Showing posts with label Quatermass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quatermass. Show all posts

Tuesday, 16 June 2020

Twitter Twatter #83

May 2020 on Twitter:
















































































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Monday, 30 April 2012

Z Is For...Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

My twenty-sixth and final post for the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, Z Is For... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz:

I'm sure this is a sentiment shared by many of you. After twenty-five posts this month it's almost time to sleep.

When I ran The Noughties Blogfest I followed it up with a debrief of sorts. I was going to attempt to write a debrief for this year's the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, but we have the A-to-Z Reflections Post on the 7th of May, so I'll wait.


I've included the answers to the questions from my Q is for...Quiz post below, but if you haven't seen the questions and you want to take part in the quiz, you can do so here, if not you can scroll down for the answers...:








ANSWERS BELOW...








SCROLL DOWN FOR ANSWERS...








1) What 'A' is Buffy The Vampire Slayer's middle name?
Anne

2) What 'B' is a character in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter?
Ben

3) What 'C' is the fictional Alaskan town in which Northern Exposure was set?
Cicely

4) What 'D' is the greatest, fantastic, wherever there's danger he'll be there, the ace, amazing, the strongest, the quickest, the best, the greatest, fantastic, wherever there's danger he'll be there, the ace, amazing, the strongest, the quickest, the best, terrific, magnific, the greatest secret agent in the world, Power House, the fastest, the greatest, the best?
Danger Mouse

5) What 'E' is the speed that Doc's DeLorean needed to reach to achieve time travel?
Eighty-Eight mph

6) What 'F' is Mr Benn's street?
Festive Road

7) What 'G' is Nanny Ogg's first name?
Gytha

8) What 'H' is the setting of Quatermass And The Pit?
Hob's or Hobb's, Lane or End

9) What 'I' is the US state that Star Trek's James T. Kirk says he is from?
Iowa

10) What 'J' is the company that owned Red Dwarf and Rimmer and Lister worked for?
Jupiter Mining Corporation

11) What 'K' is a shape-changing robot companion from Doctor Who?
Kamelion

12) What 'L' is the first name of the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels?
Lemuel

13) What 'M' is the name of I in Withnail And I?
Marwood

14) What 'N' is the epidemic that hit Royston Vasey in The League Of Gentlemen?
Nosebleeds

15) What 'O' is the leader of the Autobots in Transformers?
Optimus Prime

16) What 'P' is "Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as"?
Parklife

17) What 'Q' illustrated most of Roald Dahl's books for children?
Quentin Blake

18) What 'R' is the company that owns the Dollhouse in Dollhouse?
Rossum Corporation

19) What 'S' is the name of Gandalf's horse in The Lord Of The Rings?
Shadowfax

20) What 'T' is Guybrush's surname?
Threepwood

21) What 'U' is the holiday being celebrated in Firefly's The Train Job?
Unification Day

22) What 'V' is a group also known as the Desperate Dan Appreciation Society, the Draught Beer Preservation Society, the Custard Pie Appreciation Consortium, the Sherlock Holmes English Speaking Vernacular, the Office Block Persecution Affinity and the Skyscraper Condemnation Affiliate?
Village Green Preservation Society

23) What 'W' was on the wall in Pulp's 'Disco 2000'?
Woodchip

24) What 'X' is the taxonomic name of the Alien from the Alien films?
Xenomorph

25) What 'Y' is the name of Brian K. Vaughn's last man?
Yorick Brown

26) What 'Z' is the name of Futurama's physician?
Zoidberg

Thanks for taking part.

P.S. A date for your diary: I'm running The Nineties Blogfest on the 14th October 2012.
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Thursday, 29 March 2012

“This Was A Great Time And Place...”

So says Tom Paris in Part One of Star Trek: Voyager's Future's End on an unplanned visit to 1996 (see below), he continues "and we're getting to see it first hand" before telling his superior officer to take his shirt off. It's very odd.

1996 was the year that Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov at chess for the first time, the massacre in Dunblane took place, the element Copernicium was discovered and NASA announced that a meteorite thought to originate from Mars contained evidence of primitive life-forms.

1996 was also the year that I started my GCSE's.

These are a few of my favourite things from 1996:

Film
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle's adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel has a real energy to it, the screenplay is inventive, the soundtrack is fantastic and the cast are uniformly brilliant. I really hope Boyle and Ewan McGregor can put their differences behind them and make Porno. Here's the trailer.

Swingers
Jon Favreau and Doug Limon's tale of Hollywood also-rans features some excruciating telephone manner and a great performance from Heather Graham. Here's the trailer.

Bottle Rocket
Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson's over earnest heist movie is a joy from start to finish. Here's the trailer.

Hard Eight
P. T. Anderson's directorial debut is a great little film and Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Samuel L. Jackson and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are wonderful. Here's the trailer.

Star Trek: First Contact
The eighth Star Trek movie has fantastic action sequences with the best horror bad guys. Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner lead the charge in the best and most balanced of The Next Generation films that gives each member of the USS Enterprise-E crew a decent slice of the action. Alfre Woodard's Lily is a fantastic point of view character, James Cromwell's Cochrane is wonderfully endearing and Alice Krige's Borg Queen is just the right mix of enigmatic, sexy and scary, while the cameos from Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips and Dwight Schultz are lovely. Threatening the birth of Star Trek itself, the scale of the story is epic and yet the relationships between the characters are visceral and emotional. Here's the trailer.

Everyone Says I Love You
Woody Allen does musical and with largely untrained voices and reappropriated songs (notably 'Hooray For Captain Spaulding' in French), but also great visual gags and wonderful performances from Allen, Julia, Goldie Hawn, Alan Alda, Natasha Lyonne and Tim Roth. The Marx Brothers Christmas party and the revelation that right-wing opinion is a mental illness are very funny.

TV
Doctor Who: The TV Movie
Paul McGann's solo television outing gave us an interesting hybrid between the Who-we-knew and a monsterless Sliders/The X Files style show which succeeded on many fronts. Sylvester McCoy bows out gracefully and McGann, Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso are all wonderful in this attempt to take the good Doctor stateside with a TV movie that isn't as bad as its reputation.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Homefront & Paradise Lost; Crossfire; Return To Grace; Bar Association; Accession; Rules Of Engagement; Hard Time; Shattered Mirror; For The Cause; To The Death; The Quickening; Body Parts; Broken Link; Apocalypse Rising; The Ship; ...Nor The Battle To The Strong; The Assignment; Trials And Tribble-ations; Things Past; The Ascent; Rapture
The fourth season continues with Earthbound two-parter Homefront and Paradise Lost and the change of scenery heightens the paranoia and makes the Patriot Act-esque selling-out-paradise-in-order-to-save-it sweeping security measures all the more terrifying. Brock Peters, Robert Foxworth and Eisenberg are fantastic Odo is caught in the Crossfire as Kira and Shakaar begin a relationship and it's good to see the constable a little out of control. Return To Grace is another great Kira and Dukat episode and one which sees him become a terrorist with great performances from Nana Visitor and Marc Alaimo. On the face of it, Bar Association simply puts the Ferengi spin on trade union relations and mines it for comic potential, but actually this episode still manages to make its point about exploitation. The caste-based discrimination at the heart of Accession varies from comical to terrifying and sees Sisko reassessing the mantle of Emissary. Ron Canada is fantastic in the courtroom drama, Rules Of Engagement and the fourth wall rattling testimonies are a very nice touch. O'Brien does Hard Time and the performances of cellmates Colm Meaney and Craig Wasson are fantastic. Shattered Mirror sees the Mirror Universe from Jake's point of view, mirror Garak is at his weaselly best, the space battle sequences are incredibly impressive and the final scene very touching. For The Cause is great and misleads the audience expertly and both Kenneth Marshall and Penny Johnson are wonderful. To The Death is action-packed, Jeffrey Combs makes a fantastic debut as Weyoun and the insights into the culture of the Jem'Hadar make them al the more intimidating. The guest cast and Alexander Siddig are uniformly excellent as Bashir is forced to learn humility the hard way in The Quickening. The dialogue between Quark and Rom is all brilliant as Body Parts tests the former in a new an unexpected way and the baby transplant subplot is an innovative solution. The season finale, Broken Link, is a great ensemble piece that deals with Odo's crimes against his people, his sentence is an intriguing prospect and the episode ends on a really great cliffhanger.
The fifth season begins with Apocalypse Rising which gets the Changeling infiltrator theme back on track, the scene discussing the finer points of Klingon etiquette is very funny and the reveal of the Founder is great. Sisko captures The Ship and there are casualties as he tries to keep it, but the tensions caused by the discussions of death as the life of F.J. Rio's MuΓ±iz hangs in the balance are great. ...Nor The Battle To The Strong is Star Trek at its bleakest: life on the front line, self-inflicted wounds, the trench humour and the episode is made all the bleaker by shown through Jake's eyes. Alien possession can often be unconvincing, but The Assignment succeeds in being very creepy mostly due to brilliant performances from Meaney, Rosalind Chao and Max GrodΓ©nchik. Trials And Tribble-ations is a fantastic love letter to the original Star Trek. Things Past is another visit to Terok Nor and the scenes between Terry Farrell and Alaimo are wonderful, while Garak's affront and Quark's staff relations are very funny. Odo and Quark are forced to make The Ascent and it's a joy to watch them bring out the worst in each other like DS9's version of The Odd Couple…on the side a mountain. Sisko has visions of the future in a Rapture and is torn between his role as the Emissary and his Starfleet mission to bring Bajor into the Federation. He does something none of the other Captains would do. He fails…and the show is all the better for it.

Star Trek: Voyager: Prototype; Alliances; Threshold; Meld; Dreadnought; Death Wish; Lifesigns; Investigations; Deadlock; The Thaw; Tuvix; Resolutions; Basics; Flashback; The Swarm; False Profits; Remember; Future's End; The Q And The Grey; Macrocosm
The second season continues with hard SF episode Prototype which asks all the right ethical questions, features robots galore and a great performance from Roxann Biggs-Dawson. The Kazon storyline deepens as Janeway goes against her better judgement to form Alliances in an episode which sees her at odds with almost everyone at some stage and a brilliant reference to The Godfather, Part III. The much-maligned Threshold is actually a lot of fun. Tuvok undergoes a Meld with Suder, a murderous psychopath and Tim Russ and Brad Dourif are fantastic as both are affected by the personality of the other. Biggs-Dawson gets another opportunity to spend an episode talking to an artificial intelligence and herself in great tense cold war-esque thriller Dreadnought. Death Wish is very, very funny and very, very literate with the very thorny ethical dilemma of assisted suicide at its core, the arguments on both sides are very compelling and John De Lancie and Gerrit Graham are both fantastic as Q. The Doctor falls in love in the very touching Lifesigns and Robert Picardo gets to stretch the limits of his character. Ethan Phillips is great as Neelix turns journalist as the mutiny of Tom Paris comes to a head in Investigations and A Briefing With Neelix is a very funny device that allows it to unfold very effectively. Deadlock is like a great SF disaster movie as Voyager is duplicated and the two ships have very different fortunes. Michael McKean and Picardo are fantastic in The Thaw, a hilarious, surreal and terrifying episode built around a great SF concept. Tuvok and Neelix are merged into a single individual and Tom Wright is excellent as Tuvix, in an episode that is easily one of the best uses of SF to explore an ethical dilemma. Resolutions is a great ensemble piece that explores the relationship between Janeway and Chakotay, whilst Voyager must continue without them and the A and B stories come together nicely. The season finale is the first part of Basics sees the welcome return of Martha Hackett, Anthony DeLongis and Dourif, Chakotay's confusion about Seska's baby and his scene his father are wonderful, the Kazon attack that exploits Seska's knowledge of Janeway is very clever and the episode ends on a great cliffhanger.
The second part kicks off the third season and Picardo and Dourif are wonderful together aboard ship while the crew marooned on a hostile planet. Tuvok has a Flashback to the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in a very inventive alternative to time travel and it's great to see George Takei back as Captain Sulu. Voyager encounters intriguing aliens that are more alien than usual in The Swarm as the Doctor begins to lose his memory, Picardo plays two holograms and is as great as ever while Jennifer Lien gives a lovely assured performance. False Profits is a very funny Ferengi episode. Biggs-Dawson is fantastic as Torres Remembers someone else's memories of a holocaust and its subsequent cover up. The USS Voyager is transported back to Earth in 1996 in Future's End, Ed Begley, Jr. makes a great villain, Sarah Silverman works well with McNeill, Russ and Picardo and the two-parter is huge fun. Mulgrew, de Lancie and Suzie Plakson are fantastic in Q civil war tale The Q And The Grey which once again succeeds in being both literate and a lot of fun as well. Macrocosm is a change of pace and practically recasts Janeway as Ripley from the Alien films.

Karaoke & Cold Lazarus
The final works of Dennis Potter are intriguing. Albert Finney, Roy Hudd, Liz Smith, Francis De La Tour, Henry Goodman and Diane Ladd are all wonderful in these two interlinked mini-series.

Father Ted: Hell; Think Fast, Father Ted; Tentacles of Doom; The Old Grey Whistle Theft; Song For Europe; The Plague; Rock-a-Hula Ted; Cigarettes And Alcohol And Rollerblading; New Jack City; Flight Into Terror; A Christmassy Ted
Fathers Ted, Dougal and Jack to go on a holiday from Hell in the second series opener: The Magic Road, Ted's run-ins with the law and Tom's button confusion are hilarious, while Graham Norton is fantastic as Father Noel Furlong. Father Ted thinks fast in Think Fast, Father Ted and highlights include Ted's panelbeating, the dancing priest, Mrs Doyle's test, "Please stand for our national anthem" and "Oh, it's yourself." Three bishops visit Craggy Island in Tentacles of Doom and it has a profound affect on all of them, "That would be an ecumenical matter", the elements of Christianity that Dougal struggles with and the concept of post-colonic holiness are all very, very funny, plus Gary Lineker's Book Of Ghost Stories is one of the funniest props ever made. Ted's explanation for The Old Grey Whistle Theft is fantastic as are "Fup off!", Father Damo's belligerence and Mrs Doyle's nocturnal exploits. After a fantastic songwriting scene, the shared obligatory video dream, the wonderful difference between Jon Kenny's on and off-camera performances, Ted and Dougal win the Song For Europe competition with the excellent 'My Lovely Horse'. From its Father Ben opening onwards, The Plague is great. and Jim Norton is fantastic. The use of sign language, Dermot Crowley and Ted's long shot and hilarious in Rock-a-Hula Ted. Ted, Jack and Dougal give up Cigarettes And Alcohol And Rollerblading respectively for Lent and their hallucinations and the Nun call centre are great. New Jack City sees Jack replaced with the Jungle music-obsessed Father Finton Stack, while the priest's sports day and visit to St. Clabbert's are very funny. Aeroplane disaster movie-esque Flight Into Terror is a great change of pace: the souvenirs, the Jeff Bridges movie reference and all the priests are fantastic.
The Christmas special, A Christmassy Ted is brilliant: Dougal's advent calendar, the priestly platoon in Ireland's largest lingerie section, priest chatback and Ted's award acceptance speech are all hilarious.

Our Friends In The North
The cast are fantastic and the ambitious scope of the story is impressive as the nine episodes of this serial follow a group of characters from 1964 to 1995, through sex shops, anarchists, the miner's strike, Tory smear campaigns, the Great Storm of 1987, a stock market crash and the rise of Britpop. An amazing piece of television.

American Gothic: Rebirth; Resurrector; Inhumanitas; To Hell And Back; The Plague Sower; Doctor Death Takes A Holiday; Potato Boy; The Beast Within; Learning To Crawl; Triangle; The Buck Stops Here; Requiem; Ring Of Fire; Echo Of Your Last Goodbye; Strangler
The short-lived horror TV series really gets into its stride and shakes up the show's dynamic with Merlyn's Rebirth and Sarah Paulson makes the most of the opportunity. Resurrector is another great example of Sheriff Lucas Buck's sense of justice as he sets a married couple against each other. Inhumanitas is another great one for Paulson, Pat Hingle is great and the resolution to Buck's real estate dealings will leave you cheering for the sheriff. Dr. Matt goes To Hell And Back in an episode that appears to show him hallucinating, but instead wrangles brilliantly with time travel and pre-destination paradoxes as he apparently causes the accident he is trying to avoid. A Royston Vasey-esque epidemic hits Trinity as Merlyn goes on the offensive again in The Plague Sower in an episode which drives Dr. Matt briefly mad and shamelessly introduces Dr. Billy as his replacement. Dr. Matt finally tips over the edge in Doctor Death Takes A Holiday, Veronica Cartwright is great and the reveal of the vaccination audience is very funny. Caleb's "so be it" toothbrushing ritual is bizarre, his definition of mentor is very funny and the resolution with the Boo Radley-esque Potato Boy is surprisingly touching. In an odd piece of scheduling two episodes shown on consecutive days both feature hostage situations gone bad, The Beast Within is another chance for Nick Searcy to shine as Deputy Ben, while Buck's belittling of half Ted is great in Learning To Crawl. Gail discovers she is pregnant with Buck's child and Trinity's love Triangles nearly turn fatal. American Gothic channels The Omen as Buck's death causes Caleb to go on the rampage in the two-part finale, The Buck Stops Here and Requiem, highlights include Buck's funeral, Ben trying to convince the town he can be sheriff, "Grandpa's sleeping on the ceiling" and the final showdown between Buck and Merlyn, although the ending leaves you wanting more. Three excellent episodes were omitted from the original US broadcast, but aired in the UK: Ring Of Fire has massive implications for Gail and Caleb's family and features a great performance from Paige Turco. The horrific Echo Of Your Last Goodbye as Merlyn appeals to Ben's conscience. Buck invokes the spirit of the Boston Strangler to kill Merlyn (again) and Gareth Williams is great in the part, plus it's nice to see Ben stepping up and being a such a good copper in Buck's absence.

Neverwhere: Door; Knightsbridge; Earl's Court to Islington; Blackfriars; Down Street; As Above, So Below
The plays on the names of tube stations, the appreciation of the Tang dynasty and the disconnect between London-Above and London-Below among other things are all great in this six-part story by Neil Gaiman and Lenny Henry. The performances by Laura Fraser, Hywel Bennett, Clive Russell, Paterson Joseph, Tamsin Greig, Peter Capaldi and Earl Cameron are all brilliant.

Radio
The Quatermass Memoirs
An interesting mix of fact and fiction as Nigel Kneale contextualises the first three Quatermass serials with contemporary newsreel recordings from the fifties, while Andrew Keir reprises his role as the Professor now in his retirement in Scotland. As Quatermass looks back on his career with a young journalist audio from the BBC serials in used to illustrate the events of the television stories. The three interwoven strands threaten to be a little less than the sum of their parts, but work surprisingly well and the insight into both Kneale's original writings and the new perspective on the old stories are fascinating.

Doctor Who And The Ghosts Of N-Space
Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney are as great as ever in the parts they played on television. Guest stars Harry Towb and Stephen Thorne are brilliant, while Richard Pearce's Jeremy Fitzoliver is given much more to do here and rises to the challenge. The second Third Doctor radio play is a strange beast set across several time periods and realities. Bravely encompassing much of the variety that makes Doctor Who brilliant within one story, and with some surprising profanity thrown in as well.

Music
Eels: Beautiful Freak
The debut album from E's band is brilliant. Their distinctive sound has already taken shape here and perfectly illustrated by the moment a whirring drill gives way to some truly beautiful piano. The lyrics strike the right balance between wry observation and outright despair: "When I came into this world they slapped me. And everyday since then I'm slapped again."
Stand out tracks: 'Novocaine For The Soul', 'Susan's House', 'Rags To Rags', 'Beautiful Freak', 'Not Ready Yet', 'My Beloved Monster', 'Flower', 'Guest List', 'Mental', 'Spunky', 'Your Lucky Day In Hell', 'Manchild'

Kula Shaker: K
Kula Shaker's first album unashamedly references their heroes whether it's The Beatles at the height of their Sixties psychedelia, the influence of Jimi Hendrix on '303', that of the Grateful Dead on the almost eponymous 'Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There', while 'Govinda' and 'Tattva' both feature lyrics in Sanskrit. The band draw these disparate threads together to create a sound of their own.
Stand out tracks: 'Hey Dude', 'Govinda', 'Smart Dogs', 'Magic Theatre', 'Into The Deep', 'Tattva', 'Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There', '303', 'Start All Over', 'Hollow Man, Part 1 & 2'

Books
Red Dwarf: Backwards by Rob Grant
When Grant Naylor went their separate ways they each wrote novels set after the events of their second novel together. Described pretty accurately by Grant as "the world's first reverse whodunit space opera western dealing definitively with the concept of post-destination". While it revisits elements of the episodes Backwards, Dimension Jump and Gunmen Of The Apocalypse the fourth Red Dwarf novel is far more than a mere novelisation and is much darker than its predecessors.

Feet Of Clay by Terry Pratchett
The nineteenth Discworld novel pits the City Watch of Ankh Morpork against an army of Golems. The novel asks questions of free will and slavery, but is still very, very funny, and gives the Disc's Grim Reaper the fantastic line: "I AM DEATH, NOT TAXES. I TURN UP ONLY ONCE."

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
The Discworld's equivalent of Christmas is nearly cancelled in the twentieth novel as the Hogfather goes AWOL and Death steps into the breach. Pratchett expertly dissects Christmas traditions and their motivations with very funny results.




Comics
Doctor Who: Endgame 1-3
The first three parts of Endgame, the Eighth Doctor's first comic strip in DWM, see him returning to Stockbridge, home of strips gone by, reunited with Maxwell Edison and faced with the Celestial Toymaker. All of which are well handled and cement him into the comic. It's obvious that Izzy is brilliant companion material and each of the cliffhangers is impressive, but it's the game of hangman sequence that is most terrifying.

Ghost World: A Smile And A Ribbon
The seventh chapter of Daniel Clowes' comic sees Enid and Rebecca take a trip down memory lane, argue and Josh comes between them and it takes this song to end the deadlock. The artwork is great, particularly of Enid's photographs and the panels set at night.



Recommendations welcome. Next Month: 1995
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Tuesday, 31 May 2011

“You’re Going To Have A Hell Of A Year”

So says the Tenth Doctor to Rose the last time he met her (and the first time she met him), in the last few moments of Doctor Who's The End Of Time, Part Two and the first few moments of 2005.

This was the year that the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's largest moon Titan, the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, the women of Kuwait were granted the right to vote, controversial drawings of Mohammed were printed in a Danish newspaper and the Live8 concerts took place across the world.

Personally, I worked on shows like 1905, Weave and 13 Rooms. I left my job in the bookshop and found work in a call centre, then later I left the call centre to work on Sleeping Beauty.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2005:

Film
Serenity
Joss Whedon’s Firefly hits the big screen and really feels like it belongs. This is that rare commodity: the Science Fiction action film featuring characters that are real people just trying to get through the day. It’s criminal that there was never a sequel. Here's the trailer.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel and Sam Rockwell are all great in the big screen version of Douglas Adams’ SF comedy tale. The film successfully interprets the story for a new audience and proves to be robust enough to include new elements as disparate as singing dolphins, the point-of-view gun and the romance between Arthur and Trillian. Here's the trailer.

The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse
As Royston Vasey faces the end of its world, its inhabitants stray into ours to plead with their creators to save their lives. The bleakness of the real world, the vibrancy of Vasey and the colour of The King’s Evil all combine to make this film much more than the sum of its parts, with Ray Harryhausen-style stop-motion animation thrown in as well. Here's the trailer.

TV
Doctor Who: Rose; The Unquiet Dead; Aliens Of London & World War Three, Dalek, The Long Game, Father's Day, The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances, Boom Town, Bad Wolf & The Parting Of The Ways, The Christmas Invasion and its prelude
The triumphant return. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are wonderful. Rose starts us with a bang, it’s like a traditional four part story, but with Rose experiencing the first half, while the Doctor is rushing through parts three and four at the same time. The Unquiet Dead is a wonderful Victorian romp with great performances from Eve Myles, Simon Callow and Alan David and marks the first of the ‘celebrity historicals’. Aliens Of London & World War Three is both the most far fetched story this season and also the most realistic. Yes, it has farting aliens, unerring missile accuracy and a space pig in it, but it also shows Jackie and Mickey reeling from Rose being missing for a year, shows aliens using our own government against us and gives the Slitheen a very plausible motivation for their actions. As the first new two-parter it also features the first new cliffhanger ending and gives us three cliffhangers simultaneously. Dalek successfully puts Skaro’s finest back on top. It looks like a battle tank, kills almost everyone in sight, but still manages to illicit pity from Rose and a lust for revenge from the Doctor. I don’t understand why The Long Game is so derided. This episode deserves to be lauded as an excellent satire on media propaganda, and yet people seem to miss the point. Simon Pegg and Anna Maxwell-Martin are wonderful in my favourite episode this year. Father's Day is a touching tale and Rose’s dilemma is palpable with great performances from Piper, Camille Coduri and Shaun Dingwall. Gasmasks are terrifying to behold and the scariest thing in horror to an adult is a lost child. The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances uses both of these to create a tense World War II chiller. This two-parter has beautiful Blitz design, features one of the best cliffhanger resolutions in the history of the show and one of the best lines of dialogue in the history of the English language: “What’s life? Life’s easy. A quirk of matter. Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh”. The story introduces John Barrowman as Captain Jack, but it’s Florence Hoath’s Nancy that steals the show. Eccleston and Annette Badland are wonderful in Boom Town. The two-part finale Bad Wolf & The Parting Of The Ways brings the “Bad Wolf scenario” to a fantastic close. Russell T. Davies and Christopher Eccleston gave Doctor Who both a zeal and a gravitas that cannot be underestimated. Despite appearances the Children In Need episode with no onscreen title is an essential prelude to The Christmas Invasion. This episode has possibly the hardest task of any episode ever, to introduce the another new Doctor to a Christmas Day audience. It illustrates the strength of the surrounding cast with great performances from Piper, Coduri, Noel Clarke, Penelope Wilton and eventually David Tennant. Fantastic.

Star Trek: Enterprise: Observer Effect; Babel One, United & The Aenar; Affliction & Divergence; In A Mirror, Darkly; Demons & Terra Prime
As Enterprise draws to a close, the links with other Star Trek series are strengthened significantly. The crew are unaware of being lab rats in an Organian experiment in Observer Effect which makes a refreshing change for some of the regular actors. The three part Babel One, United & The Aenar is meandering story that sees the foundation of the alliance that would lead to the Federation, sees the Romulans at their sneakiest and includes another great performance from Jeffrey Combs. Affliction & Divergence is Enterprise at its most fannish: Section 31 are back, there is fallout from the Augment crisis and the change in Klingon foreheads is explained, but despite what on paper looks like too much, it also manages to be a great story as well. The two part In A Mirror, Darkly is from a different TV show altogether. A glimpse into how the show might have looked in the mirror universe, which gives the regulars an opportunity for very different performance and also sees the welcome return of the 23rd century’s sets, uniforms and vibrant colour scheme. Demons & Terra Prime sees humanity on the eve of the coalition of planets at its most xenophobic. With great performances from Jolene Blalock, John Billingsley, Linda Park, Connor Trinneer, Harry Groener and Peter Weller. This would have been a much better note to end the series on.

The Thick Of It
Chris Langham's weariness as Hugh Abbott MP is palpable as he presides over a department which announces a policy and flip flops to an entirely contradictory policy and then flop flips back again. Second guessing and overreaction abound in the corridors of power (and for a couple of scenes in the broom cupboard of power).

Nighty Night
Even bleaker and barmier than the first series. Julia Davis is even more manipulative as Jill Bulb, nee Tyrrell, and Rebecca Front, Ruth Jones and Ralph Brown are all great, but Mark Gatiss steals the show out from under them.

Funland
A sordid soap opera with a compelling storyline. It is beautifully directed and boasts great performances throughout, astounding art direction and a series of cliffhanger endings that keep upping the ante.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Chapters Twenty-One to Twenty-Five
Genndy Tartakovsky’s animated series continues, with highlights including the animated cave paintings, Shak-Ti’s staff fight and Palpatine’s kidnap leading right into the opening crawl of the third prequel film.

The Quatermass Experiment Remake
David Tennant, Mark Gatiss and Indira Varma are wonderful in this live remake of Nigel Kneale’s first Quatermass serial set in a slightly odd hybrid of 1953 and now. A great TV experiment.

Mr Benn: The Gladiator
Another lovely slice of costume-related time travel whimsy from David McKee.




Casanova
David Tennant, Shaun Parkes, Peter O'Toole and Laura Fraser are all astonishingly good in a wonderful script by Russell T Davies that bounds along beautifully.

QI
The Quite Interesting quest reaches C with shows about Campanology, Cockneys and Cummingtonite, as well as this.


Radio
Chris Addison’s The Ape That Got Lucky: Language And Communication; Social Development; Science And Technology; Man Or Monkey?
Addison charts our first fumbling steps up the evolutionary to undisputed Top Species (capital T, capital S) and our subsequent development of tools, social conventions and language. “This show is made up almost entirely of language” and contains some insulting Esperanto. Featuring the excellent Jo Enwright in roles as varied as the first woman who ever spoke, the wife of a comatose inventor and a cow being milked.

Nebulous: The Night Of The Vegetarians; The Lovely Invasion; The Dust Has Landed; Madness Is A Strange Colour; The Coincidence Machine; The Man Who Polished The Sun
The year is 2099 and the first series of this loving Post-Withering parody, Professor Nebulous proves that vegetarians can't be trusted in The Night Of The Vegetarians, a sort of The Quatermass Experiment meets Meglos in a geodesic dome. Later Earth undergoes The Lovely Invasion and Nebulous is the only dissenting voice. Surely they can't be all they seem, can they? In The Dust Has Landed, K.E.N.T. finds itself competing with a rival organisation the Legitimate Organisation Undertaking General Humanitarian Business Operations Requiring Optimum Unconditional Global Harmony, or L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H. and contending with the professor's ex, played by Julia Deakin. Madness Is A Funny Colour as Garrow paint begins sending people honest Bod-bothering people into schizopathic psychophrenia, Harry who no longer has the luxury of eyes becomes the only salvation. The Coincidence Machine causes a build-up of coincidences threatens both our universe and a parallel universe (that’s different) with coinciclasm. The Man Who Polished The Sun cements David Warner's Dr. Klench as the arch nemesis of Nebulous and shows that Harry's reward is also his punishment. K.E.N.T. can do.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: Fits The Nineteenth to Twenty-Sixth
The adaptation of the last two books of the trilogy in five parts was never going to be straightforward. The previously demolished Earth has somehow reappeared, Arthur has returned to it and fallen in love with a girl called Fenchurch, who then disappears. The Book is becoming The Bird. Ford, Zaphod, Marvin and at least two Trillians are each wandering independently through The Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash. This is a fitting end to twenty-seven years of radio hitchhiking and features wonderful performances from William Franklyn, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Bill Paterson, Jane Horrocks, Toby Longworth, Stephen Moore, Rula Lenska, Saeed Jaffrey and Douglas Adams among many many more.

Doctor Who: Storm Warning; Sword Of Orion; Invaders From Mars; The Chimes Of Midnight Parts One & Two
From Paul McGann’s opening monologue in Storm Warning it's clear that the Eighth Doctor is back and he’s going to be magnificent. Gareth Thomas and Hylton Collins put in great performances and the story serves as a great debut for India Fisher’s Edwardian adventuress Charley Pollard. Sword Of Orion is like a Cybermen ‘best of’ album and is all the better for it. David Benson's impersonation of Orson Welles in Invaders From Mars is nothing short short of miraculous. The story posits that aliens really did invade during the famous broadcast of The War Of The Worlds in 1938 and John Arthur is deliciously evil as Cosmo Devine. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Chimes Of Midnight. The first two parts are beautifully atmospheric and dialogue like “Edith was a very stupid girl, she may not have known it was impossible when she did it” is wonderful.

Music
Gorillaz: Demon Days
The second album from the animated band is more like a concept album than the first, but since the band themselves are mostly conceptual this isn't as unwieldy as it might be in other more flesh and blood hands. The album has a raft of great singles, but spare a thought for 'Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head' is a great yarn told by Dennis Hopper and 'Don't Get Lost In Heaven' is Gorillaz viewed through the lens of The Beach Boys, which show the Gorillaz are as inventive as ever.
Stand out tracks: 'Kids With Guns'; 'Dirty Harry'; 'Feel Good Inc'; 'Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head'; 'Don't Get Lost In Heaven'

Supergrass: Road To Rouen
The fifth album features longer and more orchestral tracks than the trio's usual fare. The tone shifts towards darker realms, but does so without taking itself too seriously. If it's a concept album, then it successfully manages to avoid the clichΓ© and maintain variety within its theme. I suppose we will never discover what happened to 'Tales Of Endurance, Parts 1, 2 & 3'. Despite the serious nature of most of the album 'Coffee In The Pot' shows that this is still the same band and they can still have fun and the album title itself is a reassuring pun. A beautiful album.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Tales Of Endurance, Parts 4, 5 & 6'; 'St. Petersburg'; 'Sad Girl'; Roxy; 'Coffee In The Pot'; 'Road To Rouen'; 'Low C'

Books
The Call Of The Weird by Louis Theroux
Theroux returns to the USA to pay visits to many of the stars of his Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. Highlights include Survivalist Mike Cain, ex porn star JJ Michaels and alien hunter turned vampire slayer Thor Templar.




Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn
Bile aimed squarely at the likes of Big Brother, 24, Cold Feet, The Frontier House, Hollyoaks, Touch The Truck and everything in between.






Comics
Ex Machina: Tag; Fortune Favors; Fact Vs Fiction; Off The Grid
Proving that Ex Machina deals with issues that comics rarely dare to, whilst still managing to keep a superhero in the mix and not cheapen said issue. Tag follows New York’s mayor Mitchell Hundred through his backing of gay marriage, while fending off assassination attempts from the religious fanatics and someone from his past. Fortune Favors shows that there are no easy days for Hundred. Fact Vs Fiction sees a copycat attempt to pick up where 'The Great Machine' left off whilst Hundred serves jury duty, neither ends well. Off The Grid concerns lies and sees Hundred's mother finally tell him the truth while a machine deceives him.

The Vesuvius Club Graphic Edition by Mark Gatiss & Ian Bass
Lucifer Box ventures into new territory and graphic is certainly the word as the unveiling of one character is unflinchingly anatomical. The artwork, by the illustrator of the novels, is languid and the adaptation of the novel is compelling.

Doctor Who: The Love Invasion; Art Attack; The Cruel Sea; Mr Nobody; A Groatsworth Of Wit
The Ninth Doctor and Rose arrive in comics for a brief but impressive run. They travel to Earth in 1966 and overcome The Love Invasion preventing an alien from averting humanity’s forays into space for our own good. A visit to see the Mona Lisa leads to a story that is arguably a modern riff on this scene in Art Attack. Rob Shearman's The Cruel Sea is the jewel in the crown of this run. Epic, spooky at times surreal. Mr Nobody is a nice little inspirational tale. The 'finale', A Groatsworth Of Wit, is a complex and fascinating 'celebrity' historical ,which ends with a panel clearly dedicated to Christopher Eccleston. The artwork and likenesses are impressive throughout.

Serenity: Those Left Behind
Helping to bridge the gap between the end of Firefly and set the stage for the movie Serenity (see above), Those Left Behind takes no prisoners featuring as it does the return of several recurring characters from the TV series, while Inara leaves Serenity and Shepherd Book is increasingly uncomfortable staying aboard. The script and art just feel right.

Online
Noise To Signal
A great source for books, comics, film, games, music, net, print, radio and TV criticism. Unfortunately it's no longer updated, but thankfully the archive remains online. A straw poll of my favourite articles yields subjects as varied as: the Science of Romance in an episode of Futurama, the friendship dynamic in Shaun Of The Dead, Alan Partridge's character flaws, the history of road safety public information films, Torchwood's Children Of Earth reviews, Dorian Gray's hair, a very thorough three-part article on Dollhouse and a philosophical debate asking at what point do you stop being The Sugababes? Sadly missed.

R. Tam, Sessions: Session 416, Second Excerpt; Session 1, Excerpt; Session 22, Excerpt; Session 165, Excerpt; Session 416, First Excerpt
Five short clips released as viral marketing for the movie Serenity (see above). They feature Summer Glau as River Tam and writer and director Joss Whedon as her interviewer. The sessions provide an insight into the events at The Academy that unsettled River so much. They were released out of chronological order and form an intriguing story, presented here in the order they were made available online:



Recommendations welcome.
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