“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 cliché 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.

"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.