Sir Terry Wogan 1938-2016

The renowned broadcaster has died from cancer aged 77.

Sir Terry was a highly genial and entertaining presenter, loved by millions and for many years the host of Children in Need, something he would do (like nearly everyone else involved) without taking any money for it; helping that worthwhile cause to raise many, many millions.

He will be deeply missed. Rest in Peace.

Things What I Have Watched - January 2015

In this first of a new series, I do a brief look (a paragraph each tops) on some of the things I watched in the previous month.

Sherlock - The Abominable Bride

I have on more than one occasion wondered what Steven Moffat takes to come up with his strange ideas. This was a pretty weird instalment of the show that is the televisual equivalent of a bus (you wait ages and then three come along at once, although not in this case). Lot of humour and knowing references to the Holmesian canon, with one of the better twists I've seen, but flagged badly in the middle.

Tyrant - Season 2

While perhaps not the greatest series about, it does have a superb performance from Ashraf Barhom as Jamal al-Fayeed, the paranoid leader of Abuddin who is conflicted and yet pretty terrifying, notably killing a general with a model oil rig. This has got a Season 3.

Castle - Episodes 8.1 - 8.3

I was in fact spoiled for this by a website I won't name that slated the entire opening story. Well, the first two-parter was... not that good. Castle has never done international conspiracy well. That said, it was a strong Alexis episode. Fillion and Katic did the best they could with some pretty bad material - the ending of that story was drama for drama's sake. Episode 3 was a good deal better, but still, this will probably be axed come May and it's probably had its time now.

War and Peace

A sumptuous adaptation of Tolstoy's novel (which I reviewed here) that is pretty easy to follow once you've learned everyone's names, has a great cast and also has a truly superb display of hats. Seriously great hats of the sort you just don't get today.

Stan Lee's Lucky Man

Not too bad from the first episode, but does James Nesbitt do anything apart from snark in a Northern Irish accent?

Fringe 1.10: Safe

This episode features Amir Amirson, later to appear in The Blacklist and the plot here is actually more crazy than an episode of that show, which starts with a man getting literally stuck in a wall and ends with someone being teleported.

Speaking of crazy, Walter Bishop is definitely very funny in this one - his mind works in his own distinct way and no-one else can quite grasp how. However, Olivia and John are both very good in this - the scene in the bar with the card tricks in particular.

Jared Harris appears in this again and it's clear that he's doing what British actors do best - play bad guys. This also has an appearance by James Frain, a British-born actor who has turned up in quite a few American works, as a lawyer who has to get some unusual things for his client... and won't sadly appear again.

There's even a good cliffhanger as Abrams can now have his cake and eat it by putting the female lead in peril... which she will course get out of by herself in style.

Conclusion

A very good episode indeed - the show appears to have finally got fully going.

9/10

Alan Rickman 1946-2016

For the second time this week, the entertainment world has lost a legend, the British actor Alan Rickman.

While I've never seen Die Hard, I have watched all the Harry Potter films and can imagine no-one else as Severus Snape. In addition, he was great in Galaxy Quest. His death of cancer - a horrible condition - at only 69 leaves another void that can never be filled.

Rest in Peace.

The Moderate Irritation of Khan (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.22, "Space Seed")

Yes, we're reached one of the most famous episodes of the entire show - the one that got a sequel in one of the best movies of the franchise (let's not mention the other one, shall we?) and inspired William Shatner's hammiest line ever.

****
The Enterprise locates a derelict vessel floating in space broadcasting Morse code... a spaceship launched in the 1990s. One with life on board...

****
I'm going to start by saying that I wouldn't be seen dead, let along spend over two centuries asleep, wearing that net thing that we discover the crew of SS Botany Bay wearing. William Theiss was definitely a man who liked his bare flesh, that was for sure.

The triumvirate (now there's a word that I don't get to us every day) are very firmly established at by what today would be near the end of the first season instead of three-quarters of the way through; 29 episodes in the first run would be unthinkable today. Kirk's emotion versus Spock's logic makes a good mix, with both him and Bones having fun bantering with a guy who doesn't do 'banter'. Or irritation for that matter.

 It's interesting to note that this year, 2016, is the 20th 'anniversary' of Khan's departure in the first major bit of back story added to the Trek universe; another 'World War' would later get added to the continuity by the time Star Trek: First Contact was made. With not that many lines of dialogue, the rich seeds (no pun intended) were laid for many licensed works covering the 'Eugenics Wars', the first point where the prime universe diverges from our own in a big way. Of course, the creators of the show at the time did not think there would still be Star Trek being produced in 1996... let alone 2016.

Khan Noonien Singh, escaped former tyrant is deeply compelling and played superbly by the late Ricardo Montalbán who in his long career was also a strong advocate for improved representation of Latino actors in television and actually spent much of his life working with a severe back injury that would eventually put him in a wheelchair - including this role. His chest is definitely very impressive (and the director insists that was his real one in the The Wrath of Khan) and he comes across as very manly despite long hair... not to mention eyeshadow! It's also clear that Khan is a ruthless ruler; he's perfectly willing to suffocate Kirk et al to get what he wants.

Also, I'm going to have to add my annoyance at the depiction of near-suffocation in any fiction; you don't just end up walking off after losing consciousness from lack of oxygen (notable recent exception - The Librarians, in an episode that starred John de Lancie aka Q and was directed by Jonathan Frakes aka Riker).
 
Then we get McGivers... who doesn't really do much for feminism at all. Uhura does more in one glance after being slapped than McGivers, who falls head over heels in love with Khan. Her scenes with him are reminiscent (at least to someone who has never read them) of a Mills & Boon novel. Sigh...

Since Khan hasn't actually killed anyone, Kirk decides to put him and his crew on a barely hospitable planet where they can survive with their ingenuity. He's going to come to regret that later.

****
Conclusion

While Khan is a highly memorable villain, there is a fair bit wrong with this episode, namely the entire McGivers plot for one thing. Perhaps I would have ranked this higher on a first watch, but I can only give it...

7/10

David Bowie 1947-2016

The death of this musical legend came as a surprise to most of us considering his comeback in recent years - he'd only just released another album. It seems that he chose not to let his cancer stop him from producing and to go out still swinging as it were.

And he was definitely swinging. Going through multiple musical personas and genres over the years, he produced a big number of classics over 51 years in the business; "Life on Mars?", "Major Tom", "Ashes to Ashes" and "Let's Dance" for one thing. He even did acting.

He will be considered one of the all-time greats and will be deeply missed.

Rest in Peace.

All Together Now, In Their Hoods (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.21, "The Return of the Archons")

I've been getting into Star Trek Online recently and have bought myself a Tier 1 Constitution class vessel i.e. the same type as the Enterprise. It's a lot cooler to fight Klingon Birds of Prey in than the standard light cruiser you start with in the Federation faction.

Anyway, there's none of that in this episode, which starts strange and gets stranger...

****
While on another planet in search of a long lost spaceship, while dressed in rather old-fashioned clothing, Sulu and another crew member encounter some dudes in brown robes with big sticks. Only Sulu manages to beam back up and he ends up being very strange indeed...

Kirk and his team go down to discover a society with all the locals behaving very strangely indeed, including having an exactly 12 hour riot.

This review contains spoilers.

****
This episode contains a lot of 'possessed acting', as the locals are under the control of a mysterious computer called Landru that has decided to eliminate society's disorders but at the cost of free will. In short, this is a classic Star Trek story and was frankly pretty predictable.

We get McCoy possessed, while Kirk and Spock end up pretending to be possessed as they attempt to destroy the computer, freeing society from its control. All the regulars get good material and do a decent job of being 'possessed', something that sci-fi actors need to learn to be able to it seems. The late Lis Sladen from Doctor Who was a master of this in fact. We also get the amusing sight of Spock (whose big ears are pretty conspicuous) dressing like a monk.

Speaking of intervening in a society, this is the first mention of the Prime Directive in the show's history - and it immediately gets a loophole, in which getting involved to restore a society to its natural development is permissible.

The plot is a deeply philosophical one about the flaws of trying to create a perfect society, especially when machines are involved. The climax involves Kirk talking a computer to death through logic, something that reminds me of Zoe doing something similar in Doctor Who. We also get one of those 'humorous' endings in which Kirk says Spock would make a great computer.

None of the locals (who are all dressed in Western garb in an episode shot on a backlot used in Westerns) are particularly memorable in this; most of them do end up doing 'possessed acting' for most of the episode and I'm really not sure what the 'Festival'/Riot was all about.

The henchmen of the main villain dress in brown cloaks with hoods, reminding me after the episode of outfits worn in the Red Dwarf episode "Angels and Demons", which Kirk and Spock later take to infiltrate the main base. Difficult to take them entirely seriously nearly 50 years on considering how much this has been parodied since.

Conclusion

An interesting episode with a lot of philosophical concepts but not a classic.

7/10

****
Next up one of the most famous episodes of the entire run... "Space Seed".

2016 plans

Things are going to be somewhat less active in 2016, as I will be working on getting my novel finished and published, as well as other RL things. I will finish the current major history post on neutral nations of the Second World War, but I do not plan for any other of these on the blogs.

There will be fewer individual reviews; while I hope to do all the Doctor Who episodes, another Castle and another The Librarians among others, as well as some films, I will instead be doing a monthly feature called 'Telly I Watched', where I will be provide a brief opinion of the key series that I watched that month, say a paragraph each.

The US Presidential Election will get some coverage, as will elections in the UK, including the EU referendum if that happens this year.

Star Citizen will get a number of articles as will some other games.

As usual, all plans are subject to change without notice.

I wish you all a prosperous and healthy 2016.

Ich bin eine blonder Spionin (Grand Review: 'Homeland' Season 5)

So, Homeland came back for a fifth season after a mostly high-quality fourth run that moved away from the original plot, sending its leads to a new location... from which not all of them came out alive.

This review contains spoilers from the get-go.

So, Carrie Mathison is back, defending the US from terr...

Record needle scratch

No, she isn't. She's left the CIA after the events of the fourth season (so she didn't crash her car then) and is now in Berlin, working as the head of security for a German billionaire, where she can look after her toddler daughter, who really has inherited her late father's hair colour. In addition, she's acquired a new boyfriend... and a new religion. Carrie Mathison is now a paid-up member of the Roman Catholic Church.

While she's doing this, a pair of hackers working out of a sex club (OK, was it really necessary for the plot for that to be their location?)  decide to muck around with a jihadi recruitment time at the same time as the CIA are taking a look... and somehow manage to accidentally access the CIA servers, downloading thousands of documents relating to a rather dodgy activity.

Namely the fact that in order to conduct domestic surveillance on dodgy people in the Federal Republic of Germany while dealing with restrictive privacy laws as a result of what previous governments did on non-dodgy people... by getting the US to do their electronic eavesdropping for them.

This naturally leads to quite a few problems...

****
I won't be doing a full plot breakdown this time due to a lot happening and sheer lack of time to write this, so here are some of the salient points.

• Carrie in a balloon hat at a children's party? Both hilarious and adorable. Seriously, every scene in this could be improved by the balloon hat. The 1970s-style black wig is also welcome to return.
• Ms. Mathison is useless at her Listen checks; she gets ambushed from behind twice in this show. Also, bright blonde hair isn't very good in a game of hide and seek. Also, it's not a great idea to offer your gun to a terrorist.
• To try and figure out who is trying to kill her, Carrie decides to go off her meds to improve her thinking... which merely results in her going a bit crazy. Seriously, you don't do that sort of thing without professional medical personnel to hand. Also, I call scenes like that 'I want another Emmy scenes' as Claire Danes is clearly trying to get another one in them. 
• Howard Gordon, the show runner here, worked on 24 and it really shows; there are multiple episode endings that just needed a "beep beep beep".
• Also, Sean Callery's music remains superb; I'm looking to watch Jessica Jones at some point if I can find another legal avenue outside of Netflix and the fact that he's done the music for that is another reason to watch it.
• Speaking of Jack Bauer, Carrie gets a distinct lot of Bauer action; notably running into a train tunnel to stop a terrorist... but jumping out of the way of an oncoming train. That's a James Bond move (Skyfall in fact). I did consider retitling this 'Blonde, Jane Blonde'. Mind you, she's not totally 'half-nun, half-hitwoman' (she's definitely no nun) - getting distinctly upset after killing the terrorist. I'm not sure she's actually killed anyone face to face before, but I may be wrong here.
• Also, there's another distinctive mole in the form of Alison, who turns out to be working for the Russians. In one moment that would make Jack himself wince, she gets information from someone by shooting her bodyguard in the head, then kills him and then shoots herself in the shoulder to make it look like she didn't do it. As the seven F-bombs (I counted) she drops  immediately after makes clear, it would probably really hurt.
• Peter "The Mighty" Quinn really goes through the wringer here; being shot, then nearly killed by sarin gas and almost killed when Saul tries to wake him up to get key info from him. At the end, he's in a coma and Carrie is about to seemingly smother him with a pillow when the sun lights up the room - a rather odd cliffhanger. I really doubt he'll be coming back for Season 6.
• Saul Berenson is not a guy you want to mess with, especially in the bedroom. Alison ends up with the car she's in being shot up by four or five people with assault rifles, killing her and her Russian minders. That's definite overkill.
• Dar Adal is a really dislikeable fellow. Far too much of a 'smooth operator' for my tastes.
• The 'dissident journalist' Laura Sutton is very annoying, which may have been intentional on the part of the writers. She really isn't a sympathetic character, although recklessly releasing secret info onto the internet isn't a good idea. Exposing illegal practices needs to be done, but there are better ways to do it.
• Re Sutton, the secret world's perception means that any real mess-up tends to be put down as conspiracy i.e. an actual suicide of a suspect here.
• The shoot saw graffiti artists hired to write Arabic graffiti put 'Homeland is racist' instead of what they were meant to do. That said, few people really come out of this looking good. The Americans don't look great, the Germans are definitely dodgy... but the Russians come out worst of all, willing to let a major terrorist attack go down for their own ends.
• Berlin Hauptbahnhof features extensively here (and very nice looking it is) as a potential terrorist target - although I would note a geographical error; the Berlin U-Bahn doesn't go to Potsdam; the S-Bahn does and there's only one U-Bahn line that serves that station, U55, which only goes as far as the Brandenburg Gate - an extension to link it to U5 has been delayed until 2020. Indeed, Berlin looks very good throughout.
• The last episode does really peter out somewhat. 24 was able to keep the action going a lot better and not run out of steam 30 minutes before the end. The German billionaire's proposal (which sounded like he wanted to marry her!) was a bit out of left-field.

Conclusion

While not perfect and with some notable flaws, this is a strong season for Homeland and it will be interesting to see where our blonde spy goes next.

I don't want this killed with fire. I want Carrie to kill things with fire.

8/10

Where's Your Head At (Review: 'Doctor Who' 2015 Christmas Special, "The Husbands of River Song")

Yes, I did get the TARDIS LEGO set for Christmas. It took me nearly 5 hours to assemble it and bar some minor niggles, looks very nice. I built my own TARDIS console room out of LEGO as a kid, so it's nice to have the real thing.

****

While having a sulk on a human colony in the far future, the Doctor is unintentionally roped into a caper with his missus, River Song. Unfortunately, she doesn't recognise him due to the fact that they meet out of order (and she's not met this version), with hilarious consequences.

This review contains spoilers.

The Doctor quotes Hamlet, or something close to it and does end up getting very hammy at points in this episode. All the Doctors have eaten scenery at one point or another, including Capaldi, who is a good enough actor that he can overact effectively - most notably the scene where he does the whole "bigger on the inside" speech. He does a good job here, having gotten the 'old grump act' down to a fine art, but he really needs a proper companion to fully ground him. He makes a rather Bond-esque quip at the demise of one character, which is definitely off and his comment at a crash site that there's no-one worth saving also seems very cold.

Alex Kingston's River Song, like Flynn Carsen from The Librarians (of course played by Kingston's ER co-star Noah Wyle), is best in small doses. While her flirty, lightning quick personality is enjoyable in this episode, once she gets all slushy towards the end, I was rapidly getting bored. Unlike Root from Person of Interest or for that matter the Doctor himself, she lacks the level of development and overall charisma to sustain a regular role. (Goes to check if there is Doctor Who/Person of Interest fan fic with Root in it)

River isn't alone in her operation, in which she is attempting to retrieve a very valuable gem from inside the head of a genocidal dictator, being joined by Nardole (Matt Lucas) and Ramone (Phillip Rhys, who is best known to me for being a terrorist suspect in Season 2 of 24), the latter who is married to River. These are two reasonably well done male companions, although I must admit I've never really watched Little Britain. Both of them end up losing their heads - literally.

They lose their heads (which remain alive, something of a Moffat trademark over the years) at the hands of King Hydroflax, a dying tyrant who likes to eat his enemies after battle, whether they are alive or dead, and is still worshipped by those on his planet. Doctor Who has done wonders over the years of conjuring up entire worlds and campaigns in dialogue, with images being created in the dialogue that the writers of The Blacklist or Game of Thrones wouldn't put onto screen. Hydroflax's head is played by Greg Davies, a stand-up comic who at 2.03m (6 foot 8) is the second tallest actor to appear in the show this year - being beaten by the tallest man in Europe, one Neil Fingleton, who played the body of the Fisher King- at 30 centimetres higher, he has also played a giant in Game of Thrones and did the motion capture for Ultron in the most recent The Avengers movie. He (Davies) does a very good job with only his head sticking out of a red metal suit, which is separately voiced by Nonso Anozie, who demonstrates a ruthless efficiency to the point where to survive he will happily disintegrate his own head.

(Answer re Root - one is here - S4 spoilers)

Effects Speaking of disintegrating heads, I'm not sure that reducing one to a pile of ash is entirely suitable for 6pm on a Christmas Day; we also get an alien opening up his own head to retrieve a metal ball from inside it. Anyway, the days of 'wobbly sets' are long gone (indeed, they were never as big a feature as popular myth has it - some of the set design was superb considering the budget and space available, most notably the TARDIS) and as a result, the CGI is looking very good, especially the stuff nearer the end on Darillium.

As mention earlier, this is a very zany plot; something that wouldn't be out of place in an episode of The Blacklist (no crossovers there sadly). This said, once we're done with the caper, the romantic scenes at the end, which are setting up the 'end' for River in her timeline (i.e. "Silence in the Library/The Forest of the Dead" from Season 30) weren't holding my interest and I really didn't like the "happily ever after" caption at the end.

Conclusion

While there is a brilliant madcap energy in the first half of so this episode, it starts to lose the pace badly and by the end, I'd kind of had enough. Sixty minutes is too long a time for a Doctor Who episode in general unless it's really good and this isn't.

6/10

Jesus was a refugee and other thoughts - Christmas 2015

As a Christian, you end up hearing the story of Christmas so many times that you end up not always appreciating it. Recently, I attended an event with a series of monologues by various characters in the Christmas story that helped remind me of some of the practical matters relating to it.

Like the following:

• Mary was a teenage girl who get unexpectedly pregnant out of wedlock. That still carries considerable social stigma in many cultures, including my own (adults much less so) and Joseph must have had one eye on his own reputation.
• Nazareth to Bethlehem, as the crow flies, is about 111km or 70 miles. Today, it's a 3 3/4 hour journey by public transport that involves multiple changes and a detour around most of the West Bank; Bethlehem itself is in Palestinian territory. The direct route would have involved travelling on unpaved roads and that's a multi-day journey by foot or donkey; especially with a heavily pregnant woman, not to mention other attendant dangers, that's not an easy trek.
• Giving birth at this time would have been hard and attendant with risks; giving birth is generally hard, even if the result is worth it.
• Then, after Herod decides to kill a large number of babies, the family had to flee to relatives in Egypt until the puppet ruler had died. This basically makes the holy family refugees - and sadly, there have been far, far too many refugees being 'created' this year.

That said, Jesus came to bring hope for a better world. He has enriched my lives and many others. While a lot of bad has been done in his name, so has a great deal of good - such as the food banks in my own borough, helping needy people at this time.

Things will get better, God has promised that!

With that, I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas.

Club Magicana, drinks aren't free (Review: 'The Librarians' 2.7, "And the Image of Image")

Since I reviewed the first episodes of this TNT series last year, The Librarians, the follow-up to the TV movie trilogy starring Noah Wyle (ER, Falling Skies) has become one of my favourite shows. It's very fun to watch, doesn't take itself too seriously and has great stories, with well thought out updates on ancient stories.

The second season has if anything improved further; everyone knows what they're doing and there's something enjoyable every week.

This review contains spoilers.

****

The overall plot of the second season deals with the Librarians (plural - Flynn Carsen is now joined by the three others from the first episode, promoted to junior Librarians in their own right) having to face the threat of Prospero, the magician from The Tempest made real by the sheer number of tellings of said play and out to take over the world, with the aid of Moriarty, who seems to have a thing for Colonel Baird. You really don't need to be aware of this to enjoy this episode at all, which finds Cassandra and Jacob in London (more on that later) after a day of research heading for a drink... when a woman is hit by an 'invisible car' just outside a trendy nightclub. They soon discover that other accidents have occurred connected with it; people with no history of drug use having overdoses for example... and their magical 'clippings books' that alert them to stuff like this haven't logged it.

Thus Colonel Baird and her team of geniuses must enter a new and deadly arena of battle... they're going clubbing. At a club it turns out is owned by one Dorian Gray...

****

Flynn isn't in this episode at all, which is no loss - he's best in small doses, I've found.

Eve Baird, the Guardian (who it has been established is more there to prevent the Librarian from going power-mad than to protect his/her life; Flynn Carsen's 11 years so far in post is very long by the Library's standards, with it being mentioned here that they once went through three in eight months) continues to combine tactical skills with earthly grounding and an intense degree of snark. As well as, in this episode, a low cut corset and tight leather trousers. Rebecca Romijn was a former Victoria's Secret model (a reflection - this Victoria woman is useless at keeping secrets) but is far more than that. She's genuinely very funny in this episode, as the out of her comfort zone Eve and makes some good comments on how she's been perceived as just a sex object in the past. Also, "Worst. Plan. Ever!"

If Cassandra Cillian was in Doctor Who, the Daily Mail would be running (heavily illustrated) articles about her outfits - she wears shorter skirts than Amy Pond. Anyway... Lindy Booth is a lot more than a woman with a high Charisma stat (seriously, someone needs to make a RPG book of this), she's a superb actor and hilarious in this episode, in which Cassandra, through no fault of her own I should add, ends up very drunk, then very hungover - including some corkers when she does her hand-wavy math thing, akin to those bits in the Minority Report movie only in the air and a purple rhino turns up. Seriously, I don't know which of those Cassandra bits was funnier, drunk or hungover - an honourable mention goes to the slo-mo power walk in which Cassie ends up stacking it in heels.

Jacob Stone also has some great scenes, including an argument with a bouncer over the comparative literary talent of the US and UK, as well as having to make an ad hoc defibrillator to use on an unconscious woman. He also makes a brilliant point about selfies and historical portraits.

Eziekel Jones, resident thief and hacker (his clipping book is electronic) also gets some superb material. We learn that his way of dealing with retina scanners - hack the company that makes them so his own eyes are already logged (Hardison from Leverage is kicking himself for not thinking of that one) and that he continues to be a vain narcissist, but still on the side of the goodies.

Jenkins, the immortal caretaker of the Library, who is in fact Galahad, one of the Knights of the Round Table, whose job is to provide the team with information and guidance, as well as slightly disturbing stories about his routines and chorus scenes... Right, that's my Python reference done. He too is excellent here, played superbly by the multi-Emmy winner John Larroquette.

Humour is something that runs deep through this series; with many a comic line or moment. Things I've not mentioned are "Ezekiel. Be a comb", Cassandra's fascination with Eve's face (the show is dropping major hints that she is bisexual) and a line about Jenkins having gotten grey.

The villain is Dorian Gray, who is not in fact fictional here, but an immortal whose power is now based on selfies and the power of the Cloud to divert his sins onto others - this show is a genius at updating these stories to the present day. The way he is defeated is also clever.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner... but I do tend to pay special attention to works set there made by foreign networks. There are some howlers here - the use of some American English terms not used in British English ("blocks", "cellphones") and some of the accents are more than a bit off - the only real Brit was the bouncer.

Conclusion

Minor niggles aside, this is a superb bit of television and it's a shame we only got 10 episodes a year... but we will be getting a third season of this, something confirmed on Tuesday. This makes me very happy.

9/10

Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 released

The latest alpha version of Star Citizen has been released to all backers - I'm downloading it at the moment.

I played a batch of the test versions before the 'live' release and compiled my first YouTube gaming video as a result for Phoenix Roleplaying's account - you can watch it here.

57 fanfic writers just punched the air (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.12, "Hell Bent")

This contains major spoilers.

The third and final part of this season finale sees the Doctor back on his home planet of Gallifrey, where he is very, very cross at what has happened to Clara. So he intends to do something about this. Unfortunately, this is going to cause problems for the universe, because he her death is a fixed point in time.

This is very much an episode where we see the Doctor really lose it. He basically 'kills' someone without provocation (OK, he's a Time Lord and he's going to regenerate, but still), banishes Rassilon despite the fact there's not really anywhere in the universe for him to go and is fully prepared to destroy the web of time to save Clara. This is all superbly played by Capaldi, who convincingly portrays someone who really doesn't like having you interrupting his tomato soup, especially after you've trapped him in a castle for 4.5 billion years. It's also a nice change to have the Time Lord lose his memories of travelling with someone.

Clara appears in this more than I'd expected - in fact, she's very much the focal point of this, plucked out of a time a moment before she gets a raven in her chest. She demonstrates why the 'Impossible Girl' is one of my favourite companions; she's witty, intelligent and willing to sacrifice herself, knowing when the Doctor has gone too far, as he most certainly has here. She realises that she needs to go back at some point to Trap Street and 'face the raven', but there's not exactly a rush. The next companion will have a lot to live up... I'd say big shoes to fill, but Jenna Coleman is only 5'2; at any rate, I look forward to seeing her play Queen Victoria.

Me/Ashildr return in this episode and she has become a lot calmer after living for several billion years. Her scenes with Capaldi are great and while this is effectively the end of her time on the show, it's made me look forward to the next season of Game of Thrones more.

Each season of Doctor Who has a central mystery, and in this one it revolved around the identity of 'The Hybrid', a creature that is supposedly the combination of two warrior races. Moffat has some excellent fun teasing the reveal and stringing the fans along over the whole 'half-human Doctor' thing (cf the 1996 TV movie). His actual reveal is quite genius, drawing up a nice link between Clara's first episode and her last. The showrunner has a knack for setting things in motion that take years to play out; we also get a return of his own contribution to the Monster A-List, the Weeping Angels, which remain very frightening creatures. Seriously, the only people I know with more warped minds than this on television are in the writers' room of The Blacklist.

As mentioned this occurs mostly on Gallifrey, being rather heavy on the Time Lord lore - indeed, the Sisterhood of Karn turn up again. Rassilon (Donald Sumpter in his fourth appearance in the franchise) is a bit of a busted flush who seems to have lost most of his power - it would have nicer to have Timothy Dalton back, but the other Time Lords are very good, most notably the General that the Doctor shoots - leading to our first on-screen sex change regeneration. I've become a lot more accepting recently of the idea of a female Doctor in fact, with the great job done with the Master/Missy. The planet is back, but out of the way enough that it won't impact things too much.

The ending is a triumph. Clara and Me get to go off and have their own adventures in a TARDIS stuck as an American diner (the same one from "The Impossible Astronaut" in fact, with the console room a replica of the original, complete with some features that were only in the first episode in 1963 then dropped for budget reasons) - there will be fanfic. Meanwhile, the Doctor returns to his own TARDIS, where to the triumphant strains of "A Good Man", Twelve's own leitmotif, he gets a new sonic screwdriver and heads for new adventures. The former is going to inspire a lot of fan fiction, while the latter allows the BBC to sell yet another toy - I've got two sonic screwdrivers myself; namely the RTD era version (which was a present from the Anglican Chaplaincy at my university when I turned 21) and the version now lying on Skaro.

I will say one further thing about the music here; we get a return for "The Doctor's Theme" (as known as the "Bad Wolf" theme) that dates back to the RTD era as well and it's very nice to hear it in some scenes.

Drawbacks? The episode does drag a bit and some aspects, namely Clara's actions, are a bit predictable; also, as mentioned, Rassilon isn't very good.

Conclusion

While a bit dragging at points, this is an episode that managed to have its cake and eat it. Clara both survives and dies; the Doctor goes off the rails and returns to them before totally destroying himself, while we also get the return of Gallifrey without it being a problem.

9/10

Lawyers... in space!!! (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.20, "Court Martial")

Now, I'm a fan of The Good Wife and Suits. I'm also a fan of Star Trek. However, I don't generally expect those two genres to mix.

****
After an ion storm that resulted in the death of a crewman, Captain Kirk reports to a Commodore at the nearby Starbase as how it became necessary to leave him behind... unfortunately, the computer says something different and Kirk ends up facing a court martial...

****
It's clear from the outset that this is an episode that's not had the largest budget spent on it. Most of it is done in only a few rooms and with some model shots (obviously improved for the DVD version), with no exciting trips to Kirk's Rock or places like that. Indeed, there is no Sulu or Scotty in this one.

The ion storm in question isn't even shown; just a scene on the bridge with people shaking about a bit (not even a proper flinging yourself across the room). It isn't fully explained why Kirk has to eject the pod containing the dead crewman, one Lieutenant Commander Finney (who it is soon established has had problems that Kirk has kind of contributed to), in the first place, just that it's necessary to avoid the destruction of the ship.

So we get a courtroom drama of the sort made most famous in A Few Good Men among other things. Kirk can handle the truth, but he has problems handling the prosecution lawyer, who, quelle surprise, is yet another former girlfriend of his. How many has that man had?

His defence lawyer is an eccentric 'dead tree publishing' fan played by Elisha Cook, Jr. (best known for his role in The Maltese Falcon, but also one of those actors in a lot of things with a distinctive look) who decides not to bother cross-examining the prosecution witnesses. We also get the rather irritating daughter of Finney, who seems to have come out of Central Casting's 'airy young woman department'.

The trial, in which we hear the words 'Starfleet' and 'Starfleet Command' for the first time, is a standard clichéd affair with dramatic interventions worthy of Perry Mason and Spock being his logical best. It's noteworthy that Commodore Stone (played by Percy Rodriguez, a man known for a very authoritative voice), who presides over the court martial as well, is the highest ranked African-American character in the original series.


The conclusion sees the discovery of what really happened, a piece of technological use that would make the team from the late CSI scratch their heads at its implausibility and a fight scene which not only involves yet another incident of Kirk's tunic getting ripped, but also some very, very obvious use of stunt doubles.

Conclusion

Definitely not your usual episode of Star Trek and it's clear this was done on the relative cheap. If I wanted to watch JAG in space, I'd watch something else.

5/10

Syria

MPs will vote tonight on whether the UK will conduct air strikes against Daesh (as I will now call them) in Syria as well as Iraq.

If I was an MP, I would have to reluctantly vote in favour. We are already attacking them in Iraq and they have already tried to attack us - indeed, they have killed British holidaymakers in Tunisia already. They will probably try to attack us in the UK and will probably succeed. What they choose (and they have free will) to do should not impact what we do.

There is a real need for a comprehensive peace strategy in Syria and I have not yet seen one. We do need to cut off their sources of money and arms. However, they already have weapons and money, which they are using to commit mass murder of anyone who will not accept their poisonous world view. Leaving it to the Russians, who are using unguided mass carpet bombing, will increase the risk of civilian casualties. We may well need ground troops and I'm not sure they are there in numbers at the moment - however, there is a real and active attack going by Daesh forces, which we need to impede. Every vehicle we destroy is one not being used by them to carry out their crimes.

We need to bring peace to Syria; but I sadly cannot think of a way in which the continued existence of Daesh helps that.

Doctor Who meets Groundhog Day (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.11, "Heaven Sent")

This review contains some spoilers.

And now we come to the most unusual episode in this show's history - 55 minutes with pretty much entirely Peter Capaldi and just Peter Capaldi. There are certain actors I could watch doing their thing all day, for example Amy Acker (and not for perverted reasons) or Liam Cunningham. Capaldi would join that list but only with decent material... unfortunately, some of this isn't that decent.

So, the Doctor ends up in a bizarre castle being stalked by one of those ever popular creatures that will kill you if they can catch you... but they move slower than I walk. Of course, the thing with these creatures is that they don't (or can't) get exhausted whereas humans or Time Lords can. Or they just run out of corridor.

One thing that actors playing the Time Lord have to become good at is talking to themselves - or rather to camera - in a fourth-wall bending manner. This is particularly required when doing Big Finish, but that's something rather different. Capaldi is excellent here; his Doctor is definitely in a dark place and not the one belonging to Garth Marenghi for that matter (oddly enough that's set in Romford). The Doctor has some mathematical calculations that would make Sherlock Holmes envious in this - this guy doesn't just jump out the window for the sake of it, he knows what he's doing. There's also a wonderful effects job with a skull that it would spoil to reveal.

The Maze, where nearly all of the rooms reset themselves when you leave them, is the stuff of nightmares. Seriously, you could make a good computer game with something like this. In fact, someone probably already has. One question that was raised on Gallifrey Base after this was about what would happen to all the excrement generated... something probably best not to think about it.

The Veil, with its attendant flies - and those don't tend to appear very often - is a chilling manifestation of death with some truly nasty hands; we don't tend to see the sort of injuries in Doctor Who (something that the Moff noted was an advantage of the 8pm timeslot - you can show blood) and when it's with one particular character, it's more distressing.

That said, this episode really, really drags. It raises some interesting philosophical questions... but could have done with being a good ten minutes shorter. That said, the ending, in which the Doctor reaches somewhere he's been trying to get to for ages (literally and metaphorically) is superb... with that final line even more so.

"Hell Bent" looks to be a very interesting episode indeed.

Conclusion

This was a very dragging episode. If it wasn't for that ending, I would be marking it a good deal lower. However, that's one very interesting ending, so:

6/10

Ashildr, no! We will not let you go (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.10, "Face The Raven")

This review contains major spoilers.

****

So, Clara is dead, in essence stabbed in the back by a Quantum Shade. I entered this episode pretty much knowing that she was going to die in this one; the Moff dropped a comment at the Doctor Who Festival saying that there would be a 'shocker' in this moment and then the BBC essentially revealed it on the morning that the episode was to air in the UK.

So, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about spoilers. It's a fact that the ratings for this season have been notably down - the average is a 1.2m viewers reduction an episode not counting iPlayer. So, the BBC would want to drum up media interest and therefore the ratings by dropping some big hints that 'Tonight Someone Dies'. This has been an ongoing practise for many years in many countries; the trick is to do it well. The good example I can think of is the Season 2 finale of NCIS, which put all the regulars in mortal peril, made you think that everyone was safe... then had one of them shot in the head. Of course, nearly all media productions leak and people do because there's little chance of them actually getting caught; I can't think of a recent example myself outside of putting entire episodes onto the Internet, but I'm going to ask at Gallifrey Base.

In any rate, we knew Jenna Coleman was leaving because it did leak and so the BBC had little benefit in trying to hide it... but the purist in me wishes we could have had another Adric-style sudden exit. One of the best moments of the last few years was John Hurt's reveal as The War Doctor; I knew he was in the 50th Anniversary Special, but not who he was playing.

****

The Twelfth Doctor's 'formal' costume hasn't been seen very much in this current run, by which I mean the white shirt version with the red-lined jacket. It's appropriate for this episode that he wears something more 'in fitting' with what is a death episode. There's definitely some strong humour here ("Did you make this human?") but we get to see a very angry Doctor in this... at one point threatening to unleash the Daleks and Cybermen on 'Trap Street', which of course would be abandoning his name even more than the War Doctor ever did. It puts his speech in "The Zygon Inversion" into context... it's easy to preach forgiveness and reconciliation in most cases, but a sight harder when you're the one that's been directly wronged.

Clara makes a very Doctor-y move... which ultimately doesn't work. She takes Ashildr at her word... and fails to realise that people can't always keep said word. Some stuff about why she can't pass the 'chronolock' onto anyone else appears to have been cut from the episode for pacing reasons... but she faces her death with dignity. Although I'm not the first to admit that tight sweater was pretty distracting.

Riggsy returns from last season's "Flatline" (My review of that is here) and does a decent job; I didn't remember the character that much from the original episode, but it's clear that he is somewhat of a reformed character... who really didn't deserve the stuff he's been put through in this episode.

Me or Ashildr... definitely a woman who has bitten off far more than she can chew. Her control of Trap Street is ruthless by modern standards, but you do have to remember that she was born in a time when executing thieves was commonplace - in a society where a bad harvest could endanger an entire community and a theft could lead to starvation. That said, she's definitely shed any claim to 'good' status with that... although arguably she'd lost it previously as she's murdered people in the past.

Trap Street is a very interesting idea with links back to the Zygon two-parter; the fact that aliens cannot live openly on Earth is a reflection of older struggles in the LGBT community. Also, it does look very atmospheric. We get to see some of the vast array of creatures that have appeared in the show's history - I noted a credit for RTD as he'd created the Ood.

The Raven... I believe they've got a link with death. Very well done in terms of effects and getting struck by one is definitely a horrible way to go.

Conclusion

For all the 'spoilering' done, this was still a superb episode and sets things up very nicely for the rest of the finale. It's frankly a better exit than any companion in the post-2005 era... and one of the best in the show's 52 year history.

9/10

The Purple Air Farce (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.19, "Tomorrow is Yesterday")

Well, it's been a good while since I've done one of these and since then we've got the announcement of a new TV series, which I am very much looking forward to. Meanwhile, let's go back to 1967... which is something the crew of the Enterprise kind of do in this episode...

****
After an encounter with a 'black star', NCC-1701 is warped back to Earth in the late 1960s. As they fly over Earth, a US Air Force plane intercepts them... and they end up destroying it with their tractor beam. Beaming the pilot on board, they now find themselves with a problem - getting back home and dealing with the pilot...

****
A couple of interesting spacey points that I want to begin with. I'd never heard of a 'black star' before with super gravitational effects - a black dwarf, yes and definitely a black hole - but not one of those before. My research suggests that the term 'black hole' wasn't in popular use at this time; John Wheeler is credited with popularising it (not creating it, which he always denied) after a 1967 meeting) although the concept most certainly existed back into the 19th century. Interesting how space science has developed even in the history of Star Trek.

Another one is actually more tragic. The story doesn't specify the precise year it takes place in (although the Star Trek Chronology would place it as 1969), but refers to being three days before the first manned 'moonshot', which was seen as likely in the next few years - although some at NASA thought it would be well. I wondered if this was made before the Apollo 1 disaster, the death of three astronauts in a fire during a launch rehearsal... and I was right. In fact it aired 26 January 1967, the day before that tragedy.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are all on fine form here; as well as dealing with the main plot, they also have to deal with a faulty computer programmed with a flirty personality, which adds some more humour in what is intended to be somewhat of a humorous episode - Kirk getting some great stuff with the Air Force. We also get Scotty at his engineering best, quickly fixing the problems that got them there.

The US Air Force, depicted in action via stock footage (the pilot, Captain John Christopher, flies a F-104 Starfighter) generally comes right out of Central Casting... we've got Ed Peck as a very stern Air Police officer and a Sergeant who spends his entire time on the ship gawping in amazement at the Transporter Room. Also, in an episode heavy with 'Starship Acting', we get to see both sides in a fight use 'Kirk Fu' in a scene that reminded me of 1960s Batman in its exaggerated action. Also, is it the colour wash or do those uniforms look purple to me?

Now I've seen a lot of 'timey-wimey' stuff in my time as a Doctor Who fan, especially where Steven Moffat is involved, but even I had to metaphorically scratch my head at how Spock resolves part of the problem re the crew.

****

Conclusion

A reasonable enough episode, but by no means brilliant and with some distinctly head-scratching moments at times. Also a bit too slow for my liking.

7/10

52 Years of Doctor Who

Today marks the 52nd anniversary of the broadcast of the first episode of Doctor Who. The current run has been very good, with the Twelfth Doctor well developed now... and Clara's departure will live long in the memory.

Although ratings have again fallen, the international performance is strong and the fact there are plans for five years in the future suggests the show still has a long time to run. I definitely hope it goes on - there's nothing else like it on TV.