May contain some strong language

TV "Owen is a c**t. There is no other adequate word for this contemptible Eric Cartman oxygen-thief; he's the worst kind of asshole, one who smugly knows full well that he can pull any shit he wants and never has to face the consequences because his MAD DOCTOR SK1LLZ make him supposedly indispensible to the team (such as it is). It's not hard to imagine why he's finished up at Torchwood after being struck off the medical register and even UNIT doesn't want him. Every fuck-up this gash-faced clown ever makes, from copping an illicit feel to leaving the keys in the van, is followed by a look or tone of voice that says "Well? What are you going to do about it?" Never mind his virtual date-rape; if they can't be bothered to ditch an arch-traitor like Ianto, what chance has Owen's sense of decorum got of ever growing up?" -- Dave Sanders on Torchwood

Does this about wrap it up for God?

Philosophy "We explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle and Darwin's principle of natural selection. That combination provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary. It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can't disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can't disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable." -- Richard Dawkins

I wonder if Dawkins was conscious that he was referencing his friend Douglas Adams in that last line of the article? I always come unstuck when I try to grasp ideology and religion. I haven't committed to any of the monotheistic religions for many of the reasons that Dawkins relates in relation to rational thought. Also:

(a) I can't believe in anything that leads to war and yet history is about fighting over religion and ideology and often more importantly over who is right and if you won't commit to any of it you're on a hiding to nothing because then everybody hates you, even the ones who say they forgive you and you only have love in your heart.

(b) There's only so many times that someone whose religious can tell you that if you don't share their beliefs you're going to hell (which happened a lot when I was at school) but then claims to be compassionate. I don't like those kinds of contradictions.

(c) This passage from The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy:

" "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing." "

(d) Don't not believe in God is a contradiction I do like. I just can't believe in God using a set of rules set out by anyone else. The counter argument is that you end up choosing the religion which best fits your expectations which sort of goes against the divine inspiration approach that's often favoured and also means that you'll inevitably make exceptions and start contradicting your own beliefs. That seems wrong.

(e) The BA thing, for example. BA's anti-jewelery policy (which is standard in many, many industries) wasn't anti-religion even though it was portrayed as such. The inevitable result of all this will be that the policy will be rewritten to say that jewelery is banned, except for religious icons. You're essentially favouring the rights of those who have religious beliefs and choose to broadcast them over those who don't. That seems a bit unfair to me although I'd like to hear the opposing argument.

(f) Prayers and rituals worry me. I was in Liverpool Cathedral the other day, a place which I do find humbling and lit a candle. But I didn't say a prayer, I made a wish. It wasn't to anyone in particular, no metaphysical being. It probably had the potency of the kind you make on your birthday. But I don't think it was a worthless wish. It was for world peace.

(g) Although its essentially about war and me being able to put my name to something that causes them. I've asked around and no one can think of a war that hasn't been caused by religion. Is anything philosophical really worth fight over?
Updated: I inevitably Asked Metafilter. As Steven says: "I would say that wars which are at their heart religious are only a minority. Far more common is wars which are motivated by other things, but where leaders cite religion as a way of motivating the masses to fight. However, if those demagogues didn't have religion, they'd have found something else for their speeches." I've also been put in my place elsewhere: "Religion has caused a lot of persecution, conflict and suffering, but it's plainly wrong and frankly moronic to try to blame it for all war. Anyone who's read a history book should know better." So I can knock (g) from the list, perhaps.

Flaws

Life Pottering about. My vaguely casual job ends on Sunday (expect the big reveal next week) but I've irons in the fire (I think -- ooh mysterious). There's been a noticable drop in job adverts in my areas of interest, presumably because people don't want to be going through the recruitment process over Christmas. Looking forward to graduation -- hired my gown and flat hat (my head has a circumference of 24 inches) -- there should be three of us from my course there, which is good news. I'll also be able to get the feedback for my dissertation which I'm surprisingly nervous about. I always seem to focus on the flaws no matter how well I've done or what I've achieved.

I'm catching up on the many hundreds of documentaries and films and documentaries I've recorded in the past few years when I had a life. Watched something I recorded from Channel Four last year some time about female portrait artists, but mostly Frida Kahlo, in which I learnt that she apparently had a perpetual open wound which she would show everyone through her specially designed costumes and had an affair with Trotsky. Ick. Interesting stuff although the presenter thought himself to be a bit post modern announcing the break with things like 'more soon' and 'in a minute we'll talk about this'. Pity his delivery was akin to Tommy Cockles from The Fast Show.

Referrer Logs feeling listless: No 1 for escalator porn!

Listed

Elsewhere .net's The Great British blogs. I am sort of listed. With about twenty others. Goodness.

Obsessed and alarming

TV From .net magazine's The Great British blogs:

"If you’d prefer something programme-specific, there are excellent blogs for individual programmes, and Behind The Sofa is a shining example of the genre with multiple contributors covering the current run of Doctor Who in alarming detail."

"Obsessed with Doctor Who? We bet you’re not as obsessed as Behind The Sofa, which features lyrics for Doctor Who karaoke."

I love that we're listed in a box-out with 'Idiot Toys' and 'Knickers'.

Museums Melissa's right, and this is always one of my bugbears -- poor labeling and layouts in museums. The very best museums have a narrative, tell the story of their subject. Even if its as simple in a gallery as placing the works in chronological order so that the visitor can see the sweep of art history despite the inevitable gaps. Science museums tend to be hopeless with this stuff, contenting themselves to displaying the objects under rough subject headings rather than offering the story of science. Why for example should chinese astronomy only be covered in the space section and not in the chinese civilisation area either instead or at the same time?

Why shouldn't a general museum present a history of the world? Often they do to a rough extent -- dinosaurs to egyptians to space but the various sciences never merge with one another and rather than displaying the history the world, you're seeing discrete histories running in parallel with one another. Which is fine, but wouldn't it be more interesting to display the whole collection by centuries or millenia? A room marked 1000 BC that features objects across the civilisations so that the visitor can really see how different countries effected each other development, making parallel development even clearer and that would include wildlife because even in war the human species often develops depending upon the food available. Its only in recent years I've understood that human history is a mass development and not a selection of discrete chronologies -- because in all the years of museum going I wasn't able to see the effect that Rome had on Egypt and vice-versa.

We could well be. For more than one day.

TV Heroes has been bought by BBC Two and will get an airing after its flown through the Sci-fi channel. Expect a run at 10 o'clock on Sunday for a season were it gains moderate ratings and a cult audience where upon it'll be shunted to after midnight then disappear from the schedules within a couple of years. Either that or it'll be thrown up on a Saturday afternoon cut to ribbons. Cynical? Me?

Bye Bob

Film I was shocked and saddened to hear about the death of Robert Altman. Having spent the summer studying a style of cinema which if he didn't instigate, he developed, it's really difficult to capture just how visionary the man was in his film making techniques. The modern film narrative owes him a debt and you can't watch most independent cinema, with its loose improvisational style, shooting and editing without seeing his influence.

Although I can't admit to loving all of his films, my favourites were probably Short Cuts, the dream-like Three Women, Gosford Park, M*A*S*H and particularly The Long Goodbye which deconstructed the detective genre to the point that the case became less important than the characters. About the only genre he didn't tackle was Science Fiction, and I always wondered what that would look like. Twenty characters, ten or so storylines, alien colony, no real conclusion. How great would that have been?

She is .. one .. of the slayers ...

Comics Joss Whedon reveals some secrets behind his new Buffy Season Eight comic book. As expected, it's been very carefully thought through -- this isn't just going to be business as usual this is a development of the premise. New characters, new dynamic for the Scooby gang and it'll be elaborate on the Buffy material from the last season of Angel. Joss is writing the first four issues and will then be overseeing a stream of other writers -- it'll be interesting to see who will be working on it. The new SFX magazine features a round table which he's instigated that features Warren Ellis. How cool would that be?

Balls and China

Life After the excitement of yesterday I spent today in Manchester to relax and have a change of scenes. Because its late and I've much to write about here, in bullet points, is were I went and what I did:

The China Show at Urbis. Collection of artwork emphasising the new urban nature of China as it rapidly (apparently) becomes the centre for the world's economy. Highlights include the work of Xing Danwen who places herself into giant photographs of new architecture. If there's a problem with the exhibition it doesn't really address the restrictions that are being placed on new media in the country -- this gives the appearance that young people are being allowed to express themselves when they really aren't.

Chetham's Library. Musty old Public Library in the Music School which looks like the inspiration for Hogwarts. One of those experiences which is very difficult to describe, from the musty smell, to the imposing feeling that the books themselves are alive and waiting to be spoken to. One of Manchester's best kept secrets.

Manchester Cathedral Shop. Mum's looking for a new nativity set for Christmas and although they had a lovely one, carved in cedar wood, a hundred and fifty pounds seems a bit steep for something that will only get a viewing once a year. Was able to enjoy the madness of the holy socks which allow you to have Daniel and the Lions on your feet, and the Glory Golf Balls: for a holy in one! featuring such golf related bible quotes as "those who seek me diligently, find me." If was at all religious ...

Christmas Markets. Although similar has visited Liverpool lately, there's nothing like the Christmas markets in Manchester for finding the unusual present and spending far more than you should for it. Managed to make a Swedish girl's day by buying her cinnamon biscuits. Must stop buying Christmas presents. Really must.

Dada daaa dada daaa dadadadada

Film An above average documentary about the theme music of the James Bond franchise inadvertently revealed a quirk that to a degree is also pretty revealing of the process of making actual films themselves. Time and again its revealed that in an effort to innovate quite alternate musicians and singers would be hired to produce the credit song, a prime example being Alice Cooper for The Man With The Golden Gun (with backing vocals for Lisa Minelli) only to be replaced at the last moment with Lulu, something far more traditional and in-keeping with the expected. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that latterly they even imagined Eric Serra would be perfect for GoldenEye (presumably on the basis of his score for Luc Besson's Nikita). The result was crazy and experimental and he too was replaced with a traditionalist.

This kind of thinking seems to be at the roots of Casino Royale, which is supposed to reboot the franchise once again, taking it into a grittier, far more realistic direction, overlaid with a style which is truer to author Ian Fleming than later films, particularly in the Brosnan era. This is certainly apparent in the opening scene, which, in black and white reveals how Bond received his 007 designation. Its gritty and grainy and violent and like nothing we've seen before - then it plunges into the familiar shot through the slight of a gun and the traditional title sequence which looks like everything we've seen before (echoes of BBC's Hustle) the only different being that its Daniel Craig posing instead of some comely lady. The worship of his new buffed up body continues throughout the film as he appears naked or half naked, no doubt as a way of redressing the balance for female viewers after years of bikini babes.

The problem is that whenever the film looks to be dumping the girls, guns and gadgets in favour of something that the producers clearly want to be a Jason Bourne botherer, it pulls back and drops in something that wouldn't have been out of place in a Roger Moore epic. Original rumours suggested a straight adaptation of the novel, period details intact, but as time went on it became apparent that actually the story would be bent around something in the region of 'I Can't Believe It's Not James Bond', set in the present day (at one point a vital clue is clearly marked 06 July 2006), with the camp factor reduced. Like the old movies, but not quite. Unlike Superman Returns which strained to fit in as many of the old icons as possible, this jettisons Moneypenny, Q and Smersh. But M's still there (Judi Dench's performance being one of the highlights) as is the Aston Martin, the Martini and the expected lines of dialogue. There's also an appearance by a familiar character in an unfamiliar way which film fans might be able to spot a mile off if their thinking laterally during the credits.

The Bond figure himself is supposed to be the great update and its been suggested that this is the Batman Begins of a new series, the film which shows how Bond became the man we recognize. This is a clearly hinted at in David Arnold's score which slowly forms into the familiar Monty Norman theme over the running time of the film. It's a pity then that Bond is even more of a closed shop than ever before. Although a quirk has always been that his motivations and thought processes are generally obscured, here it damages the film. You're supposed to be sympathetic to his aims because of who he is and who he works for but because his goals are obscured even in the closing hour (which tries to inject something for him to care about) his motivation seems to be based upon the premise that he's slightly pissed off that nothing goes the way he planned. Daniel Craig is as good an actor as the franchise has seen - when Bond is hit it obviously hurts and he's closer to the Fleming Bond than any of the others. There are some great moments of sensitivity and he has masses of charisma - but in general his performance is propping up the material and frequently he is creating the character's dimensions rather than the script. When Bond makes a particular life choice later in the film, because he's been so blank up until then it feels unconvincing or a ruse and not be character development its clearly meant to be.

On the positive side, some of the the action sequences, particular in the first half are breathtaking, a chase across rooftops and in an airport are as good as anything that might grace the climax of any other action film. The inevitable trip to Casino Royale is the fitting centerpiece, the battle of wills between Bond and apparent villain Le Chiffre (the serpentine Mads Mikkelsen) over the poker table (a replacement for the more complicated Baccarat in the novel) producing some excellent moments, particularly for Craig who seems more comfortable in these sections when he gets to be the badass in the suit we've seen elsewhere. Ravishing Eva Green's Vesper Lynd is one of the elements that the adaptation gets right, edgy and beautiful, once again demonstrates her budding star power, and actually some of the humour that really works is in the screwball moments between her and Craig. She's the Bond girl I'd always imagined they should be.

But what's left of the story from the novel is episodic and threadbare. It's often hard to follow what Bond's mission actually is, and the sudden introduction of 9/11 and the threat of international terrorism notwithstanding, doesn't seem to amount to much more than chasing people around bomb makers around the globe and attempting to win some money from their master. It's extraordinarily difficult to care and the attempt to integrate the Bondian elements into a realistic geopolitical setting never quite works. One argument is that Bond has never been about the story, but because of all of the choices made in the name of modernisation, for this to be a successful reinterpretation, it really should be. In refocusing the plot of the novel (which is all about the gambling) to accommodate so many action sequences at the expense of characterization and exposition, the climax feels strangely airless. This is a very long film considering the genre and material and there simply isn't enough story to cover the time - the main plot climaxes and then there's what amounts to an epilogue that lasts around half an hour which does little but weaken the overall experience when it should (as in the novel) be heartbreaking. Disappointing.

Countrycide.

TV Dreadful. Just unspeakably bad.

I was talking to an old college friend in the week and we inevitably got onto the subject of Torchwood, a show she'd been eagerly anticipating but had unfortunately ended up missing because of work commitments. She had managed to catch the last half of Small Worlds and had but this to say. 'John Barrowman can't act can he? He was quite good in Doctor Who but (sigh) he should stick to musical theatre.'

I was about to take John's corner but then thought - well, hold on, if the only thing she could think about is the probable leading man's acting ability, then there must really be something going horribly wrong. Torchwood is a show in trouble and its difficult to really understand quite what the production team are trying to achieve. If this wasn't a Doctor Who spin-off I would probably have stopped watching by now. It says a hell of a lot that I'm now looking forward to a new episode of Robin Hood more than this.

Well, alright (sigh) the few positives. Whenever these characters have to sit down together the interaction often very appealing. The campfire scene is an example - it's about what and what isn't being said, the fact that everyone has their little secrets and the performances here were perfectly fine. The nods to previous episodes worked well and there was a real sense despite the horrifyingly clichéd teaser that this might be one of the good episodes. Oh well.

I'd also like to thank Maldak from Vengeance on Varos for making a return to the whoniverse - Owen Teale's one of the countries most underrated actors and here he was playing pure, unadulterated bastard evil very well. The initial portrayal of the antagonist was good too, on the edge of the frame, just out of eyeshot, the camera moving into the place were the viewers eyes would like to go then falling just short. The scene in which Tosh and Ianto investigate the house was fairly tense. It's an old trick to be sure, but certainly kept us guessing, right up to the horror of the twist.

And oh the horror.

She's blonde. She's talking on her mobile whilst driving. She loses the signal. There's rock music in the car. It's the middle of nowhere. It's the middle of night. She's tempted out of the car because of a body in the road. She's conveniently carrying a baseball bat. It's a trap! She runs back to the car. But hey - someone stolen the keys! She's dragged from inside! Screaming!

Things didn't begin well with a teaser that looked worse than most short student films and featured all of the horror clichés that Kevin Williamson forgot to include in the Scream series - and many that he didn't. It was hard not to bring to mind those buffer adverts that have appeared in cinemas lately, particularly the one in which the girl is miming being attacked in a car by zombies. They've included that because it's a cliché. Here was Torchwood playing it straight and without some twist at the end. She's attacked and into titles. Not even some choice dialogue or ironic music cue.

The intention was no doubt to produce a fifty-minute basement budget horror film in the style of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a British vein - something in the region of American Werewolf in London, with hints of Dog Soldiers and I'd say Dead Men's Shoes (in its execution). So why were the opening few scenes shot like an episode of Monkfish or the rural scene in Trainspotting and the rest a Withnail & I knock off? I hoped and dreamed that Captain Jack would shout 'We've come on a mission by mistake,' and that a half-pissed Michael Elphick would be living in that house with all the game hanging outside ready to give them an eel or a pheasant.

And then the real horror begins. One of the real problems with this series is the seemingly random attitude to characterization and this is no less evident than in the rather sudden and godawful affair between Gwen and Owen. Although they've had their differences since the first episode, a consonant not withstanding, the message this is sending is that if a bloke is a sexual predator and essentially forces himself on a woman that's all ok as a seduction technique.

But really why would he go for Gwen? Why would she go for him? I'm guessing that the intention is to show her becoming intoxicated by the whole alien world of Torchwood, shedding her former life in favour of the new one, but the execution is at best unsexy and at worst malicious. In that closing scene, when he puts his arms around her, what are we supposed to be feeling? Sorry for Gwen? Happy for Gwen? What?

Owen's character continues to be a real problem for the programme - why would you create a character this unsympathetic and then expect the audience to sympathise with him when bad things start to happen. The tree ramming scene, when he talks dirty to Gwen is particularly evil, since he's using his strength to overwhelm her, which as far as I can see is only a hairs breath away from rape.

It weakens Gwen's character that she would be overwhelmed in this way and is far cry from the gentle cynicism of the opening episode, were she would no doubt have kicked him in the gang goolies. There's nothing to indicate why her attitude would change and why this oil slick of a man would be worth ruining her life for. And it's particularly poor editorial work that in the very next scene Owen is dropping off exposition about the corpse as though nothing has gone on just before. 'Would you like a quip about feeling a small prick?' Well, no but that joke might have worked if we hadn't seen you being so aggressive with this woman not five minutes before.

Random characterization continued with Ianto who conveniently becomes the jibbering wreck of the group, caving at the first sign of danger as Tosh looks for a way to escape from the room they've somehow found themselves trapped in. Ianto's gone from being the a version of Batman's Alfred to here suggesting that one of his colleagues is different and lives off the danger - what and you don't? How did this man get hired to work in this top secret organization? How did any of them? And why, in god's name, in the middle of a scene like that are they having a shouting match about their job as though they've never had a discussion about anything before? And don't get started on the gunplay.

Although it's possibly refreshing to have real human beings instead of machines, it doesn't half make you wonder which pool Torchwood were recruiting from and why anyone would think it's a good idea to have them investigating anything if they're going to panic at the first sign of trouble. It might have made sense if they'd established that he'd never been out in the field before before, oh no, sorry forgot. Any series, even in this genre needs to have a scintilla of realism or believability, and having a major character whose been established as having seen a fair few unsavory things breaking down like that is just inconsistent as is his sudden snap back into lucidity later when he headbutts Maldak. Again I refer to Spooks (particular the close of Season Three - I'll explain later) as an example of how this can be done realistically.

The episode is also riddled with clichéd action beats. There's the unspeakable horror one: Tosh spies something grizzly in the fridge. We don't get to see it so that we tense up and start guessing. She tells Ianto not to look. But of course he's going to look so that we can see it too because the scene is playing from his point of view and the audiences narrative information is restricted to him. He opens the fridge and ugh! There's the young boy's body being pulled out from under the hero's noses. Tosh bound running through the wood away from Maldak tripping over so she can get caught. The Mexican stand-off doing service once again. There's the repeated 'surprise' with an apparent guardian angel - the middle age woman, the policeman, turning out to be the enemy.

Oh and good god and the Captain Jack Bauer scene totally invalidating the last five episodes of Season One of the Doctor Who and guff from Confidential about how in being with the Doctor, Jack has changed. Oh really? So what's happened in between to turn him into this psychopath? Given that, this was one of the scenes that I'd use to dispute the idea that Barrowman can't act. He can do angry torture very well, his eyes revealing some evil, his perfect dental work suggesting that far from nubbling a wound he'd probably bite into you to get an answer. It's a shame that they cut elsewhere before his captor reveals the story, his disappearance from the narrative signaling his obvious reappearance later to save the day with another action beat cliché - breaking through the wall in the van and kneecapping everyone.

Speaking of eating people. Wah? Hey, it's not aliens. It's nothing to do with the rift. It's the local villagers having the decadal human meat harvest. And for anyone expecting some alien influence to be at play? No it actually it's just humans with shots guns, a killer instinct and a hankering for the special stuff picking off travellers. Another troubling aspect of the episode as it wilfully confirmed the city-dwellers stereotype of country folk and Welsh country folk in particular, another cliché which was also a problem for The X-Files about the countryside being filled with hicks who view passing tourists as lunch.

'Only in the bloody countryside.' Owen puts it as though the whole state of affairs is perfectly normal and serial killers and cannibals can't and don't inhabit his city - granted it's the asshole saying this but no one steps in to disagree. Again this is probably supposed to be homage to those horror films but it's disappointing that it lacks a mechanism to turn the cliché on its head. Playing it straight in this way made the whole affair extraordinarily dated. And what was with the dialogue towards the tail end of the episode. 'I've seen things you wouldn't believe.' Is that supposed to be a clever homage?

I hate to use the word godawful again but that ending. That voice over. The regretful. The montage sequence of betrayal. The moody look out of the windows (although the reflections of the window frames which boxed Gwen in were attractive). The very slow line reading. 'And - I - can't - shaaare - them - with - anyone.' 'You can now.' The chest. The sideways kissing turning into a shag. Aaaah! Oddly enough it actually looked like the room I stayed in when I visited Cardiff. It looked to me like The Big Sleep, an office block that's been turned into a hotel - it's reasonably priced too and as you can see has great views.

Next week: 'It wouldn't be the first time I've been a rebound shag.' Or: Tosh finally gets her character development episode. And she's a lesbian. You layered that in well, guys.

Peter Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit

Film "This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects." -- Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh

Somehow, I still don't think this is over. But then I didn't think X-Men 3 could be made without Bryan Singer and look what happened there. Inevitable conclusion -- Gandalf will be recast, ILM will do the special effects, it'll be filmed in Iowa and directed by Rob Bowman. Somewhere, Sauron is laughing.

Review 2006: 4/31

Review 2006 I've added an extra category to this ...

(e) Advice. Dear Stuart, I wonder if you could give me advice about this problem I've been having ...

Just to increase the choices. Apparently I'm quite good at this and I'll be happy to post your question anonymously. If you do have a question, please get it in ASAP so that I can get writing -- I want to try and get as many answers prepared as possible before December.

Mark of the ...

Life I also found out last Thursday, confirmed today, that my dissertation merited 72% which is the highest mark I've recieved for anything ever. Even though it won't be appearing on my cv, that almost feels as important as the Merit. It means I didn't waste my summer and that I feel like I've added something new to the knowledge of the world. Oh and that actually I have no idea ever whether anything I write is any good.

Actor playing an actor playing a character

TV "ITV drama has unveiled one of its most daring projects, commissioning two linked dramas to run on ITV1 and ITV2. [...] Echo Beach has been billed as a soap set in Cornwall and follows the life of residents of a fictional seaside resort, it will broadcast on the digital channel. However alongside it on ITV1 is comedy drama Moving Wallpaper, which is a fly on the wall style production that goes behind the scenes of the soap, spying on the cast, producers, crew and publicists. " -- The Stage

The key to this will be execution. The difficulty will be how well Echo Beach reflects the programme that is in production in the fiction of the annoyingly titled mothershow. The touchstones I can think of are The French Lieutenant's Woman and A Cock & Bull Story and the problem with the former (at least for me) was that you didn't really get a sense that the characters in the period sections were being played by actors in the contemporary section rather Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons instead. The performances and production in Echo Beach must reflect the abilities and tastes of the characters being portrayed in Moving Wallpaper rather than the actors portraying them, otherwise what's the point?

"he should stick to musical theatre"

"When was the last time you came so hard and so long you forgot where you are?"

TV Look at that line of dialogue from Torchwood's Countrycide. Even after five years, it doesn't lose it's repellant power, especially in the context of a scene in which Owen is attempting to seduce (and succeeds in seducing) Gwen through what looks to anyone with eyes like an attempted rape. Countrycide is the story that people mention when they're trying to come to terms with the rubbishiness of Torchwood's Miracle Day. "Well", they'll say, "It's not as bad as Countrycide, I suppose". As you can see, by this point in these old reviews, I'd lost all hope in Torchwood's Series One to such an extent that parts of this review are just plain incoherent. In the tiredness of the Sunday night pre-midnight rush, my brain had short circuited and I was just tossing in random sentences.

Dreadful. Just unspeakably bad.

I was talking to an old college friend in the week and we inevitably got onto the subject of Torchwood, a show she'd been eagerly anticipating but had unfortunately ended up missing because of work commitments. She had managed to catch the last half of Small Worlds and had but this to say. 'John Barrowman can't act can he? He was quite good in Doctor Who but (sigh) he should stick to musical theatre.'

I was about to take John's corner but then thought - well, hold on, if the only thing she could think about is the probable leading man's acting ability, then there must really be something going horribly wrong. Torchwood is a show in trouble and its difficult to really understand quite what the production team are trying to achieve. If this wasn't a Doctor Who spin-off I would probably have stopped watching by now. It says a hell of a lot that I'm now looking forward to a new episode of Robin Hood more than this.

Well, alright (sigh) the few positives. Whenever these characters have to sit down together the interaction often very appealing. The campfire scene is an example - it's about what and what isn't being said, the fact that everyone has their little secrets and the performances here were perfectly fine. The nods to previous episodes worked well and there was a real sense despite the horrifyingly clichéd teaser that this might be one of the good episodes. Oh well.

I'd also like to thank Maldak from Vengeance on Varos for making a return to the whoniverse - Owen Teale's one of the countries most underrated actors and here he was playing pure, unadulterated bastard evil very well. The initial portrayal of the antagonist was good too, on the edge of the frame, just out of eyeshot, the camera moving into the place were the viewers eyes would like to go then falling just short. The scene in which Tosh and Ianto investigate the house was fairly tense. It's an old trick to be sure, but certainly kept us guessing, right up to the horror of the twist.

And oh the horror.

She's blonde. She's talking on her mobile whilst driving. She loses the signal. There's rock music in the car. It's the middle of nowhere. It's the middle of night. She's tempted out of the car because of a body in the road. She's conveniently carrying a baseball bat. It's a trap! She runs back to the car. But hey - someone stolen the keys! She's dragged from inside! Screaming!

Things didn't begin well with a teaser that looked worse than most short student films and featured all of the horror clichés that Kevin Williamson forgot to include in the Scream series - and many that he didn't. It was hard not to bring to mind those buffer adverts that have appeared in cinemas lately, particularly the one in which the girl is miming being attacked in a car by zombies. They've included that because it's a cliché. Here was Torchwood playing it straight and without some twist at the end. She's attacked and into titles. Not even some choice dialogue or ironic music cue.

The intention was no doubt to produce a fifty-minute basement budget horror film in the style of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in a British vein - something in the region of American Werewolf in London, with hints of Dog Soldiers and I'd say Dead Men's Shoes (in its execution). So why were the opening few scenes shot like an episode of Monkfish or the rural scene in Trainspotting and the rest a Withnail & I knock off? I hoped and dreamed that Captain Jack would shout 'We've come on a mission by mistake,' and that a half-pissed Michael Elphick would be living in that house with all the game hanging outside ready to give them an eel or a pheasant.

And then the real horror begins. One of the real problems with this series is the seemingly random attitude to characterization and this is no less evident than in the rather sudden and godawful affair between Gwen and Owen. Although they've had their differences since the first episode, a consonant not withstanding, the message this is sending is that if a bloke is a sexual predator and essentially forces himself on a woman that's all ok as a seduction technique.

But really why would he go for Gwen? Why would she go for him? I'm guessing that the intention is to show her becoming intoxicated by the whole alien world of Torchwood, shedding her former life in favour of the new one, but the execution is at best unsexy and at worst malicious. In that closing scene, when he puts his arms around her, what are we supposed to be feeling? Sorry for Gwen? Happy for Gwen? What?

Owen's character continues to be a real problem for the programme - why would you create a character this unsympathetic and then expect the audience to sympathise with him when bad things start to happen. The tree ramming scene, when he talks dirty to Gwen is particularly evil, since he's using his strength to overwhelm her, which as far as I can see is only a hairs breath away from rape.

It weakens Gwen's character that she would be overwhelmed in this way and is far cry from the gentle cynicism of the opening episode, were she would no doubt have kicked him in the gang goolies. There's nothing to indicate why her attitude would change and why this oil slick of a man would be worth ruining her life for. And it's particularly poor editorial work that in the very next scene Owen is dropping off exposition about the corpse as though nothing has gone on just before. 'Would you like a quip about feeling a small prick?' Well, no but that joke might have worked if we hadn't seen you being so aggressive with this woman not five minutes before.

Random characterization continued with Ianto who conveniently becomes the jibbering wreck of the group, caving at the first sign of danger as Tosh looks for a way to escape from the room they've somehow found themselves trapped in. Ianto's gone from being the a version of Batman's Alfred to here suggesting that one of his colleagues is different and lives off the danger - what and you don't? How did this man get hired to work in this top secret organization? How did any of them? And why, in god's name, in the middle of a scene like that are they having a shouting match about their job as though they've never had a discussion about anything before? And don't get started on the gunplay.

Although it's possibly refreshing to have real human beings instead of machines, it doesn't half make you wonder which pool Torchwood were recruiting from and why anyone would think it's a good idea to have them investigating anything if they're going to panic at the first sign of trouble. It might have made sense if they'd established that he'd never been out in the field before before, oh no, sorry forgot. Any series, even in this genre needs to have a scintilla of realism or believability, and having a major character whose been established as having seen a fair few unsavory things breaking down like that is just inconsistent as is his sudden snap back into lucidity later when he headbutts Maldak. Again I refer to Spooks (particular the close of Season Three - I'll explain later) as an example of how this can be done realistically.

The episode is also riddled with clichéd action beats. There's the unspeakable horror one: Tosh spies something grizzly in the fridge. We don't get to see it so that we tense up and start guessing. She tells Ianto not to look. But of course he's going to look so that we can see it too because the scene is playing from his point of view and the audiences narrative information is restricted to him. He opens the fridge and ugh! There's the young boy's body being pulled out from under the hero's noses. Tosh bound running through the wood away from Maldak tripping over so she can get caught. The Mexican stand-off doing service once again. There's the repeated 'surprise' with an apparent guardian angel - the middle age woman, the policeman, turning out to be the enemy.

Oh and good god and the Captain Jack Bauer scene totally invalidating the last five episodes of Season One of the Doctor Who and guff from Confidential about how in being with the Doctor, Jack has changed. Oh really? So what's happened in between to turn him into this psychopath? Given that, this was one of the scenes that I'd use to dispute the idea that Barrowman can't act. He can do angry torture very well, his eyes revealing some evil, his perfect dental work suggesting that far from nubbling a wound he'd probably bite into you to get an answer. It's a shame that they cut elsewhere before his captor reveals the story, his disappearance from the narrative signaling his obvious reappearance later to save the day with another action beat cliché - breaking through the wall in the van and kneecapping everyone.

Speaking of eating people. Wah? Hey, it's not aliens. It's nothing to do with the rift. It's the local villagers having the decadal human meat harvest. And for anyone expecting some alien influence to be at play? No it actually it's just humans with shots guns, a killer instinct and a hankering for the special stuff picking off travellers. Another troubling aspect of the episode as it wilfully confirmed the city-dwellers stereotype of country folk and Welsh country folk in particular, another cliché which was also a problem for The X-Files about the countryside being filled with hicks who view passing tourists as lunch.

'Only in the bloody countryside.' Owen puts it as though the whole state of affairs is perfectly normal and serial killers and cannibals can't and don't inhabit his city - granted it's the asshole saying this but no one steps in to disagree. Again this is probably supposed to be homage to those horror films but it's disappointing that it lacks a mechanism to turn the cliché on its head. Playing it straight in this way made the whole affair extraordinarily dated. And what was with the dialogue towards the tail end of the episode. 'I've seen things you wouldn't believe.' Is that supposed to be a clever homage?

I hate to use the word godawful again but that ending. That voice over. The regretful. The montage sequence of betrayal. The moody look out of the windows (although the reflections of the window frames which boxed Gwen in were attractive). The very slow line reading. 'And - I - can't - shaaare - them - with - anyone.' 'You can now.' The chest. The sideways kissing turning into a shag. Aaaah! Oddly enough it actually looked like the room I stayed in when I visited Cardiff. It looked to me like The Big Sleep, an office block that's been turned into a hotel - it's reasonably priced too and as you can see has great views.

Next week: 'It wouldn't be the first time I've been a rebound shag.' Or: Tosh finally gets her character development episode. And she's a lesbian. You layered that in well, guys.

PS. Recent Candian film Tucker and Dale vs. Evil exposes just the kind of sub-cultural prejudice that Countrycide perpetrates. Imagine Pegg and Frost parodying Eli "Cabin Fever" Roth's directing career.  But funny.

Follow the Day

Life I received the letter this morning.

I now have an MA Screen Studies (Merit).

Good lord.

Torchwouldn't

Elsewhere Really, Torchwouldn't.