Carruthers Ten Years On: September 2011

September 2011 on the Carruthers blog features a shameless use of my showreel and Bengal Boogie is probably my favourite.

Again, I'm quite fond of the posts tracking the references to Dollhouse, Life On Mars and Star Trek.

Carruthers Ten Years On: January 2009

I started a run of posts on the Twelve Days Of Christmas in December 2008. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth, ninth and eleventh were nothing particularly special, but I was quite pleased with the first two posts of January 2009.

The tenth day's post was pretty good when written, but went up the day after Matt Smith was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, which was less than topical on my part. It was all essentially a long run up to the twelfth day's post which I was far more proud of. It entitled me to use the same photo of Pulp's drummer Nick Banks twelve times and there are so few opportunities to make maths funny.

I discovered that I could 'schedule' post decades before they were written, which inspired a Life On Mars-style post and a diary entry from 1973.

I liked the posts on New Year's Resolutions and Yellow Alert, which is presumably a reference to the widely-mocked US Homeland Security Advisory System, which assigned a colour to the potential risk of terrorist attack. I don't remember what event, or lack thereof, might have caused them to change the colour.

The blog reached 250 posts this month which is by now is pretty unremarkable, but it did lead to my learning the word: semiquincentennial.

"I Missed A Year? Was It Good?"

So asks Rose in Doctor Who's Aliens Of London and to which the Doctor responds "Middling" (and yes I realise that the year she's talking about isn't exactly a calendar year and is mostly 2005, but I like the Doctor's response a lot).

Continuing this pointless ramble backwards through time to 2006. This was the year that South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia, Saddam Hussein was hanged and Pluto was demoted to the status of dwarf planet.

For me, it was a year largely spent of temping in offices, but I managed to join Equity for me and I was in Burdett-Coutts At Home.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2006:

Film
A Cock And Bull Story
A post-modern film about the making of a film adapted from The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, a novel which was post-modern before that phrase had any meaning. As Steve Coogan plays Shandy in the autobiography of a life as-yet unlived: “But I am getting ahead of myself, I am not yet born.” This film is fantastic. Here's the trailer.

Stranger Than Fiction
What would you do if you started hearing your life being narrated? What if the voice in your head revealed you were the main character in an unfinished novel that is due to end with your death? Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman are all wonderful in this metafictionish masterpiece. Here's the trailer.


Little Miss Sunshine
This very funny road movie comedy drama is a race against time that culminates in a beauty pageant for children. This film takes the high road and avoids all the easy shots it could take at such a repugnant target and as a result makes a far better comment on the sexualisation of children. Here's the trailer.


Children Of Men
A great piece of apocalyptic cinema, both wonderfully bleak and somehow hopeful. Here's the trailer.







The Lives Of Others
This German language masterpiece about life under Stasi observation in the former East Germany and features a beautiful performance from the Ulrich Mühe. Here's the trailer.





Scoop
Woody Allen is brilliant as Sid Waterman, a stage magician who goes by the name ‘The Great Splendini’ that gets caught up in a tale of a journalism student who should have been a dental hygienist, a boat along the river Styx, a tarot card killer, British high society and a scoop from beyond the grave. Here's the trailer.


TV
Life On Mars
Hit by a car in 2006, Coma victim Sam Tyler wakes up in 1973 and so begins the best police procedural of all time. Great performances across the board, great music, great period references and juxtapositions of then and now.

Doctor Who: New Earth; Tooth And Claw; School Reunion; The Girl In The Fireplace; The Idiot’s Lantern; The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit; Love & Monsters; Army Of Ghosts & Doomsday; The Runaway Bride
David Tennant’s first series builds on the success of its predecessor. The new Doctor and Rose visit New Earth and despite the cast change it’s business as usual. The lift business and the bodyswapping provide great comic opportunities and the plight of the patients is chillingly bleak. Tooth And Claw is a wonderfully chilling gothic Hammer horror of an episode. The return of the now sadly missed Elisabeth Sladen is a vital for the show, while Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor undergo a School Reunion, the series updates its mission statement: this meeting of old and new categorically states that this is all one television series. The Girl In The Fireplace is incredible. All of it: Arthur, “a door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction…”, Banana Daiquiris, “We do not require your feet” and the great reveal at the end. Incredible. As a tribute to the fifties The Idiot’s Lantern never looks less than beautiful and the script has some great period detail. The series is so life-affirming that when The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit take us to Doctor Who at its darkest, it’s unsettling in more ways than one. Shaun Parkes’ world weariness is palpable, Gabriel Woolf’s voice is as chilling as ever and Tennant’s monologues in the presence of The Beast are magnificent. Love & Monsters makes a virtue of a filming limitation, moving the focus away from the Doctor and Rose and onto those left behind. The script is very tight, Marc Warren & LINDA are very endearing, Camille Coduri is spectacular, it contains the oddest sexual imagery in the history of television and introduced me to the Electric Light Orchestra. The season finale Army Of Ghosts & Doomsday strikes a perfect balance between an epic action movie with Daleks versus Cybermen and a beautifully touching exit for Rose. The Runaway Bride shouldn’t work as well as it does, the Doctor committing infanticide on BBC1 on Christmas Day, and yet somehow it's still a lot of fun.

Torchwood: Everything Changes; Ghost Machine; Small Worlds; Countrycide; They Keep Killing Suzie; Random Shoes; Out Of Time
Doctor Who’s post watershed spinoff set in Cardiff’s alien underbelly arrives in style as PC Gwen Cooper investigates the mysterious Torchwood Three in Everything Changes. Eve Myles, Indira Varma and Tom Price are wonderful in an episode which thanks to retcon and an inability to die, manages to have its cake and eat it twice. It’s Owen’s turn for some character development in Ghost Machine and after witnessing a rape from the past he decides to threaten the rapist in the present, in a scene played wonderfully between Burn Gorman and Gareth Thomas, that implies that he sees in Ed Morgan the man he might have been. On the face of it Small Worlds is simply Torchwood away with the fairies, but it is much more important than that: it’s the first time Jack’s past catches up with him and the first time Torchwood Three loses. The beautifully shot and fantastically named Countrycide capitalises on your expectations thus far. Torchwood’s arrogance comes home to roost in They Keep Killing Suzie, a phenomenal episode for the whole team. Torchwood Three fan Eugene haunts Gwen as she investigates his death in Random Shoes, a wonderful episode rooting the supernatural in the domestic and often unfavourably and unfairly compared to Doctor Who's Love & Monsters (see above). Louise Delamere, Mark Lewis Jones and Olivia Hallinan are all wonderful as three temporal refugees in Out Of Time, a beautiful story which shows what Torchwood can achieve and how far it's come.

Time Trumpet
A nostalgic look back at the first thirty years of the twenty first century with the likes of David Cameron, Charlotte Church, Ant & Dec, June Sarpong, Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Natasha Kaplinsky and Jamie Oliver. Brilliant, hilarious and sobering.

QI
The alphabetical odyssey looks at subjects such as Danger, Dogs and Domesticity this time around.


Hogfather
Death takes a holiday, or rather takes a holiday in hand. This adaptation of the Discworld’s Christmassiest tale has a very strange quality to it, as it muses on the nature of belief itself. David Jason and Michelle Dockery are great as Albert and Susan Sto Helit respectively.

Johnny And The Bomb
Elsewhere in the Pratchettverse, this tale about the consequences of time travel sees Johnny Maxwell and his friends deal with the height of the blitz, changing history and casual racism better than many productions aimed at an older audience. George Mackay puts in a wonderful central performance as Johnny.

American Dad: Dungeons & Wagons
It’s not unusual for a story to feature two narratives that run parallel with each other, but using entirely different styles of animation to illustrate each of them is. The animation used for Steve’s computer game is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and not to be outdone that of the ‘real world’ includes an incredibly impressive car chase.

Radio
Doctor Who: The Chimes Of Midnight, Part Three & Four; Blood Of The Daleks, Part One
The last two parts of The Chimes Of Midnight are wonderful as reality unravels around the Eighth Doctor and Charley in an Agatha Christie meets The Stone Tape mystery with some very darkly funny dialogue and terrifying simple truth.
The first part of Blood Of The Daleks is Big Finish’s first work designed specially for radio and it’s easy to see the influence of the show’s return to television on it. Like Donna Noble before (and after) her, Lucie Miller is teleported directly into the TARDIS on a very important day and very bolshy about it. More importantly she is a real shot in the arm and kick up the arse for audio Doctor Who.

Nebulous: The Deptford Wives; The Buzzing; I, Nebulous; Destiny Of The Destinoyd; Tempus Fugitive; Last Of The Present Sirius
K.E.N.T.'s finest return for a second series and explores SF clichés in their own way. The Deptford Wives take on the criticisms of sexism often levelled at science fiction and manages to be even more sexist. The Buzzing features a great cameo by Steve Coogan and the funniest genocide I've ever heard. The return of David Warner as Nebulous' nemesis Dr. Klench in I, Nebulous, the series take on bodyswapping sees Warner and Mark Gatiss swap roles and Paula Breeze give great commentary during Klench's peace conference speech. A trip to the moon sees Nebulous fall in love and a clutch of red-shirted men die in two possibly related elements of Destiny Of The Destinoyd. Tempus Fugitive sees Kate O'Mara as a woman splintered throughout time tasking each member of KENT to visit an ironic time to travel to in order to reunite her. Rory finds himself at Woodstock and unable to remove his trousers when offered free love, Harry travels to the far future and is worshipped as a God by the survivors of the UltraWithering where everyone was reduced to sentient body parts and Nebulous arrives in his own childhood inspiring himself to shun clowning in favour of physics. The last of the present series, Last Of The Present Sirius, sees Nebulous find himself in trapped in a time loop and a weekend omnibus of a reality TV show at the same time. The beauty of Nebulous is that the scripts are packed with throwaway references that function as jokes: the Notting Hill Carnivore, the Edward Woodward Woodwork Award and "the Sequel Devils? They came back again. And again".

Chris Addison’s Civilization: A Controlled Universe; Cities And Laws; A Working Society; A Sense Of Identity
Described within as “two hours of your life you won’t get back” by its host, but actually two hours of insightful comedy with a very high gag rate. Concerning our attempts to control our world: writing, time, justice and identity. Featuring the incredibly prolific author and polymath Professor Austin Herring.

Music
Jarvis Cocker: Jarvis
Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker releases his first solo album and reassuringly he has lost none of his lyrical dexterity.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time'; 'I Will Kill Again'; 'Fat Children'; 'From Auschwitz To Ipswich'; 'Running The World' (hidden track)

The Zutons: Tired Of Hanging Around
This Liverpool foursome's second album is great from start to finish. Move over Winehouse, the original 'Valerie' is fantastic.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Tired Of Hanging Around'; 'It's The Little Things We Do'; 'Valerie'; 'You've Got A Friend In Me'

Books
What Happens Now by Jeremy Dyson
What seems like a nice little story about a boy with an overactive imagination takes a very different turn indeed and ends up challenging our expectations of narrative itself. Along the way it takes in seventies television production, religious scepticism and epistolary evidence.



Fat by Rob Grant
The novel is made up of three separate, but interweaving, strands following three individuals whose lives are all ruled by society’s obsessions with dieting, obesity and celebrity. Have some cake.





The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
A child’s eye view of the depths of human cruelty. Everybody should read this book.







Where’s Wally? The Great Picture Hunt by Martin Handford
You can't beat a bit of Wallyspotting.








The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The equivalent of an atheist holy book? No, but a rallying call, certainly. Dawkins applies an enviable scientific rigour to articles of faith and intelligent design, but contrary to popular belief does not attempt to prove the non-existence of God. The chapter title: 'Why there almost certainly is no God', is a sign of the care he has taken. Very few of his detractors take the same care.

The Devil In Amber by Mark Gatiss
Lucifer Box returns during the period between the world wars in another tale of derring-do. Facing off against an army of fascists, the devil itself and the unwelcome affections of Mrs Croup.





Comics
Pride Of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughn & Niko Henrichon
This spectacular graphic novel follows four lions that escaped from Baghdad Zoo after it was bombed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.


Doctor Who: The Betrothal Of Sontar; The Lodger; F.A.Q.; The Futurists; Interstellar Overdrive; The Green Eyed Monster
The Tenth Doctor and Rose visit The Betrothal Of Sontar in his first comic strip appearance, their dialogue is great, the artwork is sumptuous and the characterisation and design of the Sontarans are both brilliant. Mickey gets a houseguest in The Lodger as the Doctor stays with him for a few days and this one-shot strip is a great character piece. F.A.Q. is the tale of an imaginary friend with a surprisingly grown-up tinge. Followed by The Futurists where temporal cause and effect meets political cause and effect in this sprawling story of men out of their time and may also feature the only use in comics of the word "twp". Interstellar Overdrive sees stadium rockers in a time loop with fatal consequences and part two is a great reworking of the events of part one. There is great artwork throughout and the characterisation of the new Doctor is already bang on. The Green Eyed Monster is a very funny strip with a playfully mocking tone and it's nice to see Jackie in the comic, however briefly.

Online
Geek Chase
Grant Naylor Productions ran this promotional competition when they released Beat The Geek, an interactive quiz on DVD. The game is still up long after the competition is over. Follow these instructions and start chasing at Diva-droid International.

"To Take One Breath In 2007..."

"...and the next in 1920 is a strange way to start a new life, but a new life is exactly what I've always wanted" so says Kathy in Doctor Who's Blink (see below). Continuing my countdown: on to 2007...

This is the year that former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, the Writer's Guild of America went on strike and a 2,100-year-old melon was discovered by archaeologists in western Japan.

Workwise I was in General Strike 1926, the Autism ads, Dickens Of A Christmas 2007 and wrote and appeared in the first of the Behind The Bike Shed shows and Train Of Thought.

Film
There Will Be Blood
Epic. A film about conmen. The oil man, the evangelical preacher and the long lost half brother are three men all trying to blag their way into money, with mixed success. Here's the trailer.





Juno
I was not expecting to love a film about teenage pregnancy. I was expecting a movie-of-the-week-style cautionary tale, but this film is different. It sets up a set of characters you assume you've seen countless times elsewhere: the disapproving stepmother, the quirky best friend, the apparently ineffectual boyfriend. You then assume you know how they'll react. You are wrong. Here's the trailer.

Sicko
Following the Great Fire of London, several insurance companies set up their own fire brigades to mitigate future losses. Naturally they would only put out fires that affected buildings that they insured, presumably watching many a structure burn to the ground. So it is with the US Healthcare system. To the outside eye, it's terrifying. I should point out that there have been many criticisms of the information presented in this film, but even if only 10% of it were true, you would still have a problem. Universal healthcare can't come to the USA quickly enough. Here's the trailer.

Hot Fuzz
After the success of Shaun Of The Dead, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg could have simply given us a sequel, but instead we have a police procedural in which Britain's best kept village meets The Wicker Man with very funny results. Here's the trailer.




The Darjeeling Limited (and Hotel Chevalier)
Hotel Chevalier is a short film which precedes the main feature, a vignette of relationship awkwardness. Followed by The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson's tale of three brothers on a journey of forced spirituality across India which references the former throughout. Colours are heightened, the soundtrack is fantastic and the use of Anderson's 'repertory' company is oddly reassuring. Here's the trailer.

This Is England
With a uniformly great cast and soundtrack, Shane Meadows' portrait of skinhead culture in Thatcher's Britain is fantastic. Here's the trailer.


World Of Wrestling
Despite never having seen old school Big Daddy versus Giant Haystacks-style wrestling, Tim Plester's short film tribute to professional wrestling (and night buses) still had me in stitches. Here's a trailer.

TV
The Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion Of The Bane; Revenge Of The Slitheen; Eye Of The Gorgon; Warriors Of Kudlak; Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane?; The Lost Boy
Sarah Jane Smith gets her own TV show. Again. This first series is the most consistent yet. Invasion Of The Bane shows the series arriving with a bang, the relationships between the characters are almost fully formed already and features great performances from Elisabeth Sladen, Yasmin Paige, Thomas Knight, Joseph Millson and Juliet Cowan. It takes the arrival of Daniel Anthony as Clyde in Revenge Of The Slitheen to give us the series proper. Slitheen in school and a wonderful turn from Ian Midlane. On the face of it, Eye Of The Gorgon and Warriors Of Kudlak are slight tales about killer nuns and aliens using children in to fight their war respectively. Both deal with the consequences of some adult themes in the perfect way for the target audience, namely Alzheimer's syndrome in the former, and the Iraq war and the families left behind in the latter. As the series gets better it gets darker, with the first appearance of the Trickster in Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane? The story deals with an alternate reality in which Sarah died at 13 year old and the chaos that ensues without her to protect the Earth. Crucially the price of getting Sarah back is still the death of a 13 year old girl, something that seems unlikely in Doctor Who itself. The season finale, The Lost Boy, systematically takes the Bannerman Road gang apart and makes their world a little bleaker. The TV appeal of Luke's real parents is a horrific sight on children's television, but with Alan wanting to move Maria out of harms way, Chrissie informing on Sarah, Mr Smith turning on Sarah and imprisoning Clyde, it seems like just as they are on the verge divided they fall K9 saves the day. I cheered.

Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness; End Of Days
The first season draws to a close with this double bill. You might expect an episode called Captain Jack Harkness to enlighten us about Jack's past. Instead it sees Jack and Tosh travel back to 1941 where they meet the real Captain Jack Harkness, the man whose identity our Jack has appropriated. They have more in common than a name and there is a touching romantic encounter between the Jacks. Back in the present all hell breaks loose in End Of Days as the Rift splinters, Cardiff is the epicentre of the apocalypse and everything but the kitchen sink attacks. Murray Melvin's Bilis Manger is the making of these two episodes and it is bizarre that we haven't seen him since.

Doctor Who: Smith And Jones; The Shakespeare Code; Gridlock; Human Nature & The Family Of Blood; Blink; Utopia; The Sound Of Drums & Last Of The Time Lords; The Infinite Quest; Time Crash
David Tennant's second season begins with a trio of what could justifiably be described as brilliant romps. Smith And Jones ably introduces Freema Agyeman as Martha as very quickly asserts her as the new companion, The Shakespeare Code features some great Shakespearean references without excluding a mainstream audience and Gridlock eases us into more thoughtful territory. A run of six of the best episodes of television ever made begins with Human Nature and The Family Of Blood, Tennant, Agyeman, Harry Lloyd, Thomas Sangster and Jessica Hynes née Stevenson are fantastic in these beautiful Paul Cornell scripts about the Doctor living the life he could never have. Blink is a locked room mystery and a Chinese puzzle box of an episode with a great script from Steven Moffat, a lovely central performance from Carey Mulligan and capitalises brilliantly on something kids can be scared of in everyday life. Derek Jacobi is captivating in Utopia as Professor Yana and as...I did not see that coming. After fleeting mentions, Mr Saxon finally steps onto the world stage in The Sound Of Drums and Last Of The Time Lords and it brings out the best in Martha. Another season finale, another epic, but "the year that never was" is replete with great moments, from the reveal of the identity of the Toclafane to John Simm's absolutely priceless first reaction to the wizened old Doctor with his regenerations suspended. Fantastic. Meanwhile The Infinite Quest is a lovely animated treasure hunt/road movie. Time Crash is a gift to the fans, a multi-Doctor story with paradoxy wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimeyness.

The Thick Of It: The Rise Of The Nutters; Spinners And Losers
No one knows what's going on but no one wants to admit it. People position and reposition themselves as the political winds blow them around. The Rise Of The Nutters sees the espionage between the parties at its height and Malcolm Tucker risks becoming the story, but he finds himself usurped by the events of the cliffhanger ending. Spinners And Losers sees the posturing reach its height in the wake of the Prime Minister's resignation.

Life On Mars
To get the job done Sam Tyler finds himself acting a lot more like Gene Hunt than he did in series one, the will they, won't they? romance between Tyler and Annie Cartwright and Tyler's training of Chris continue, while the 'real' world impinges on Tyler in more surreal ways than before, Camberwick Green, and the test card girl. The last episode is nothing short of spectacular.

QI
The 'E' Series takes in Eating, Espionage, and Everything, Etc and sees panellists searching for the Elephant-In-The-Room.


Family Guy: Blue Harvest
Now this was a really great idea. Recasting Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope with the Family Guy characters and somehow managing to ably tell the story of a two hour movie that I have seen several times in 45 minutes without me noticing any omissions.

The Worst Journey In The World
Mark Gatiss wrote and starred in this outstanding adaptation of Apsley Cherry-Garrard's memoirs of the Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole. As part of the scientific remit of the expedition, they collect penguin's eggs for the Natural History Museum. The tone of Barry Lett's narration is beautiful. The cost proves so high, that the epilogue is heartbreaking.

Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives
E's documentary about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics of his father, Hugh Everett. His theories were unappreciated in life, but are now almost universally accepted by physicists.

Party Animals
Andrew Buchan, Raquel Cassidy, Shelley Conn & Matt Smith are fantastic in this story of the grubby business of oiling the wheels of government.


Summer Heights High
Chris Lilley's controversial mockumentary follows him playing a trio of characters throughout a year in high school.


Radio
Doctor Who: Blood Of The Daleks, Part Two; Horror Of Glam Rock; Human Resources
The Eighth Doctor and Lucie's adventures continue apace. The Daleks show that they make even deadlier friends than they do enemies in the second part of Blood Of The Daleks. They endure the Horror Of Glam Rock in a 1974 motorway service station on the M62 with Aunty Pat. The Headhunter follows them through time and space giving the season an overarching storyline which culminates in the two part finale to the season, Human Resources. It shows the strengths of juxtaposing the mundane with the extraordinary with fantastic success. It turns out that there is nothing scarier to the listener than the Doctor with a job. The real strength of this season has been the chemistry between Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,
The 'other' character from the pen of Douglas Adams makes it to radio for the first time here and Harry Enfield, Olivia Colman, Andrew Sachs, Felicity Montagu, Jim Carter and Toby Longworth all give great performances in a story featuring electric monks, missing cats and almost prevents the beginnings of life on Earth.

Toby Hadoke's Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf
The story of my childhood, written and narrated by Toby Hadoke, but set a few years earlier, featuring things that may not have happened to me in the future and swapping my name for his own in an attempt to protect the innocent. Featuring Louise Jameson, a very literal minded continuity announcer and no less than five Doctors, but sadly not John Abineri.

The Chain Gang: Picture This
Rob Shearman wrote the first and last episodes with listeners encouraged to resolve the cliffhangers and write the next episode themselves in about 300 words. To say this took surprising twists and turns does not do it justice.

Music
The Hoosiers: The Trick To Life
The public perception of this band probably comes from the jaunty nature of their singles, but tracks like 'Everything Goes Dark' and 'The Trick To Life' reveal a level of depth and complexity which sets them apart.
Stand out tracks: 'Worried About Ray', 'Goodbye Mr A', 'Cops And Robbers', 'Everything Goes Dark', 'The Trick To Life'

The Polyphonic Spree: The Fragile Army
The life affirming choir shun their robes and don black militaristic uniforms. The sound is a little darker but the core message of the Polyphonic Sprites remains the same.
Stand out tracks: 'Together We're Heavy', 'The Fragile Army', 'Younger Yesterday', 'We Crawl', 'Mental Cabaret'

Books
Charlie Brooker's Dawn Of The Dumb
The second collection of The Guardian's Screen Burn column by Charlie Brooker is wonderfully acerbic and takes in a great many TV shows I didn't see at the time and it doesn't matter in the slightest. Brooker's style more than makes up for my missing out on Big Brother or Celebrity Love Island, but it's great to read his palpable joy at the 2005 return of Doctor Who.

Comics
Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, The Chain Season Eight picks up after the TV show. The Long Way Home acts as a pilot episode setting up the new premise. Xander is co-ordinating an army of Slayers, Dawn is a giant, Willow is forced to use dark magic, Giles is one Watcher among hundreds of Slayers and Buffy needs decoys to protect her identity. Not afraid of referencing the continuity of the TV series and featuring many of its great supporting cast. This is epic in its scope as forces of evil gather in the name of something ironically called 'Twilight'. The Chain concerns the fate of one of Buffy's unnamed decoys and features a beautiful script from Joss Whedon.

Jump Leads: Training Day
The webcomic hits the ground running as Meaney and Llewellyn's journey starts here. Ben Paddon's script sets out the stall well with just the right amount of exposition and the style of Jjar's artwork is already confident. The use of diagrams within speech bubbles is a lovely device.

Doctor Who: The Warkeeper's Crown; The First
It's wonderful to see the Doctor and the Brigadier reunited in the comic strip in The Warkeeper's Crown. The Brig's characterisation is absolutely spot on, pairing him with the Tenth Doctor changes their dynamic as they are both old soldiers, the strip sees them both save the day and ends with a last panel that has taken on a new poignance since the death of Nicholas Courtney. The First sees the Doctor and Martha meet Ernest Shackleton during an Antarctic expedition and encounter the crystalline Skith. The Skith are both beautiful and hideous, complex and simple. They also succeed in feeling starkly alien in a way that many attempts in comics do not and the panels of the 'Skithself' Doctor are terrifying.

Sugarshock!: Battle Royale With Cheeses
Joss Whedon and Fábio Moon's first strip about a band sets up a great premise. Plus the robot wears jeans.




Online
The Thick Of It: Opposition Extra
The events of Spinners And Losers (see above) as seen from the perspective of the opposition. Peter Mannion's contempt for his situation is wonderful and Roger Allam is fantastic.

Somegreybloke
The YouTubings of Graham Murkett on a myriad of subjects are always worth watching:



Recommendations welcome.