The Blair Bait-And-Switch project (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.9, "Sleep No More")

I attended the Doctor Who Festival at the ExCeL Centre today; highly enjoyable and very interesting, with some real insights into the production of one of my favourite TV shows. Also, some superb cosplay examples out (wouldn't do that myself, not my cup of tea).

Anyway, onto tonight's episode, penned by man of two hats Mark Gatiss. This 'found footage' episode is definitely the most unusual story in the show's history; no title sequence (just a sort of title card) and in fact a narrated story put together by a scientist. I've got to say that it's definitely going to be one I remember for many years to come... so I guess it did its job.

Capaldi plays it very seriously in this episode; while there are jokes, he's not in a larking about mood, getting to the point and making several key realisations that something is quite, quite dodgy. The current lead actor in this show can turn quickly from hilarious to scary... a skill that not all of the Doctors have possessed over the years - Tennant, Smith and Capaldi can do all do it, but with the greatest respect to the other Doctors, some of them can't.

Jenna Coleman, whose arc is heading towards its conclusion and by 6 December will be an ex-companion if not sooner, also plays it more restrained than normal - there's no jokes about kissing Jane Austen (although kudos for the writers for making her seemingly bisexual without it being the key part of her character) or Year 7s here.

Rassmussen, the operator of the station, is played by Reece Shearsmith. I've not been overly keen on his work - while he was good as Patrick Troughton in An Adventure in Time and Space, I wasn't a fan of Missing and found the one episode I watched of Inside No.9 not my cup of Tetley's. However, in this case, he definitely does the job, being suitably creepy in his addresses to camera and proving very much to be an unreliable narrator; indeed Gatiss knows the potential problems of the sub-genre of found footage, which he neatly resolves here.

The Sandmen (one of which turned up at the last panel at the Festival, albeit obscured by the blue lighting) are very well realised - one of many superb works from Millennium FX since the show came back. The whole idea of them is a very interesting one; perhaps slightly illogical, but hey, this is Doctor Who, a show with a spaceship bigger on the inside than out.

The soldiers were definitely one of the most interesting parts of an episode that very much focuses on them; this episode not only has the first openly trans actor in the show's history, but I believe is also the second episode (after "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS") where Caucasians do not make up the majority of the cast that aren't wearing a monster suit. The Indo-Japan idea was very interesting and better executed than Firefly (which for all its merits, had no regulars of Asian background).

Also, the final twist... quite superb.

Conclusion

A very unusual episode of Doctor Who and highly, highly atmospheric. Not a true great by any stretch of the imagination, but still very good and superbly written.

8/10

Blog activity

Things are likely to be somewhat reduced for a while; for various reasons, I've had to cut back on my computer activities.

Some things, including my Homeland season 5 review, will be much later and probably much shorter than planned.

Terrorist attacks in Paris

The murder of 129 people (at least - there are still about 80 in a critical condition) in Paris is the worst atrocity brought upon western Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004.

This was a highly coordinated attack involving at least eight people; there will have be an analysis as to what clues, if any, were missed by the French authorities to see what lessons we can learn to prevent future attacks. Or at least try to prevent some - I sadly think it's only a matter of time before we have another one, possibly even in the UK.

Make no mistake; these terrorists are utterly warped. For them, going to a rock concert is a capital offence, worthy of execution without trial. I'm not sure you can ever reason with them.

I am concerned about what the results of this may be; for one thing, I'm severely doubting the Schengen Agreement can survive in its current form. Also, the French presidential election next year may led to Marine Le Pen winning... and then things will really get ugly.

I only pray that moderates on all sides prevail.

Armistice Day 2015

101 years after the start of the war to end all wars; they're still going on... and sadly will probably keep going on.

We should all do our best to limit conflict and assist those who are its victims; for there are many indeed.

Lest we forget.

You ain't nothing but a Rufus Hounddog (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.6, "The Woman Who Lived")

There is a well known 'thing' in media analysis called the Bechdel Test. Developed by Alison Bechdel as somewhat of a joke for a comic strip whose name might trip some filter or content things on Blogger way in 1985, it basically measures female representation in media. To pass the test, a film must have two named female characters, who have a conversation with each other... about something other than a man. It is somewhat of a flawed test - indeed, Sex and the City actually fails it - but still an interesting one. It should also be pointed out that many classics fail it - including Star Wars - and you can still have a good story without it.

It is therefore interesting to note that the first female written Doctor Who episode since 2008 (Helen Raynor's Sontaran two parter) - indeed Catherine Tregenna is only the fifth such writer in the show's history[1] - passes this test... but barely. Lucie Fanshawe is not seen in the rest of the episode after the titles, I believe.

****

The Doctor is on fine form again in this episode - demonstrating his ability to blunder into situations and be very, very grumpy. He gets some great lines, especially his entire first exchange with 'The Knightmare' and also gets some really emotional exchanges with Ashildr.

Clara is only in the final scene of this episode - she's teaching Year 7s Taekwondo - and isn't honestly missed that much. The scene she does get is entirely fine, don't get me wrong. I get the strong feeling this was the 'companion-lite' episode; the show typically has at least one 'companion-lite' and one 'Doctor-lite' episode a season to get all the filming into the timeslot.

Ashildr, or Me... what a tragic character. A more well thought out depiction of the problems of immortality I have not really seen. The Doctor is a Time Lord and so living to 2,000+ years is entirely normal for his people, but it's not for humanity - we get to see a woman who has has lost everyone she's ever held dear and has no end in sight... as well as only the memory capacity of a standard human. It's clear that she's gone rather mad as a result and arguably crosses the line - but does get some redemption at the end. A return for her is definitely welcome; all of her scenes are great and Maisie Williams holds your attention.

Sam Swift the Quick... well, Rufus Hound is arguably not everyone's cup of tea. His cocky swagger reminds me of Lord Flasheart, played of course by the late Rik Mayall, but Mayall did it much better. His pun-laden speech at the Tyburn gallows (which was in fact outside the City of London as it was then, although not next to a castle) sets a new record for penis jokes in an episode of Doctor Who at two, although this episode doesn't quite reach the heights of dirtiest jokes told in the show's history - tied between RTD and Moffat in fact.

Me's ally is a well done 'cat' creature... and I was actually reminded somewhat of the Kilrathi from Wing Commander in the Tyburn climax. Indeed, all of the special effects were good here - something that remains a strong point of the show.

Speaking of the climax, which involved insanely overpowered fireballs (see Irregular Webcomic! for more of those) and some really rather magical stuff, I wasn't overly keen on it. The show's starting to get a bit overly casual with cheating death and super technology; I'd personally reign it back in.

Conclusion

Not having Clara in this actually helped - it allowed for a lot tighter focus for the story and much more screen-time for the frankly superb Maisie Williams. Got to say next week looks very interesting as well.

8/10

Please note that there will be no review of the next two-parter as I'm just too busy at the moment.

[1]Barbara Clegg, writer of 1983's "Enlightenment" (the first classic story I ever saw, not counting the TV Movie) is the first - while Lesley Scott was credited for "The Ark", it appears she actually didn't contribute anything to the script at all.

An a-Maisie-ing woman (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.5, "The Girl Who Died")

I'm going to have to start with the elephant in the room... not that you could ever compare the adorable Maisie Williams to an pachyderm. Arya Stark is one of the best things about Game of Thrones; it's become abundantly clear that her actor is definitely a name to watch and after that show (I personally hope that Arya's not going to end up having a death scene of her own... but you know what Games of Thrones is like), I'm sure she's going to do great things. She's only 18 and has already gotten more plaudits than actors twice her age.

As the Viking girl Ashildr in this episode, she is highly engaging in every single scene; especially a two-hander with Capaldi in which she demonstrates an almost Time Lord sense of her place in the universe. The reveal of her actual status is well done - and it's combined with an explanation of why the Twelfth Doctor has this current face.

Peter Capaldi gets a chance to portray the multiple facets of his Doctor - at times larking about, downright rude and distinctly brooding. It's very, very interesting to see that what was originally meant to be a gag about the Doctor speaking 'baby' (which I would point out is a 'language' common to infant Homo sapiens the world over) becomes the source of some key emotional scenes. I would however have to say that the use of "A Good Man" for key moments is a bit too noticeable.

I'll miss Jenna Coleman once she's gone from the TARDIS; she's proven to be one of the best companions of the last 10 years and in this episode, she definitely has some great scenes. In particular, the one on the Mire spaceship, where she gets pretty close to defusing the entire situation without any further fighting... only for Ashildr's big mouth to wreck it all. Sometimes sentient beings let their pride get in the way of their common sense.

The Vikings were generally pretty well done; while horns on the helmets is of course an anachronism (and a deliberate one), they're sympathetic people. Training a batch of hapless villagers to defend themselves is a rather old plotline, but it's done well here - I have to admit that 'Noggin the Nog' was my favourite Doctor-bestowed nickname. And managing to start a fire before the enemy even arrives... classic.

The Mire - good one shot villains whose reliance on technology ends up being their downfall; both the external suit and creature inside are very good SFX jobs. Their defeat did seem a bit tonally odd - "Benny Hill" music and all, but it was soon brought by a key discovery that shaped the final part of the episode.

The ending sees the Doctor make a well-intentioned decision that could have significant consequences... and one several people may come to regret.

Conclusion

An enjoyable episode with some funny moments and a great performance by its key guest star. Not one of the greats, but definitely a pleasant 45 minutes. The next time trailer also looks very interesting.

8/10

Star Citizen - Citizencon 2015 Report

This post was written for the excellent people at the Guard Frequency podcast and will hopefully be mentioned in a future edition of the show. At any rate, since they couldn't go, I decided I would write a report for them.

Also, I didn't take many photos of the event itself - it was a bit dark for any decent ones once it had started. You can watch the livestream again (or for the first time) via the Roberts Space Industries website. 

The journey in a Virgin Trains Class 390 Pendolino from London to Crewe via the Watford Gap was comfortable (the tilting mechanism isn't nausea inducing at all) and on time, but I was not overly enthusiastic about the free lunch I got in the First Class area, namely a pre-packed sandwich, biscuits and some chocolate. It was, however, a sight better than the Northern Rail Class 323 that would be my connection to Manchester Airport, which was very bare-bones and made funny noises whenever it accelerated.

I checked into my hotel room, having two groups of hard men wrestling with a funny shaped ball on in the background as I checked my incoming emails - Scotland narrowly won, doing much better in this tournament than my native England. Definitely a lot more space in my room than in my Aurora LX, that's for sure.

At 6pm, I called for a cab to get myself over to the Runway Visitor Park for the event led by Chris Roberts, who has not been having a great couple of weeks, what with the activities of certain opponents of this project.

I decided to arrive a bit later than the doors opening time so I wouldn't have as long to wait before the scheduled start time of 8pm local time. In fact this merely meant I ended up near the back of the queue to get in, something which meant it was half an hour before I got in. This is not the longest time I have spent in a queue for a convention by the way. 

During the wait, much discussion was had especially of one D. Smart. A guy I was with thought he should have come wearing a Smart mask. It was also clear from conversations before and afterwards that some people had travelled some serious distances to be here, getting up at very early hours.

The Runway Visitor Park hosts an array of old aircraft and I would certainly want to visit there properly at some point. The main hall contains one Concorde (which the main stage was underneath), which those with VIP passes could actually go in. Unfortunately, I didn't actually have one... as mentioned, I only have an Aurora as my main ship, plus whatever else I have on REC.

I must admit to being disappointed with the goodie bag - one badge, one unpainted model, one sticker and one poster. OK, I really liked the poster - which is now in my bedroom - although it was a bit difficult to get into my suitcase, let along the other drawstring bag I brough with me. Good thing I will have a virtual version for my hangar to go with my Golden Ticket (he says, trying not to brag).

However the food was very nice, even the lamb despite what Morrow said later on. We were also given a voucher for a free drink from one of the two bars; as I'm not really an alcohol person, I had a J2O. Anyway, enough about my drinking habits or the lack thereof and onto the event.

I noticed quite a few people in costume, some of them in ones from a somewhat different Verse to our one - including no less than two guys dressed up as Jayne Cobb from Firefly complete with knitted hat. As I quipped to one of them, he was an awful long way from Canton. Cosplay really isn't my thing however and it was actually a good thing I brought my coat as it got a bit chilly later on until they turned on the heaters. There were of course frequent sounds of planes taking off in the distance.

Pride of place for best "gimmick" of the night goes to the guy who brought along a lampshade on a stick, which he got many CIG people to sign. Speaking of signing, there was a poster for all the attendees to sign, which got a bit hard to find free space on by the time I'd gotten into the venue.

Slightly less pleasing was the fact that the number of people in costume possibly outnumbered the number of those with two X chromosomes, that is women, who were not on the catering staff. 

Speaking of women, Sandi Gardner is surprisingly short in real life even with heels on. Not of course there is anything wrong with that.

The event in fact started half an hour late - apparently they were finishing a build. As I thought to myself, this is CIG; half an hour is nothing compared to the many other delays we've encountered over the three years since this project started.

We of course started off with Sandi reading out a letter she'd written to the community thanking them for all their support - she's been subjected to some vile accusations over the internet from various people over the last few months and it was clear that it has gotten to her. Trolls should be aware that words do hurt. She was then given a massive bunch of flowers.

The video summary of the story so far was interesting, but only served in my mind to highlight that we've had somewhat of a drought in actual playable content over the last few months - not that I don't like the Social Module, it's just that I was hoping for some FPS action by now.

We then moved onto the next steps for the game - 1.3.0, which is basically a further upgrade to the Social Module and Arena Commander... then 2.0, which was the first really big announcement of the event. The delay to FPS was worth it because we're going to get the PU, or at least the start of it much earlier than I thought we would. Even the area around Crusader is going to be huge by any standard and filled with much more than you'd find in a certain other space game at the moment. We then got to see a live demo of the Crusader action - this can be found on-line, but looks very impressive indeed. This included some decent spaceship action and also a spot of FPS against some pirates, although I'm oddly a bit disappointed we didn't get to see what happens in the game when you turn into a Norwegian Blue, so to speak i.e. 'die'. Roberts was very clear not to give firm dates on anything - as we know what happens when we get those.

Then was the announcement of the Ark Star Map from Dave Haddock - and the fact that it's already gone live. I took a look at this when I got home and while it's still very bare bones, it looks great. The travelling through the jump point between systems actually reminds me somewhat of Stargate SG-1, but we will of course have somewhat bigger ships.

The Million Mile High Club - well, I don't think I'll be eligible for it myself, but maybe you guys can invite me? Hint, hint? As for the stuff over the Saitek HOTAS, this didn't really interest me. I'll stick with my Speedlink Black Widow for the moment, thank you very much. I do intend to try to use the referral program with my own contacts - at any rate, I hope we hit a million citizens soon. (Edit: I wrote this on Monday, that milestone was achieved on Thursday)

The reveal of the Sabre fighter; well, it looks impressive, but I'm not likely to do a great deal of actual dogfighting in the PU at any rate. Piracy isn't my cup of tea and at any rate, I have problems getting hits with guns in AC as is.

Right, onto the big event... the Squadron 42 cast reveal. We got the suitably rousing speech from Gary Oldman's character (I didn't recognise his voice initially) - and let's just say that he's trumped one Eleanor as my favourite fictional character called Bishop. Hopefully he won't end up like one Admiral Tolwyn, for those of you who are Wing Commander fans. After the speech, we then got the reveal of the cast via the title sequence, with various levels of cheers as the names popped up. It's definitely the case that you really can't do a British-based project these days without having at least one person who has been in Game of Thrones in it - indeed we have two in the form of Liam Cunningham and Gemma Whelan. The former is in fact my favourite casting choice - Ser Davos Seaworth is on my favourite characters from the show and it's also notable that this isn't his first time playing a Captain of something - he was a submarine commander in an episode of Doctor Who.

I must admit that I had to look some of the actors up later - and mistakenly thought Rhona Mitra, whose career includes Strike Back and apparently being the original Lara Croft model, was the former MMA fighter, who is in fact Gina Carano... Anyway.

Chris demonstrating the size of the scripts was impressive, although the optics of him dropping the SQ42 scripts weren't brilliant.

The actual demo - well, if that's the early version, the real deal is going to be something else... and will indeed be a computer testing game - I got my current PC solely for Star Citizen in fact. It looks superb - and the guilds with an Idris will be very happy bunnies indeed as it is superbly detailed - even with dialogue sync issues in this. Looking forward to seeing some actual combat in that game.

Only slight gripe is that there isn't an option for the player character to be female - it would be nice to have a choice and that's something hopefully for the future.

As a final note, I will say that no-one looks very dignified in a motion capture suit with their face covered in tracking dots.

They brought out a cake at the end, but I don't think this was for the guests - at any rate, it was getting a bit late and I wanted to get back to my hotel. I was one very happy man when I got back to my room. I popped into Manchester proper the following day and I must say I was impressed by that as well - I would go there again.

I'd like to thank Imperial News Network, whose live blog has served as a memory aid for putting all of this together.

See you in the Verse and I will be staying on the Guard. Keep up the good work.

Silent Hunter (the operator of the Phoenix Roleplaying Twitter account)

Less Fisher King and More Fisher Price (Review : 'Doctor Who' 35.4, "Before the Flood")

Doctor Who can be a very unpredictable beast at times. Just because one episode is a barn-stormer, doesn't mean that the next one will be - "The Caves of Androzani" was notably followed by "The Twin Dilemma"; BTW, I'm currently listening to the The Sixth Doctor - The Last Adventure from Big Finish and the Sixth Doctor is very well done there.

So, we start off with the Doctor discussing Beethoven and bootstrap paradoxes - both of which have turned up in the Whoniverse before. His liking for Beethoven was mentioned in the expanded universe in 2000 and the latter at at least three times in Steven Moffat stories; well... in fact you've kind of got it all the back to 2005. Then he plays electric guitar - Peter Capaldi's misspent youth coming up again. The fourth-wall breaking speech at the beginning was one of the highlights of the episode.

Clara continues to act as the Doctor's restraining influence; without her 'human touch', it's possible that the Doctor would have indeed actually gotten himself killed. She's definitely firmly ensconced herself in the role of the companion... which is going to make it even more of a pity once she goes from the show.

The base crew were good - I did feel sorry for O'Donnell when she died and the scene with Cass was very tense. Mind you, if you're going to murder someone, it's not a good idea to drag your axe on the floor, regardless of whether your target is deaf or not.

The Fisher King, while very well done in the special effects department, was otherwise uninspiring. He just seemed generic and not a massive threat in any way. He was disposed of rather easily I found and he is definitely not the sort of character that I'd want to return. I also was not keen on Prentiss, who I found annoying - as I believe I did the previous member of his race in "The God Complex" (I believe it was that one).

The effects in general were also very good - the flooding of the valley of course featured in the trailers, but kudos to the designers for the military training ground decked out to look like a Soviet town - these sort of facilities, suitably updated to reflect 'current' areas of operation i.e. the Middle East, still exist for the British Army.

The conclusion and the resolution to the mystery is a good one, although one does start to wonder if the sonic sunglasses are being overused. This said, I'm glad this story is over as it did feel a bit too long; not the best two-parter by a long chalk.

Conclusion

I did find this one dragging quite considerably; while the overall pay-off was good, much of this could have been a lot better than it was. This said, full credit for some good use of time travel.

6/10

Maisie Williams is in the next episode; I hope this will be a stark improvement... get it, Stark improvement? I'll get me coat...

Not Quite The Ace of Base [Under Siege] (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.3, "Under The Lake")

This is an episode where I have varying and mixed impressions; so I'll go through them in some form of order and hope that this all makes sense to you... at least more than this episode made to me at times.

• Starting on 21st November 2119 and then jumping forward three days; it should have been two days of course.
• Well, they certainly lit the underwater facility much better than the one from "Warriors of the Deep".
  
• The Twelfth Doctor is on decent enough form; definitely acting true to his character of someone who is too busy saving the world to care about social niceties - or reading the cue cards. I'm also liking the sonic sunglasses which add levels of functionality that the screwdriver didn't have.
• Clara was good, but not overly so. I think I preferred her in the previous two episodes. I'm probably going to argue that this may down to the writer, Toby Whithouse, having not written for Clara before - or for that matter for the Twelfth Doctor (his last story was "A Town Called Mercy" before he worked on the single season 1970s spy show The Game).
  
• The black man dies first; it's been a good few years since we had that happen in the show, I would say.
• The 'ghosts' - well, we've had stuff like this before, but it was well done and certainly atmospheric.
  
• Very interesting idea to have a deaf member of the base crew; although from my own personal experience, not all deaf people are completely mute.
• The rest of the base crew were certainly well-played, but it wasn't explained why they seemed somewhat under-dressed. Scottish lakes are not known for being that warm.
  
• Apparently flooding a nuclear reactor is a "common" crash procedure to absorb all the neutrons; it was done at Fukushima. But don't you have control rods to try first?
• The ending was certainly an interesting one and it's nice to see some amount of time travel form the key part of the episode.
  

Conclusion

Entertaining enough, but nothing overly impressive. Hopefully part two will be better.

7/10

Realtime Trains

Thought I'd mention this site, which I also own the app for:

http://www.realtimetrains.co.uk/

It provides real time information on rail services, including freight services, so you can see what is likely to come past any particular station. Also, for many services, it tells you what type of train is booked to run it; so I today learned that I'm likely to get my first Pacer ride by the end of the month.

Not sure what to say about that.

Trident

The Labour Conference will not be debating Trident after a motion on the matter failed to get enough support from trade unions.

I'm of two minds on Trident; I'd like to see a world without nuclear weapons, but am worried without them we'd have had another world war by now. The £80bn we're going to spend on replacement is a lot; but guaranteeing us against an invasion? That might be worth the price.

In which Missy beats Root (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.2, "The Witch's Familiar")

As I suspected, all the stuff that seemed to have happened in the cliffhanger turned out to be at rather misleading... well, I kind of didn't expect [spoiler] to go that early anyway.

This was a much more talky episode - not to say that there wasn't some action. We got many scenes between the Doctor and an arch enemy, the actor playing the latter having to rely on voice acting as he was under heavy prosthetics. It did seem a bit odd that he was suddenly being all introspective and remorseful... but the fact that it was unconvincing was probably meant to be the point.

One does wonder if the Doctor having to use that isn't going to cause problems for him later; that did seem a lot of stuff to use. Capaldi had another strong episode; a bit less manic in this one, but still very much nailing his version of the Doctor. I also rather liked the flashback scene near the beginning. It seems that 'vampire monkeys' are a real mythological thing.

Clara spent much of her episode encased in a Dalek - there is a reason for this and it kind of helps that Jenna Coleman is only 5'2"; it makes it easier for her to fit insider the casing of the 'current' Daleks, which were designed around Billie Piper's eye-line. Anyway, she has another good episode, especially her many scenes with another character.

Namely, Michelle Gomez's Missy. I described the character of Root from Person of Interest, played by Amy Acker, in an earlier post as the "most deliciously crazy and unpredictable one I've seen in my life". With apologies to Mrs. Acker, I'd have to say that Missy is arguably much more crazier in this episode - using a rather unconventional method of measuring the depth of a hole for one thing. That said, Missy definitely reveals that she is on the side of the baddies towards the end of this. As such, if I had to pick between her and the computer hacker from Texas to go in my adventuring party, the latter wins hands down every time as she probably wouldn't try to kill me.

The Daleks get some very interesting additions to their back-story - it's worth noting that Moffat has officially denied a long-standing rumour about them being contractually obliged to appear in every season - and in particular, some further levels of horror added to their story.

The conclusion sees a spot of classic timey-wimey on the part of Moffat and a considerable amount of classic era invoked; one does wonder if this was perhaps over doing it.

Finally, sonic sunglasses? Well, it gives another lot of merchandise to sell, that's for sure.

Conclusion

Not quite as good as the previous part of the story, but still a well told story that reaffirms the central creed of the Doctor.

8/10

50 minutes of pure joy (Review: 'Doctor Who' 35.1, "The Magician's Apprentice")

I didn't really know what to expect from this. What I did not expect was for Steven Moffat to hit it not just out of the park but out of the city.

Firstly, the opening was superb. The hand mines were brilliantly realised and that reveal of the boy's name was something I did not see coming.

Having never watched The Thick of It, I had no idea just how funny Peter Capaldi could be. That scene with the guitar had me laughing out loud. However, this is not all a funny episode - Capaldi gets to show a wide range and has firmly nailed the Twelfth Doctor in a tale with links going back to the Fourth Doctor.

Clara Oswald is on fine sassy form in this episode; demonstrating the firm confidence of an experienced time traveller and also some very funny lines.

Missy returns here - no spoiler - and after the show doesn't even bother to explain how she survived last time  (indeed makes a point of not doing so) manages to be even crazier than before. Michelle Gomez is adept at combining comic material with real menace; this version of the Master will kill just on a whim.

UNIT turn up again and there's some good material for them including a great gag about the mythical lost city of Atlantis for the fans - there are a lot of these in the episode.

The Daleks are also back - we get a smorgasbord of models going back to the very start. To say more would be spoilery, but I was impressed and I find the Daleks over used myself.

Lastly that cliffhanger is one of the best in the show's history. The solution may seem obvious but this is not a show that always goes for that. We shall see.

****Conclusion****

I don't tend to give top marks to professional works unless they are pretty much perfect.

This was.

10/10

75 years since the Battle of Britain

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the arguably climatic air engagement of the Battle of Britain.

If you think your job is stressful, just imagine what it must have been like for the pilots. At any moment, a bell could ring and you would have to scramble to your aircraft. Then engage a group of German fighters and bombers, knowing that any moment you could end up seriously injured or even dead. Getting shot down meant a difficult exit from a burning aircraft - no ejector seats back then.

Once that's done, land, then possibly do it again in a few hours.

Considering what they had to go through, I sincerely hope The Few will never be forgotten.

So Jeremy Corbyn has won

Labour has just elected its most left-wing leader since the war in the form of Jeremy Corbyn. He now faces the much more difficult task of persuading a country that has decisively rejected Labour twice (we polled worse than the 1997 Tory result in the last two elections) to back his vision for the United Kingdom.

I hope this election doesn't end up resulting in very bad things for Labour... only time will tell.

Record-breaking monarch

Queen Elizabeth II has now become the longest reigning monarch in British history, beating Queen Victoria about ten minutes ago - there is no exact timing as the precise time her father, George VI, died was not recorded.

As a great source of continuity and national leadership, I congratulate Her Majesty on this milestone, although I know it has a sad tinge because it is only because of the early death of her father.

God Save The Queen! Long may she reign!

Sometimes a serial killer story is good (Review: 'Castle' 7.15, "Reckoning")

After over six years of locking up bad guys with her, Richard Castle has locked himself into a relationship with Kate Beckett by actually marrying her. On the second attempt. The first didn't quite work out due to him disappearing on their wedding day and turning up two months later with amnesia, a gunshot injury and signs of having dengue fever. What exactly happened there is still to be determined.

The shippers' dreams have come true, although it has to be said the way it did could have been handled quite a bit better by the writers. The episode in which they actually marry featured an interesting idea (namely what would happened if Castle and Beckett had never met) that was not very well executed and made the actual wedding at the end feel tacked on, not to mention tacky - an adjective that could also be applied to Beckett's "wedding dress" and I ring bells at weddings in what is culturally Essex. Castle does still have a lot of charm about it, but that was a serious misstep.

Another thing has sort of changed - Castle, after being barred from directly working with his missus, is now a private investigator, which allows for him to do his own investigating... but the cases tend to involve the 12th Precinct in some form. It's worked a lot better than it had any right to...

This review contains some spoilers.

****

There are two distinct types of Castle - "comedic" Castle and "dramatic" Castle. You can usually tell by the lighting - the latter is far darker. In any event, this is definitely the latter.

In fact, this in fact the second part of a two-parter, so I'm breaking my usual rules in reviewing this as one episode rather than in combination, but I can break them if I want them.

In the previous episode, the team discovered that the recurring serial killer 3XK aka Jerry Tyson (he's known as 3XK because he kills three women in short succession then takes a rather long break), who was last seen falling into a river after being shot by Castle was in fact alive, having killed another  victim. Owing to nearly all of the evidence against him having been stolen, making a case against him will be much harder. The 12th Precinct found someone who they thought was him... but was in fact someone who had been given cosmetic surgery by evil plastic surgeon Kelly Neiman to look like him... or is he?

Then Det. Beckett gets jabbed in the shoulder with the old needle of instant sedation and ends up on the long list of female coppers who have been abducted by serial killers... although she might already be on it.

****


Nathan Fillion has won awards for this show and you can see why: he can convincingly play both the usual happy-go-lucky wild theorising Richard Castle and the on the edge, do not mess with him, Richard Castle. Here he breaks out a gun and beats up a guy who he thinks knows where his missus is; you know that he's not the sort of character that would kill an unarmed man, but we certainly see him going to the sort of things that would get most police officers (which of course he is not) in serious trouble. It is also refreshing to know at the end of the episode that he is not a complete idiot who lets himself end up alone with a serial killer, via some Leverage-style flashbacks.

Beckett (as Castle still generally calls her - the rule on this show is that if the couple start calling each other "Rick" and "Kate" things are deadly serious) spends most of her episode strapped to a gurney and gagged. This isn't a tremendous problem as Stana Katic can do more acting with her eyes than some actors do with their entire bodies. It's also notable that Beckett isn't a damsel in distress; she in fact could have extricated herself from the situation - and pretty much does - without any of her guys.

Martha and Alexis get two scenes in this episode before being packed off to Europe for their own protection, so there's little to say there about them. A pity, as Molly C. Quinn is really good and more screen time for her would be much appreciated.

The rest of the 12th Precinct do a good job. Captain Gates in particular has a strong episode, acting as a voice of reason and trying to stop Castle from doing something stupid. Esposito's military service comes into handy and it's clear the entire group still work well together.

3XK aka Jerry Tyson is one of those twisted serial killers who instead of just killing their target decide to make them suffer first. Here he makes a drug addict woman resemble Beckett and then blow her brains out via remote-control shotgun. He's a master manipulator, but he meets his match in Richard Castle, who has managed to manipulate millions into buying his novels after all.

Kelly Neiman is played by Annie Wersching, perhaps best known as Renee Walker in 24, who delivers a suitably creepy performance. It's a pity that what would have been a rather awesome fight scene between Neiman and Beckett doesn't actually feature in the episode.

The end of the episode sees Castle end up getting the sort of punishment for assaulting a guy that Captain Kirk got at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. If you've seen that film, you know what I mean. At any rate, the show's strength in that it knows when not to beat an idea into the ground... including this 3XK arc, which I am really glad is now concluded.

Conclusion

I have to say that this was an engaging episode of Castle; I didn't clock watch and the performances were overall very good. It's nice to know that the show can still do both drama and comedy at a high quality.

Also, while I am still deeply tired of the entire serial killer sub-genre (it needs a serious break)

8/10
 
****

Castle was renewed for an eighth season in the May up-fronts, but not after some quite major issues getting Fillion and Katic to sign new contracts; its Season 7 finale was written as a possible show ender. That's a sign of a show on its way out; another is that the ratings have dropped significantly from the Season 6 peak (I think the botched wedding might have played a part in that). I would not be surprised if Season 8 (which I will be reviewing an episode for) proves to be its last.

The refugee crisis in Europe

We're seeing the biggest influx of refugees and economic migrants into Europe for many a year; there's not been this many displaced people turning up since the war.

They are fleeing intolerable conditions in their own countries; be it the ravages of Assad or Islamic State (to reference a comment about the Iran-Iraq war, it's a pity they can't both lose), poverty in Kosovo or general repression in Eritrea.

We need to be dealing with both the crisis and the cause of the crisis. The EU needs to get together and agree a equitable distribution of asylum seekers; it is not fair to expect one or two countries to expect to bear the vast majority of the associated costs.

Also, we need to tackle the people smugglers; they are simply trading on human misery with little care for their charges. We have the capacity to take people from the refugee camps in Lebanon and Turkey in a safer manner.

Finally, we need to defeat Islamic State (I don't think you can talk to these people even if you want to), as well as facilitating wider peace deals in Syria and Libya. Then continue to act to end the unequal world economy that causes much of this migration in the first place.

In the meantime, sadly, more people seeking a better life - or children who haven't got a huge clue what is going on - are likely to die crossing the Mediterranean. They are in my prayers.

Lack of reviews etc

If you're wondering why there aren't any further reviews of anything recently, I've been highly busy with other shows and other things. I hope to get back to this stuff soon, but it probably won't be until at least the end of the month.

Person of Interest

I've not mentioned it on this blog previously - at least not in any real depth - but I'm going to quickly post about it here.

If you've definitely not seen it, you should definitely check it out. Start at the beginning - it's a bit slow to get started but by Season 2, it becomes truly excellent.

The TLDR summary is that it's a series about a guy who developed a supercomputer to use comprehensive surveillance predict acts of terrorism and found it was also predicting regular crimes. As the government aren't that interested in the latter, he hires a former CIA operative to work with him to stop the crimes. Every week, "The Machine" gives them the Social Security number of someone about to be involved in a violent crime. They don't know what it is - or whether the person involved is a perpetrator or a victim. It's their job to find out and hopefully stop it.

It's a lot more fun - and also pretty funny - then it sounds; as well as thought-provoking. Also, I will say Amy Acker's character, when she turns up, is the most deliciously crazy and unpredictable one I've seen in my life. She also has brilliant entrances... consistently brilliant entrances.

VJ Day 70 years on

Today marks 70 years since the surrender of Japan. The war in the Far East sometimes doesn't get the attention it deserves, but it was just as key and just as unpleasant as the war in Europe.

As the surviving veterans remember and we commemorate their sacrifice for the peace and freedom many nations enjoy today, I thank you for your service.

May we never have to go through something like that again.

Labour leadership votes

I'll be voting Andy Burnham 1st, Yvette Cooper 2nd. I believe that they offer the best policies to be a credible alternative to the Conservatives at the next election, but to be honest, we're not likely to win it unless there's another recession.

As for Jeremy Corbyn, if you want to vote for him be my guest, but don't say you weren't warned if it (as I think it will) goes very wrong for Labour. He may have principles, but I don't think his policies are right for this country and I think they won't appeal to the Middle England voters we have to win back from the Tories if we're to form a government.

For the deputy, it'll be Tom Watson... not sure about other preferences yet.

Well that was a slog (Review: "War and Peace", 1869)

Well, I've finally managed to do it - I've completed a read through of Tolstoy's literary door stopper. It's not the longest novel ever written; not even in the top ten in fact - but I can only imagine that the original Russian text is even longer due to the greater length of Russian words.

Did Tolstoy have an editor?

****
Voyna i mir, to quote its Russian title, is (primarily) an epic about a group of rich Russian families in the period between 1805 and 1820; with particular focus on the Napoleonic Wars, specifically the Corsican's invasion of Russia, which saw him capture Moscow (getting a bit further than Mr. One Testicle), which promptly ended up being mostly destroyed in a big fire before having to retreat due to the Russian winter.

The "war" is better than the "peace" by a good margin; Tolstoy did extensive research on the period and captures the intrigues, politicking etc. of the Russian high command very well. In addition, Tolstoy (having served in the Crimean War and ended up a pacifist as a result) exposes the chaos and difficulties of fighting a war before the invention of radio communications brilliantly, not to mention the horrors that exist eternally.

That's not to say that the non-battle stuff is poor; there's some good character arcs, with Pierre Bezukhov's quest for meaning in life being particularly key. The life of Russian aristocracy (parties, gossip and marrying for money) and general Russian customs is insightful; also an insight into days when if someone went on a trip, you had no idea when they might actually return... if at all.

Where the novel really runs into problems, however, is when Tolstoy takes a break from it to have a moan at historians he doesn't like; especially those who thought that the events were all driven by the 'great man' Napoleon Bonaparte; he argues that many thousands of individual wills were involved. Some of this may be OK, but when he devotes an entire second epilogue of 12 chapters to a discussion of free will versus inevitability, you're really just desperate for it to end. In addition, the first epilogue actually just kind of stops.

Conclusion

While definitely a good book and certainly worth a read, Tolstoy's habit of going on long diatribes knocks this down considerably. The story is interesting, but if I wanted a discourse on the nature of historiography, I would have read a different book.

Personally, I prefer Crime and Punishment.

7/10

The Gorn Identity (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.18, "Arena")

Beaming down to the remote Earth outpost of Cestus III, the crew find it has been destroyed by alien attack. As they pursue the ship, they are stopped by another advanced group of aliens, which transport Kirk off the bridge and put in a contest to the death with the other ship's captain, a powerful reptilian Gorn.

****

I'm going to start off by mentioning the fact that Mythbusters, back when Grant Imhara (who plays Sulu in Star Trek Continues) was still on the show, examined a key element of the story here. Without saying too much, let's just say that they found some problems with it.

Secondly, I have seen this episode before, but very little of it was fresh in my memory; it loses little on a second watching.

This episode starts hitting some classic beats early; the three leads are well-characterised (this is another strong Kirk story) and it's not long after we beam down that a red shirt purchases the farm.

There's a lot of close proximity explosions that you would never get away with today (indeed, slightly reckless use of explosives is a common theme in this era of science-fiction); indeed all three of the regulars apparently ended up with tinnitus as a result.

We then get a rather good spaceship chase (I was almost expecting Scotty to say "She cannae take it, Captain!", although I don't think he ever quite said that line) and then the main 'arena', taking us to Kirk's Rock for the second time this season. The battle of strength and wits is thrilling as well as engaging, although I do wonder where the cameras are that allow the crew to see it on the main screen back on the bridge.

This is a great episode; Kirk in particular demonstrates the whole UFP creed in this. If the Prime Directive is about non-interference, the Secondary Directive is about defending yourselves, but not using violence unnecessarily - as he demonstrates in the climax. It's proved to be the right decision.

The Gorn costume is slightly unconvincing (it was probably uncomfortable for the actor in it) and there is also a fairly big plot hole in all of this; if you intend to lure a ship into a trap, shouldn't you bring enough resources with you to make sure that you can actually close the trap? Also, it's difficult to deter invaders without allowing someone to send a message back.

Conclusion

Quintessential Trek (and oft homaged); if it wasn't for the slightly dodgy Gorn outfit, I'd be giving this a 10.

9/10

70 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the first of only two (thank the Lord) uses of nuclear weapons in warfare.

One can agree or disagree whether the dropping of the bombs was justified or indeed necessary to end the war. However, I think we can all agree that the fact they were used is a tragedy in itself; if you end up in a situation where killing 100,000 civilians is the least bad option, it's a pretty bad situation.

Hopefully as the last survivors of the bombings pass on, the memory will remain - and they will never be used again.

Life, Jim, but more immature than we know it (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.17, "The Squire of Gothos")

I'm slightly disappointed this isn't called "The Squire of Qo'nos"... you may or may not get that.

****
As our favourite starship is about to cross a void in space that supposedly contains no planets, one turns up on the scope. Then Kirk and Sulu disappear off the bridge, taken off the ship by Trelane, a superbeing who has a considerable amount of flamboyance but not a lot of maturity.

****

I'm going to start this episode by discussing the 'guest' of this episode, Trelane, a world-creating super-being who has developed his ideas from Earth through long-distance observation, but his history is a bit inaccurate; apparently he's looking at Earth 900 years in the past because of the whole speed of light thing... which considering that the stuff in his house is of Napoleonic vintage, rather flies in the face of the later established Trek timeline placing this series in 2264 - this had not yet been determined by the writers.

Trelane, played by the late William Campbell, who was very active in the convention circuit for much of his later life, manages to be one of the most watchable and simultaneously most irritating people you will ever see; a strong performance by Campbell. The 'retired General' Trelane is an immature brat with a powerful machine, managing to 'mention the war' as soon as he discovers a crewmember is of German descent, mistake Uhura for a captured slave. It makes you want to slap him, but at the end of the episode, you end up changing your mind; for there is a very good reason why he is like that.

At one point, Trelane dressed as an English judge (apparently there was some difficulty in finding a wig... or more specifically Shatner agreeing to allow time to find said wig), plans to hang Kirk; this is of note for me as a British opponent of capital punishment myself; it had only been two years since the final British executions were carried.

One big drawback, however, some very obvious green backgrounds in sight in the 'outdoors scenes' and a dodgy split-screen effect at the end; even Doctor Who in this period generally made more of an effort than this.

Conclusion
A well written episode with a great twist at the end; the relatively small number of guest cast allows for a tighter episode that keeps you engaged through its whole running time.

However, some obvious effects issues mean I can only give this 8/10.

8/10

****

The next episode is "Arena"; another one I've seen before and also one featured in Mythbusters... more to be explained next time.

Fringe 1.9: "The Dreamscape"

A very Olivia-focussed episode on this; as she investigates the death of a Massive Dynamic analyst who ends up throwing himself out of a window after being apparently attacked by killer butterflies, she decides to go back into the sensory deprivation tank from earlier in the season to retrieve some of the late John Scott's memories that ended up in her brain. We get an indication that Scott was definitely a dodgy geezer and there's clearly more to be mined from that. Anna Torv is clearly settling into the role now, demonstrating someone who is prepared to risk her own health for justice.

This gives some interesting material for John Bishop, who is rivalling, nay beating, the Twelfth Doctor, in saying inappropriate things in certain contexts... seriously, you don't say that around someone half your age unless you're in a relationship with her. The man is definitely not quite right in the head, although probably not a hospital case.

The Massive Dynamic arc is starting to shape up nicely; it's clear that their dodgy extends further than, as we learn in this episode, using hallucinogenic venom from toads on people without their consent.

Conclusion

A good episode. Not exactly completely ribbiting... sorry... but definitely kept me engaged during it.

8/10

GOG.com

Thought that I'd give a little shoutout to a rather superb game site that I have used for a while: https://www.gog.com/

This allows you to buy classic games, DRM-free and fully capable of being used with your modern PC, for pretty low prices. I've used to reload some classics I played in my youth... or wish that I had.

Review update - again

A large amount of TV has come up for me all at one go, which is going to have to push the Star Trek and Fringe stuff to the backburner; the former will be prioritised if I get to it.

Also, the Spectre review (the trailer today looks great) is going to be a Phoenix Roleplaying newsletter exclusive, although I will post the link here.

In other news, I'm working on the Second World War neutrals post; but this is likely to be done later in the year than initially planned.

The novel is going well; over halfway through.

The Logical Song (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.16, "The Galileo Seven")

This is a good Kirk episode, but a superb Spock episode.
****

While passing a quasar formation on the way to a rendezvous to drop off some medical supplies, Spock, Bones, Scotty and four other crew members head off in a shuttle to investigate it as per Starfleet standing orders. However, quasar-y effects causing the vessel to go out of control and make a forced landing on a planet in the formation...

****
Let's get the bad parts out of this episode out of the way first. In what is a race against time story for both the shuttle crew and the Enterprise, there is a bit of cliché going on here. Kirk is on a clock with a rather tetchy Galactic High Commissioner wanting him to depart promptly at a given time to ensure they make their rendezvous. Certain aspects of the resolution are ones we've seen time and time again.

Then I have to knock CBS Digital's handling of the remastering here; dumping the model work entirely for some not entirely convincing CGI is one of the weaker parts of the episode.

All this is however relative small fry compared with the strengths of this episode. This is a character study of Spock, the logical Vulcan. His logic comes into confrontation with some rather illogical spear chucking natives - who off a couple of people, neither wearing red shirts- and the more emotional crew, especially over burying their dead; although as far as reactions to death goes, the Twelfth Doctor's "he's the top layer" comment beats him on unintentional offence. A final desperate act proves to be the salvation of his crew, although he insists it was logical. It's a great vehicle for Nimoy, unlike the shuttle, which isn't.

The others aren't bad either; Bones is delightfully cynical and Kirk continues to demonstrate why he should be in that chair.

Conclusion
I gave some serious consideration to giving this a 10/10. If this was an amateur production, I would have most certainly done so. However, the bar is raised for professional works of whatever genre and so I can 'only' give it one mark lower.

Best episode I've seen so far.

9/10

Labour leadership contest

I'm planning to vote reluctantly for Andy Burnham in this as the best of a bad lot. We need to present a credible alternative to the Tories at the next election. Kendall isn't an alternative and Corbyn isn't credible.

In fact, if Corbyn wins this, I'm going to be giving serious consideration to resigning my Labour membership as I'd have difficulty campaigning for that man on the doorstep and I'd rather not ride along on a likely train-wreck of 1983 proportions.

Don't Call Me Funny Bunny (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.15, "Shore Leave")

"Vasquez Rocks County Park" by Thomas from USA - Vasquez Rocks
Uploaded by PDTillman. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The first season of Star Trek is 29 episodes long. Today, most American shows go for 22-24 episodes and if they go for the latter, there's usually at least one episode that is essentially a cheap filler or a clip show.

I'm not sure this one qualifies as either, but it's definitely got some of the stranger scenes that I've seen in an episode of Star Trek.

****
Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and a few other junior officers beam down to a seemingly uninhabited planet to check it out a head of some possible shore leave. However, Bones soon spots a rather large white rabbit... and no, he hasn't been on the LSD.

Mind you, when I saw the trailer for this episode, I did wonder whether LSD was also involved in the writing of this episode. On conclusion, however, the blood test would probably have come out as negative.

This is a somewhat more fantastical tale, with the aforementioned rabbit followed by Don Juan, a samuari, a Japanese Zero (that's very clearly stock footage for most of its appearance - and not even all of a Zero!) and a tiger, which Shatner wanted to wrestle... but was wisely advised against. This is reasonable enough and the story is actually quite decent once everything is revealed.

Oh and Finnegan, a fellow cadet of Kirk's whose love of pranks against our Captain is beaten only by an accent so Oirish that leprechauns would loath it, who takes part in an extensive fight scene with Kirk that sees him ruin yet another tunic. He is played by Bruce Mars, whose acting career was otherwise short and unremarkable - IMDB says he became a monk.

Star Trek may well have been very forward thinking in some aspects, but in others it is still very much a product of the 1960s. Hence the fight scene is filled with wide telegraphed punches and unnecessary forward rolls. We also get a scene where another Yeoman encounters a fairytale dress and is encouraged by Bones to put it on. Sam Carter would have told him where to get off.

We get some really extensive location shooting in here in the vicinity of what has come to be known as "Kirk's Rock" (its first appearance of nine to date in the franchise and pictured above)  - the Vasquez Rocks County Park roughly 30 miles north of LA that has become an oft-used filming location for alien worlds, Westerns and I'd imagine a few shows set in the Middle East. I recognised it on sight.

The last scene is one of those "Wasn't that hilarious? Everybody have a laugh" scenes that sometimes fill out episodes of a slightly lower quality. Not saying this is one of them - at any rate, Trek does better than many shows even on a bad day.

Conclusion

Light and (relatively) inoffensive. It's not stand out good or stand out bad.

7/10

7/7 ten years on

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the murder of 52 people by suicide bombers on London's transport system, who also injured 700 more.

May they never be forgotten.

The Chains of Command (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.14, "Balance of Terror")

The Enterprise follows a distress signal from Earth outposts monitoring the Neutral Zone between the Federation and the Romulan Empire; they've come under attack from a very powerful vessel. Kirk must lead his starship into battle to prevent a wider war.

****
Now, this is an episode that I've seen before on the CBS Action repeats; in fact, the first one in the televised running order that this is true for. Thus I have some memories of it, although not as many as I thought I did. There are three elements that I wish to focus on in more depth here..

Firstly, the battle sequences themselves, made better by the CGI remastering. There is a (probably intentional) major submarine versus destroyer element here, with the Federation ship taking the part of the latter. To give some examples, the Romulans have to 'surface' (i.e. de-cloak) to fire; the Enterprise lays down 'depth charges' via blind phaser fire and the bridge of the former rather resembles that of the main control room of a submarine. It allows for both captains to make move and counter-move; while I of course know what happens to Kirk's ship, I'd forgotten what happened to the latter, so the result is a bit more up in the air.

Secondly, the Romulans. This is the first appearance of one of the major races in the franchise and there's an awful lot of interesting story material woven with sometimes single lines; most notably a Romulus vs. Earth war that would later feature in prequel series Enterprise. The war clearly has major impact on some; both ships have a decidedly hostile senior officer on board. I note that the Romulans have 'Bird of Prey' style ships; these tend to be associated in my mind more with the Klingons, but my anciliary research shows that they are fully present in Star Trek Online.

Lastly, this story does an excellent job of showing the responsibilities of command in a warship with both Kirk and the Romulan Commander (played by Mark Lenard, who made also play Klingons and Vulcans in the franchise); remember that the Second World War was only just over 20 years in the past and so people, including some of those involved, would still have memories of the naval engagements of that war. Kirk knows full well that he is ultimately responsible for the welfare of all of his crew - and that at some point, to protect the former, he has to do serious harm to the welfare of someone else's crew... with as happens here,  a commander has no guarantee that everyone on his command will make it out alive.

Conclusion

A highly absorbing 'battle episode' that combines strong action with a thoughtful story and great performances. Does drag a little though, but that might be familiarity breeding contempt.

8/10

Fringe 1.8: "The Equation"

I had to stop this quite early on to look up where I recognised a red-haired woman from. Turns out that Gillian Jacobs was in Community, but I've only ever seen four episodes of that, so it seems odd that I'd remember that face... I thought initially it was Elena Satine, who played the annoying Louise Ellis in Revenge... and on looking up her up on IMDB, she appears to have born in Georgia i.e. the former Soviet state. Very interesting.
****
Rather than do a long drawn out post, I'm just going to outline some key points about this episode, which sees Walter have to return to his former mental hospital to find out key information to save an abducted boy.

• John Noble is investing Walter Bishop with considerable depth and humanity; you really do feel for the poor guy.
• I'm sure that real-life mental institutions are less oppressive than that, at least in the 21st century.
• J.R. Orci has been involved in a number of Abrams shows and The Blacklist as writer and producer. Oddly enough, his episodes on the latter are not in the more disturbing category... unlike his work here which is definitely on the horrific side.
• Do TV shows ever find that their gloomy ex-industrial facility is booked by someone else?
• When you enter the room where the kidnap victim is being held, Olivia, for crying out loud - make a Spot Check!
• What's with rejuvenating an apple? A test run for something else?

Conclusion

A good intriguing episode with a lot of questions being raised that I'm sure will be answered in time.

8/10

More Bard Than Good (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.13, "The Conscience of the King")

As it's over twenty quid cheaper than Amazon Prime, I've forked out for the DVD... so we can now resume our trip where no man has gone before...

****
Captain Kirk and the Enterprise is diverted off course when an old friend of his, one Dr. Thomas Leighton, believes that he has identified the lead actor in a Shakespearean acting troupe, one Anton Karidian, as Kodos the Executioner; who was responsible for the murder of 4,000 people on a colony twenty years ago in a massively misguided famine relief effort. Leighton is one of the surviving eyewitnesses, as is Captain Kirk and one Lieutenant Riley. Yep, the Irish-American dude is back and more on him later.

Leighton duly gets murdered and Kirk, acting in a rather secretive manner, decides to offer said troupe, which includes an attractive lady who the Captain does get to snog, a lift to Benecia (oddly enough, where Phoenix's Star Trek sim is currently at). His aim to make sure that it is indeed Kodos...

****
The three regulars are good as usual; there's a wonderful scene with an off-duty Bones and Spock as the former tries to persuade the latter to have a drink. We also get some extensive vocal stuff from Majel Barrett, who would provide computer voices for all six TV shows in the franchise as well as most of the movies. She does computer very well, that's for sure.

Then there's Riley. The man gets moved down to Engineering, then someone literally walks up to his coffee and sprays poison into it (with a sprayer of the sort you use to clean windows!) while his back is turned because he's listening to Uhura singing. Now I know that many actors do get a decent singing training, but her performance just felt like padding. Riley does not exactly cover himself in glory, but does end up covered by a rather tacky blanket later.

Things get worse with the guest cast... Arnold Moss as Karidian, who spent a lot of time on Broadway in his career, and Barbara Anderson as his daughter Lenore. Unfortunately, both decide to play it as if they were actually in a Shakespeare play, resulting in some very non-naturalistic delivery style and the latter, who clearly could do much better as she won an Emmy for Ironside, providing a cringe-worthy performance, especially at the end. Also, Karidian's actual acting... sorry, but Sir Patrick Stewart knocks his Macbeth into a cocked hat.

Conclusion

Sadly, a bit of a clunker. Poor guest actors do not a good episode make.

4/10

****
The DVD box set contains the original "Next Time" trailers for the relevant episodes, which I intend to watch once I've concluded each ep in the run.

The next episode, however, is going to be a more complex one to review. With "Balance of Terror" I've at last bumped into one that I've actually watched before.

'Fringe' and 'Star Trek' reviews

Going forward, I'm aiming to do the former on a fortnightly basis and the latter hopefully weekly. This plan may end up slipping.

US Supreme Court legalises same-sex marriage across the US

Excellent news. Those opposed to it - just don't go along to the weddings. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean that it's right to ban it - you have to prove actual harm is being causes and you haven't proved that.

Fringe 1.7: "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones"

I have actually been giving serious considering to calling this watch-through off and choosing to focus on other things; however, following this episode I'm going to park that decision for another day.

This episode is a mixture of good and bad. The bad involves some stuff with Olivia and an old flame that provides us with some rather dull talky scenes.

The good? The main plot involving a big parasite and a literal heart attack allows for a pretty decent race against the clock scenario with one rather large extra challenge. Also Jared Harris (best known for Mad Men) gets a great scene in a prison - I get a feeling he may turn up again. Getting key information from him involves the maddest science I've ever seen on any show, Fringe or otherwise; it's clear there's going to be a lot of this and it's really best to just roll with it.

Last twist is very good as well and will make things interesting for later. One final note - the name of the prison has to be a joke for the German speakers in the audience...

Conclusion

Not too shabby; things are starting to come together. Just wish they come together a bit faster than they currently are.

7/10

 

Agents of SHIELD

Just watched the Season 2 finale of this rather good Mutant Enemy show; got to say that the final surprise of the episode definitely wins the award for most sudden major change in a character's status for a good while...

I hope she's not dead. That would stink.

Sir Christopher Lee dies

One of the greatest, no scratch that, the greatest horror actor of the 20th century has died. Dracula, Scaramanga, Count Dooku, Saruman; all roles he made his own and among the best features of the films that he appeared in.

93 years is a long innings - and what an innings it was.

Rest in Peace, Sir Christopher.

Labour leadership contest

I'll soon be getting a vote on who I want to be the next leader of the Labour Party - and also the next deputy leader. I'm currently inclining towards Andy Burnham or Liz Kendall. They may be Blairites, but Tony Blair's ideology won us three general elections - three more than any leader from the left of the party has.

Two wrongs don't make a right

I think it's important for humanity to remember this simple statement, especially on forums. If you perceive someone has acted improperly or is being obnoxious, do not do the same in return.

If you're that unhappy about it, the report buttons are there for a reason.

Bearchow 2015 - US upfronts

No long post this year: just some quick points.

• The Cancellation Bear had an above average number of misses this year, I believe.
• Revenge should have been axed last year, but economics always meant it would get a fourth season.
• CSI's treatment by CBS (graveyard slot, order cut, sticking out the finale against NBC's 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live show) made it clear that it was for the chopping block. The two hour movie to wrap the show up is the least the network can do for a franchise that has made it billions. CSI: Cyber has taken its graveyard slot and will probably get axed next year as well.
• Person of Interest was always likely to be renewed; what was the surprise was the order for only 13 episodes for Season 5, which now means the Machine is generating itself as in danger of a violent death.
• Castle (which we didn't even see here until May) has peaked in terms of ratings, is now on its way down and probably won't be around for too much longer, regardless of ABC comments to the contrary. The apparent 13 ep order seems to confirm problems - there were major issues getting the leads signed up for Season 8.
• Agents of SHIELD's performance means I don't have to write anything about Whedon's lack of success in network television, but I doubt it goes beyond four seasons.
• The Mindy Project getting axed after three seasons (although it was picked up by Hulu for tow more) broke a seven-year trend of "a third getting you a fourth". Fans of a number of shows, especially Agents of SHIELD, will be a bit more nervous next season.
• Brooklyn Nine-Nine was renewed early; it's a great show.
• NCIS has dropped from its Season 10 peak a great deal, but is still a strong performer. I wouldn't rule out a ratings stunt involving Cote de Pablo at some point in the next couple of seasons.
• Empire wasn't just a juggernaut, it was a full-blown Death Star for FOX. Unfortunately the rest of their line up didn't do that well.
• Minority Report looks interesting, but I can't help thinking that it's covering areas already done by Person of Interest

... and the Orion Slave Girls are green (Review: 'Star Trek 1.12': "The Menagerie: Part II")

Before I start, I really want to say something about Alexander Courage's theme music. The opening four notes (Ding... Ding... Ding... Ding...) are some of the most recognisable in science fiction and combined with Shatner's narration make a great opening.

****
Yep, this is definitely stuff from "The Cage", I'm certain of it. In the second part of this story, after an excellent recap delivered via the captain's log device this show made famous, the ship continues heading towards Talos IV, a world of big-headed aliens with the ability to cast very convincing illusions and with a decent sense of humour (there's a great bit at the beginning where they chastise Pike's "primitive reactions"). They want Captain Pike for breeding purposes... not with them, but... no I won't spoil it.

Nearly of this episode consists of the 'flashbacks' to Talos IV and the similarities between Pike and Kirk are clear to see. Both in fact are in a line of square-jawed heroes going back past Dan Dare and probably into the 19th century, while going forward into the 21st (Captain Jack Harkness is one of these); Kirk's version of it is so memorable (mainly because of Shatner's excellent portrayal) that many go for parody because they can't hope to top it.

Via the illusions we get a rather entertaining fight between Pike (along with Generic Princess in Distress) and a barbarian with a big fur hat, as well as bad teeth. Not content with the odd knife in the back, Pike ends up giving him one in the front as well!

Another of the illusions is one of the most famous characters in Star Trek - the Orion Slave Girl, who's been popping up in the closing credits for a while now. I sense William Theiss was involved somewhere... and I wonder how long it took to apply all the green make-up! It's a much spoofed scene, although the original isn't all that good, IMHO[1].


Overall, it's clear from watching the 'pilot' that there's a good many problems. Pike is too stoic and reserved; it's like Cary Grant (who retired from acting in this year) or Jimmy Stewart got command of a starship. The method of solving the main problem just isn't Star Trek to me. Few of the planned regulars really stand out at all... and I'm sure that the execs weren't too keen on the female uniforms.

The twist at the end is quite nice and there's a lovely scene between Kirk and Spock at the end.
 
Conclusion

To be honest, I was really rather bored with this by the end. There's some good ideas, but the execution was lacking and I can see why Desilu went for a major revamp for the main series.

5/10
****
As I was watching this on 29 May, I noticed a message on my watchlist saying that the content expired in 2 days. I took that as meaning that Amazon's deal with CBS expires on the 31st; a similar message also appeared against Community, also owned by CBS/Paramount, IIRC. If a new deal is signed, I'll carry on watching via Amazon Prime, if not by the end of June, I'll have to fork out for the DVD.

I'm not done with this voyage yet by a long chalk.

[1]As a side note, a good few years ago, CSI did an episode involving a murder at a convention, which featured Hodges holding his phone communicator-style and saying "He's dead, Jim" to lead detective Captain Brass, then followed up with some fantasy sequences featuring the lab staff apeing various Trek character, including Wendy Simms as said slave girl.

As a second side note, there is an episode of Castle set in a convention which also does some TOS spoofing, including Kate Beckett delivering one truly epic prank.

'Fringe' 1.6, "The Cure"

Yes, I know it's been nearly ten months since I last watched this, but a lot of things came up. However, with most of my US shows having nearly wrapped up, I hope to watch some more of this series. Mind you, it's going to need to be better than this episode.

****
A woman is thrown out of a white van in the middle of a street by a guy in a hazmat suit. She goes into a nearby dinner, where she ends up making everybody bleed from the eyes before her head explodes. It's a rather grisly episode again, although the actual head exploding bits are not shown, as this isn't HBO (I couldn't bear to look at one particular scene in Game of Thrones).

Thus the FBI are called in and the team have to locate another missing woman before the same thing happens to her. There's a pharmaceutical company boss who is clearly evil because of his facial hair, an interesting deal with Massive Dynamic, who are shaping up to be big player and a scene involving radioactivity that made my willing suspension of disbelief fail. A lot of the episode feels a bit padded out to me and I'm not sure why this is a 48-minute format; did it air that way?

Olivia gets some character development (although that pesky accent issue rises again) including a great speech on how being guided by emotions is not necessarily a bad thing - and how it's generally a sexist comment levelled by men against women. Walter is again superb; clearly on a higher and different mental track then everyone else, although the negative social consequences of it are also clear to see. Peter Bishop acts as a Baby Bear between the two polar opposites of Olivia and Walter.

One final point: if you're going to do an armed raid on a place, isn't it a good idea to have an ambulance ready and waiting outside?

Conclusion

I was clock-watching for a good part of this episode, which did rather drag out. There were some good bits, definitely, but this is a mediocre episode.

6/10

Analysis of a surprise victory - General Election 2015 analysis

I have to admit I was very surprised when the exit poll put the Tories just shy of a majority... and rather unhappy when they actually won one.

Looking back at it, however, their victory was pretty obvious. Thus follows a quick rundown of what I feel are the key factors in their victory.

This poll comes in very handy for looking in more depth.

Why the Conservatives won

1. The economy: Unemployment is falling, wages are catching up with prices. Many people are expecting the economic recovery, slow as it is, to reach them. When I have to answer the question "Am I better off than I am five years ago?" with a "yes", it's clear that the circumstances for a change of government aren't reached.
2. Avoidance of major scandals: "Plebgate" was relatively small fry, phone-hacking certainly didn't impact the PM directly and the expenses issue was dealt with in the last Parliament.
3. Solid media support. Nearly all of the papers supported the Conservatives and constantly ran stories against Labour; I've seen one study that it was even more negative than 1992.
4. The over-55 vote. The Tories still have very strong support (almost 50% in fact) among this age group. Bigger concern for the future is what happens when the post-war baby boomers pass away.
5. The SNP. Despite not standing in any non-Scottish seat, fear of having the SNP control a Labour government influenced many floating voters to back the Tories.
6. David Cameron has been a competent Prime Minister and only made one major gaffe in the whole campaign on food banks.

Why Labour lost

1. The economy: Labour never held a lead on this matter and wasn't trusted by the electorate (fairly or not) after the recession on the matter. The next leader will need to address this in a big way without isolating the core vote in the process.
2. The Green Party: Took away a good deal of the left-wing vote - enough in some of the key marginals to make the difference between victory and defeat. Something important for campaigning next time is to say "Vote Green, get Tory".
3. It wasn't left wing enough for Scotland... and its organisation there in the last few years has been abysmal.
4. It was too left wing for Middle England: the party was not trusted on the EU (we should have backed a referendum) and immigration. There is also a potential white working class issue in the North that needs to be addressed. If you add up "right-wing" versus "left-wing", the former got 50.5% of the UK-wide vote.
5. Ed Miliband. While he won the 'short campaign', he was never preferred by many to David Cameron, being seen as awkward and un-Prime Ministerial. Mind you, none of the other 2010 leadership contestants would have faired too much better - David Miliband was even more associated with the Blair government for example. The "Ed stone" was a stupid mistake, but one of few in the last stages.

UKIP, the Lib Dems etc.

1. The electoral system basically limited UKIP to one seat; had we had PR, they'd have probably got more votes. As such some of their support probably voted Tory to keep Labour out. Regardless of referendum result, the EU will be a far smaller issue next time - I think.
2. The SNP's support surged after the referendum and they were able to hold onto it; in fact increase it. This may be a high-water mark for them; it may not.
3. The Lib Dems paid a heavy price for not blocking the Tories enough while in government - and the tuition fees move killed them among students. I dread to think what the next lot of council elections will be like for them. The Alliance Party in Northern Ireland may have lost by association, but I can't be sure of that.
4. Plaid Cymru had an unimpressive campaign and stayed where they were.
5. Interesting to see the revival of the Ulster Unionists; now back to two seats. Possible resurgence of moderate unionism?

Further thoughts

1. 37% and a majority of essentially 15 aren't huge wins; the Tories may have a tough time with rebels.
2. Labour doesn't need to win an overall majority next time; it just needs largest party, something it can do with only a 50 seat gain.
3. Labour's got a better membership base now and we can work with that.
4. The economy may crash before 2020 but it may not. We can't rely on it.
5. We've got to court the Murdoch press, as unpleasant as that will be. 

Eurovision 2015

I chose not to watch it this year; I just wasn't bothered. I see that we came nowhere near winning and only got four points.

I don't think it's something I'd want the UK to win at any time soon. If we did, we'd have to host it and with the BBC likely to enter some seriously dire financial straits in the next few years after the Royal Charter review, it's an expense it can ill-afford.

All the leaves are blue... (Review: 'Star Trek 1.11': "The Menagerie: Part I")

The ship is summoned to Starbase 11, where the ship's former captain, one Christopher Pike, is being looked after following serious radiation exposure that has confined him to a Davros-style wheelchair and being only able of communicating via a blinking light. Spock, who had served under him previously, then proceeds to seemingly abandon all good sense, taking Captain Pike and essentially hijacking the ship for a journey to Talos IV.

And the risks are high; Talos IV is off limits by Starfleet order... on pain of death...

****
The guest cast budget for this episode, the first of a two-parter, must have been high indeed; a quick guess... maybe 30 plus extras? Then again, see my comment below. Well, they weren't filming in location; the old painted backdrops get frequent appearance, although at least the set designers are good enough to not to have a completely flat floor.

Spock demonstrates some real cunning here through his actions to assume command of the ship, including falsifying orders (including edited voice recordings) and also some use of the Vulcan nerve pinch.

However, Kirk again demonstrates why he is the boss, chasing after Spock in a shuttle, deliberately going beyond his fuel limits and forcing Spock to pick him up, along with Starbase 11's CO. Spock then surrenders without a fight.

The second half of the episode then sees Spock's court martial, the debut of some very fancy dress uniforms and as his mitigation, Spock introducing what is basically a flashback sequence as his evidence, namely his previous visit with Pike's crew to Talos IV thirteen years earlier (complete with heavily redressed ship), a planet seemingly home to a shipwrecked Earth expedition, a good number of blue leaves and aliens with big heads of the sort that have been aped considerably since, including in Mars Attacks! among other works.

What is good is the fact that this evidence is displayed on screen... but there seems to be an IC explanation for why it looks like a TV drama. However, we seem to get a lot of unnecessary stuff, including a scene with Pike and the then ship's doctor. My OOC guess... and I'm going to hold off on looking this up (although a quick look for "big headed aliens" suggests I'm right)... is that we're seeing an awful lot of the material from "The Cage", the unbroadcast pilot.

The cliffhanger is interesting with a further twist; it's less of a "dun dun dun!" and more of the sort that ends the first half of a play.

Conclusion

While I'm intrigued as to how this is going to be resolved in the second part, the extended flashback sequences were not really needed or could at least have been seriously trimmed down.

6/10

Reviving Covert-81

You may be interested to know that my Cold War spy sim, Covert-81, is hopefully going to be revived at Phoenix Roleplaying after the site acquired AJJE Games and its associated intellectual property.

My original post on the matter can be found here. If you wish to sign up, the proposal thread is here.

Seriously, was this episode made on drugs? (Review: 'Star Trek' 1.10, "The Corbomite Maneuver")

I have to begin this review with the sad news of the death of Grace Lee Whitney, aka Yeoman Rand, at 85. While Rand's role in the series isn't that big, she certainly adds enjoyment to every scene she appears in, with this episode featuring a great one involving Kirk getting an unexpected dinner.

Rest in Peace.

****
The late 1960s were known for, well, drugs. Lysergic acid diethylamide, aka LSD, no longer patented at this time and not yet criminalised in most countries, is well known for its psychedelic effects. After watching this episode, I'm wondering whether this played any part in writing this episode. A quick Google search revealed one unsourced Reddit post on the matter and Roddenberry's ashes going into space with one Timothy Leary (him who popularised "Turn on, tune in, drop out").

This episode sees the Enterprise, while exploring an uncharted region of space, accosted by a radiation emitting spinning Rubik's Cube-esque object (the Cube, arguably the best thing to come out of communist Hungary, had to yet to be invented). Once they destroy it (the first use of ship weapons in the franchise), they're stopped by some strange sphere in space that wants to destroy them for trespassing... and is operated by a reject from the Blue Man Group.

There's another twist, but I won't say any more bar than I think Roddenberry was on something... So, I'll cover some other points in more depth:

• Kirk is again superb in this one; demonstrating a tactical master stroke in how to bluff on nothing. Also, he gets his shirt off yet again, to the point of wandering the corridors without it on. At least he doesn't do so on the bridge!
• Much of this episode revolves around a guest crewman, one Ensign Bailey. Definitely a novice; it was probably a good thing we don't see him again.
• Spock has some great lines; Vulcans do seem to have a sense of humour, that's for sure.
• We get to see some good old "Starship Acting" on several occasions in this one; i.e. the ship gets hit and the crew throw themselves in an exaggerated manner around the room, sometimes not all in the same direction...
• Why is Uhura wearing gold? She should be wearing red.
• My research says this was produced third (i.e. the first ep after the two pilots) and ended up airing tenth.
• I also note that I'm watching a remastered version with improved effects, so not everything is as was in the 1960s.

Conclusion

A very, very weird episode, but nonetheless very enjoyable. One wonders if it would be even better stoned.

8/10

VE Day - 70 years on

As the UK deals with the election result, let us pause to remember those whose sacrifice made this election - and elections in many other nations - possible by defending our freedom.

Many of those who fought in that war will go to their rest in the next few years; it is our duty to ensure that what they experienced is not forgotten.

Because if we do, we may find ourselves having to fight for our freedom again.

Election results 2015

It's fair to say that I'm very disappointed in the results of the election. I never thought I'd see the Conservatives do as well as they did, with an overall majority, albeit a small one, now projected.

Ed Miliband should step down and we need to have a long look at what went wrong. We did run a very good campaign, but it clearly wasn't good enough. Were we too left wing? Were we not left wing enough? Were we both? Was it the economy what swung it? Something that needs some serious focus grouping. We are facing serious challenges to our support from both the Greens and UKIP in England; I don't need to mention the SNP.

Small consolations were Galloway losing in Bradford West, Labour actually making a small gain on vote share from 2010 and our London performance. Also, the completely unexpected near total wipe-out of the Lib Dems.

David Cameron is in for possibly the next five years; it's entirely possible that he might get ousted before then, but don't count on it.

Instead, the left needs to focus on winning councils in 2016 (including London's Mayoralty) and use all our legal influence to mitigate the damage Tory policies will do to the disadvantaged in this country.

I'll do a fuller analysis in a couple of weeks once the dust has settled.

General Election 2015 - Final call

• Conservatives narrowly win popular vote, but don't exceed 35% or 290 seats.
• Labour just get most seats.
• Lib Dems end up under 25 seats, but Nick Clegg hangs on.
• SNP win over 50 seats in Scotland, but don't get a clean sweep.
• Farage loses narrowly in Thanet South.
• No easily viable government emerges.
• We have another election by this time next year.

Second World War post delayed

Due to lack of time on my part with the General Election, I'm planning to put my post on the neutral nations of the Second World War back to the summer; closer to the anniversary of VJ Day. I intend to make this a more global affair covering the major neutrals around the world.