Orange is the New Red (Review: Star Trek 1.25, "The Devil in the Dark")

When I wanted my pizza zapped... I didn't mean it like this

I had hoped to get the entirety of the original series watched by 9 September - the show's 50th anniversary - but I'll just have to make do with Season 1 instead. So, after a long break, we go back to the 23rd century...

****

The Enterprise crew answer a distress call from a mining facility that has had a large number of men killed by a mysterious creature that burns them to a crisp... as they investigate, they also have to find a missing element of the reactor to prevent the colony's destruction.

****

I'm going to start by commenting that this is a particularly good episode for red shirt deaths - and also orange shirt deaths - most of the miners wear orange and the first to die in the pre-credits teaser, which is of a variety you frequently find in modern day Doctor Who, is indeed wearing orange.

Kirk has a strong episode; for a start he doesn't get distracted by any scantily-clad women in this one. I'm sure I've said before that Kirk is far more than just a Zap Branigan; he is a thoughtful and authoritative commander, who feels genuine sadness at the death of yet another redshirt. Shatner's father died during the production of this episode; he insisted on continuing filming until the episode wrapped before departing.

Spock also does well, but gets a bit inconsistent with this views towards the creature in question - going from hoping to capture it to telling Kirk to kill it when he encounters it a tad too quickly for my liking.

This is a great McCoy episode as well; he's wonderfully grumpy but improvises brilliantly at the end; we even get an 'I'm a doctor, not a X..." line from him.

The miners (all men - there is no female character with a speaking part in this episode with Uhura absent along with Sulu - the sole case of this in the entirety of TOS) are your standard sort, none of whom are particularly memorable in any way.

For an episode entitled "The Devil in the Dark" this is rather over-lit and clearly done in a studio - the floor is too flat for one thing. Having just watched an episode of Killjoys with a similar setting, I can safely say things have improved in that department.

Lastly, onto the creature itself... I laughed when I first saw, because it resembles a giant overcooked pizza. It turns out that the creature itself is very intelligent and has a good reason for acting this way; the story is a well worn trope and pretty obvious to modern viewers, but it still holds up well. I also realised I've seen it elsewhere - in the Trexels mobile game in fact!

Conclusion

While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, this is an enjoyable slice (no pun intended) of Star Trek.

8/10

Rio 2016

While not exactly the greatest Games ever - there were a lot of issues with attendances and the cost of hosting this thing really needs to be looked at (get the sponsors to stump up more cash or cut the event numbers down) - the Olympics were by no means a total disaster and Rio de Janeiro can be pleased with what was put on.

A spectacular performance by Team GB, beating our own 2012 performance - who would have thought we would have beaten the Chinese on the medal table? This is the result of 20 years of hard work and heavy investment in elite sport. However, many of these wins were people retaining their titles from 2012 and we need to make sure that we have good enough people coming forward for the future.

Also, the New Year's Honours are going to be very interesting this year. Sir Mo Farah? Now that's as far away from his Somali origins as you can get.

Well done to him and all the others.

Bring Back British Rail?

Today we learn how much regulated rail fares are due to go up in January. The rise in fares has led to calls for renationalisation.

Rail use has doubled in the last twenty years, but the infrastructure hasn't kept up with it.

I am not sure that renationalisation is necessary the best way to do it - considering the experience of British Rail.

I must admit I am too young to remember much of it - my commuter experience began well after privatisation. So I can only go from what I have read and my own experiences on c2c, TfL Rail, Abellio Greater Anglia and the London Underground.

So here are my thoughts/observations
* I have experienced far worse overcrowding on the London Underground than on any of the privatised lines. In particular, the Central Line is a living argument for Crossrail.
* My recollections of the Class 312 were that is was rather grotty. The Class 357 Electrostar (and the other trains in the family) may be a bit boring, but at least it is clean.
* No-one seems to ask regular users of SNCF and DB what they think of their services.
* Many of the safety issues over Driver Only Operation are addressable with improved technology. That said, I would prefer to have a second staff member on a train.
* In the twenty years before privatisation (1975-1994), 150 people were killed in train collisions and other accidents; not counting 'one under' suicides. In the twenty years since (1995-2014), it was 85 and the last ten years has seen a number of years with no deaths whatsoever.
* BR did many good things, but the Beeching Axe was definitely not one of them - they were continuing to cut lines and services into the 1980s. Our capacity issues would be a lot easier if the Great Central Railway was still open; alas there is now too much of Nottingham in the way now.
* Dining services have reduced massively, but the railway operators have caused that by the proliferation of shops on the stations themselves, which sell food at cheaper prices.
* Yes, there needs to be an increased emphasis on passenger service over profit.
* A nationalised system would be far more subject to political whims than the current system. What interest does a Labour government have in rural Norfolk or Cornwall?
* The much-maligned Pacer was a BR product.
* Rail subsidy has gone up since privatisation; private companies do need to make a profit - we are now having problems with getting bidders for franchises. The Big Four had to rely on newspaper traffic to break even.
* Under the proposed Labour scheme of taking each franchise into public ownership, only four would go back by 2025. With Labour's current leadership, getting into power to do even that is unlikely.

If nationalisation could be made to work in a way that didn't see cuts in services as happened under BR, I would favour it. But I need convincing.

An update

I've not disappeared - just had a lot on lately. I'm currently working slowly on a review of the Caledonian Sleeper train; this will appear hopefully by the end of the month.

Nice

At least 84 people have been killed in a terrorist attack in Nice involving a truck being driven into a crowd.

Can we please stop killing each other for stupid reasons?

Well, I won't be calling the refund department (Review: 'Ghostbusters', 2016)

Now I've made my moans about remakes in the past and I'm going to take them back. While some remakes are unnecessary wastes of time, this one most certainly isn't.

****
When a female-led remake/reboot of the 1984 comedy classic Ghostbusters was announced, it was controversial to put it mildly. I won't go into all the sordid details here; Google will be able to help you.

I decided that I would wait until the reviews came out and decide whether to see it at the cinema or wait for a video release. The reviews have been pretty positive from many quarters, so I made my way to my 'local' (Vue Cinemas in Romford) on Wednesday to see it.

****
Ghostbusters revolves around Erin Gilbert (Kirsten Wiig), a professor who discovers that her old friend Abigail 'Abby' Jones (Melissa McCarthy) has published a book that they wrote five years earlier on ghosts without her permission. When she goes to confront her about this  she finds herself teaming up with Abby and her nuclear scientist friend Jillian to investigate a haunting at an old mansion. The trio, teaming up with a subway worker, find themselves facing the threat of a paranormal invasion of New York.

****
One thing that went through my mind while watching this movie is 'this is a femcom'; the film does feel very much aimed at women in its overall tone and depiction of the male characters. It also might explain the gender divide in the reviews.

Anyway, the plot is rather different from the original as the Ghostbusters find themselves having to deal with internet trolls, bureaucrats a hostile media and sky high property prices. Not to mention a crazed man out to unleash chaos on the city.

The movie in itself takes a little while to get fully going, but once it does, it's a real (proton gun) blast. I had a big grin on my face throughout much of the film, especially the action packed finale, which features stuff that wasn't possible effects wise back in 1984. There are also a set of wonderful cameos from the surviving leads of the original film; as well as a nice tribute to the late Harold Ramis (Egon) who died in 2014.

The four leads are not carbon copies of the original team; each is their own original character.

Erin is the 'straight woman' of the piece; managing to keep her cool despite everything that gets thrown at her, including a large quantity of slime. She also wears the world's smallest bow tie. Bow ties are cool and I like her hair as well.

Not being familiar with Melissa McCarthy's work, I found her pretty funny in this film; she handles the physical comedy very well and has just the right amount of frustration in her performance.

When I saw the first promo picture of Kate McKinnon (currently on Saturday Night Live where she does a great Hillary Clinton) as Jillian Holtzmann, with a shock of blonde hair and chewing gum, I thought 'I'm going to like her'. Looking like Egon, but acting like a crazier version of Venkmann, the gun-licking bit from the trailer isn't the goofiest thing she does in the film; she's a scene-stealing ball of irrepressible adorable energy and Jill is my new favourite Crazy Lady of STEM. Sorry, Root, please don't taser me.

Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) is the weak link in this film. Criticised for being a black stereotype (although the role was originally intended for McCarthy), she's the 'street smart' member of the team with a strong knowledge of NYC history, but to be honest, I just found her character too shrill for my tastes.

Finally, there's Kevin, the ditzy male receptionist played by Chris Hemsworth, known for playing Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He's really good here and if it wasn't for the presence of McKinnon, he'd steal the show.

Conclusion

While not exactly an Oscar-winner (although you never know, it may get nominations in the technical categories), it really doesn't matter. This is 116 minutes of great fun.

And I mean 116 minutes; make sure you stay right to the end of the credits.

8/10

Prime Minister Theresa May

A very interesting speech; now to see if her words on social injustice are matched by her actions.

Her time as Home Secretary wasn't great, but she may have been constrained by others. Now she has no such constraints.

The state of the Labour Party

Is, simply put, a complete and utter mess.

We have a leader who lacks the support of even 20% of his own MPs, a set of rules for the contest that are effectively forcing new members to pay twice and a culture in which those who voice genuine disagreement are accused of treachery.

In fact, I am at the moment not planning to renew my membership when it expires later this year because I am sick of the whole thing.

The Labour Party is long ceased being a party of actual labour; where are the factory workers, the call centre staff, the train guards in our Parliamentary party? Labour does not listen to its voters (who are more right-wing than some members think) anymore; it arguably hasn't since the 1980s.

One blogger, TSE from Political Betting, has said in his normal cutting way, that Labour couldn't "organise a pregnancy on a council estate".

To be honest, a council estate has fewer arguments.

Please, please, sort this out; the only people this ultimately hurts are the ordinary people of this country.

Corbyn vs. Eagle

So, it appears that we are going to have a second Labour leadership contest in the space of two years.

I will have to vote for Eagle in this, because I do not feel that Corbyn has led this party at all effectively. He has made unforced error after unforced error, handing ammunition to the Tories. His activity during the EU referendum was at best misdirected (swing voters don't go to rallies, they have better things to do with their time).

Outside of London, Labour has gone backwards in electoral performance; we need the suburbs and Middle England as Scotland is lost to us. Many of his ideas are good; but he is the wrong man to put them into practice and I have serious concerns about his foreign policy.

I want a united party, but I cannot follow Corbyn to what will likely be the destruction of the party.

And this will probably come to pass. If he gets on the ballot, he probably wins and Momentum, an organisation who has not done anything to deal with vile abuse from its members against those who disagree, will go after the 172 MPs who voted for the no confidence motion. That splits the party.

If Corbyn is not on the ballot, his supporters (and possibly some MPs), will probably form their own party.

Eagle has many problems, but she is better than Corbyn

The only way to avoid this is for Corbyn to stand down and for us to find a new leader acceptable to both camps. Sadly I doubt that will happen.

Thoughts on Chilcot

Knowing in 2003 what I know now, I would not have backed the UK involvement in Iraq.

It is clear that the invasion itself was massively mishandled and could have been put back at least a year.

That said, Tony Blair and George W Bush,   the former of which appears to have  had good intentions, are not solely responsible for the chaos in Iraq.

Saddam himself created a toxic cauldron of sectarian hatred that the Coalition opened. Iraqis who should have been working together to make a better country engaged in corruption and score settling instead. Terrorists decided to attack civilians instead of actual troops.

There was no conspiracy (I could have done a better job at organising it) but instead a massive chain of failure by many people.

And the innocent, as always, suffered for it.

Pray for your leaders that they do not make more mistakes like this.

Don't be fooled by the Ankh that she's got, she's still Jenny in Half a Frock (Review: 'Logan's Run', 1976)

Jenny Agutter, to me, is Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife. I'm somewhat surprised she's only 63, because it seems like she's been a part of British media for longer than I can remember, most notably in The Railway Children.

So, watching Logan's Run via Amazon Video, it was a bit of a surprise to see her as a twenty something starlet... in an outfit less Call the Midwife and more Call the Cardic Nurse, Stat!

Anyway, more on that later.

****

Logan's Run is loosely based on the 1967 novel of the same name by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, albeit with some heavy changes.

In the year 2274, the remnants of humanity live hedonistic lifestyles in a sealed city run by a computer. It's a idyllic life if you like free love... but the drawback is that you die at 30; either by vaporisation in a strange ritual or if you try to run, via the Sandmen, the city's human law enforcement.

When one runner, Logan-5, hears of a rumoured safe home for runners 'called' Sanctuary via a woman called Jessica-6, the computer assigns him to find it and destroy it, making him a Runner as well in the process...

This review contains some spoilers.

Further thoughts on Brexit

1. A lot of the tone of the exit negotiations is going to be determined by who takes over as Prime Minister. Boris Johnson is probably not the best leader to ensure they go smoothly.
2. There will have to be a tradeoff between access to the single market and any controls on EU immigration. A contribution to the EU budget may well be needed.
3. The EU needs serious reform and quickly if it is to avoid more people leaving.
4. Jeremy Corbyn needs to go for the good of Labour. He is toxic in our traditional heartlands.
5. There remains a fundamental disconnect between the Establishment and ordinary people in this country.
6. 28% of voters didn't vote. That is a problem.
7. A rejoining is theoretically possible but politically impossible for at least a generation.
8. The political culture in this country is far too toxic.
9. Scottish independence must now be considered a strong possibility.
10. The polling industry in this country managed to do even worse than the General Election.

 

The UK votes LEAVE

Well, that happened. Now all of us - the whole  world - will have to deal with the consequences and adjust appropriately.

I'm disappointed but philosophical. Burgundy isn't a nice colour for a passport anyway.

Vote Remain

This long, unpleasant campaign finally comes to an end on Thursday and by breakfast on Friday, we will know whether Great Britain has chosen to remain in the European Union.

I would like us to stay in and will vote as such when I cast my ballot on Thursday.

Is the EU perfect? Most certainly not; it has made many mistakes. That whole "moving to Strasbourg thing" for examples.

But those mistakes are far outweighed by its practical benefits. The right to live and work freely in any member state actually benefits more British people in the rest of the EU than other EU nationals here. It makes many collaborative projects, especially media ones, much easier to do. Game of Thrones would be a lot harder to make if you had to apply for work permits for all of the cast and crew, who hail from many nations.

Also, the existence of the EU has been a force for democracy in other parts of Europe - nations have had to crack down on corruption and improve human rights to get in.

Vote Leave haven't been clear about their alternative and there is no guarantee that the organisation they dislike so much will agree to their proposals. 'Control our borders' would basically mean making it harder for our business to get skilled labour from anywhere bar the UK as all foreigners would need work permits, not just non-EU ones. It would also make it harder for those here who wish to work and study abroad.

They say that the rest of the EU ignores us; maybe it's because we haven't tried hard enough to work with others to improve things.

I am a Briton, but I am also a European; I believe in working together to solve our common problems, not pulling up the drawbridge.

Vote Remain.

Jo Cox 1974-2016

The Labour MP Jo Cox has been murdered in a shooting and stabbing attack in her constituency. She was 41.

The circumstances of the attack have yet to be definitely established, but this appears to have been an attack by a far-right extremist - a man has been arrested. The person responsible for this has no justification for their actions and deserves a whole life sentence.

Rest in Peace.

Orlando

The worst mass shooting in US history has killed at least 50 people in Orlando and appears to be an act of Islamist terrorism.

This world has a lot of incidents like this; incidents where people carry out vile acts because of some warped beliefs or ideology, then end up dead at their own hands or at the hands of security forces. The fact there are so many people - of course one is too many - who want to do this sort of thing, is a source of major concern for me.

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and those who knew them.

Thoughts on the EU referendum

1. The amount of mud slinging, distortion of the facts and general name calling is far too much. Grown adults should be better than this.
2. There are a lot of faults with the EU, but those are the faults of the people who run it not the institutions themselves. If we had a different Chancellor of Germany, the EU agenda might be quite different.
3. The Commonwealth of Nations contains precisely one other economic powerhouse - India and I doubt there's much of a market out there for many of our goods. The rest are middle ranking at best.
4. Mass immigration will continue as long as there is a clear divide between developed countries and less developed ones. Economic migrants are applying Norman Tebbitt's own 1981 advice and "getting on their bike" to find a better life for themselves.
5. If they don't come here legally, they will come here illegally, with all the consequences that entails.
6. It is not beyond the wit of this government to build the new infrastructure  for an increased population if they weren't so focussed with cutting tax for the wealthy.
7. Greece and Italy did not need bailouts because of the euro, they needed them because of their incompetent governments.
8. Is an EU superstate really that bad a thing?
9. Can the EU do more for workers? Yes it can. However, looking at the Tory government's actions to date, can you really trust them to protect worker rights.
10. Which EU standards are actually a bad thing for us?

The bear and the reaper - US TV season 2015-16 in review

• A lot more early renewals this year; pretty much all of the safe candidates got their new orders in March.
• The CW surprised everyone by renewing all their scripted series in one go; even the less likely prospects with the exception of Containment that had yet to air at that point. That didn't do well enough to survive; unlike the Belgian show it was based on, Cordon, which has been renewed.
• Castle botched the wedding last year... and then did a rather stupid break-up plot. The audience started heading for the exit. Castle and Beckett got back together and audiences stabilised, but the departure of Stana Katic was the final straw for me, along with much of the fanbase. A Beckett-less ninth season would have come in for considerable negative publicity and I'm not surprised that ABC decided not to go ahead with it.
• Of Prophets and Kings became another member of the 'two and axed' club, the most ignominious fate a TV show can suffer; those gone after one will at least attract some notoriety.
• I really don't know what made CBS take such an exception to Person of Interest. One of the best shows I've ever seen.
• The Blacklist was always going to get a fourth season; it's still very good indeed if you realise that Liz Keen is fundamentally unsuited for the life she has ended up in. Of course the show did have to work around Megan Boone's pregnancy and did so in a very interesting manner... It has also got a spinoff starring Famke Janssen, who is best known to me for playing Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye.
• There were the usual batch of bad ideas that got ordered and didn't last long; Rush Hour for example.
• Agent Carter was a surprise renewal last year, but the axe this year was no surprise. Good show, but never got decent ratings. At least Atwell's Conviction pilot got ordered to series and I may well check that out.
• The CSI franchise has finally died; Cyber was a silly idea for a spinoff.

'Castle' cancelled after eight seasons

Multiple sources are saying that the ABC dramedy will not be coming back for a ninth season.

I am sad but also relieved. The show started getting silly and without Stana Katic in it wouldn't have been worth watching.

Best to end it now. In fact ending it last season or even at Season 6 would have been even better.

I'll miss it of course, but I am sure something new will come along that I will enjoy just as much.

Captain America: Civil War - Mini Review

I saw this yesterday at one of my local cinemas and have to say that it was very good. I admit the plot got a tad hard to follow at times, but keeping me thinking obviously helped distract me at points.

The action scenes were superb throughout, combining humour with spectacular special effects and I have to say that the plot was a pretty good one, serving the characters well. The outcome felt genuinely up for grabs, which made the climax more tense.

Also, got to say that a certain new character was just on the right side of annoying.

8/10