?) Mags, despite his love of stuffing continuity references into every nook and cranny of his script (Dodo! Wirrn! Zarbi! Sarah Jane! Jo Grant! Uncle Tom Cobley!), makes no attempt to place the story within the fourth Doctor's own timeline. This is understandable as the TV fourth Doctor never sounded or behaved remotely like this. To be fair, Baker himself does what he can with the poor characterization of the Doctor but even he can't lift some of this lumpy, leaden dialogue - the fourth Doctor just never used words like 'weird' - but he sounds a bit bored and unconvinced throughout, as if he's aware that his TV heritage is being both betrayed and undermined here but just can't do anything to salvage the situation. Despite the mismanagement of the character, it's always a delight to hear Baker's rich, fruity tones, even with the actor's age and occasional breathlessness robbing him of the energy and vitality of his TV portrayal.

As for the plot itself it's hard to know quite what to say about something so underwhelming. Now this is only the first of five linked instalments and it may well be that the thing broadens out, becomes a deeper and a bit more satisfying (someone out there will have to let me know because I ain't listening to any more of these!) but it's hard to imagine a series which could have started out worse than this one with its rambling story of stuffed animals being brought to life by alien hornets (not in itself a bad concept, just a bit too cute for Dr Who in the 21st century) and their collector Percy Noggins (ouch) voiced by Daniel Hill with a performance too arch for even the tawdriest of village hall pantomimes.

So there we have it. Tom Baker returns to Dr Who and unfortunately the wait just hasn't been worth it. Maybe I'm biased by the fact that, whilst I have a lot of time for audio drama generally, it somehow has never really seemed the right 'fit' for Dr Who which is such a visual series. Maybe those more versed in the audio format and more comfortable with it will find much to enjoy in the 'Hornets' Nest' series. But I can't help feeling that, to do so, you'll need to set aside a lot of your critical faculties and just revel in the simple fact that here's a new Dr Who story starring Tom Baker in voice only because there's really nothing at all else here to connect the actor to the character the way he dominated the series for seven years back in the 1970s and early 1980s. It's a crushing disappointment and, to be honest, next time I want a fix of Tom Baker's Doctor I'll be reaching for a DVD to remind myself of his glory days, not listening to this terrible travesty which casually tramples all over everything which made the fourth Doctor so memorable and then reconstructs it as something else entirely.

UK TV Chart - w/e August 30th 2009

2009-09-12T03:00:00.003+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 30th August 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)..................10.81
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)..............8.77 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1).....................8.04 *
4) New Tricks (BBC1).....................7.93
5) Emmerdale (ITV1)......................6.36 *
6) The Cube (ITV1).......................5.12
7) Motorway Cops (BBC1)..................5.06
8) Holby City (BBC1).....................5.03
9) Inspector George Gently (BBC1)........4.73
10) Countryfile (BBC1)....................4.68
11) My Family (BBC1)......................4.57
12) Lewis (ITV1)..........................4.45
13) Wuthering Heights (ITV1)..............4.29
14) Dragon's Den (BBC2)...................4.24
15) Film: Meet the Fockers (BBC1).........4.07
16) Match Of The Day (BBC1)...............4.05
17) The One Show (BBc1)...................3.93 *
18) UEFA Champions League Football (ITV1).3.81
19) Coast (BBC2)..........................3.77
20) (The Bill (ITV1).......................3.64
20) (The 39 Steps (BBC1)...................3.64
20) (Antiques Roadshow (BBC1)..............3.64

BBC 14, ITV 8

Chart Commentary: This is getting embarrassing now. Another week, another routing for ITV. The ailing Network sees its fortunes continue to flag with only a handful of entries in the chart (effectly a Top 22 this week with three titles tied for no.20). After trailing their new adaptation of Wuthering Heights since, it appears, the very moment the cameras stopped rolling, the Sunday night premiere of the first episode didn't interest many. A repeated episode of the detective drama Lewis, shown immedioately before, scored a higher figure and even a creaky repeat of the BBC1 sitcom My Family did better. It's easy to laugh at ITV's woes (and it's fun too!) but unless and until they can generate some dramas people want tyo watch in large numbers, the Network will scurry back to its handful of talent and reality shows - and that's a bubble which must be close to bursting by now. The Bill, ripped to pieces by ITV's direction that it be 'beefed up' and transformed into a gritty, edgy 9pm show, clambers back into the top 20, nearly 2 million down on the figures it was achieving six weeks ago at 8pm. Well done ITV! A repeat of the Christmas BBC film The 39 Steps charts too, scoring higher numbers than new ITV returning drama The Fixer and Monday night light drama Monday Monday. Worrying times continue for ITV.

Discovering Classic Movies: No 2 - The Magnificent Seven

2009-09-03T01:56:00.004+01:00

Let's get something straight. I don't do westerns. I just ...don't. I can count on the fingers of one finger the number of Westerns I've watched all the way through ('Open Range' with Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall, curiously enough). Yes, I've seen episodes (or bits of episodes) of 'Bonanza', 'The High Chaperal' and even 'The Virginian' and I've seen photos of John Wayne sitting on a horse; but as rule I just don't do westerns. I don't really know why, either. Maybe it's because the western is such a part of American tradition, a traditon I've just never wilfully exposed myself to, a genre I feel a bit distanced from by history and geography. Men on horseback with big hats and guns and stuff just aren't part of my culture, they're not icons I can identify with or recognise from my own upbringing and my own environment. But then I don't have much personal history with bug-eyed monsters and giant spaceships either but that's never stopped me liking a bit of sci-fi. I suppose, in the end, it's just down to the fact that my imagination is fired a bit more by laser guns than Colt 45s and I'd rather have a Police Box than a horse any day of the week, thanks all the same. Odd then - if not perverse - that my second 'classic' DVD should be 'The Magnificent Seven', in many ways the western to end all westerns. But that's me. Perverse is my middle name (except it actually isn't).

History records that John Sturges' 'The Magnificent Seven' is a (virtually scene-for-scene, I'm told) remake of Akira Kurosawa's 'The Seven Samurai' (I've not seen that either and it's not on my to view list, frankly) so I'm judging this one on its own merits, as a film, a story, a western, dammit. And as westaerns go, 'The Magnificent Seven' seems...well, it seems like a western. It's hailed and lauded as a classic, a benchmark Hollywood movie but to me it's just a western, a film full of moody gunslinghers and sneering bad guys with the inevitable gunfight at the end. So I tried to look beyond the surface, beyond the western trappings, to see if I could discover what the 'magic ingredient' the film has which sets it apart fromn a thousand other barely-remembered cowboy movies which, to these eyes at least, probably look exactly the same as 'The Magnficient Seven.'

The film's story is a familiar one even to the uninitiated. The inhabitants of a small Mexican village close to the US border are a bit cheesed off with being continually raided by the black-hearted Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his gang, leaving them barly able tyo surviove above subsistence level. Three villagers set off to find help in the nearest town - and their luck's in as they meet up with black-clad, baldy cowboy Chris Adams (not, as you might imagine, an itinerent estate agent) who decides to help them despite the meagre financial rewards they can offer. Chris sets about recruiting a gang of gunslingers to help him - forming a 'magnificent seven', if you will - and together they set off for the village and their date with destiny and celluloid immortality.

The greater part of the film tells - at great unhurried length - of Chris's efforts to get his little team together. They're quite a bunch. Where Chris himself is a bit monosyllabic (probably because Yul Brynner isn't the most gifted of actors), knife-wielding Britt (James Coburn) makes him seem like a one-man debating society. Then there's nifty gunslinger Vin (Steve McQueen in the role which set him on the road to superstardom) the most charismatic one of the lot, the only one with a twinkling sense of humour. Harry Luck (Brad Dexter) is the avaricious one, moody Bernardo (Charles Bronson) is the strong and largely silent type and Lee (Robert Vaughn) is the one who might be a bit of a coward. The team's rounded off by young, hotheaded Chico (Horst Buchholz) who gets to join the group by simply wearing them down with his youthful enthusiasm. Once back at the village - and it seems to take forever for them to get there - the Seven finally have their first skirmish with Calvera and his men. the bandits are chased off to lick their wounds - but now they're seriously pissed off and ready to launch a final devastating assault on the village and its new protectors.

'The Magnficent Seven' wasn't really what I was expecting but then, not hugely familair with the genre,I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. .But perhaps I wasn't expecting not to be blown away by a film so often regarded as a classic of contemporary cinema. I don't know if I expected some Damascan revelarion and a sudden new love for and appreciation of the western movie but as the credits rolde and that rousing Elmer Bernstein score struck up again (and the score is probably the best thing about the movie) I couldn't help feeling that all i'd been watching for the last two hours was a perfectly competene tna dreasonmably-enjoyable Wild West movie. I think the problem i had with the movie is that, despite its themes of the underdog vs the oppressor and the triumph of right vs wrong yada yada I wasn't able to feel any particular kinship with the characters. There really wasn't much to any of them. Black-clad Chris (Brunner) cuts a charimsatic jib and Steve McQueen's star quality tages out of the screen but the rest...well, they were pretty much just generic cannon fodder and (spoilers ahoy!!) I couldn't really give much of a damn when half the cast bit the dust in the last reel because I didn't know anything about them other than the rather sketchy characterisations they were lumbered with from the start. Similarly we're not really given much to work on with Calvera who's just The Bad Guy; we're given no idea why he's bad, what his agenda is...he's just there terrorising the locals because that's what he and his men do. Ultimately there's a very bald, simplistic black-and-white nature to the characters and the situation, there's little light and shade and little to get your teeth into. Maybe it's because this is a film made back in 1960, the absolute fag end of the Western era, and it's probably hard to judge 'The Magnificent Seven' against others of its type without seeing any of the others. It's not a shoot-'em-up; there are only two real shoot-out scenes and they're done competently, if not particularly spectacularly, but it's not really much of a character piece either. That's really what surprised me most about 'The Magnificent Seven' - ultimately it didn't really surprise me at all. Despite its stellar cast and its epic reputaiton, it still presents itself to me as a servicable but fairly routine western movie, telling a simple story unhurriedly and efficiently. It's certainly not made me a western convert and suffice to say I won't be rushing out to track down any Audie Murphy DVD boxsets in the near future.

Classics coming soon: Blade Runner, Casablanca, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Next, Annie Hall, King of Comedy, The Godfather, 2001.

UK TV Chart - w/e 23rd August 2009

2009-09-03T01:17:00.004+01:00

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 23rd August 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures.

1) The X Factor (ITV1).....................11.00
2) Coronation Street (ITV1).................8.37 *
3) New Tricks (BBC1)........................7.60
4) EastEnders (BBC1)........................7.38 *
5) Who Do You Think You Are (BBC1)..........6.48
6) Emmerdale (ITV1).........................5.90 *
7) The Cube (ITV1)..........................5.85
8) Rivers With Griff Rhys Jones (BBC1)......5.71
9) Michael McIntyre Live & Laughing (BBC1)..5.03
10) Holby City (BBC1)........................5.01
11) The Street (BBC1)........................4.88
12) Countryfile (BBC1).......................4.37
13) Jam and Jerusalem (BBC1).................4.24
14) Match of the Day (BBC1)..................4.16
15) Formula 1: European Grand Prix (BBC1)....4.14
16) Lewis (ITV1).............................3.92
17) Coast (BBC2).............................3.66
18) Crimewatch Solved (BBC1).................3.56
19) Dragon's Den (BBC2)......................3.49
20) Outnumbered (BBC1).......................3.43

BBC: 15 ITV: 5

Chart commentary: More humiliation for ITV with only 5 titles in the Top 20. Inevitably the X Factor circus explodes back into the chart with a depressing 11m but otherwise ITV have nothing which captures the public's imagination, able only to struggle into the chart with their two soaps, a repeat of Lewis and the first episode of the Saturday night quiz The Cube, figures for which fell badly for the second episode (final figures available next week). Elsewhere BBC2 scores two entries and BBC1 does well with their usual mix of drama and light factual programming. Nice to see a repeat of the excellent Outnumbered sneak in at no 20 and the last ever episode of BBC1's exemplary drama The Street held its head up high with a shade under 5million. Easy as it is to sneer at and despair of ITV's programming and their poor performance, it's frustrating to see a once-decent broadcaster reliant now on cheapjack talent shows and celebrity competitions to pull in acceptable figures. The problem is that ITV have dug their own grave by alienating a massive audience by simply making shows a lot of people aren't interested in or find just plain insulting. A poor ITV is in no-one's interest, it's far healthier to have two powerful broadcasting networks working against one another. As it is the BBC are leaving ITV drowning in their wake. Wake up, Mr Grade and smell the coffee.