Halloween on Screen

I wrote this for Hero Collector in 2019, unsurprisingly for Halloween:

HALLOWEEN ON SCREEN
When Buffy, Star Trek and more do Halloween
(Originally written for Hero Collector, published 31 October 2019

Tonight’s the night that ghosts and ghouls come out to play, and TV shows embrace the occasion. David Black shines a light on things that go bump in the night and the world of genre.

The Twilight Zone
The Grave (1961)

Originally filmed as part of the second season of Rod Serling’s anthology series, The Grave was deemed a better fit for the Halloween period and was held over until the third. It’s a tale of regret and retribution. Hired gunman, Conny Miller rides into town to learn that his quarry, the outlaw Pinto Sykes, has been killed and buried in the spectacularly creepy cemetery nearby. Miller is disappointed and had hoped to kill Sykes himself.

The talk in the town’s saloon is that Sykes said if Miller “ever come anyways close to his grave, he'll reach up and grab you”, and this quickly turns into a wager. Miller must visit Sykes’ grave and stab it with a bowie knife borrowed from the barman as proof. Miller stabs the grave and promptly falls out of shot. Was he dragged under? Did he flee? We’ll never know. Serling himself says “You take this with a grain of salt or a shovelful of earth, as shadow or as substance. We leave it up to you. And, for any further research, check under ‘g’ for ‘ghosts’, in The Twilight Zone.”

Star Trek
Catspaw (1967)

The crew of the USS Enterprise discover fog, a haunted castle with dungeons, a trio of witches and a black cat all on a planet where they have no business being. The crew encounter a pair of aliens from another galaxy with seemingly limitless power to control matter and manipulate thought.

They attempted to tap into the crew’s conscious mind to learn more about them, but they missed and drew their imagery form the subconscious instead. They weren’t trying to frighten the Kirk and his crew, they genuinely believed that ghosts and witches were the norm in their civilisation.

This episode was the first filmed for Star Trek’s second season, but it was delayed so that it could be broadcast at Halloween. Kirk even says, “If we weren't missing two officers and a third one dead, I'd say someone was playing an elaborate trick or treat on us”, as a nod to the audience at home. Spock is unfamiliar with the concept of trick or treat, causing the captain to add “You'd be a natural.”

Quantum Leap
The Boogieman (1990)

Sam Beckett leaps into the body of writer, Joshua Rey, on October 31, 1964. As he, his fiancée and a young Stephen King organise a ‘Spook House’ to celebrate Halloween. In quick succession three people die, Al is of no help to Sam and a goat that only Sam can see keeps appearing and disappearing. It’s revealed that Al is not himself and Dean Stockwell’s performance is truly terrifying.

Quantum Leap fans are a superstitious lot. Many of them believe this episode is cursed. There were many reports of VCRs failing to record this episode and signal failures at local TV stations and cable companies during broadcast. They claim it has caused power failures, car breakdowns and job losses. It appears to be Quantum Leap’s Macbeth. It’s not uncommon to see this episode referred to as 'The Halloween Episode', 'Episode 3.5' or 'The Boogiem*n', rather than by its proper title. Sometimes there are so many asterisks in 'The B**giem*n' that it’s almost unintelligible. You have been warned.

Ghostwatch (1992)

This pitch-perfect horror mockumentary was first shown on Halloween Night in 1992. Presented as an earnest attempt to examine a haunted house in North London. Ghostwatch features familiar televisual elements of cosy studio fireside chat, phone-ins and outside broadcast interviews, but uses all of them to ratchet up the horror. A triumph of using the mundane to express the paranormal.

The banter of the first few minutes gives way to a much darker story. On the face of it this is the story of a family living with a ghost that they’ve nicknamed Pipes. There’s a possibility that one of the daughters is faking it all, but the sheer wealth of evidence makes that obvious possibility seems less likely than the supernatural alternative. Along the way we learn of a baby farm, cats eating the body of a suicide victim and a playpark strewn with canine foetuses.

Nothing is ever definitive in Ghostwatch. You are never certain whether you’ve actually seen Pipes on screen. So much is achieved with so little actually happening on screen. It’s a triumph of the power of suggestion. The four celebrity presenters playing themselves really sell the reality of the film. Michael Parkinson says at one point, “we don’t want to give anyone sleepless nights”, but that’s exactly what did happen as swathes of the United Kingdom were convinced that Ghostwatch was the genuine article. Children, who probably should have been in bed, were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, people called the number on screen in their droves and the BBC complaints department were kept very busy.

Ghostwatch is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The X-Files
Ghost In The Machine (1993)

It’s strange that for all the supernatural-themed episodes that The X-Files gave us, the only one that takes place at Halloween is the techno-thriller Ghost In The Machine and as such the ghost in question is technological rather than paranormal. The end results, however are much the same.

While the offices of the FBI are brimming with Halloween candy, a computer that regulates systems within a corporate building achieves sentiency and turns to murder. The artificial intelligence kills two people and makes attempts on the lives of Mulder and Scully. Ultimately, a computer virus programmed by the machine’s creator proves to be its undoing.

SeaQuest DSV
Knights Of Shadows (1993)

The deep submergence vehicle discovers the sunken wreck of the R.M.S. King George on the sea floor. The ship has been missing for 105 years, yet the lights are still on and there are improbably huge air pockets. Braving nitrogen narcosis, the seaQuest crew board the ship. They encounter bleeding doors with flaming handles, more skeletons than the ship’s manifest can account for and one of the crew becomes possessed.

The supernatural elements are not nearly as interesting as the more mundane ones. One of the 21st-century sailors takes comfort in naval superstitions. As soon as the ghost ship is sighted, he is spitting on the deck for good luck and pouring salt on the threshold to ward off evil spirits. All in all Knights of Shadows seems like quite a daft ghost story, but the question it poses is: is any of it real, or is it all some sort of bends-related shared hallucination?

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
Halloween (1997)

Contrary to what you might expect, Halloween is apparently the one night of the year that vampires avoid. The Scooby Gang make plans to enjoy themselves on what Buffy defines as “come as you aren’t night.” However, this being Sunnydale the streets still aren’t safe. A costumier moonlighting as a warlock casts a spell that makes everyone become whatever it is that they are dressed up as. He calls it “the very embodiment of be careful what you wish for.”

The spell turns Buffy, Xander and Willow into a helpless fainting 18th-century lady, a marine and an insubstantial ghost respectively. They are out trick or treating with a group of children, some of whom change into little monsters. Willow is the only one who retains her memory and she spends the night trying to keep her friends both together and alive.

Defying convention, Big Bad Spike is stalking the streets looking for a neutered Buffy and an easy kill. Just as he is about to end her, Giles breaks the spell and everyone reverts to normal, including the slayer who kicks Spike’s arse.

Millennium
The Curse of Frank Black (1997)

Frank Black tries to enjoy Halloween. He goes trick or treating door to door with his daughter but tastefully shot black-and-white flashbacks to his past keep interrupting him. The first flashback sees a trick or treating Black as a child confidently informing a World War II veteran named Crocell that ghosts don’t exist. Another flashback, from a few years later has Crocell committing suicide and Black’s gift for seeing things from the killer’s perspective is born.

He is subconsciously and repeatedly led to the Bible verse: “why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?” He encounters the ghost of Crocell, presumably shaking his youthful assertions on the subject, who attempts to persuade Black to give up on the Millennium Group.

Broadcast on Halloween night itself, the episode features many of the more benign features of Halloween, but all are twisted into something more sinister. It begins with the most graphic pumpkin carving ever filmed. When Black discovers teenagers telling ghost stories about him in the basement of his old house, he sneaks up on them in the dark and his sudden appearance scares the bejeesus out of them. He then throws eggs at his own home in a move that makes him seem unhinged. The episode takes a minimalist approach to its scares. There is barely any music and far less dialogue than usual. Lance Henriksen’s performance is much scarier than any of the ghosts or demons on offer here. Halloween is sometimes scarier for those that aren’t observing it.

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
Fear Itself (1999)

“Creatures of the night shy away from Halloween, they find it all much too crass” says Giles and he’s wrong again. Take one mystical symbol and add a few drops of werewolf blood and suddenly a college frat party has accidentally summoned a fear demon.

Buffy and her friends attend the party in costume. Buffy as Little Red Riding Hood, Xander as James Bond and Willow as Joan of Arc, but the real contenders for the best costume prizes go to Oz for his God namebadge sticker, Anya for her bunny outfit and Giles in a massive sombrero.

This time, however, everything but the costumes change. The plastic skeletons, rubber bats and the peeled grapes posing as eyeballs are all replaced by the genuine article. The partygoer’s fears themselves become real: Buffy ends up alone with only monsters for company, as a result of feeling ignored Xander’s friends are unable to see or hear him, Willow worries that her spells will be too much for her to handle and Oz fears losing control of the werewolf within and hurting his girlfriend.

Ultimately, the demon is despatched very easily and this causes the immediate effects to subside. What’s really scary about 'Fear Itself' is that while the episode seems fairly trivial, the fears displayed by the characters here will have ramifications for them for the rest of the series.

Futurama
The Honking (2000)

The Planet Express Crew attend the funeral of Bender’s uncle and the reading of his will. They are forced to spend a night in the family’s castle. This being Futurama there are robot ghosts that try to lure Bender to his death. They fail, but Bender is run over by a were-car and becomes a were-car when a virus was transferred through its “demonic headlights”. Bender is doomed to transform into a murderous automobile at midnight and will reportedly eventually kill his best friend. Fry is offended when Bender attempts to run Leela over instead and then flattered when he finds himself sat inside Bender being choked by the seatbelt.

The only way to free him is to kill the original were-car, which will “beam out the virus's uninstall program, thus ridding you of the curse.” The crew discover that the original were-car is an evil car named Project Satan, built from components of cars owned by Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Ed Begley Jr and Michael Knight. Project Satan is accidentally destroyed and so Bender returns to normal, whilst Fry was in the passenger seat. Somehow, he is unharmed.

As is becoming commonplace on this list, The Honking was produced for Futurama’s second season, but instead opened season three during Halloween week. The concept is obviously bonkers and each development in the plot sees it get stranger and stranger, but the oddest thing about it is that within the context of the episode and the world that Futurama presents us with, all of the events contained here seem fairly plausible.

Buffy, The Vampire Slayer
All The Way (2001)

This year the Scooby Gang takes Halloween far less seriously. This time only Xander, Giles and Anya dress up (as a pirate, a wizard and one of Charlie’s Angels respectively). Willow goes on a big rant about wiccan stereotypes, until a tiny child dressed as a witch asks for something and she immediately about faces to “let's go fill your tummy up with sugary nibblets.” Halloween is really only presented as commercial opportunity and Giles’ Magic Shop is heaving with shoppers keen to prove it.

All The Way sets up an obvious candidate for a villain in Mr Kaltenrach, the weird toy designer with a fondness for big sharp knives, before wrongfooting us and making him the victim. This is a coming-of-age story for Buffy’s sister Dawn. She kisses her first boy and she slays her first vampire on the same night. Unluckily for her they are both one and the same person. Buffy can’t decide whether she’s more disappointed that Dawn was kissing a vampire or that was kissing someone she’s just met.

Look Around You
Ghosts (2002)

“Ghosts. You may know them as ghouls or demons or spirits or spirims or spictrims.”

So begins Look Around You’s module on Ghosts broadcast on October 31, 2002. It’s a relief to see the scientific establishment finally taking ghosts seriously. Where else would we see an experiment conducted under strict laboratory conditions that would conclusively prove that a summoned ghost could drink a glass of orange squash? Elsewhere in the module we learn that ghosts can’t whistle and that ectoplasm takes like pig’s milk. We also visit the Haunted Laboratory and learn that ghosts make terrible lab assistants. All in less than ten minutes.

And remember “in the end you too will die and become a ghost. It may be in 50 years, it may be tomorrow. It may even be today.” Write that down.

Angel
Life of the Party (2003)

The Buffyverse continues its biannual Halloween tradition. Angel Investigations has taken over the running of evil extra-dimensional law firm Wolfram & Hart. Morale among the evil employees is at a very low ebb. To combat this, Lorne throws a Halloween party.

In order to be more efficient at work Lorne has his sleep removed, without it his empathic powers start influencing the behaviour of others. He tells Angel and Eve to get a room and they have sex repeatedly. When Lorne tells Fred and Wesley they should be drunker, suddenly they are without having imbibed any more alcohol. After he tells Spike to be more upbeat, he is. He tells Gunn to stake out his territory and he finds himself peeing on everything in the office.

It also manifests itself as a massive lumbering monstrous parody of Lorne which kills a number of partygoers and goes after Angel. Fred returns Lorne’s sleep to him and the monster dissipates just as it is about to kill Angel.

This time the only costume is a demon called Devlin dressing as a “human bean” with an argyle sweater and a mask made of human skin stretched over his own face. Halloween is a different experience for adults.

Psychoville
Halloween Special (2010)

“The problem with Halloween these days is that people treat it like Christmas,” Nurse Kenchington complains as she pushes drawing pins into muffins ready for any unsuspecting trick or treaters that might visit. Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith constructed Psychoville’s ‘Halloween’ like a portmanteau film. It’s made up of several vignettes inked by a framing story concerning a TV researcher exploring Ravenhill Hospital as a possible location for Dale Winton's Overnight Ghost Hunt. His guide is a young man still traumatised by his own childhood memories of the institution.

The two swap scary tales featuring familiar characters from Psychoville’s first season: the haunting of Mr Jelly by a pair of trick or treaters, a practice which he does not condone: “all this trick or treat, penny for the guy, Cancer Research. I don’t do any of it. Go and beg somewhere else.” In another, Joy Aston struggles to clean up after her Halloween decoration and the cracks in her marriage are revealed by her inability to comprehend her husband’s elaborate recycling regime. The third sees the blind Mr Lomax get a new pair of eyes, but he sees their former owner’s murder and finds himself involved in a web of intrigue. In the final story, two people who know too much about serial killers than is probably healthy find themselves in a car with a monster who acts like one.

These sequences are told with a hefty dose of unreliable narration, this permits the stories to be turned up-to-eleven. They can flagrantly ignore established continuity and be equally disregarded by subsequent episodes. It also means they can prove fatal for the series’ protagonists. The core of Psychoville’s Halloween is that it is a night with no consequences.

Inside No 9
Dead Line (2018)

Sticking with Pemberton and Shearsmith, Inside No 9 gives us a live Halloween special, but “by the way, it can’t actually be on Halloween night!” It’s a tale of a found mobile phone and a mystery that begins to unfold, but before long ghosts play havoc with the filming and broadcast of the episode. Sound issues and transmission breakdown cause the intended story to be abandoned and the behind-the-scenes drama begins to unfold.

The ghosts take charge and fill the screen with CCTV, elements filmed by the cast and found footage apparently chosen by the ghosts themselves. They reveal that Granada studios is built on a mass grave and that they want to be left alone. To that end they torched the studio in 1984, attempted to kill Bobby Davro in 1992 and successfully murder the cast of Inside No 9, not even the continuity announcer escapes unscathed, with the assisted suicide of Stephanie Cole being particularly shocking.

“Let us be.”

- - -

A confession: when I first watched the Inside No 9 Halloween special, Dead Line, on its initial broadcast and the live episode reached the transmission breakdown I was completely fooled and changed channel. I realised my mistake later while the programme was still being broadcast, but having missed a huge chunk of it, I had to catch up later on the iPlayer, cursing my attention span and feeling as though I had missed out on a real televisual event.

Twentyleven

Twentyleven was a word I coined at the beginning of the year for use on the Carruthers blog and in the absence of a better title I've used it here as well at the end.

2011 was the year that Osama Bin Laden and Colonel Gaddafi were killed, there were riots across England, a devastating earthquake in Japan and the world's population is reported to have reached seven billion.

Personally, Sarah and I moved in together and I took part in Holly Lodge - A Celebration, Topsy And The Bard, Frankensteining, Lenin’s Lunch, Lenin In London and Monitor among others and FistKrammer finally saw the light of day.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2011:

Film
Attack The Block
Aliens invade a South London block of flats in Joe Cornish's directorial debut. The cast are great, the monsters are amazing and the slang in the dialogue gives a real sense of authenticity. The film is incredible. The trailer is here.

Paul
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s geeky science fiction comedy mix of buddy movie and road movie is a lot of fun. Pegg, Frost and Jason Bateman are great. The eponymous Paul is well animated and acted. The film expertly references several classic SF movies, its depiction of fans is well-considered and the running gag of Adam Shadowchild’s back catalogue is very funny. Here’s the trailer.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Drawing heavily on the story of the fourth Apes movie, the seventh is very enjoyable, but feels less like a reboot or a prequel and more like a set up for a sequel. John Lithgow, Freida Pinto and the motion-capture cast are all great. The CGI is excellent and the Ape characters are often more realistically drawn than the humans. Here's the trailer.

TV

Eric And Ernie
It's refreshing to see a biopic that isn't an exposé, but rather a celebration and this story of the formative years of Morecambe and Wise is exactly that. Jim Moir and Victoria Wood are great as Mr and Mrs Bartholomew and the various Erics and Ernies are all wonderful. Stepping into Eric Morcambe's shoes was a tall order, but Daniel Rigby's performance is spot on and he succeeds brilliantly.

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut & Day Of The Moon; The Doctor's Wife; The Almost People; A Good Man Goes To War; Night Terrors; The Girl Who Waited; The God Complex; Closing Time; The Wedding Of River Song; Death Is The Only Answer; The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe
Matt Smith's second season opens with the fantastic and intricate two-parter The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon which sets out the store for the year to come with the death of a central character, the Silence are a brilliant concept and Smith, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston and Mark Sheppard are great. Suranne Jones plays the TARDIS in human form brilliantly in the risky, but as it turns out absolutely perfect episode The Doctor's Wife, and Adrian Schiller and Elizabeth Berrington are wonderful. The Almost People is another approach to a multi-Doctor story, Rachel Cassidy is great and the cliffhanger is phenomenal. The season's first half ends as A Good Man Goes To War with a cast of thousands, an epic feel, revelations about River Song and the hilarious reveal of the title of the next episode. Smith and Darvill go from strength to strength as the season's second half rallies with the very creepy Night Terrors and the thought-provoking The Girl Who Waited which gets a great performance out of Karen Gillan. The TARDIS finds itself in The God Complex and fear itself is put under the microscope and Anara Karan is fantastic as Rita. Smith, James Corden and Stormageddon make for a great comedy trio in Closing Time. The season concludes and time stops and unravels as all of history happens simultaneously until The Wedding Of River Song in another epic tale that revisits the death that has haunted the Doctor all season, the Silence are terrifying and Frances Barber is great as Madame Kovarian (particularly in her last scene) and as the universe's oldest question threatens to be asked it spurs the show ever on. Death Is The Only Answer is a nice little runaround featuring Einstein and the Ood. The connotations of a title like The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe are obvious and this Christmas special definitely lived up to them, Claire Skinner, Maurice Cole and Holly Earl are fantastic and brought out the best in Smith.

United
David Tennant, Dougray Scott, Kate Ashfield, Ben Peel and Brogan West are fantastic in this dramatisation of the events of the plane crash that nearly spelled the end of Manchester United, but was arguably the making of it. This film succeeded where so many others have failed because it concentrated on characters and their passion for football rather than relying on a presumed passion in the audience. For ninety minutes United made me care about football in a way that nothing else ever has.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
Adam Curtis charts the causes of the credit crunch and subsequent financial meltdown from Ayn Rand's philosophy to Alan Greenspan's overconfidence in market forces and the revelation that people believed that a model based on the balance of nature would create self-regulating systems that could prevent boom and bust economies is a hugely flawed principle. I don't know if Curtis is right about any of it, but he makes it all sound so plausible and his choices of stock footage are inspired.

Psychoville
The second series of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith's mystery sitcom picks up where the first series cliffhanger left off and takes no prisoners. Ruthlessly bumping off established characters, introducing new ones and twisting and turning to keep you in suspense. The cast of thousands: Pemberton, Shearsmith, Dawn French, Daniel Kaluuya, David Cann, Mark Bonnar, John Landis, Daisy Haggard, Christopher Biggins, Jason Tompkins, Sheila Reid, Vilma Hollingbery and Jason Watkins are all fantastic, but invariably Imelda Staunton gets all the funniest lines. I really hope we will see more from Psychoville...

Torchwood: Miracle Day
Torchwood goes stateside and yet loses none of its Welshness. Miracle Day arrives and people stop dying. Job done? Well, no because the planet's resources are being used all the quicker and healthcare provision is becoming more and more stretched by the day. The problem increases in scale episode by episode. This is topical SF at its best, asking tough questions of healthcare just as the USA is talking of reform and Cameron is threatening to sell the NHS down the river. Eve Myles and Kai Owen are as great as ever, Bill Pullman, Lauren Ambrose and John de Lancie make fascinating character studies in the face of such overwhelming odds. The ten part story ends on a great cliffhanger that is hopefully not the end for Torchwood…

QI
The H and I series saw the panel show look at subjects as varied as Hypnosis, History and Hallucinations & Hysteria and Imbroglio, Inland Revenue and Inequality. There is at least one question each week to which the answer is unknown (by humanity at large not just by the panel) and the Nobody Knows card is a new recurring element that allows panelists to score points anyway when played correctly. It rewards humility.

Alan Davies' Teenage Revolution
Alan Davies looks into the events of his youth that made him politically aware and reveals a fascinating journey through the protest movements of the eighties.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sky; The Curse Of Clyde Lander; The Man Who Never Was
The fifth season was sadly curtailed by the death of the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen, but the three serials that were filmed are fantastic. The first story riffs on the series pilot as Sky arrives as a baby left on Sarah's doorstep and Sinead Michael is great as the grown up new arrival in a story that is all the more bittersweet because it was clearly meant to set a new format for future years. Daniel Anthony and Lily Loveless are fantastic in The Curse Of Clyde Langer which deals with homelessness incredibly well for the target audience. The return of Tommy Knight in the final story, The Man Who Never Was reunites the family and somehow provides a grace note to end on, everyone is given a decent slice of the action, features some very funny (and very risqué) dialogue, Luke and Sky's scenes are very touching, the Mr Serf puppetry scenes are a lot of fun, Peter Bowles and James Dreyfus are great, Anthony and Anjli Mohindra are wonderful together in all their scenes and the "Clani" storyline feels as if it is left moving in the right direction and the series ends with a beautiful montage, the wonder of Sarah's monologue and a caption that just hits the right note: "And the story goes on...forever."

Holy Flying Circus
An incredibly absurd, inventive and varied TV film about the furore surrounding the release of Monty Python’s Life Of Brian culminating in the famous interview with Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark. Darren Boyd, Charles Edwards, Rufus Jones and Steve Punt are all fantastic as their respective Pythons (and often their wives and mothers), while Mark Heap, Simon Greenall, Michael Cochrane, Roy Marsden, Tom Price and Stephen Fry are all wonderful.

Hattie
Ruth Jones is fantastic as national treasure Hattie Jacques in a biopic that concentrates on her home life as she moves her lover in under the same roof as her husband, John Le Mesurier. The sequences of filming for Carry On Cabby and Hattie's episode of This Is Your Life are beautifully realised. Marcia Warren is wonderful as Esma Cannon and her swearing is particularly impressive. Graham Fellows, Jeany Spark and Lewis Macleod are great.

Black Mirror: The National Anthem; 15 Million Merits; The Entire History Of You
Charlie Brooker's trilogy of terror is very dark, very stark and very funny. The National Anthem sees a Royal Princess kidnapped and a Prime Minister held to ransom by her abductor, not for terrorism or money, but for a very different cause. The demands for her release are simple, he must commit 'a sex act', on a pig, live on television. Rory Kinear and Lindsay Duncan are fantastic as a put upon PM and spinning home secretary in a witty script which cuts through the tension with phrases like "trending on Twitter" that would have meant nothing just five years ago. The episode wraps up with a neat ending that is also a very rewarding one. 15 Million Merits is a cross between Facebook, The X Factor and THX-1138 and sets its sights on the crass commodification of reality TV and opinions for sale with a great central performance from Daniel Kaluuya. The final episode The Entire History Of You is a cautionary tale in which implanted "grains" which record memories for review are as commonplace as iPods and Toby Kebbell and Jodie Whitaker are phenomenal as a couple driven apart by the instant access to the digitised truth the grains afford.

Radio

Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service
Eclectic musical choices, well chosen readings and interesting guest interviews, Jarvis Cocker has successfully made a very niche radio show into a very inclusive one. Endearingly assembled and often shambolic, but exactly the sort of show the BBC should be making.

The Bob Servant Emails
Brian Cox is wonderfully deadpan in these epistolary conversations with spam scam artists from across the globe.

Adam and Joe
The duo return for a criminally brief run of shows with all the usual features, plus a new Taffin obsession.

Doctor Who: Cradle Of The Snake; Hornet's Nest: The Stuff Of Nightmares; The Dead Shoes; The Circus Of Doom; A Sting In The Tale; Hive Of Horror
Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson and Sarah Sutton are reunited as the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa come to radio. Cradle Of The Snake pits the TARDIS crew against the snake-like Mara once more with great success and with each of them getting a decent slice of the action. Tom Baker reprises his role as the Fourth Doctor now paired with Richard Franklin's Mike Yates for Hornet's Nest, a season of five linked two-parters. Halfway between a full cast drama and a talking book, they are filled with Paul Magrs' florid prose and it is clear that the leading man is having a ball. The first story, The Stuff Of Nightmares, is aptly named, sets the scene for the rest and draws Yates into the action with an interesting device, albeit more as the Doctor's audience than as his companion. Despite the horrific imagery of The Dead Shoes is a romp that makes great use of the Doctor's housekeeper Mrs Wibbsey. Stephen Thorne is great as embittered dwarf Antonio in The Circus Of Doom which sees the Doctor stick his head into a lion's mouth and complicates the Hornet's story. A Sting In The Tale plays with cause and effect in a timey-wimey fashion in an adventure largely set with the TARDIS. The Doctor and Yates finally share an adventure as they enter the Hive Of Horror in a season finale that utilises the former Captain far better than any of his television appearances.

Torchwood: House Of The Dead
Set before the events of Miracle Day, seemingly an investigation of "the most haunted pub in Wales" this story cleverly plays with the audience expectation created by the previous two episodes and deepens into something very special indeed. John Barrowman, Gareth David Lloyd and Rosalind Ayres give lovely performances in a beautiful, macabre and bittersweet tale by James Goss.

Books
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
The first book in The Expanse series has a wonderful solidity to it. Political machinations, crew arguments and action sequences are described with equal realism and importance. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of the two main characters, which gives the different strands of the story a greater impetus and it is thrilling when they finally crossover.

The Martian by Andy Weir
This Robinson Crusoe on Mars story is elevated by its first person narrative delivered by a compelling character in an impossible situation. It's funny, it's geeky and I just couldn't put it down.

Mother, Brother, Lover by Jarvis Cocker
A book of selected lyrics from the man who has always included the "n.b. Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings" on the sleeve notes to his every album. Cocker is quick to point out that lyrics are not poetry. He asserts that they are merely one part of a song and not necessarily a particularly important part at that. His introduction is practically begging you not to buy the book. Ignore him. The lyrics are, of course, fantastic featuring not just Pulp songs but also those written with Barry Adamson, Relaxed Muscle, The All-Seeing I, Marianne Faithfull and Charlotte Gainsbourg/Air. The notes at the end provide a great insight into their writing, performance and context. This book is beautiful. (n.b. Please do not read the lyrics while listening to the recordings.)

Music

Cornershop, featuring Bubbley Kaur: And The Double-O Groove Of
The band's seventh album features a new vocalist and lyricist in Kaur and with her they achieve a very different sound and an inspirational quality. The lyrics are largely in Punjabi and I haven't got a clue what she's singing about and it clearly doesn't matter because it sounds great. The musical accompaniment of Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres still blends from many and eclectic styles often drawing even more attention to the vocal.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Topknot', 'The 911 Curry', 'Natch', 'Double Decker Eyelashes', 'The Biro Pen', 'Supercomputed', 'Don't Shake It'

The Hoosiers: Bumpy Ride
Essentially a re-release of The Illusion Of Safety and a fine album it was, but now with the excellent 'Squeeze' on board as well.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Choices', 'Bumpy Ride', 'Who Said Anything (About Falling In Love)?', 'Unlikely Hero', 'Made To Measure', 'Squeeze'

Comics

Doctor Who: Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; Apotheosis; The Child Of Time; The Chains Of Olympus 1
Jonathan Morris' storyline for the Eleventh Doctor and Amy continues with Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, a one shot with a lovely story and beautiful artwork from David A Roach. Apotheosis has a fantastic first cliffhanger, nuns with guns are inherently funny and the strip sets up the 'season finale' very well. The Doctor and Amy tangle with Chiyoko, The Child Of Time, various threads from earlier strips are tied together in a very timey wimey fashion, a version Alan Turing that is the embodiment of the Turing Test itself is a great concept and Morris clearly had a lot of fun with the gun-toting Brontë sisters and Martin Geraghty‘s art is wonderful. Scott Gray’s script for the first part of The Chains Of Olympus finally introduces Rory to the strip proper and the Doctor's underwhelming meeting of the minds with Socrates is very funny.

Star Tigers: The World Of The War-King
Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer and his motley crew return with a Dalekless one-shot story written by Steve Moore thirty years ago and finally brought to life by Martin Geraghty, Adrian Salmon and Roger Langridge in fanzine par excellence Vworp Vworp!. The artwork and colours are fantastic, the violence well choreographed and the last page has not one, but two great shocks for the reader.

Games

Back To The Future: Get Tannen!; Citizen Brown; Double Visions; Outatime
I haven't completed this game, but what I have played so far has been great. The story gets more intriguing as the timeline gets more intricate and I look forward to seeing how it ends.

Online

Mid-Morning Matters With Alan Partridge: Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9, Episode 10, Episode 11, Episode 12
The cracks in Alan Partridge's regional radio career become all the more apparent as his relationship with Sidekick Simon deteriorates and then he becomes embarrassingly enamoured with Simon's replacement, Zoe. Alan's ideas for phone ins get worse every episode and his guests are brilliant as he interviews himself, a survival expert turned hypothetical RSPB anti-insurgency assassin and a fantastic section with an agony aunt.

Carpool
Robert Llewellyn's taxi chat show made its transition to TV, but I didn't really manage to catch it on the box, so I've remained a viewer online. Highlights include interviews with: Ross Noble, Stephen K. Amos, Jason Manford, Rufus Hound, Chris Addison, Arthur Smith, Rob Brydon, Tim Minchin, Craig Charles, Phill Jupitus, Doon Mackichan, Dr Sue Black, Jim Jeffries, Jason Byrne, Toby Williams, Richard Herring and Cory Doctorow.

This Guy Has My Macbook
A MacBook was stolen from an apartment in California and using an app called Hidden the owner could capture photos of the thief that lead to its subsequent recovery. Surely this is the best possible advert Hidden could have hope for.

Art
The Time Machine by George Shaw
I first became aware of George Shaw when he was nominated for this year's Turner Prize and I was immediately taken with his style and later I found his medium to be fascinating and very endearing. I don't know whether the painting below, The Time Machine, is from 2011 or not, but it's one that really appeals to me for obvious reasons. Shaw uses Humbrol modelling paint to create beautiful romanticised views of unlikely and often ignored subjects, which makes him feel like the Jarvis Cocker or David Hockney of painting. He was robbed.

Recommendations Welcome.

Next month: 1998

"Isn’t That When All The Banks Went Belly Up...?"

"...and money became useless?" So asks Lister of 2009 in Part Two of Red Dwarf's Back To Earth. As 2009 is the year I started this blog it was also the first year that I began thinking about a review-of-the-year style post and so belatedly (and more completely) here it is just thirteen months later.

I was quite busy in 2009, I was on stage with In The Frame and Hearts In The Gutter, understudied on Deceptions, found my way onto Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, filmed Slash and a Center Parcs training film (which I still haven't seen) and proofread Afterbirth.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2009:

Film
Moon
Sam Rockwell is fantastic as lunar loner Sam Bell. I don't want to say anymore in case I spoil the twists and turns of the story. If you haven't seen it, do. Here's the trailer.





In The Loop
Peter Capaldi stars as The Thick Of It's Malcolm Tucker as he wrangles a possibly "not unforeseeable" war and risks being outspun by the apparently murkier world of US politics. Worth the price of entry for the scene between James Gandolfini and Mimi Kennedy in the child's bedroom alone. Here's the trailer.


Star Trek
A Star Trek film with the structure of a Star Wars film. Leonard Nimoy's swansong manages to be the best of both worlds as a continuation and also a reboot that gives the audience two Spocks to grok. Here's the trailer.




Fantastic Mr Fox
Wes Anderson's stock motion take on Roald Dahl's book is cussing brilliant. Where else can you hear Michael Gambon belittling Jarvis Cocker? Here's the trailer.






The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Obviously the circumstances surrounding the making of this film and Heath Ledger's death will always colour anything written about it. People seem to overlook Andrew Garfield's fantastic performance and that Johnny Depp's turn as Ledger's character is so good that those of Jude Law and Colin Farrell simply leave you wanting more Depp. Here's the trailer.

Whatever Works
Larry David is great as Woody Allen's misanthropic genius, who never played for the Yankees, whose heart is softened by a chance encounter with a simpleton. Melodie's stupidity is wondrous and Evan Rachel Wood's delivery is beautiful. Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley Jr are both wonderful as Melodie's parents. Here's the trailer.

Up
The first twenty minutes or so are beautiful. Here's the trailer.








The Men Who Stare At Goats
This adaptation of Jon Ronson's book squeezes several disparate concepts into a narrative structure with great success. It begins with the caption: "More of this is true than you would believe" and mines its comedy comes from the lunacy within. George Clooney and Jeff Bridges are very funny indeed. Here's the trailer.


TV
Framed
Eve Myles is wonderful in this one-off drama set in a small Welsh community with a spectacular art collection, great painters are mistaken for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and vice versa) and a couple of eccentric elderly sisters who go driving, one behind the wheel without a license and her fully qualified, but blind, passenger to make it legal.

Dollhouse: Man On The Street; Echoes; Needs; A Spy In The House Of Love; Briar Rose; Omega; Epitaph One; Belle Chose; Belonging; The Public Eye; The Left Hand; Meet Jane Doe; A Love Supreme; Stop-Loss; The Attic
Joss Whedon's series about body-swapping programmable people initially falters but the run beginning with Man On The Street through to the end of Season One is fantastic and really pushes the boundaries of the format. Eliza Dushku, Fran Kranz, Enver Gjokaj, Olivia Williams, Miracle Laurie, Amy Acker & Alan Tudyk are all fantastic. Epitaph One shows us a future of Dollhouses unchecked, it's a tantalising glimpse at where the programme's 'present' could have headed and if it were a backdoor pilot for a spinoff, definitely a show I would have wanted to see. The second season didn't quite hit the ground running but from Belle Chose onwards it is compelling viewing again.

ER
The US Medical drama that makes Casualty seem as hard hitting as Postman Pat broadcast its last episodes, many featuring familiar faces from the show's past.

Red Dwarf: Back To Earth
The long-awaited return of Red Dwarf was initially bittersweet as aside from a couple of good gags, Part One didn't quite live up to the memory. Parts Two and Three however are as good as Red Dwarf at its best.

Torchwood: Children Of Earth
It took a five day Doctorless apocalypse to force Torchwood to really grow up. Great performances from Eve Myles, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, Peter Capaldi, Susan Brown, Cush Jumbo, Paul Copley, Katie Wix, Tom Price and Lucy Cohu.

Psychoville
This dark comedy suspense thriller unravels slowly and its disparate strands re-entwine over seven episodes. Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Dawn French are all wonderful, and it was an absolute joy to see the former two reunited with Mark Gatiss.

Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder
Tin foil hats to the rescue as the Planet Express crew take a journey from Mars Vegas to Man's near extinction via Mind-reading and Malevolent slugs in what was potentially the last ever episode of Futurama, until it wasn't.

The Thick Of It
The return of master manipulator Malcolm Tucker (see above) as he oversees a cabinet reshuffle that casts the magnificent Rebecca Front as the minister in charge of DoSAC, and sees her ruffle the feathers of Hugh's team. Meanwhile the opposition begins to prepare for preparing for government. I look forward seeing how Armando Iannucci will adapt to the ConDem coalition situation.

Time Team
Digs this year included Scargill's Castle, an insight into the seat of Arthur's ancestors; a Norman keep at Radcot that no one knew existed and a chapel claiming to be the site of Jesus Christ's childhood playground on Looe Island off the coast of Cornwall.

Ashes To Ashes
The second season twists and turns and wrongfoots the audience expertly as Gene Hunt and Alex Drake take on corruption within the police force, another time travelling coma victim and it ends with a brilliant cliffhanger.

QI
QI's dedication to the letters F and G leads them to being quite interesting about France, Fingers & Fumbs, The Future, Ganimals, Geography and Groovy.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Prisoner Of The Judooon; The Mad Old Woman In The Attic; The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith; Mona Lisa's Revenge; The Gift
Sarah Jane Smith's Doctor Who spinoff returns for a third series and Prisoner Of The Judooon is a very enjoyable romp as Elisabeth Sladen takes on the chance to play a possessed Sarah with aplomb, the Judoon are well used, Androvax's make up is stunning, the Nanoforms are very impressive, Ace Bhatti and Mina Anwar are very funny in the Chandra's comedy subplot. Anjli Mohindra is wonderful in The Mad Old Woman In The Attic, a deceptively simple story which makes a virtue of a deus ex machina ending with K-9 by immediately replacing it with another slice of jeopardy. You are cordially invited to attend The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith and Nigel Havers is great as her intended, in another brilliant Trickster story with a fantastic appearance by David Tennant as the Doctor. Mona Lisa's Revenge is a raucous runaround and a lot of fun. The Slitheen have become the show's monsters of choice and they make an interesting return in The Gift which plays with audience expectation of the Raxacoricofallapatorians before revealing that the Blathereen-Slitheen are not so different to their skin-suited cousins and once foiled they suffer a particularly horrific death.

Doctor Who: The Waters Of Mars, Dreamland; The End Of Time 1
David Tennant's time as the Doctor nears its conclusion with these episodes. The Waters Of Mars sees human colonists on the red planet struggling against an insidious alien force in their water. The consequences of what happens when the Doctor can't change history, but does anyway. Steffi's death is the most horrific in 46 years of Doctor Who and yet also the least graphic or violent. Dreamland is a nice little story hampered by the computer game style-animation. Featuring some wonderful scenes between Tennant and Bernard Cribbins, the first part of The End Of Time builds beautifully to what is perhaps the show's best ever cliffhanger.

A Child's Christmases In Wales
How a family celebrates three Christmases. Ruth Jones and Mark Lewis Jones star in a great one-off comedy drama, that'll probably be buried somewhere in the schedule every Christmas.

Radio
Adam & Joe
I only got into the routine of listening to this show regularly as it was about to take an extended break. Featuring Test The Nation (the nation's favourite feature), the kill/save Boggins debate and so many in-jokes that they might actually qualify as a new dialect of the English language. Loyal listening is definitely rewarded.

Torchwood: Asylum, The Golden Age, The Dead Line
Bridging the gap between seasons are these three episodes are Season Two style 'procedurals' featuring the team about to undergo the tumultuous events of Children Of Earth (see above). Cardiff's finest take on: a girl out of her own time, a timeless Torchwood India and a coma inducing cold caller.

Doctor Who: Sisters Of The Flame & Vengeance Of Morbius
Splitting up the TARDIS crew is a staple of Doctor Who, but this story really tests the mettle of Sheridan Smith's Lucie Miller, separated from the Doctor in an unfriendly future during the return of an ancient evil. Featuring great performances from Alexander Siddig and Sam West.

Music
Jarvis Cocker: Further Complications
Rockier than its predecessor. The lyrics are sparser than usual but they are as fantastic as ever. 'Pilchard' was a surprise, but a surprisingly rewarding one.
Stand out tracks: 'Further Complications', 'Angela', 'Homewrecker', 'I Never Said I Was Deep', 'You're In My Eyes (Discosong)'

Cornershop: Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast
Another great dose of Indian-influenced funk with long song titles from Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres.
Stand out tracks: 'Who Fingered Rock 'N' Roll', 'Judy Sucks A Lemon For Breakfast', 'The Roll Off Characteristics (Of History In The Making)'

Books
Where's Wally? The Incredible Paper Chase by Martin Handford
This collection of Wally watching scenes are largely drawn from the out of print The Ultimate Fun Book and features a game with press out cards and counters, and in an impressive intuitive leap an envelope to keep them all in.


Comics
Doctor Who: The Age Of Ice; The Deep Hereafter; Onomatopoeia; Ghosts Of the Northern Line
Try as they might the Tenth Doctor and Majenta just can't get to Panacea. In what feels like the middle of a Russell T. Davies-style season, The Age Of Ice is an action-packed big bombastic UNIT story of an alien invasion of Sydney. A visit to New Old Detroit sees them attempt to crack the case of a dead noirish private detective (and fish) complete with voiceover in The Deep Hereafter. At first glance Onomatopoeia is as silent as the grave, but without dialogue the sound effects come to the fore and this strip is a chorus of zzzks, shreeeeeeeeeeeeks and a thokk. After this pair of one-shot stories, Ghosts Of The Northern Line is a sinister tale which leads into the 'season finale' and adds pathos to Madge's eventual fate.

Jump Leads: Who Wants To Rule The World?; The Travellers; Rogues And Scallywags
Llew and Meaney's journey through parallel universes takes them to many different worlds: one conquered by a man who doesn't know what to do with it, one empty except for another pair of travellers and a world stuck in the middle ages. Jjar's art is flawless throughout.

Games
Tales Of Monkey Island; The Secret Of Monkey Island - Special Edition
You wait nine years for a Monkey Island game and then two turn up at once. Tales Of Monkey Island is a wonderful continuation of the antics of Guybrush Threepwood and as funny as ever as he attempts to find La Esponja Grande to cure the Pox of LeChuck in his hand (and coincidently the entire pirate population of the Gulf of Melange).
As with its sequel, I haven't played the Special Edition of The Secret Of Monkey Island, but once again the original is included here and therefore I can confidently recommend it. I'm looking forward to playing the remastered version with its new fangled recorded dialogue and flashy graphics.

Canabalt
Run. Run as far as you can in this brilliantly simple game.


Online
Carpool
Robert Llewellyn's in-transit talk show saw him interviewing the likes of: Ed Bye, Jonathan Ross, Danny John-Jules, Arthur Smith, Ruby Wax, Craig Charles, Chris Barrie, David Mitchell, Lisa Rogers, Stephen Fry, Tony Hawks, Dave Gorman, Cathy Rogers, Brian Cox, Paul Jackson, Duncan Jones, Graham Linehan and Richard Herring.

Out Of The Thick Of It: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4
The first four episodes expand on the story of the corresponding televised episodes (see above), favouring Terri and Robyn, played by Joanna Scanlan and Polly Kemp respectively.

Gypsy Creams
Tanya Jones scans her way through the pages of the woman's magazines of yesteryear. She has a knack for choosing ads that highlight changing times and more often than not, modern paranoia.






Psychoville websites
A series of websites designed to accompany the broadcast of Psychoville (above): Biggins Panto At The Gold King Theatre, Robert Greenspan, Lomax Commodities, Jelly Parties, Jolly Parties, Murder And Chips, Best Murders, Joy's Advice To Young Mums Website and Inside Ravenhill. All are really well put together with great references and mistakes in all the right places.

Recommendations welcome.