Two is only better than one for so long (Grand Review: 'Ringer')

I’m a follower of a website called TV By The Numbers, which as the name suggests, analyses TV ratings and predicts which shows will get renewed. Throughout this season, it was predicting that Ringer, Sarah Michelle Gellar’s return to television after a fairly long while away, would not be renewed – and so it hasn’t been. Whether this affected by enjoyment of the show one way or another is a matter for the counter-factual history department.

 

Bridget Kelly (SMG) is a former prostitute and recovering drug addict, due to testify in the murder trial of Wyoming gangster Bodaway Macawi, when she is scared off by a corrupt cop and runs away to her twin sister, Siobhan Martin (also SMG). On a boat trip off the coast of the Hamptons, an upper-class area of New York State, Siobhan apparently kills herself and so Bridget decides to take her identity and her husband Andrew (British actor Ioan Gruffudd), along with step-daughter Juliet. In the process, she discovers that Siobhan has a lot of skeletons in her closest. Also, we learn that Siobhan isn’t actually dead... The door is opened to a tale of a Ponzi scheme, murder and one manipulative step-daughter.

 

The concept of Ringer is a very good one – in fact, Alfred Hitchcock would like the idea (he may have actually done something like this, I’d need to check). Ms Gellar does a very good job handling the two different roles she is required to play (playing two parts being a tough job for any actor), allowing us to, most of the time, tell who is who solely from her acting. Siobhan’s step-daughter Juliet is a remarkably manipulative character – I’m sure there are real rich girls like that, particularly ones who are only children. Jaime Murray, also British, provides a good supporting role as a dodgy financier.

 

This plot twists and turns like a bowl of spaghetti; there was clearly considerable planning to get all the balls lined up and most of them do. Some of the revelations are pretty mind-blowing and there is a particularly nice cliff-hanger to one episode that is alas resolved all too quickly.

 

Unfortunately, the concept isn’t one that can sustain a multi-season series. This would have worked better as a mini-series; the finale wraps up most of the story, but not all of it, as the writers were clearly not sure they would get renewed (good call that), but is arguably a bit rushed. The story was definitely running out of steam, with one lesbian affair and an increasingly genre-blind Bridget (Buffy would never been this stupid). In fact, I found myself getting increasingly impatient with this show.

 

All in all, a nice idea, but it couldn’t last.

 

7/10

F-35B for British carriers

While I understand the reasoning for the U-turn on this issue, it's a pity we won't be getting a proper CATOBAR carrier any time soon.

As for the MoD's whole handling of this - I didn't vote for these people and won't next time...

Doctor Who Season 7 (1970): Life on Earth

Oh, great, I’m going to get killed by hideously dressed Autons!

 

Season 7 of Doctor Who saw a batch of changes to the show.

 

Firstly, it was in colour. Secondly, it had a new Doctor. Thirdly, it took place entirely on present-day-ish Earth, bar one bit. Fourth, it started in winter rather than the traditional autumn.

 

Before that, though, the inevitable change of production team. Bryant and Sherwin had planned to produce the entire 25-episode seventh season (the shortest one to that point), but after the first two stories, they were reassigned to work on the BBC-ZDF Paul Temple TV series[1]. Barry Letts, who had previously directed “The Enemy of the World”, became the new producer, while Terrance Dicks remained as script editor.

 

Barry Letts (1925-2009) would become another legend of the show – spending the entire five season tenure of the Third Doctor as producer, working with Terrance Dicks. Together, they would create some of the show’s best moments and introduce some of its finest characters. When Letts died, after a long career that involved producing many classic serials for the BBC, he had “The Waters of Mars” dedicated to him.

 

Before these two took over though, Bryant and Sherwin would create the Third Doctor, along with a new assistant. The latter was Dr. Elizabeth “Liz” Shaw, a UNIT scientist played by Caroline John, who looked up a load of technical terms and then found herself with a script full of technobabble. The only companion never to travel in the TARDIS, Liz was probably too clever to work as a companion (defeating a key component of the role, namely someone to ask the questions the audience are asking) – she only appears in this season, with Letts and Dicks deciding against renewing her contract.

 

Inspired by the Quatermass serials, they created a scenario where the Doctor would be on Earth and the aliens were coming to them. These four stories were also more adult-orientated (more like Torchwood but without the swearing, nudity or Captain Jack). While they’re all good, they’re not really Doctor Who… our Time Lord is not someone who should be confined to one place and time.

 

A note on the archival situation – the BBC were at this point continuing to junk the masters, so a lot of the Third Doctor stuff is basically reconversions to PAL from NTSC copies of the PAL originals for the American market, often off-air recordings. The quality is therefore a bit varied, as NTSC uses a lower number of lines than PAL. Some bits are only in black-and-white; various re-colourisation efforts have gone on over the years, with mixed success.

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The Third Doctor – Jon Pertwee

 

Jon Pertwee (1919-1996) was a Royal Navy intelligence officer in the Second World War, who got transferred off HMS Hood three days before it was lost with all bar three of its crew in the Battle of the Denmark Strait in 1941[2]. After the war, he returned to the acting career that he had begun before it.

 

Pertwee had been best known previously for his role as Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in the BBC radio sitcom The Navy Lark (1959 to 1977), with Bryant and Sherwin expecting him to play the role in a comic manner.

 

He didn’t. The Third Doctor is a serious, technology loving man with action, who dressed as an Edwardian ‘dandy’, wearing smoking jackets and frilled shirts, quaffing wine with diplomats and generally billing a “citizen of the Universe and a gentleman to boot”[3], a markedly different style to the current incarnation. The straight approach paid dividends – Pertwee’s Doctor is one much loved by fans.

 

After Who, Pertwee’s next famous role was as scarecrow Worzel Gummidge in the ITV show of the same name that ran from 1979 to 1981, with two more New Zealand produced seasons from 1987 to 1989.

 

When he died in 1996, the British broadcast of the TV movie was dedicated to his memory.

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So, here’s the set-up for Season 7. The Doctor is exiled to Earth in the late 20^th century by the Time Lords, who take away his ability to travel in time. He gets a job as scientific advisor to UNIT, who are having to deal with a variety of alien menaces.

 

Spearhead from Space (4 episodes)

 

The newly regenerated Doctor arrives on a Earth during a mysterious meteorite shower. As he tries to convince the authorities he is not some crazy guy with two hearts[4], the meteorites go missing – and so do people… For strange things are going on at a plastics factory. Strange and alien things…

 

The first appearance of the Autons, this Robert Holmes-penned story is an enjoyable opener for the Third Doctor, creating a classic alien species that has popped up a number of times since.

 

Film vs. Videotape

 

“Spearhead” has the unique status of being the only serial of the classic run filmed entirely on location using 16mm film, due to a scene-shifters’ strike at the BBC that precluded any studio use. It therefore gives me an opportunity to discuss the unusual way that Doctor Who was filmed from the beginning until the end of Season 22 – along with a lot of BBC drama of all sorts.

 

Basically, the BBC filmed all their studio scenes with 2-inch quadraplex videotape. The cameras used were large and bulky, suitable for wheeling around a studio floor, but not for lumbering around a quarry (you’ve probably seen pictures of old TV cameras). For location filming, they used more portable, but lower quality, 16mm film cameras (there were some 35mm sequences though).

 

This therefore results in the interior scenes looking different to the exterior scenes – cleaner and higher quality. It’s something that you get used to after a while – in fact Who fans become very astute at spotting the difference and when a director is playing with the conventions.

 

You don’t really notice this with the black-and-white stories, by the way – many of the archived copies are “tele-recorded” (i.e. recorded from a projection) 16mm film copies, intended for foreign sale as film is a more universal medium than videotape[5].

 

The show went entirely to videotape from Season 23 and is now done with hi-def videotape that’s been made to look like film in post-production.

 

Doctor Who and the Silurians (7 episodes – yes, that is the actual title)

 

An experimental nuclear research facility is experiencing strange power losses, while its employees are having mental breakdowns. They’ve inadvertently awoken an ancient species, who aren’t entirely happy…

 

The first story written entirely by ardent left-winger Malcolm Hulke (a man never afraid to put political overtones in his work), the first appearance of Homo reptilia is a classic well-written and highly moral tale about mistrust that features some iconic scenes, particularly one at Marylebone Station in London. The Doctor’s classic

 

The story also marks the first use in the show of “Colour Separation Overlay” (CSO, known as chroma key outside the BBC), an early form of the vital for sci-fi technology known as ‘green screen’ where both elements, foreground and background, are ‘live’. The CSO in 1970s Doctor Who can be a bit clunky; they were getting to grips with the new technology.

 

The Ambassadors of Death (7 episodes. This is currently only available in black and white in VHS form, but a re-colourised version is due to be released on DVD, although no date has yet been announced)

 

Two manned missions to Mars go missing. When the second capsule gets back, its occupants disappear and UNIT discover the capsule is full of radiation…

 

Probably the least remembered story of Season 7, “Ambassadors” is unfairly ignored – it’s a very good story where things are not what they seem.

 

Inferno (7 episodes)

 

UNIT are providing security for a drilling project with the aim of going all way through the Earth’s crust with the aim of getting cheap energy, when a green liquid leaks from the project and turns those who touch it into vicious primeval creatures. That’s the least of the Doctor’s problems, though…

 

A story where Barry Letts had to step in at short notice to direct after Douglas Camfield (one of the show’s best ever directors) had a heart attack, “Inferno” is a true classic of Doctor Who primarily for the bit of “padding” added to get it to seven episodes - Episodes 3 to 6 primarily involve the Doctor ending up on an alternative Earth where Britain is a fascist dictatorship, featuring all the UNIT regulars in evil versions (the ‘Brigade Leader’ has an eye patch, but no moustache, for example).

 

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During this run, the BBC seriously considered cancelling the show (the ratings were not all that good for “Inferno”, especially at a time when there were only three TV channels[6]) – Letts and Dicks actually started work on a possible replacement before getting the confirmation DW was coming back. Not happy with the current setting, they prepared to give the Doctor a little bit more freedom…

 

[1]Paul Temple was an amateur private created by the late Francis Durbridge, who worked with his journalist missus to solve fiendish crimes. There have been a number of TV and radio adaptations – this one was apparently the first international TV co-production, with assistance from German broadcaster ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen – Second German Television) allowing for extensive location filming in West Germany.

[2] The ship’s magazines went up from a lucky hit from the German battleship Bismarck, prompting a massive naval chase that led to the German’s sinking. The whole engagement is one of the most famous in the history of the war.

[3]To quote the First Doctor in “The Feast of Steven”, episode 7 of “The Daleks’ Master Plan”.

[4]First time this is mentioned.

[5]Doctor Who Magazine recently did a great two-part series on the foreign sales of early Who.

[6]BBC1, BBC2 and the group of regional broadcasters collectively known as ITV. ITV will be discussed in more depth later on.

Counter-terrorism is back (Grand Review: 'Homeland' Season 1)

Now that Jack Bauer is emoting with ten year old kids, it’s time to call Carrie Mathison!

 

Based on an Israeli show whose English title is Prisoners of War (alas, I don’t have the time to watch this one), Homeland’s premise revolves around the aftermath of the rescue of US Marine Marcus Brody, played by British actor Damian Lewis, after 8 years in captivity. As Brody struggles to readjust to life with his family, including wife Jess (played by Morena Baccarin from Firefly, who has some pretty fruity scenes in the early episodes), CIA intelligence analyst Carrie Mathison, who is secretly bi-polar, acting on a tip-off from a man about to be executed in Iraq, seeks to find out whether Brody has been in fact turned by terrorist Abu Nazir…

 

The stage is set for a twisty tale of terrorism, counter-terrorism, betrayal, deceit and general manipulation.

 

One might, in fact, argue that Homeland is the spiritual successor to 24. It certainly shares an executive producer (Howard Gordon). However, there are a number of differences with the show:

·         The characters here are painted in pastel shades rather than the poster paint of 24.

·         More swearing and nudity. Jack Bauer never used the f-word.

o   US cable operates on less restrictive content rules than network shows. In fact, I’ve started to call HBO “Here’s Breasts Often” and Cinemax “Skinny-max”. This is a Showtime drama and isn’t as bad.

·         There is less magical technology and no appearances of spy satellites whatsoever.

·         The US government is depicted in a lot darker and earthier tones than 24. They’re definitely a fair bit slimier.

·         Characters do not bounce back from near-fatal injuries in twenty minutes flat.

o   This isn’t a real time show, of course.

 

The good elements of this – an intriguing plot, wonderful performances from Damian Lewis and Claire Danes (Carrie), plus a general sense of realism that 24 at times [At times? – Ed.] lacked. The overall 12-episode run handles the story nicely without overdoing it in terms of length, while elements of the finale reach true greatness.

 

The bad? Episode lengths are a bit long for my liking, the early nudity is probably overdoing it (I know I’m sounding a bit of a stuck record in this department…) and I find a couple of the key backstory elements a little unconvincing for my liking. Finally, the conclusion left a lot to be desired, even if it worked dramatically. Call it sympathy for a lead character.

 

Overall – an enjoyable, but over-hyped show, saved from mediocrity by some excellent performances. I’ll be back for Season 2, but they’re going to have to find a very good way to get a certain character back into the action.

 

7/10

France and Greece

The election results in France, where Socialist François Hollande won on an anti-austerity platform against unpopular incumbent Nicholas Sarkozy and in Greece, where a radical left coalition came second and the current grand coalition can't form a majority, potentially leading to further elections.

Some on the right are saying that the citizenry in Europe are deluded as to the extent of the debt situation. I personally think they just see that all this austerity is doing is giving tax cuts to the rich to create growth (which it isn't doing as most consumers are ordinary people) while the poor are thrown out of work and left to fend for themselves.

TacOps PBEM - Final Results and lessons learned

Lessons learned:

1.       Helicopter rocket pods and air strikes may make infantry hit the deck, but they’re not very good at actually killing them.

2.       Machine guns lose accuracy over distance.

3.       Retreat can be too early.

4.       HE artillery is useless against armoured vehicles.

5.       MANPADs can be very deadly, especially when used in numbers.

6.       Smoke can be very useful and needs to be used.

7.       Information is a weapon of mass destruction – you need to have eyes on as much of the battlefield as possible.

8.       Don’t waste transport choppers.

9.       Check the terrain beforehand.

10.   Pre-set TRPs are essential.

The final results:

Time Left: 27 minutes

Mission results:

    Blue - Mission failure

    Red - Mission accomplished

    Red exit % - 43

Point results:

    Blue Attrition Points - 13814

    Red Attrition Points - 28875

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Blue Status:

UNIT	START	NOW	ELIM	EXITED
Helo AH1 Cobra	12	0	12	0
Helo CH46	40	0	30	10
Inf Squad	108	15	93	0
Inf SMAW Team	72	9	63	0
Inf MG 7.62mm Team	72	9	63	0
ATGM Javelin Team	118	4	114	0
LUV HMMWV + HMG	14	0	14	0
SAM Stinger Team	12	2	10	0
LUV HMMWV + LMG	16	0	16	0
Mortar 60mm	36	1	35	0
LUV HMMWV + AGL MK19	6	0	6	0
ATGMV HMMWV AT TOW	32	0	32	0
Helo CH53	16	0	6	10
Mortar 81mm M252 Team	16	0	16	0
Inf Team	8	4	0	4
Tank M1A1D	44	0	44	0
APC AAVP7	60	0	60	0
Mortar Carrier 81mm HMMWV	16	0	16	0

Force Lethality Value, Start: 32048

Force Lethality Value, Now: 1369

Casualty percentage: 90

Force Lethality Ratio, Start: 1:1.5

Force Lethality Ratio, Now: 1:10.3

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Red Status:

UNIT	START	NOW	ELIM	EXITED
Inf Squad	233	66	53	114
APC BTR80	203	26	90	87
Inf Team	41	7	8	26
Inf MG 7.62mm PKM Team	93	9	29	55
ATGM AT7 Saxhorn Team	39	12	12	15
Inf AGL AGS17 Team	42	8	12	22
ATGM AT4 Spigot Team	16	3	0	13
SAM SA16 Gimlet (Igla)	66	8	22	36
Inf SPG9 Team	8	0	2	6
Mortar SP 120mm 2S23	24	13	11	0
APC BRDM2	16	0	9	7
APC BMP2 IFV	137	20	35	82
Tank T80U	62	27	14	21
ATGMV BRDM2 Spandrel	18	3	0	15
AAA SP 23mm ZSU-23-4	8	8	0	0
Howitzer SP 122mm 2S1	36	22	8	6
Mortar SP 120mm 2S31	18	9	3	6

Force Lethality Value, Start: 49220

Force Lethality Value, Now: 14035

Casualty percentage: 28

Force Lethality Ratio, Start: 1.5:1

Force Lethality Ratio, Now: 10.3:1

Well done, Coyote – I’ve now got TOAW III and am playing that. We must do another game of this sometime.

Local election results

A good night all round for Labour. While losing the Mayoralty to Boris was disappointing (but considering the problems Ken had expected - guy will probably and should retire now), we made gains all over the country - almost gaining an overall majority on the London Assembly.

One should not of course draw too many conclusions from a local elections, which have their share of local issues and protest votes, but I'll happy take all our victories.

TacOps AAR Part 18: ENDEX

1020 to 1032

The vast majority of Red’s forces were now west of 07 Easting. There looks a lot of less of them now, but it was still way more than I had.

My artillery was having next to no effect – the 60mm stuff landing on the southern mechanised units was merely suppressing them and the stronger stuff generally just missed. That said, I did get a very lucky 155mm ICM strike at 102145 that took out a Shilka. The non-ballistic fire went mostly his way – I had a HMMMV unit wiped out by tank and RPG fire. At 1022, the last two units guarding the north exit were wiped out and the OPFOR path was clear. There, it was all over bar the mortaring.

There were three airstrikes at 1023 – two for me (one aborted, one no damage) and one for Coyote (no damage). Javelin fire in the south hit some REDFOR vehicles.

The battle was really now just an exchange of artillery, both sides were essentially throwing stuff over a wall and hoping something went “owww”. Well, I was at any rate – Coyote had a better view of my forces than I did of his. I notice he was pounding the areas where those last two northern units were – guess he was trying to keep any replacements from joining them.

Red’s units were coming off the battlefield slowly – but he had a large batch ready to go across the goal line. There was some non-artillery fire in the south, where my forces were giving the enemy a painful going-away present. Until they got suppressed and covered by smoke.

As 1029 came around, Red dropped an MLRS strike on my southern units with little effect and his units were leaving in such numbers the replay makes my game go funny. I also lost a 60mm mortar unit – hadn’t been doing much anyway.

29% of the Red force was across the line at 1030 – he only needed 11% more to win.

The final three minutes of the battle saw the following:

·         An air strike by me, which I can’t remember, destroy an on-map Red arty unit.

·         A second air strike in a completely empty area.

·         Further shelling of the locations of my last northern units.

·         Increasingly ineffective artillery fire by me – the Red units simply weren’t there anymore.

At 1032, Red got enough of his forces over the goal line to win the game.

ENDEX

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I’m going to do one final post with lessons learned and the final scores. I’m planning to do a PDF with the whole AAR in, maybe edited a bit. Are people interested?

Local elections 2012

If you're a British voter who can vote in the local elections on Thursday, I would like you to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are you and your family better off than you were in May 2010?
2. Do you think this country is a better place than it was in May 2010?

Doctor Who Season 6 (1968/69): The road to Gallifrey

We're in your city, killing your dudes

The archival situation is a lot better here – of the 44 episodes, 37 are complete and another two have been officially ‘restored’ via animation. In fact, every story bar one is ‘intact’ in the archives, so I’ll stop discussing episode availability unless needed (a couple of Pertwee stories are not complete in colour).

Patrick Troughton had decided to do three years and call it done, but there were other issue behind the scenes. Bryant and Sherwin had to produce the two-part broadcast pilot for a show called S P Air that didn’t go to series (and about which I can find nothing – one assumes it’s been junked). Then Bryant had health problems, putting Sherwin increasingly (and then formally) in charge and making Terrance Dicks script editor.

This season is generally a bit uneven. For every classic, you’ve got a clunker or an average effort.

The Dominators (5 episodes)

Reduced from six episodes to five by Sherwin, which resulted in the two writers, Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln, insisting the story went out under the pseudonym Norman Ashby. A tale involving the TARDIS crew having to persuade a group of pacifists to resist some aggressive aliens and their deadly robots (the Quarks, who would make some later comic strip appearances[1]). Generally held as a bit of mess – audience research at the time was not kind to it. I can hardly remember it.

The Mind Robber (5 episodes)

Expanded from four episodes to five at short notice (Sherwin wrote the first and arguably the best episode un-credited), resulting in some rather short episodes, this trippy tale sees the TARDIS crew trapped in “The Land of Fiction”, meeting such public-domain fictional staples as Rapunzel and the Minotaur. It also has Jamie change actor for two episodes via a very good in-story reason as Frazer Hines had come down with chicken pox.

While perhaps primarily remembered for one particular shot of Zoe at the end of Episode One, it’s a real classic.

The Invasion (8 episodes – 1 and 4 are missing, but were recreated with only minor changes by animators Cosgrove Hall for the DVD release, so this story must be called complete)

Another classic story, with the iconic image of the Cybermen near St. Paul’s Cathedral (see above), I personally found it a tad slow for my liking. The Cybermen try to invade Earth (with the help of a couple of memorable human villains [Packer!]) and the Doctor teams up with the newly created UNIT, headed by the newly promoted Brigadier to stop them. Very high production values (and MOD cooperation) mean there is a lot of action here.

This is also Terrance Dicks’ first time as script editor.

Terrance Dicks

Terrance Dicks (1935-) must be considered one of Who’s elder statesmen. Spending almost six seasons as Script Editor (this and the entire Pertwee era), he also novelised a considerable number of the classic stories for the Target Books range, wrote six TV stories himself, contributed a number of original novels during the hiatus years and also did some direct-to-video stuff of which we’ll discuss much later.

While I don’t personally agree with his “all Doctors are essentially the same” approach, his contribution to the show is pretty much unmatched, certainly by anyone still living.

UNIT Dating

OK, people, follow me here a second:

·         “The Abominable Snowmen” takes place in 1935

·         “The Web of Fear” takes place roughly forty years later, so c.1975

·         “The Invasion” takes place four years after that, c.1979

·         Ergo, the Third Doctor and Fourth Doctor UNIT stories must take place in the early 1980s.

·         There is a whole slew of technology in the shows that was not in existence at the time (video phones, BBC3, laser weapons, trips to Mars from a British space programme[2]…) and in-jokes about political events, e.g. a Prime Minister called “Jeremy” a reference to then Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe[3].

However, wait a second…

·         Most of the cars on screen have near-contemporary licence plates.

·         Mao Zedong is still alive as of “The Mind of Evil” - he died in 1976.

·         Sarah Jane Smith says in “The Pyramids of Mars” that she’s from 1980.

·         There is pre-decimal currency in use in “Doctor Who and the Silurians”. The UK went over to decimal currency in 1971.

·         In “Mawdryn Undead”, the Brigadier retired from UNIT in 1977 and was teaching at a public school in 1983!

The production team avoided mentioning on screen dates to avoid potential continuity problems, but what this resulted in is a rather large conundrum that taxes fans to this day and has actually resulted in a few jokes on the subject turning up in various media (including “The Sontaran Stratagem”)

The Krotons (4 episodes)

The first story penned by Robert Holmes, one of the show’s most celebrated writers (of whom we’ll talk more about later), this reasonable story sees Team TARDIS help a slave race overthrow a crystalline alien race. Also features a mind probe [No! Not the Mind Probe!].

The Seeds of Death (6 episodes)

The return of the Ice Warriors, this story (which I really must see the end of) sees the Martians try to take a futuristic Earth using a teleporter network.

The Space Pirates (6 episodes, only Episode 2 survives)

A regular-light story by Robert Holmes, this “space western” (over 30 years before Firefly) involving a conflict between some pirates and law enforcement.

The War Games (10 episodes)

Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks end the era of the Second Doctor in style. The crew arrive in what they think is the Western Front in 1917… in reality, it’s part of a training world for one of the Doctor’s own people, who is out to conquer the universe. Haven’t actually seen all of this, but the last three episodes are some of the most significant in the show’s history.

With the situation getting desperate, the Doctor calls in his own people, the Time Lords (first named here). They deal with the problem, but then take the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to their home planet (as yet unnamed). Jamie and Zoe are sent back home, their memories of all bar their first stories erased. Meanwhile, the Doctor is convicted of illegally leaving his home planet and “meddling”.

His sentence: exile to Earth in the 20^th century and a forced regeneration…

Season 6B

There is a narrative gap between the Doctor’s sentence and the start of Season 7, in which the Third Doctor is seen for the first time. A lot of things including the Doctor knowing about Jamie and Zoe’s fates in “The Five Doctors” mean he must have had further adventures after “The War Games” – a number of “expanded universe” works also suggest this. It’s widely believed by fans that the Doctor actually did some work for the Time Lords’ Celestial Intervention Agency before being sent to Earth - the so-called Season 6B.

****

The decision to change the show to an Earth-based one with the Doctor in exile was basically budgetary – the money wasn’t stretching. Unable to match Star Trek (making its first UK airing during the season gap), they decided to have the monsters come to the Doctor in near-contemporary Earth.

The Doctor was going to be getting a job with UNIT…

[1] We’ll be discussing the “expanded universe” of Who (comics, audio dramas, novels and video games etc.) between Season 26 and Season 27 – i.e. between talking about the classic and new eras.

[2] In reality, the United Kingdom has only launched one satellite (Prospero) on its own. All other British space activity has been under the auspices of the European Space Agency and the five British nationals who have gone into orbit went up either in the Space Shuttle or a Russian Soyuz.

[3]The February 1974 general election actually produced a Hung Parliament (no party having a majority), with Labour gaining most seats, but only second place in terms of the popular vote.

Welcome to the new recession

The UK has officially re-entered recession.

You know, when this government took power, I thought it would fix the economy and the deficit at the cost of massive social damage to this country. They can't even do the former.

TacOps AAR Part 17: Payout time

1010 to 1019

 

To misquote a misquote of Jim Callaghan, former British Prime Minister, “Counterattack? What counterattack?”

 

1010 saw Red engage in considerably more fire than I did, including three highly effective counter-battery artillery fires on my remaining on-field weaponry. I was either low on ATGMs or had forgotten to reload, but my actions were like King Canute trying to stop the tide…

 

In fact, OPFOR’s BMPs were filling the air with Spandrels, making my AAVP7s go up more frequently than caravans on Brainiac: Science Abuse (I hope I’m not making too many British references here).

 

At 1012, the lead element of the northern attack ran into my last-ditch units and a heavy exchange of bullets, grenades and missiles followed, destroying a large number of vehicles on both sides. While Red was nearing 01 Easting, he had not got over the finish line yet – he would take four minutes to do that.

 

The Red advance began curving its way through the gaps between the trees in the NW corner of the map and with eyes on the last ditchers, Coyote dropped artillery like it was going out of fashion on them – many of his on-map units now in range and joining in. Nearly every one of his shots inflicted casualties and while I tried to take out his artillery units on map, it was to no real avail – I did score a good number of hits, but the fire kept on coming.

 

If this was a soccer game, Blue supporters would be heading for the Tube by now. In fact, I tried to withdraw two lots of APCs from the battlefield (to report back on my abject failure), only for all of them to get ATGMs in the rear.

 

1015 saw the SMAW unit in 0105 fire a slew of LAAW missiles at a BMP2 unit only to get cut down by a massive amount of vehicle fire. The following turn, Coyote dropped smoke on the last ditch units, then followed it up with high explosive, effectively putting the guys out of the battle temporarily or permanently. He got six units across that turn, followed by 14 at 1017.

 

In the south at this time, OPFOR’s attack ran into a Javelin section that eliminated its lead unit, while the Javelins in the north also got a few more shots off.

 

At this point, the bookies would have started paying out. There were only 13 minutes of this game left to run – Red had already gotten 3% of his units over the victory line and the rest were closing fast, in fact his central mounted units were now joining the northern attack.

 

The Bridge and Doctor Who

Just watched the first episode of the Danish/Swedish (it's a co-production) cop show The Bridge. Got to say that I'm enjoying it - I definitely prefer Saga Norén to Sarah Lund. She kind of reminds me of a cross between Temperance Brennan and Parker from Leverage, only Swedish.

Grand Review is going to happen for this - I also plan one for Ringer.

I've also started listening to "The Daleks' Master Plan" on audio - expect a review of that as well.

Firefly with Time Travel (Review: 'Doctor Who' 8.15-8.20, "Colony in Space") - Part Two

Part One

 

Gallifrey (we haven’t heard that name yet and won’t until “The Time Warrior”). Three Time Lords discuss the fact that the Master has got his hands on a secret file on “The Doomsday Weapon”. They decide to send the Doctor to sort this out. They don’t inform him of this – they just dematerialise the TARDIS while he’s showing Jo around.

 

Arriving on the planet Uxarieus in the year 2472, the Doctor and Jo find an agrarian colony led by a man called Ashe – a group that is trying to forge a new life away from an overcrowded and repressive Earth. While they have an uneasy truce with the “primitives” who live on the planet, their crops are failing and a “monster” is attacking their outer settlements. A survivor from an earlier colony arrives, claiming that the monsters and the Uxarieans wiped out the rest of his people.

 

Soon, a spaceship from the Interplanetary Mining Corporation (IMC) arrives, led by the nastily urbane Captain Dent and are “shocked” to discover there is a colony already there, so calls in an Adjudicator from Earth to resolve the dispute. The Doctor discovers the true identity of the monster, Jo gets kidnapped and then open fighting begins between the two groups of settlers. Then, the Adjudicator arrives…

 

****

The problem with a lot of the six-parters of classic Doctor Who is that they’re two parts too long. “Colony” is another classic example of a story that would have worked better in four 25-minute parts (i.e. 100 minutes, just a tad longer than a DW two-parter today) – tightening up the dialogue and making the thing less of a run-around that some of 1970s and 1980s Doctor Who ends up being.

 

Malcolm Hulke, who wrote or re-wrote eight Doctor Who stories and created the Silurians among other creatures, was a strong left-winger, never afraid to add political themes to his stories – this one discussing American colonisation is a particular example of his work. There are a lot of interesting ideas here, but the whole story falls apart in the execution.

 

The dialogue is very un-naturalistic and ‘stagey’. If this was made today, it would be a lot more free-flowing and snappy – Joss Whedon would have a lot of fun with a story like this. While real speech contains too many pauses to be really acceptable for a television audience, there is going too far and this sounds too polished, especially for a bunch of poor farmers who speak in Received Pronunciation[1].

 

The pace is plodding and it just feels like a run-around much of the time. That said, the final episode is pretty enjoyable and kicks things up nicely. The effects are well, dated, but they generally are for early 1970s Who.

 

It’s by no means a bad story – Jon Pertwee is at his charming Edwardian best, Roger Delgado is suitably slimy and Katy Manning demonstrates why she is so popular among fandom. The overall plot is a good one and battle scenes involving slug-throwing weapons always feel more real to me (other Firefly fans as well, I’d say).

 

All in all, there’s been worse, there’s been better. Wouldn’t recommend this for a first timer to the show, but after a few, who knows.

 

5/10

 

 

[1]Received Pronunciation (RP) or The Queen’s English is the “standard” English pronunciation that most native Anglophone people don’t use in their everyday speech. It’s the sort of accent commonly associated with BBC newsreaders and sci-fi of this era. Tom Baker and the late Lis Sladen both hail from Merseyside, but both utilise RP accents for their roles. RP is declining in use (even the Queen is sounding less RP as the years go by), although it is still around and disconcertingly common among British characters in US drama, even those played by British actors, with few notable exceptions. I personally joke that the LA air does something funny to British actors’ vocal cords.