"It Has Turned Out To Be An Annus Horribilis"

That is how Queen Elizabeth II described 1992 in a speech. You don't need to be an expert in Latin (I'm certainly not) to understand that it means Horrible Year. She said "1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis."

Between the separations and divorces of her children, a tell-all book and the Windsor Castle fire it had indeed been quite a year for the Queen.

1992 was also the year of that the Los Angeles Riots took place, that Czechoslovakia divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Church of England allowed female priests, Sinéad O'Connor ripped up a photo of the Pope on TV and George H.W. Bush vomited into the lap of Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.

These are a few of my favourite things from 1992:

Film

Husbands And Wives
This a brilliant film that exposes the cracks in two marriages and the effect one break up can have on another. Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Sydney Pollack and Judy Davis make a fantastic quartet. Released at the height of the controversy surrounding Woody's relationship with Mia Farrow's adopted daughter this film makes for uncomfortable viewing at times. Here's the trailer.

Alien³
The third Alien film is a blend of the styles of the first two with an extra slice of impending doom. David Fincher's direction is slick, while Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Ralph Brown, Brian Glover, Danny Webb and Lance Henriksen are all great. Here's the trailer.

Peter's Friends
Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton, Hugh Laurie, Phyllida Law and Rita Rudner are great in this gentle comedy with a tender edge to it. Here's the trailer.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer
While not in the same league as the far superior television remake, Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Donald Sutherland, Stephen Root, David Arquette and Rutger Hauer are great. Joss Whedon's trademark dialogue is still present even in this campy schlockfest which contains the best use of the word "clap" in cinematic history. Here's the trailer.

TV

Red Dwarf: Holoship; The Inquisitor; Terrorform; Quarantine; Demons And Angels; Back To Reality
Series V opens with the Boys from the Dwarf encountering a Holoship in Red Dwarf's second remake of Casablanca, Chris Barrie and Jane Horrocks are fantastic and Don Warrington's cameo scene is wonderful as are Rimmer's sexual conversation, mind patch scene and goodbye speech, while all the Cat's lines are hilarious. The Inquisitor prunes the wastrels and deletes them from existence in an episode with a great SF concept, impressive use of time travel and the scene of the crew judging themselves is fantastic. Rimmer's psyche Terrorforms a psi-moon and the opening scene, the typing taranshula and Robbie Rocketpants are all brilliant, plus the episode also features some of the finest insults ever written. Rimmer puts his crewmates in to Quarantine and all the scenes of incarceration are great, the King of the Potato People, Mr Flibble and hex-vision Rimmer in drag are very funny and the positive viruses are great science fiction. The ship and crew are triplicated in Demons And Angels, the 'low' strawberry is gloriously disgusting, "Abandon shop! This is not a daffodil!", the destruction of the Dwarf is shocking, the 'high' pot noodle scene is lovely, the 'low' crew are nicely drawn and Kryten's "surprise" is great in an underrated episode that sometimes makes for uncomfortable watching as Lister is forced to confront his darker nature, but is still crammed full of great lines. The series finale continues this darker thread the Dwarfers awake into a fascist dystopia and the identities presented to the crew as their own turns them into their own worst nightmares, the Game Over reveal is brilliant, Timothy Spall is wonderful, Duane Dibbley provides great comic relief, the new crew playing out their lives better than they ever did is a nice touch, the chase sequence impressively plays to the strengths of a studio-bound multi-camera sitcom, the assured yet subdued ending. Comedy and tragedy go hand-in-hand, but it’s a brave sitcom that can sitcom that can truly embrace despair and as a result Back To Reality is fantastic. Once again Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules, Hattie Hayridge and Robert Llewellyn are fantastic and Rob Grant and Doug Naylor’s scripts for Series V blend comedy and SF effortlessly.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Conundrum; Power Play; Cause And Effect; The First Duty; I, Borg; The Next Phase; The Inner Light; Time's Arrow; Realm Of Fear; Relics; Schisms; True-Q; Rascals; A Fistful Of Datas; The Quality Of Life; Chain Of Command
Highlights from the second half of the show's fifth season include the excellent amnesia episode Conundrum which shows the crew attempting to make sense of their plight and the inherent misunderstandings are well handled. Power Play is a great action show and Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and Colm Meaney are wonderful as their characters are possessed. After one of the best teasers Cause And Effect turns out to be one of the best time travel paradox episodes. Wesley Crusher grows up and throws off the shackles of the boy genius in The First Duty and Wil Wheaton, Ray Walston and Robert Duncan McNeill are great. Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Gates McFadden, Whoopi Goldberg and Jonathan Del Arco are wonderful in I, Borg the episode that successfully does something different with the monolithic, unstoppable collective and also asks valid ethical questions. Geordi and Ro are rendered incorporeal in The Next Phase, an episode with a brilliant blend of action and high concept SF with a brilliantly shocking reveal and a great chase sequence. The Inner Light is beautiful and Stewart gives a fantastic performance. The season finale is the first part of Time's Arrow which features great performances from Spiner, Goldberg, Marc Alaimo and Jerry Hardin and all the scenes set in 1893 are fantastic.
The sixth season begins with the second part and the story becomes a great ensemble piece as the 24th century crew adapt to life in the 19th, the scenes between Stewart and Goldberg are magnificent and Jerry Hardin leaves you wishing his Mark Twain could have been permitted to stay in the future. Realm Of Fear is a nice Barclay episode and transporter psychosis is a great analogy for a fear of flying. James Doohan is fantastic in Relics, which is not merely a fan pleasing episode, but also a touching tale about retirement. Schisms is a great body horror episode and Data’s poetry is very funny. John de Lancie is great in True-Q. Rascals is very simple, but actually a lot of fun. Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner are hilarious in holodeck western A Fistful Of Datas. The Quality Of Life asks ethical questions in exactly the way Star Trek should. The two-parter Chain Of Command is another step forward, Ronny Cox is great in the scenes of conflict aboard the Enterprise, Stewart and David Warner are fantastic together and the story prepares the way for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine…

The Case-Book Of Sherlock Holmes: The Master Blackmailer
Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Colin Jeavons, Sophie Thompson and Nickolas Grace are fantastic in another excellent feature-length episode. The The Master Blackmailer is darker in tone than many of its predecessors as Holmes and Watson find themselves embroiled with a particularly nasty little villain. The story doesn't require the usual deduction, but instead calls upon a variety of other skills. The undercover and burglary elements of the plot are great and Holmes' flawed logic after the auction is refreshing.

Northern Exposure: Dateline: Cicely; Our Tribe; Things Become Extinct; Burning Down The House; Democracy In America; Three Amigos; Lost And Found; My Mother, My Sister; Wake Up Call; The Final Frontier; It Happened In Juneau; Our Wedding; Cicely; Northwest Passages; Midnight Sun; Nothing's Perfect; Heroes; Blowing Bubbles; On Your Own; The Bad Seed; Thanksgiving; Do The Right Thing; Crime And Punishment
Maurice and Adam are great together as the third season continues with Dateline: Cicely and the former's poopscooping is very funny. Joel is even more more of a fish out of water than usual as he inducted into Our Tribe as Heals With Tools. Things Become Extinct seems bleak featuring Ed filming a dying art, Joel's cultural isolation and Holling's midlife crisis, but Shelly's puppet show is great. Chris' trebuchet art in Burning Down The House is wonderful and remember "It's not the thing you fling; it's the fling itself". The series examines Democracy In America with a mayoral election and everyone reacts differently first-time voter Ed is daunted, convicted felon Chris is envious, encumbent Holling is affronted, Shelly is aroused by power, Maurice is disappointed by the turnout and electoral officials Joel and Maggie argue over tenets of democracy and aesthetics in equal measure. Three Amigos sends Holling and Maurice into the wilderness to bury a friend and the juxtaposition of their adventure and Chris' reading The Call Of The Wild is beautiful. Joel identifies with a suicide victim in the touching Lost And Found. An abandoned baby brings Cicely together and Wendy Schaal is great as Shelly's mother in My Mother, My Sister. Joel and Maggie both get Wake Up Calls as he learns some better bedside manner and she falls in love with a bear, and the episode introduces the wonderful Graham Greene as Leonard. The Final Frontier's postal tale is very sweet. It Happened In Juneau and Our Wedding brings the will they/won't they? sexual tension between Joel and Maggie to an end of sorts, a pause maybe, Chris and Bernard's resyncing, Eve's revelation and the throwing of the bouquet are all very funny. The season finale is great as it recasts the regulars as the founders of the town of Cicely and Jo Anderson, Yvonne Suhor and Roberts Blossom are fantastic.
Elaine Miles and Peg Phillips finally make it into the opening titles for the fourth season starting with Northwest Passages, Maggie's hallucinations of her exes and Maurice's dictated memoirs meeting Ruth-Ann's hammer are very funny. The constant daylight of Midnight Sun drives Joel light loony and his basketball ball obsession combined with the attitudes of the team after the fact are great. Nothing's perfect in Nothing's Perfect: Maurice's ugly clock, Chris the petslayer and his motorcycle sacrifice, but Kelly Connell is great. Heroes does a good job of showing up faux rock star interest and Chris' funereal efforts are great (I think I'd quite like a funeral like Tooley's). Anthony Edwards is fantastic adition to the cast as the Bubble Man with an allergy to modern life in Blowing Bubbles and his eventual triumphant stroll through Cicily is a great reveal. Nobody wants to be On Your Own, Marilyn's one-sided conversations with the Flying Man are great, Maggie's blossoming romance with the bubble man is lovely and Ed's cinematic dilemma is brilliant. Marilyn's househunting is very funny in The Bad Seed. Cicily celebrates Thanksgiving in style and the scene with Sisyphus is great. Maggie tries to Do The Right Thing and the reactions are surprising, while a former KGB agent and a health inspector arrive in the town. Anne Haney is fantastic as always in Crime And Punishment, and Maurice's job offer to Bernard and Chris' sense of justice are very funny.

Archer's Goon
This fantastic six-part adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones novel is complex and thought-provoking television. Jamie De Courcey, Roger Lloyd Pack, Susan Jameson and Morgan Jones, Jake Wood, Annette Badland, Clive Merrison are all wonderful. The family "farming" aspects of the town is a brilliant and intriguing idea, there are two really great revelations about identity and how many other children's stories can claim to feature a villain that threatens to give someone tetanus?

Jeeves & Wooster
The third series sees Jeeves & Wooster travel to New York and return with their tails between their legs. Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, John Savident, Mac McDonald, Chloe Annett, Mary Wimbush, John Woodnutt, Fiona Gillies, John Turner and Peter Benson are excellent. Highlights include Jeeves' reaction to daily routine of a poet, Jeeves singing falsetto, the battle over Bertie's upper lip, some top quality swaying, Jeeves catching Bertie's glass, Comrade Wooster's attempt at being a member of the proletariat and his wrestling with brown paper.

Ghostwatch
Stephen Volk's controversial 'live' televised ghosthunting event at "the most haunted house in Britain" expertly walks a tightrope of credulity. The broadcast is 'presented' by Michael Parkinson, Craig Charles, Sarah Greene and Mike Smith, who all do a great job of playing themselves. Gillian Bevan is excellent as parapsychologist Dr. Lyn Pascoe and Pipes is genuinely terrifying. The end result is a fantastic piece of television that gets better with subsequent viewings, which ironically is exactly the opportunity that was denied it. We shall never see its like again.

Radio

Knowing Me, Knowing You With Alan Partridge
Somehow Norwich's favourite son gets himself a radio chat show interviewing the likes of precocious child prodigy, professional cockney strumpets and a professional gambler. Highlights include: Alan's conspiracy theory about Sherlock Holmes and "this shadowy Doyle figure", pressing a former hostage for funny anecdotes and Norwich as an attitude.

Music

Pulp: Separations
The third album is another step toward what Pulp would become with the recognisable line-up coming together to create an album with a distinctly disco feel. 'Countdown' and 'My Legendary Girlfriend' are as strong as anything that followed them.
Stand-Out Tracks: 'Love Is Blind'; 'She's Dead'; 'Down By The River'; 'Countdown'; 'My Legendary Girlfriend'; 'Death II'

E: A Man Called (E)
Mark Oliver Everett's debut album as E is not as bleak as later albums, but still features the breadth of sound we would come to expect from Eels, best exemplified here by the likes of 'Symphony For Toy Piano In G Minor' and 'Mockingbird Franklin'.
Stand-Out Tracks: 'Hello Cruel World'; 'Fitting In With The Misfits'; 'Are You And Me Gonna Happen'; 'Looking Out the Window with a Blue Hat On'; 'Nowheresville'; 'Symphony For Toy Piano In G Minor'; 'Mockingbird Franklin'; 'I've Been Kicked Around'; 'E's Tune'; 'You'll Be The Scarecrow'

Books
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
The thirteenth Discworld novel is a brilliant satire about the gulf between organised religion and actual belief. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and as the most standalone of the standalone Discworld novels it requires absolutely no knowledge of any of the others. It's a great place to start.

Lords And Ladies by Terry Pratchett
Picking up pretty much where Witches Abroad left off, Lords And Ladies sees the return of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick as the Witches of Lancre take on the Elves. The novel is chock full of references to royal weddings and Shakespeare (in particular A Midsummer Night's Dream), while Shawn Ogg's ever increasing job description is fantastic.

Comics

Red Dwarf: The End; Future Echoes; Ace Rimmer: Space Adventurer; Fashion Victims; Mr Flibble's Surprise; Flashback; In Living Memory; The Case Of The Cashed-In Contestant 1 & 2; Red Dwarf USA; Mirror Image
The Red Dwarf comic strip starts with very faithful adaptations of the first two episodes of the TV show, The End and Future Echoes, which illustrate "wetlook knitwear" and Lister's dreams in the former and death's cure, the human being-a-tarium, the navicomp explosion and Rimmer's funeral attire with some lovely flights of fancy. Original strip, Fashion Victims, follows the Cat's living nightmare and has a great twist. The Cat has a Flashback to his time as Duane Dibbley (see above) and the parallel narrative between the Dwarf and the hallucination as the lithium carbonate kicks in is great.
The Red Dwarf Smegazine featured comic strips based on many other elements from the TV show. Ace Rimmer: Space Adventurer is a brilliant blend of story elements from Dimension Jump, Parallel Universe and Future Echoes, with a great ending. The deadpan mismatch between the text and the visuals of Mr Flibble's Surprise is great and really establishes the tone of the Flibble strips to come. Red Dwarf USA is an intriguing if self-congratulary pitch meeting for the American version of the TV show that never was. The Inquisitor returns in Mirror Image which sees the simulant delete the only good version of Ján Ludvík Hoch from reality and leaving his replacement all at sea in another great ending. The first two parts of The Case Of The Cashed-In Contestant set up a great surreal noirish mystery for Jake Bullet to investigate and Carl Flint's art is perfect for the job.

Games

Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis
Forget Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, this should have been the fourth Indiana Jones film. This point-and-click adventure game has a great plot, great puzzles and feels just like a genuine Indy adventure should while the option to choose either the team, wits or fists path gives you three games for the price of one.

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary
Bizarrely released apparently to coincide with the show's 26th Anniversary and featuring the voices of the original cast. This game does a really great job of capturing the spirit of the original series of Star Trek whilst not compromising either on gameplay or graphics.

Alien³
I had seen Aliens, but I didn't see the movie of Alien³ (see above) until much much later. My tiny mind boggled at the idea that I could play it on the Sega Master System. This scrolling platform game had brilliant music, a greater sense of realism than your average Master System game and it was astonishingly graphic: the blood, gore, wriggling facehuggers and bald squirming prisoners whose chests burst open were all present and correct, but the zoomed out view and tiny characters somehow makes it even bleaker.

Recommendations welcome.

Next month: 1991

"This Year's Been Bad Enough As It Is..."

"...without you giving things away" complains EastEnders character, Gita Kapoor, in another line from Doctor Who's Dimensions In Time.

1993 was the year that Czechoslovakia separated in the 'Velvet Divorce', Bill Clinton became President of the USA, Stephen Lawrence was murdered in London, the Maastricht Treaty formalised the Maastricht Treaty formalised the European Union and the space shuttle Endeavour was launched to fix a flaw in the Hubble telescope.

This was also the year I finished primary school and moved up to secondary school.

These are a few of my favourite things from 1993:

Film

Manhattan Murder Mystery
Diane Keaton turns amateur detective to investigate a murder, dragging her hapless husband Woody Allen into it. It's a joy to watch her initial excitement tempered by her husband's doubts, and then her interest wanes as her conspirators get more embroiled in the whodunnit.

Six Degrees Of Separation
"The Kandinski is painted on on both sides" aside, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, Will Smith and Heather Graham are great in this tale of socialites, social conscience, celebrity and gossip.




TV

Red Dwarf: Psirens; Legion; Gunmen Of The Apocalypse; Emohawk - Polymorph II; Rimmerworld; Out Of Time
Series VI features a bold change of scenery with the crew aboard Starbug in search of their mothership. This is Red Dwarf without Red Dwarf. Psirens reintroduces the now Hollyless quartet and acts as a sort of pilot episode for the new format. Lister's amnesia is not just an excuse for exposition, but is also filled with some great character comedy. Highlights include "Hook, line, sinker, rod and copy of Angling Times", anatomical punctuation, Lister's first screen kiss and the two Listers sequence, while Richard Ridings, Anita Dobson, Samantha Robson and Jenny Agutter are all great in their cameo scenes. Antimatter chopsticks, space weevil and the nearly infamous red alert bulb scene are brilliant in Legion, an episode which takes a very complex SF idea and really runs with it, but also manages to keep a very high gag quota. Gunmen Of The Apocalypse is fantastic, Laredo looks brilliant, the fight sequences (both with and without special skills) are great and the Cat's reactions to his plans being adopted are incredible, while Jennifer Calvert, Steve Devereux, Stephen Marcus and Denis Lill are great: the episode is probably the best SF western ever made. Uncharacteristically at the time Emohawk - Polymorph II is a three-in-one sequel to the episodes Polymorph, Dimension Jump and Back To Reality, but the episode doesn't simply rest on those laurels and Rimmer's history of warfare as interpreted through haircuts, the dealings with the Kinatowowi and "Mr Lister's guitar survived intact" are great, but I have to admit the return of the Emohawk, Ace Rimmer and Duane Dibbley is a lot of fun this time around. Rimmer's cowardice causing the founding of Rimmerworld and the crew's subsequent visit are great ideas, the subtext of Liz Hickling's scene, Rimmer's incestuous ethics and Kryten's punch line to Derek Custer's escape plan are fantastic. The season finale, Out Of Time, has a darker feel to it as the reality bubble sequence ups the ante, but the jokes keep coming: Lister's log cabin, the visit to 1421 and Kryten's overreaction to his knowledge of the future are great. The darkness yields great character insight as the future Starbug crew are brilliant extrapolations, their stories of entertaining people from history who are "a bit dodgy" are excellent and the present crew's reaction to them is wonderful. The shocking fatalities, Rimmer's bravery and the cliffhanger ending are brilliant, even down to the sparks that hit the camera. The new format shifts the bunkroom scenes to the cockpit with great success and Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John-Jules and Robert Llewellyn are fantastic across all six episodes while the model shots, visual effects and the set design are all stunning throughout. The use of Space Corps Directives gags, the Cat's "deader-thans" and the Cat's nasal integrity have caused some to label this series as formulaic, but that's only bad if the formula itself is bad. This is clearly a winning formula: Series VI is fantastic.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Emissary; Past Prologue; A Man Alone; Babel; Captive Pursuit;
Q-Less; Dax; The Nagus; Vortex; Progress; Duet; In The Hands Of The Prophets; The Homecoming, The Circle & The Siege; Invasive Procedures; Rules Of Acquisition; Necessary Evil
The original Star Trek has often been described as a 'Wagon Train to the stars' and the wild west parallels are even more apparent on Deep Space Nine: the space station as the western town, the sheriff, the bartender, the native, the common man. The show is deliberately darker in tone than its contemporary stable mate (see below), but still definitely Star Trek at heart. Emissary is a fantastic pilot: the opening sequence of the Battle of Wolf 359 is spectacular, Colm Meaney fits in perfectly on DS9 and the rest of the regular cast all make impressive debuts as do Camille Saviola, Felecia M. Bell and Marc Alaimo, Sisko and Picard's awkward relationship is fascinating, Kira's bluffing is great and Sisko's philosophical discussions with the aliens in the wormhole is compelling. The early episodes play with a sense of mistrust as Kira's loyalty is tested in Past Prologue as the Bajoran political situation and introduces Andrew Robinson as plain, simple Garak, a brilliant character who subtly proves he is neither, entirely in subtext. Odo finds himself A Man Alone as he investigates a murder in which all the evidence implicates him and the station's population turn on him: this episode's 'perfect murder' concept is very clever, the xenophobic mob scene is quite shocking for Star Trek and the beginning of Jake and Nog's friendship is very endearing. The aphasia virus of Babel is a brilliant idea, O'Brien's busyness is great, Quark's involvement in its spread is a nice touch and Kira's approach to finding a cure is fantastic. Scott MacDonald gives a beautifully alien performance as Tosk in Captive Pursuit and Meaney is great as a mutinous O'Brien. John De Lancie is very funny in the misleadingly titled Q-Less. Dax is a nice little courtroom drama and Anne Haney is nothing short of amazing as the arbiter. Armin Shimerman gets a chance to really shine as Quark becomes The Nagus briefly in the episode which reclaims the Ferengi from TNG, contains great references to The Godfather and Wallace Shawn is wonderful as Zek. Vortex is a nice Odo episode and Rene Auberjonois really seizes the opportunity. The B-story of Progress following Jake and Nog's business exploits is a lot of fun. The mind games and intricate deceptions of Nana Visitor and Harris Yulin's Duet make for a beautiful piece of allegorical television. The first season finale, In The Hands Of The Prophets, takes the debate about creationism or prayer in school into the Bajoran political sphere and features the first of many great performances from Louise Fletcher as Vedek Winn.
The second season begins with the three-parter The Homecoming, The Circle and The Siege which expands upon the increasingly murky world of Bajoran politics and builds slowly to a very exciting third episode. Jadzia undergoes Invasive Procedures and loses the Dax symbiont to another host, and the contrast in John Glover's performance as Verad before and after joining is great and the uncomfortable interaction between Sisko and this new 'old man' really makes this episode. Rules Of Acquisition is another nice Ferengi episode with some great Quark material and introducing the Dominion in a comedy episode is a very nice touch. Necessary Evil is a gritty noirish detective story with great flashbacks to Terok Nor in its heyday and yields insights into the relationships between Odo and Kira, and also Quark and Rom as well.

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Ship In A Bottle; Face Of The Enemy; Tapestry; Birthright; Starship Mine; Lessons; The Chase; Frame Of Mind; Suspicions; Rightful Heir; Second Chances; Timescape; Descent; Gambit; Phantasms; Attached; Inheritance; Parallels
The sixth season continues with the brilliant Ship In A Bottle featuring the return of Daniel Davis as Professor Moriarty and Dwight Schultz as Barclay in an inspired pairing. Marina Sirtis, Carolyn Seymour and Scott MacDonald are wonderful as Troi finds herself with the Face Of The Enemy and winging it as a Romulan spy. Q shows Picard some of life's rich Tapestry in Star Trek's version of It's A Wonderful Life, Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie are fantastic and the dialogue is some of the best of the series. Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner are both great in the uneven two-parter Birthright, the first part visits DS9 (see above), focuses on the wonderfully surreal dreams of Data and sends Worf off on a mission to liberate his father from prison, while the second is concerned solely with Worf and Klingon honour. Starship Mine is a great action movie for Picard, the baryon sweep is a sufficiently gruesome way to go and Data emulating Hutch is hilarious. Picard learns some Lessons about romantic involvement with a subordinate the hard way in an episode with a maturity and surprising ending. Picard takes up The Chase in an archaeological quest that unites the major humanoid species in a very Gene Roddenberry way. Jonathan Frakes is fantastic in the very dark Frame Of Mind. Gates McFadden is great as Crusher's Suspicions get her into trouble in a nice scientific detective story. Rightful Heir asks pertinent questions of faith and Dorn, Robert O'Reilly, Alan Oppenheimer and Kevin Conway are all fantastic. As the result of a transporter accident Troi has to contend with two Rikers in Second Chances and Frakes and Sirtis are great as they come to terms with their relationship, again. Timescape is a brilliant temporal thriller. The season ends with the first part of Descent which sees the return of the Borg and Spiner is wonderful as Data experiences his first real emotions and he really sells the cliffhanger.
The final season begins with the story's second part LeVar Burton excels in the torture scenes and McFadden is great in command of the Enterprise and Spiner is fantastic as both the sons of Soong. The two-parter Gambit was the first to break Roddenberry's space pirates taboo and does so in style. Phantasms takes Data's dreams into darker and even more bizarre territory, his scenes with Sigmund Freud are very funny and the turbolift scene is very shocking. Picard and Crusher are imprisoned and their minds Attached with brain implants and the result is a lovely episode for Stewart and McFadden. Spiner and Fionnula Flanagan are wonderful as Data finds his mother in Inheritance. Dorn is great in Parallels as Worf flits from one alternate universe to another and the initially subtle inconsistencies accumulate taking him further and further from the norm until the barriers between realities break down and all the possibilities collide spectacularly.

Century Falls
This six-part supernatural horror serial by Russell T. Davies of a mysterious village with a dark secret confidently builds slowly toward an impressive finale. Darker than Dark Season, it is astonishing that this story with its themes of loneliness, group consciousness, mob mentality and infant mortality was ever shown as children's television. Thank goodness it was, this is exactly what I wanted to watch at the age of eleven. The story is complex and engaging, the music is wonderful throughout, the effects are simple and far more effective as a result while Bernard Kay, Mary Wimbush, Georgine Anderson, Eileen Way, Beryl Cooke, Heather Baskerville, Tatiana Strauss, Robert James and Simon Fenton are all fantastic.

Northern Exposure: Survival Of The Species; Revelations; Duets; Grosse Pointe, 48230; Learning Curve; Ill Wind; Love's Labour Mislaid; Northern Lights; Family Feud; Homesick; The Big Feast; Kaddish for Uncle Manny; Mud And Blood; Sleeping With The Enemy; Old Tree; Three Doctors; The Mystery Of The Old Curio Shop; Jaws Of Life; Altered Egos; A River Doesn't Run Through It; Birds Of A Feather; Rosebud; Heal Thyself; A Cup Of Joe; First Snow
The fourth season continues as Ed becomes concerned about the Survival Of The Species and his post-apocalyptic nightmare is great. Maurice and Ruth-Ann fight over Ed in Revelations. Duets sees the welcome return of One Who Waits who has finally found Ed's father, while Kevin Conway is brilliant as the piano tuner. James Marsters and Dylan Baker are great as Maggie takes Joel to Grosse Pointe, 48230. Learning Curve is very touching as Holling returns to high school. An Ill Wind blows through Cicily and after some particularly violent and letigious foreplay, Joel and Maggie finally consummate their relationship and naturally overthink the aftermath, but the line "You broke my broken nose" and Maurice's warped logic after Chris saves his life are very, very funny. Maggie forgets sex with Joel entirely in Love's Labour Mislaid and upon remembering her conference with Joel and Mike is hilarious, Holling and Ruth-Ann make a great duo and Uncle Anku's last line is brilliant. Ed is fantastic as a wronged Joel's representative and the winter rituals of Holling, Ruth-Ann and Chris are great in Northern Lights. A Family Feud divides the Native American tribes, meanwhile Shelly and Holling have the quickest of quicky marriages in a very funny scene. The reveal of Shelly's redecoration is hilarious, Maggie's dream is great and it's sad to see Mike the Bubble man leave in Homesick. Shelly and Eve making Château Latour '29 is very funny in The Big Feast. Joel's uncle dies and Maurice organises Kaddish for Uncle Manny with fantastic military precision. Mud And Blood features the amazing line: "Weddings and rat turds." Ned Romero is wonderful, Ed's dubbing of The Prisoner Of Zenda into Tlingit is inspired, Maurice wrestling with his conscience is great and Ron's hypocitical bigotry is a very brave depiction in Sleeping With The Enemy. An Old Tree considered a historical landmark is under threat, Maurice's "Town dismissed" line is hilarious, while Shelly always singing is a great notion.
The fifth season sees Cicily expand to Three Doctors as Graham Greene's Leonard looks after Joel contracts Glacier Dropsy and Ed is called to be a shaman. Maggie's Nancy Drewing in The Mystery Of The Old Curio Shop and Maurice's attitude to growing old are great. The visiting dentist has most of Cicily terrified in Jaws Of Life, while Chris' reaction to a longer life expectancy is great. Joel worries that he's gone native and Chris and Bernard's twin relationship hits a bump in the surprising Altered Egos. Maggie's reinterpretation of Homecoming, Maurice's failed business deal and Ruth-Ann's tax audit are all great character moments in A River Doesn't Run Through It. Holling's attitude to sport is very refreshing in Birds Of A Feather and the competitive attitude to it's replacement in the Brick is great. Ed's film festival would have been great in Rosebud while the exploits of Cicily's fire department are very funny and Greene makes a welcome return as Leonard. Physician Heal Thyself is a lesson Ed learns the hard way, Holling is a surprisingly bad pupil in birth class and Maggie need for laundomat gossip is great. As Holling and Ruth-Anne learn that their grandfathers knew each other and that one ate the other, A Cup Of Joe sees cannibalism as an engine for social change and Maurice's attempt to inspire Chris to succeed in spite of his bet with Maggie is very touching. A patient that predicts her own death has a profound effect on Joel, Maurice is devastated when Shelly denies having loved him and Maggie becomes determined to get her nest finished before the First Snow falls.

Jeeves & Wooster
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie return for a fourth series as P.G. Wodehouse's double act and they are as wonderful as ever. Bertie Wooster becomes embroiled in six more fiendishly tangled webs and Jeeves saves the day six more times. Highlights include Bertie interrogating a toddler, a fancy dress party full of Edward the Confessors, "C Sir?" and Caesar, our heroes in drag, Alpine Joe and Bertie's wordless vocalised attempts to keep each of his two engagements from each of his two fiancées. Once again, Laurie's musical abilities are a wonderful addition and both 'Putting On The Ritz' and 'Oh By Jingo' sound brilliant. Elizabeth Spriggs, Robert Daws, Jean Heywood, Sylvia Kay, John Turner, Colin McFarlane and John Woodnutt are wonderful. The first three episodes are set in New York and the incongruity of the Brits abroad is a great seam of comedy and the art deco period detail is beautiful, while the return to Blighty for the late three episodes gives this series the feel of a 'greatest hits' of Jeeves & Wooster.

The Case-Book Of Sherlock Holmes: The Last Vampyre; The Eligible Bachelor
Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke return for two more feature-length episodes and while both are wide of the mark for Conan Doyle purists, they are both also enormously atmospheric pieces of drama. The Last Vampyre flirts with horror and has a few great twists while Roy Marsden, Maurice Denham and Elizabeth Spriggs are fantastic. The mystery of The Eligible Bachelor is compelling. Brett's portrayal of Holmes' depression is brilliant and Simon Williams, Geoffrey Beevers and Mary Ellis are wonderful.

Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
Nick Park returns to 62 West Wallaby Street and Wallace & Gromit accidentally rent out their spare room to a supervillain with an interesting line in remote control trousers. It's Thunderbirds meets Alan Bennett with some great chase sequences and visual gags.

Radio

Doctor Who: The Paradise Of Death
Bringing back Doctor Who was always going to be a tall order and the first concerted effort to do it on the radio neither reinvents nor recreates the Pertwee era of the television show, but falls somewhere in between. The story veers from an investigation of a theme park to a monoculture wrapped up in a pyramid scheme via Experienced Reality exposition, interstellar kidnapping and the Doctor fighting in drag. The Brigadier's painted toenails are great, as is his use of the word "nosebags", while the cliffhanger at the end of the first episode shouldn't work, but somehow it does. Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Harold Innocent, Peter Miles and Maurice Denham are wonderful. Jeremy Fitzoliver isn't nearly as annoying as his reputation would have you believe, instead he is indicative of The Paradise Of Death's greatest achievement: that it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Music

Blur: Modern Life Is Rubbish
All traces of Baggy are gone as Blur's second album sees them turn to the likes of The Kinks for inspiration. The lyrics are at at turns sardonic and witty, while the music ranges from the vaudevillian 'Sunday Sunday' to the perky-yet-grungy 'Chemical World' and opening track 'For Tomorrow' is nothing short of fantastic.
Stand-Out Tracks: 'For Tomorrow'; 'Colin Zeal'; 'Star Shaped'; 'Blue Jeans'; 'Chemical World'; 'Sunday Sunday'; 'Miss America', 'Turn It Up', 'Resigned', 'Commercial Break' (hidden track)

E: Broken Toy Shop
The future Eels frontman's second solo album is a well-crafted mix of pop and rock which is a step closer to the level of melancholy his band would later achieve.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Shine It All On'; 'The Only Thing I Care About', 'Manchester Girl', 'Tomorrow I'll Be Nine', 'The Day I Wrote You Off', 'She Loves A Puppet', 'My Old Raincoat'

Pulp: Intro
This compilation brings together the singles and B-sides that the band released on Gift Records and hangs together well as an album in its own right. The last three tracks make up the wonderful Inside Susan: A Story In Three Parts and show that even B-Sides betray Pulp's blend of storytelling and style.
Stand Out Tracks: 'O.U. (Gone, Gone)'; 'Babies'; 'Styloroc (Nites of Suburbia)'; 'Razzmatazz'; 'Sheffield: Sex City'; 'Stacks'; 'Inside Susan'; '59 Lyndhurst Grove'

Books

Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett
Ankh Morpork has a killer on the loose in the fifteenth Discworld novel. Vimes has to track down a formidable firearm whilst in the midst of a City Watch recruitment drive to greater reflect the ethnic make-up of the city opening the Watch up to Trolls, Dwarfs and other non-humans and as such Detritus, Cuddy and Angua join the ranks respectively. "Gonnes don't kill people. People kill people."



Where's Wally? In Hollywood by Martin Handford
Wally and his friends lose themselves in Tinseltown. Along the way they take in silent movies, epics, musicals, westerns, SF and horror before Wally becomes a star himself.




Comics

Red Dwarf: The Case Of The Cashed In Contestant 3-7 & Duane Dibbley; The Shadow Time; The Cantabelis Tales; Ace Of Black Hearts; Lister The God; Super-Ace; Mimas Crossing, Time After Time; Dead Man's Bluff; Tomorrow Trouble; Home Of Lost Causes; The Case Of The Cop's Comedown; Young Flibble; A.J. Rimmer, P.M.; Heavy Metal; The Aftering
Many Red Dwarf comic strips followed the misadventures of the Dwarfers from the TV series (see above): The Cantabelis Tales is a strip wrapped around a beautiful parody of Chaucerian verse by Kev Sutherland, with some gorgeous art from Alan Burrows and a great twist in the middle. Some time travelling elite Cat warriors retrieve Lister The God to settle the Cat wars, the politics is well-handled, the fight sequences are great, it's nice to see both Hollies and Norman Lovett's likeness is impressive and the ending is brilliant. Time After Time is "a voyage to trip-out city" that brilliantly revisits The End, Me², Parallel Universe, Backwards, Polymorph, The Last Day, Meltdown, The Inquisitor, Quarantine and Future Echoes with a great punchline from Hollister and an intriguing ending. Dead Man's Bluff is Red Dwarf at its most 2000 AD, John Rushby's art is lovely and the schizophrenic cyborg with a hatred of Holograms is fantastic. Sole Series VI era strip, Home Of Lost Causes pre-empts Series VIII's resurrection of the crew in a nice sequel to Polymorph that features a great cliffhanger and some truly disgusting panels of a mutilated-yet-animated Kochanski. Heavy Metal is a slight tale to end on, but Jon Beeston's artwork is stunning, the FLOB is genuinely impressive and it's great to see Spare Head 3 back.
Other comic strips in the Red Dwarf Smegazine largely drew on ancilliary characters, alternative versions of the regulars and the events of the novels. The remainder of the excellent Jake Bullet story, The Case Of The Cashed-In Contestant does exactly that, Carl Flint's art in the Bullet strips is uncomfortable to look at and absolutely brilliant. The complex story features a cameo from Bob Monkhouse and builds toward a crossover with fellow Despair Squid "sad act" Duane Dibbley's strip. Dibbley is on the run for murder, whilst accompanied by a hallucination of his alter ego, the Cat, and seeking his true identity. The further adventures of the Back To Reality hallucinations and that one of them is himself hallucinating are a brilliant leap of logic. Sadly the strip ends on a cliffhanger and the promise of more that went unfulfilled. Jake Bullet however does return in The Case Of The Cop's Comedown which follows his train of thought as he plummets to his death and as his perception of reality unravels around him, it is brilliantly surreal with a cameo from Charles Hawtrey and another great cliffhanger ending. David Lyttleton's art for The Shadow Time and follow up strip The Aftering borders on the grotesque, but is absolutely perfect for this story of polymorphs loose on Garbage World with cockroachs, GELFs, Simulants and an elderly Lister for company. Ace Rimmer returns in three strips and meets an alternate Rimmer in each of them: Ace Of Black Hearts is nice strip that provides a truly evil version of Rimmer and reveals that our Ace is possibly even nastier, later he meets Super-Ace, Rimmer as a superhero and some great alternate versions of plenty of other TV characters and finally he encounters A.J. Rimmer, P.M., the best Prime Minister Britain ever had who got bored when politics got too easy until Ace provides him with Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont to make a his life more difficult. Mimas Crossing is an excellent gangster movie pastiche rooted very firmly in the background to the novels but with a dose of Bodyswapping, Trixie Labouche and Dutch are wonderful and the strip features fantastic cameos from Rimmer and Lister, more brilliantly horrific art from Lyttleton and a great use of the TV theme tune. Tomorrow Trouble is a prequel strip to The Inquisitor, which sees the judgemental simulant forced to assess his own worth and more great art from Flint. Perverted penguin prequel, Young Flibble, tells how the bird got his name, attire and hex vision, but is most impressive in its displays of debauchery. I was very fond of the Red Dwarf Smegazine and its 'expanded universe' attitude to comics. It's a shame it didn't last a little longer.

Ghost World: Ghost World; Yard Sale
The first chapter establishes the characters of Enid and Rebecca and defines Ghost World through their observations of other characters: the 'weird' stand-up, John Ellis, Bob Skeetes and especially the Satanists. Enid holds an exclusive Yard Sale, burt abandons it in favour of discussions about suggestive food, Melorra's political debut, shopping with Satanists (Rebecca's POV of their basket is fantastic) and the panel with Goofie Gus on the last page is great.

Games

Day Of The Tentacle
Zany is a word that is often hard to find a place for, but it is the most accurate description of Day Of The Tentacle. This point-and-click time travel adventure is fantastic: the story is brilliant, the graphics are wacky and the dialogue is very, very funny, while the gameplay, music, sound effects and voice acting are all great. Also it's not only a sequel to Maniac Mansion, but it also contains the first Maniac Mansion as well.

Sam & Max Hit The Road
Depicting the investigations of Sam & Max, Freelance Police™. This comedy point-and-click adventure ups the wackiness and humour of Day Of The Tentacle, combines it with a good dose of Monkey Island storytelling and some fantastic dialogue: "Of all the Daliesque tourist traps in the world, we had to walk into this one."

Star Trek: Judgment Rites
Yet another point-and-click adventure, this one is based on the original series of Star Trek features the voices of the original cast and genuinely feels like you are playing your way through eight new episodes of the TV show.

Doom
This first-person shooter is fantastic. The game's mix of extreme violence, problem solving and Satanic imagery was a winning conbination. That it spelled the beginning of the end of the point-and-click adventure games that I loved so much was unfortunate and I can't help resenting it slightly. In a genius piece of marketing, the first third of the game was made available freely as shareware and is presumably still out there somewhere on the internet, so do yourself a favour and download it.

Recommendations welcome.

Next month: 1992

"You Don't Think It's Time Somebody Had A Dream Again?"

So asks a desparate Freeman Lowell in 1971's Silent Running of the then-futuristic year of 2008. And so for no reason other than because I enjoyed doing one for 2010 and then resurrected a version of what I had written about 2009, here's one for 2008. I'm counting down...

2008 was the year that Northern Rock was nationalised, Barack Obama was elected as the President of the USA and the Large Hadron Collidor was opened for business leading to speculation that it would cause the apocalypse. According to the first episode of Futurama, Stop 'N' Drop suicide booths in use in the 31st Century have been 'America's favourite since 2008'.

It was a busy year for me with three Behind The Bike Shed shows: An Evening With Mr Caruthers (sic), Sugarcoat This and One Flew Over The Looking Glass. The first of these cemented our plans for Mr Carruthers Presents and lead to Peel This, the first show (of one) that we produced ourselves. I started the Carruthers blog. I wrote for Thinking Aloud at the ICA, went to Edinburgh with The White Rose and The Poisoner's Tale and rounded out the year caught up in the Dickens Of A Chrismas 2008 debacle.

Film
Synecdoche NY
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton are fantastic in Charlie Kaufman's extraordinary exploration of narrative itself. Just when you think you understand the rules of this film, they change. Here's the trailer.

Son Of Rambow
This film feels as good as those school summer holidays that would go on forever and ever and ever in cinematic form (except of course it's actually set during term time). Calling it Rambo's First Blood as seen through a corpseless Stand By Me with a dash of Witness, doesn't do it justice, so I don't know why I have. Here's the trailer.

Wall-E
The tale of Pixar's post-apocalyptic little litter picker awaiting mankind's return to Earth is both touching and poignant. Here's the trailer.






The Visitor
A chance encounter sees a lonely widower forging a friendship with some illegal immigrants, which gives him a new lease on life and then causes him to be embroiled in the immovable US immigration system. Tom McCarthy gives us a stark picture of people who find themselves caught between borders and yet still succeed in finding moments of beauty. Here's the trailer.

TV
Time Team
Highlights this year included excavations of ancient burial sites in sand dunes on the Isle of Barra, the last line of defence against a potential Nazi invasion on Shooter's Hill in South London and the grave of Paintpot the cat which revealed a discredited Cistercian nunnery, Phil Harding And The Wimple Of Doom, if you will.

Torchwood: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; To The Last Man; Meat; Adam; Reset; A Day In The Death; Something Borrowed; Adrift; Fragments
Bloody Torchwood. Captain Jack's back in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but all eyes are on Captain John as James Marsters steals the show. Tosh missed out on a story in last season's Out Of Time but she gets caught up in To The Last Man which sees a World War I soldier solve a paradox and save the world, but it's his reactions to 2008 and the Torchwood regulars that make this episode. Kai Owen is always great as Rhys and it's lovely to see him take centre stage in Meat. The memory-manipulating Adam worms his way into the Torchwood team and leaves each of them scarred in a different way: Ianto's breakdown is wonderfully performed by Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen and Eve Myles are fantastic in the scenes dealing with Gwen's amnesia and the flashback to Jack's childhood strikes just the right balance. Adam jarred with the team and had to force his way in, but Freema Agyeman's Martha Jones joins them in Reset and fits in perfectly. Over the course of these three episodes she seems indispensable and brings out the best in everyone else. Especially after Owen's death and subsequent resurrection. Joe Lidster's fantastic script for A Day In The Death shows us that although he could cheat death before, he only manages to beat death by accepting it. Gwen and Rhys's wedding in Something Borrowed is a great ensemble piece that could have been riddled with clichés and yet somehow rises above them. Screaming aside, Adrift is a triumph for Myles, Tom Price and Ruth Jones. The portmanteau-style Fragments reveals how Jack, Tosh, Ianto and Owen each found themselves working for Torchwood Three. Some much needed back story, just in time for some of those stories to end…

Doctor Who: Partners In Crime; The Fires Of Pompeii; The Unicorn And The Wasp, Silence In The Library & Forest Of The Dead, Midnight, Turn Left, The Stolen Earth & Journey's End; The Next Doctor
The rehabilitation of Donna Noble. Partners In Crime reunites the Doctor and Donna as partners in crime in an episode that is part farce, part misdirection and with a really great dumb show scene. Things really get going with The Fires Of Pompeii as Donna chooses to share in the Doctor's moral dilemma. The Unicorn And The Wasp is a great fun murder mystery with a great cast. Silence In The Library & Forest Of The Dead casts a long shadow in more ways than one, the introduction of the excellent Alex Kingston as the excellent River Song, a heartbreaking glimpse at Donna's perfect life and it features the best concept monsters ever, until Midnight. A psychological horror aboard a tense and claustrophobic 'bus-under-siege'. Turn Left is a tale of the road less travelled, glimpses of what might have been had the Doctor died, revisiting the events of previous episodes through the eyes of a Doctorless Donna, and it ends with another really great cliffhanger. The Stolen Earth and Journey's End is an epic bombastic three-way crossover with Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures that raises the stakes to their highest in Russell T Davies' final season finale. Not just the culmination of this season but also its three predecessors. Seemingly featuring a cast of thousands, but Catherine Tate deserves a special mention for her performance here as Donna. Molto Bene! Brilliantly exploiting the manner in which David Tennant's departure from the role of the Doctor was announced, The Next Doctor unveils his apparent successor and David Morrissey is fantastic in the part. Dervla Kirwan, the graveyard massacre, the Cyber-King, the next Doctor's TARDIS and all the scenes featuring both Doctors are wonderful.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Last Sontaran; The Day Of The Clown; Secrets Of The Stars; The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith
The best children's show on TV returns. Since Sarah Jane Smith got her own show the return of the Sontarans seemed deserved, but Kaargh isn't just The Last Sontaran, he's one of the best. Maria Jackson's bond with Sarah has been vital to the show so far and so when it ends here it's a brave choice to have Sarah be so petulant and Maria so grownup. The Day Of The Clown is very creepy stuff that gives us a replacement for Maria in Anjli Mohindra as Rani and Bradley Walsh is astounding in his three-in-one role of Elijah Spellman, Oddbob and the Pied Piper. Similarly a large factor for the success of Secrets Of The Stars is Russ Abbott's performance, that and the concept that astrology and destiny could be abused for a sinister end. This season peaks with The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith which sees the return of the show's best villain the Trickster and once again he wants to change history around Sarah, sending her back to 1951, to tempt her into preventing the death of her parents. The fifties period detail is wonderful and Elisabeth Sladen's performance of Sarah's dilemma is fantastic.

Ashes To Ashes
When a bullet sent Alex Drake back to 1981 it fascinated me. The series builds towards Episode 8 which begins on the day I was born. This self-aware sequel to Life On Mars features great performances from the likes of Philip Glenister and Amelia Bullmore, some great period detail and a story arc following a Bowie-esque clown that had me fooled.

Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic
The Mob's largely faithful adaptation of the first two Discworld books is an enjoyable romp. Pratchett himself dubbed it “a road movie, before anyone had made any proper roads.” David Jason and Sean Astin are great as Rincewind and Twofower respectively, roll on Interesting Times.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score; The Beast With A Billion Backs
Futurama makes a triumphant return to our screens with the time travelling epic Bender's Big Score. While It was never a children's show it is certainly lewder now than before, not least the race of alien nudists and their sprungers. The Beast With A Billion Backs picks up on the previous story's cliffhanger ending and deals with it in a refreshing way. This story even more epic than the last involves the entire population of our universe moving to another as a result of an alien orgy. The show is as funny as ever.

QI
Only two episodes of the impossible panel show were broadcast this year, both were specials. Not that every episode of QI isn't in some way special, but the first was Children In Need special concerning Families, followed by a Christmas special about Fire & Freezing.

Wallace & Gromit: A Matter Of Loaf And Death
Everybody's favourite plasticine pals face up to the 'cereal killer' at 62 West Wallaby Street. More fantastically realised film homages and humdrum activities given Thunderbirds-style launching sequences.

Radio
Nebulous: Genesis Of The Aftermath; The Past Must Be Destroyed; The Girl With The Liquid Face; We, Nebulous; Rebel Without A Cortex; Us And Phlegm
One half parody and two halves homage. Professor Nebulous and the Key Environmental Non-Judgemental Taskforce return for a third series with Genesis Of The Aftermath, in which the oft-mentioned but never seen destruction of the Isle of Wight is now seen. And by seen I mean heard. The flashback scenes are a delight, particularly Paul Putner's pre-accident (and agonyless) Harry. Nebulous adapts the tropes of science fiction to suit its own style. Time going missing in The Past Must Be Destroyed is history being deleted by a teacher in the hope it'll make it easier to teach, the 'alien' prodigal child in the wonderfully named The Girl With The Liquid Face as Rosie Cavalerio's Paula Breeze discovers she is half-Atlantean, the evil twin of We, Nebulous is the Professor's evil twin brother Spiffo, killer of his other brother Mofo, an alien who can control how you see it in Rebel Without A Cortex and everyone except the Professor contracts all diseases in Us And Phlegm. This series is criminally unavailable on CD, seek it out. With thanks to Graeme Neil Reid for the illustration.

Torchwood: Lost Souls
In the summer of 2008, the world was more than a little obsessed with CERN's particle-smashing large hadron collider and Torchwood was no exception. The Torchwood team are reunited with Martha Jones to investigate disappearances in Switzerland, but more importantly this episode sees the trio of survivors from Exit Wounds in mourning and cements Martha as a part of the team.

Dirk Gently: The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul
This convoluted tale of holistic detection takes in Norse gods, theological brand management, a locked-door murder mystery, contractual small print and the financial speculation of soothsayers with uncertain mental health, it also gleefully pulls Dirk Gently firmly into the world of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Doctor Who: Max Warp, Brave New Town; Grand Theft Cosmos; The Zygon Who Fell To Earth
It doesn't take a genius to see that Max Warp is Top Gear in space, but what it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in fun. The script by Jonathan Morris sees the Eighth Doctor and Lucie spark off each other beautifully and Graeme Garden clearly had a ball parodying Jeremy Clarkson. This is followed by a visit to a Brave New Town in which every day for the last seventeen years has been the 1st of September 1991. The villagers turn out to be a group of plastic people that have forgotten they are plastic at all. Grand Theft Cosmos is a great train robbery tale that combines some high concept SF with some knockabout comedy and sees the welcome return of The Headhunter played by Katarina Olsson. Another great character from last season returns in The Zygon Who Fell To Earth, namely Lucie's Aunty Pat. While the title acknowledges one of its inspirations, the episode takes the hallmarks of the TV story Terror Of The Zygons, rearranges them with its tongue in its cheek and then gives us an astonishing ending.

Music
Supergrass: Diamond Hoo Ha
The Children of the Monkey Basket's final album (so far) is a return to rabble rousing form after the more contemplative Road To Rouen.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Diamond Hoo Ha Man', 'Bad Blood', 'Rebel In You', 'Whiskey & Green Tea'


Adam & Joe: Song Wars Volume One
The largely weekly song writing competition between BBC6Music's Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish has thrown up some great offerings. Each writes a song based on a particular subject, composes it with Garage Band and their own vocals before unveiling it live on air for listeners to choose a winner.
Stand out tracks: Joe's 'European Supermarket', Joe's 'Global Warming Song', Adam's 'Christmas Country Party Time', Joe's 'The Shining', Adam's 'The Hours', Adam's 'Loch Ness Song', Joe's 'Right And Wrong Song'

Books
Things The Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett
A book about family by a man without one. An autobiography of a life shaped by the deaths of his father, sister, mother and cousins leaves Everett as the last of his family line and vowing to skip having children and go straight to grandchildren. Better known to the world as E, lead singer of Eels, this is the life behind the lyrics and it is one told without seeking pity and with more humour than it would have seemed possible.

Theatre
The Balloon Debate
I saw a great many shows at the Edinburgh Festival this year and among the good, the bad and the downright abysmal was one show that really stood out as great. An idea for a romantic date in a hot air balloon backfires when Gary's girlfriend stands him up and he talks his best friend Dan into taking her place. The two friends and one pilot take an awkward balloon ride. Three men trapped in the basket of a hot air balloon 2000 feet above East Anglia, until one falls out... This play is very funny indeed and the best compliment I can pay it is that I wish I'd thought of it first.

Comics
Y: The Last Man: Whys And Wherefores, Part 6; Alas
Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra's post-apocalyptic epic about a man and his monkey in a world full of women comes to an end. And after. I don't want to say any more. If you're going to read it, read it from the beginning.



Jump Leads: It Came From Space!; Trojan Horse; Just Dropping In
Always hoping that the next Lead will be the Lead home. Llew and Meaney's random trekking through alternating universes takes them to a reality in which they encounter aliens, another where one is possessed by a burrowing slug while the other wears a top hat and monocle and a third much like our own in which the Flurry does some demolition. The art and scripts are great throughout.

Serenity: Better Days
The crew of Serenity come into some money and debate how to spend it. Each telling the others what they would do if they had more money than God. The fantasies of River (left) and Mal are the most revealing. This being Serenity the money doesn't remain in their possession very long.

Doctor Who: Death To The Doctor!; The Widow's Curse; The Immortal Emperor; The Time Of My Life;
Death To The Doctor! sees six villains defeated by six Doctors all joining forces to get their revenge on him, but it doesn't go to plan, with some lovely misdirection and a great last line. Martha exits, Donna enters and she is forced to confront something she missed first time around. The Widow's Curse is excellent, both as a sequel to The Christmas Invasion on TV and as a comic with some genuine horror. The Immortal Emperor is a lovely business-as-usual type adventure with lovely artwork from Rob Davis. Donna's time aboard the comic strip is shortlived as events on TV catch up with her and The Time Of My Life does a very good job of redressing the balance, presented as a series of vignettes showing the variety of her travels with the Doctor each interrupting its predecessor until the beautiful last page. Magnificent.

Online
Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Joss Whedon's DIY internet musical starring Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion is wonderful. Concerning a love triangle between a supervillain wannabe, a shallow and cheesy superhero and the idealistic woman they have in common. The dialogue is great, the songs are great and the world it creates of superheroes and villains who don't quite conform to expectations is very compelling.

Recommendations welcome.