About Some notes on Liverpool Blogs which I'm posting here because ironically by design the Liverpool Blogs page doesn't have a blog any more:
(1) The Liverpool Blogs page is essentially parked right now. Due to a bug in the "Blog list" widget which powers the main section which doesn't allow one to save changes, I can't add or delete items including one in particular which looks to have been hijacked and has become a spam blog.
It is a known problem and users are shouting about it so it sounds like its to be a waiting game. My understanding is though that the staff was thinned out recently (not that I can find a reference) and so with all the attention on geographic URL redirects/migrations, it may take a while for this to be attended to.
An alternative would be migrate from blogspot, but the page as it stands just works (when it works) and acts as a way of driving traffic I think, thanks to the Google ranking it has on such searches as "liverpool blogs". If anyone is willing to publicise it and the twitter feed ...
(2) But I am still adding new blogs to the @liverpoolblogs twitter feed and deleting when necessary, including the above spam blog and a Devon food blog which had crept in their when I was adding participants from the Liverpool Food Festival which was adding over three hundred links a week.
For that I have no excuse. My memory is that I'd picked up a business card which has a local address on. It's lucky that someone brought it to my attention. I just simply hadn't noticed because of the number of feeds I follow on twitter and they'd become mixed in with everything else.
(3) Some questions. Does Liverpool Blogs work? Is it still useful? Does the fact that it's almost impossible to keep up with the number of blogs out there so that it's perpetually out of date diminish its usefulness? Do you know of any blogs you think should be on there?
That's it.
The Titlebar Archive: Groundhog Day
That Day Six more weeks of winter:
Gov. Tom Corbett professed his early spring preferences just prior to Punxsutawney Phil’s 126th annual prognostication early Thursday morning at Gobbler’s Knob, but as history has shown, the Seer of Seer relies on nothing else except his own instinct."This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."
The result, as read by Inner Circle Vice-President Mike Johnston: “As I look at the crowd of Gobbler’s Knob, many shadows do I see; so six more weeks of winter it must be.”
"a blend of live action footage and R-rated animation"
Film And we're back to the well ...
"A division of SModCo, SModcast Pictures covers the visual spectrum of S.I.R. and SModcast.com. Their forthcoming releases include the unscripted series COMIC BOOK MEN for AMC, and JAY & SILENT BOB’S SUPER GROOVY CARTOON MOVIE, a blend of live action footage and R-rated animation. SModcast Pictures also produces the SMODCO CARTOON SHOW – a monthly series that animates audio from various SModcast.com podcasts."My interest in Smith's work has decreased the further he's moved away from the "Askewniverse" into the podcasts and everything else (see my old Zack and Miri review), none of it really having the same mix of warmth and cynicism so this is welcome. Unless they're just being used a vehicle for something else, in which case it isn't. Snoogans.
"They named it Tori-no-Ichi."
Travel Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue Magazine inadvertantly goes of the beaten track in Tokyo:
"The one unpleasant experience on our trip occurred when we asked one of the concierges in our hotel if she could land a reservation at Umi, known for its sushi. Umi accepted our request, then phoned back to say that unless we spoke Japanese or brought a translator, they would have to cancel. (I don’t remember how to say “racist pig” in Japanese, but I didn’t overhear the phrase in her conversation with the restaurant.) Instead, she booked us at another Umi across town. Only as our taxi was speeding away from the hotel did she warn us that this Umi probably had nothing to do with the real Umi. Probably? It was in a shabby neon district of topless bars, massage parlors, and touristy restaurants. We were the only customers in the place, and the food bordered on the incompetent. The worst part was that we had squandered a precious night in Tokyo. But at least we had found the Shibuya red-light district."I'm sure you took issue with at least one element of that paragraph. I know I did. Unfortunately Vogue don't seem to have asked Umi for a right to reply.
"Bueller made us his co-conspirator"
Film Flavorwire has an intelligent explanation as to why the Ferris Bueller-style car ad is so repellant:
But some of the best are when the conspiracy isn't between character and audience, but actor and audience, however subconscious. Here are three more apparently inadvertent examples which I have a sneaky suspicion are entirely meant:
School of Rock
Zack, one of the children in Jack Black's class looks at the camera as he sits down. It's an odd moment because unlike everyone else in the scene he looks exceedingly self-conscious.
The L Word: Losing it
In what is an extraordinary piece of acting Mia Kirshner portrays her character Jenny's drop off the rails. In the middle of all the crying she happens to look into the camera for a few frames, just long enough to make the viewer jump back in surprise. And then, of course ...
Jon Pertwee in Doctor Who: The Five Doctors: Special Edition
Pertwee inadvertantly looks into the lense during one of many particularly long scenes in this special anniversary edition of Doctor Who. I'm not sure if this appeared in the programme when it was originally broadcast, but the look is fairly ghostly, as though he's wondering why the camera hasn't moved away yet.
"So why do we care so much? It’s no longer a surprise to see pop culture icons shilling for big business; hell, I’m old enough to remember the giant controversy that followed the licensing of a Beatles song for Nike ad. (That uproar seems positively quaint these days, when a commercial deal is a giant coup for musicians of all stripes.) The commotion over Broderick’s Honda ad speaks not to “selling out” in general. It’s about the selling out of this character — and not just because he didn’t condone any “–isms” (including, presumably, capitalism). It’s about our connection with Ferris Bueller, who wasn’t just a protagonist. By taking us into his confidence and guiding us through his world, Bueller made us his co-conspirator."The linked tumblr, Look at the camera is as addictive as they suggest.
But some of the best are when the conspiracy isn't between character and audience, but actor and audience, however subconscious. Here are three more apparently inadvertent examples which I have a sneaky suspicion are entirely meant:
School of Rock
Zack, one of the children in Jack Black's class looks at the camera as he sits down. It's an odd moment because unlike everyone else in the scene he looks exceedingly self-conscious.
The L Word: Losing it
In what is an extraordinary piece of acting Mia Kirshner portrays her character Jenny's drop off the rails. In the middle of all the crying she happens to look into the camera for a few frames, just long enough to make the viewer jump back in surprise. And then, of course ...
Jon Pertwee in Doctor Who: The Five Doctors: Special Edition
Pertwee inadvertantly looks into the lense during one of many particularly long scenes in this special anniversary edition of Doctor Who. I'm not sure if this appeared in the programme when it was originally broadcast, but the look is fairly ghostly, as though he's wondering why the camera hasn't moved away yet.
"glossy commercials for collectible card games"
Games Charlie Brooker visits Tokyo:
"Of course, it helps that Japan has, for years, been presented as a kind of Nerd Mecca. Not only is it the undisputed gadget capital of the world, it's a place where being a geek (or otaku) is comfortably mainstream. Former Prime Minister Taro Aso is an enthusiastic manga-collecting otaku, the TV ad breaks heave with glossy commercials for collectible card games, and multi-storey games arcades are commonplace. There's a gadget in every hand. Outside rush hour, the subway is eerily silent: thanks to a strong underground signal, everyone's staring at their smartphones, texting, playing games, or reading. Only after a fortnight did it strike me: not once did I hear a single person actually speaking into their phone on the Tokyo subway. Everyone – and I mean everyone – seemed to be perpetually tapping and swiping in silence. Unnerving to many: to a geek like me, it felt strangely comforting."Someone in the comments beneath suggests there are signs asking people not to talk on the subway. Two things on that: (1) There are signs asking people not to talk on the subway and (2) People comply. Cinemas must be bliss too.
The other story in Big Finish’s Fourth Doctor Lost Stories boxset, The Valley of Death
The other story in Big Finish’s Fourth Doctor Lost Stories boxset, The Valley of Death is very much in that vein, with the Doctor and Leela having been tasked by UNIT to accompany the explorer Edward Perkins deep into the jungle on the trail of the mysteries of his grandfather’s diary which mentions a crashed spaceship just before it ends. But as you might expect, this isn’t just some simple archaeological scavenging hunt, as the group are confronted with lost tribes, giant animals and an angry God, Godrin, who offers untold riches who suggests will benefit the whole of the human race, providing we can set aside the fact that he’s such a curious little alien.
In other words if it had originally gone into production, this would have been Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a few decades early, but as original writer Philip Hinchcliffe suggests in this month’s party newsletter, the sheer scale of the thing, with its Close Encounters of the Third Kind ambitions, would have precluded that. But adapter Jonathan Morris takes full advantage of the ideas to create a piece with ambitious scale, especially in its closing two episodes which and I’m trying to be careful here, what initially seems like a story with Conan Doyle ambitions takes a turn into Russell T Davies territory, in those moments when he has a finale to write against a deadline.
But is it any good? Well, it certainly doesn’t nuke the fridge (sorry). That’s because Morris sets aside any pretensions towards realism and embraces the comic book tone, with massive action sequences, larger than life characterisation and some fabulously corny dialogue straight out of the thirties adventure films Spielberg was also aping. The other member of the group, Valerie Charlton, a gosh-golly US photojournalist played with laborious zeal by Jane Slavin, exemplifies Morris’s attention to detail as she wants to photograph everything, even if her life might be in danger in just that slightly annoying way such characters did in serials of the period.
One of the problems with that attention to detail is it also means the Doctor has to act somewhat out of character in places for narrative reasons, or at least not be on top of things in a way Fourth usually is. Some of his actions seem a bit inconsistent with his usual approach and in a way which isn’t always explained properly in the exposition, especially in his treatment of Leela. They’re most likely a result of adhering to whatever the original material called for, and might have been one of the other reasons that material didn’t blossom into a full story, but it is a bit jarring given how sympathetic the other new Fourth Doctor material has been.
None of which stops Tom and Louise being on their usual top form, especially in the closing stages when both really enjoy being appropriately heroic on a scale their original appearances rarely allowed, the latter making the most of a line with is pure nuWho and had me applauding (no really I did, and in an empty room). Big Finish regular Anthony Howell gives Perkins just the right nervy but brave tone. This is an impeccable cast indistinguishable across their multiple roles. For all my reservations, this is still fabulously entertaining, making the Fourth Doctor Lost Stories boxset an essential purchase if you have enough pennies.
Doctor Who: The Valley of Death is part of Doctor Who: The Lost Stories - The Fourth Doctor CD Box Set available now from Big Finish. Review copy supplied.
I helped to save someone from killing themselves.
Life This morning, I helped to save someone from killing themselves.
It’s about half nine and I’m waiting as usual for my bus to work. Half of my attention is fixed on the road, the other half on the recording of Debussy's The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian which was this month’s freebee with BBC Music Magazine. The narration read by actress Irène Jacob is in French and I’m intensively trying to utilities the fragments of French I’ve learnt from watching the Three Colours Trilogy and whatnot to understanding the narrative. The bus stop quietly stacks up with people around me, or at least it seems quiet because of my noise-cancelling earplugs.
The bus comes. Actually two buses come but before I can dash and stop the empty 80 behind it drives past which means we’re all going to be piling onto an already full number 74. Hesitation means I’m not the first person on, so I’m left with the seats at the back and work my way up between the seats, over the step and into the back I see that there are seats free in a set of four. Except there’s a young man there fast asleep, both feet up opposite. Thinking best of it, I take a seat at the back, after an older man who’d been sitting opposite the sleeper has taken his opportunity to move away.
Once again I’m ensconced in Debussy and Jacob’s sonorous reading (“Is that Stigmata?” I wonder) whilst watching the continuing commuter politics further down the bus as some passengers force the sleeper, now broadly speaking awake to move so that they can sit. He’s fairly groggy and does that annoying thing of sitting on the outside and moving his legs just enough so that another person can take the window seat. I imagine there to be much tutting, not that I can hear it amid soprano Elizabeth Atherton’s heartfelt rendering of her text.
Then I realise I’ve made the mistake of watching the debarkle with the ex-sleeper for just too long and I’ve made eye contact with him, and his body language gives every indication that he might not like that very much. I quickly look past him again, up the bus and through the front windscreen (mildly considering that might be my final destination at this point if I’m not careful) but he continues watching me, even as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. I become mildly aware that if he’s not drunk, he’s high, as he misses his lips with the fag the second time.
Mansion 1: The Court of Lilies (track one) is about half way through and we’re a past the next bus stop when the ex-sleeper decides he wants to make friends with the person sitting opposite him. He unsteadily puts his hand up and asks for a high-five like the millennium didn’t happen, but the other passenger is having nothing to do with him. Ex-sleeper grins at him and continues grinning as he, returns his attention to me, then what I'm looking at, the front of the bus. I close my eyes and though by now I’ve decided he’s intrinsically harmless, I’m also a wuss.
By the time I open them, he’s on his feet. He’s on his feet and he’s walking towards me. More precisely he’s walking towards the back of this moving bus gripping the seats and people on either side him so as not to fall over. All kinds of scenarios are blasting through my mind, for the first time not really paying much attention to Saint Sebastian’s condemnation. He’s going to try and sit up here isn’t he? Well there isn’t much room. Between me and the person sitting on the end of the seat I’m not sure where he’s going to go. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Then he lunges for the handle for the emergency exit which inevitably swings open, taking him and half his body with him. My first thought is, “He’s not going to try and smoke out of the exit is he? We’re moving.” There are shrieks amongst the other passengers. Luckily the first thought of the older man sitting next the exit is something like, “Oh he’s going to fall out, I’d better grab him," which he does before most of the ex-sleeper’s body can fall over the threshold. By then I’d realised what was happening and dug my fingers into his jumper, my other on his shoulder, I think.
It all happens far faster than it took me to write that paragraph, but not so fast that I don’t also shout a useless “Hey, hey, hey…” as if that's going to stop him. There is enough alarm that the driver stops the bus. The ex-sleeper, who despite everything has been struggling to free himself from us finally succeeds and leaps off the bus onto the road, only just managing to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. His cigarette I notice now, has been his mouth the whole time as though he's put it above his own personal safety.
The older man, the man who really saved the ex-sleeper’s life, pulls the emergency exit closed and the bus is moving again. As we watch, the ex-sleeper strolls nonchalantly across the road to the opposite pavement and begins walking in the same direction as us, waving and giving us the thumbs up. I giggle. I can’t help it. It’s the most exciting thing which has happened on the morning bus to work since I began this job, not that I’d be entirely pleased for it to become a weekly occurrence. That would be repetitious.
Only afterwards have I realised how badly it all could have gone. If the older man's hands had slipped, if the jumper had slipped from my fingers, if the ex-sleeper had been stronger for all his lack of consciousness, he would have fallen forward and if the back wheel of the bus hadn't hit him, the other cars on the road would have. That's when some version of shock kicked in, about ten minutes after I got off the bus and it's been a slightly off day ever since. But it could have all been much, much worse. Especially for him.
It’s about half nine and I’m waiting as usual for my bus to work. Half of my attention is fixed on the road, the other half on the recording of Debussy's The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian which was this month’s freebee with BBC Music Magazine. The narration read by actress Irène Jacob is in French and I’m intensively trying to utilities the fragments of French I’ve learnt from watching the Three Colours Trilogy and whatnot to understanding the narrative. The bus stop quietly stacks up with people around me, or at least it seems quiet because of my noise-cancelling earplugs.
The bus comes. Actually two buses come but before I can dash and stop the empty 80 behind it drives past which means we’re all going to be piling onto an already full number 74. Hesitation means I’m not the first person on, so I’m left with the seats at the back and work my way up between the seats, over the step and into the back I see that there are seats free in a set of four. Except there’s a young man there fast asleep, both feet up opposite. Thinking best of it, I take a seat at the back, after an older man who’d been sitting opposite the sleeper has taken his opportunity to move away.
Once again I’m ensconced in Debussy and Jacob’s sonorous reading (“Is that Stigmata?” I wonder) whilst watching the continuing commuter politics further down the bus as some passengers force the sleeper, now broadly speaking awake to move so that they can sit. He’s fairly groggy and does that annoying thing of sitting on the outside and moving his legs just enough so that another person can take the window seat. I imagine there to be much tutting, not that I can hear it amid soprano Elizabeth Atherton’s heartfelt rendering of her text.
Then I realise I’ve made the mistake of watching the debarkle with the ex-sleeper for just too long and I’ve made eye contact with him, and his body language gives every indication that he might not like that very much. I quickly look past him again, up the bus and through the front windscreen (mildly considering that might be my final destination at this point if I’m not careful) but he continues watching me, even as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. I become mildly aware that if he’s not drunk, he’s high, as he misses his lips with the fag the second time.
Mansion 1: The Court of Lilies (track one) is about half way through and we’re a past the next bus stop when the ex-sleeper decides he wants to make friends with the person sitting opposite him. He unsteadily puts his hand up and asks for a high-five like the millennium didn’t happen, but the other passenger is having nothing to do with him. Ex-sleeper grins at him and continues grinning as he, returns his attention to me, then what I'm looking at, the front of the bus. I close my eyes and though by now I’ve decided he’s intrinsically harmless, I’m also a wuss.
By the time I open them, he’s on his feet. He’s on his feet and he’s walking towards me. More precisely he’s walking towards the back of this moving bus gripping the seats and people on either side him so as not to fall over. All kinds of scenarios are blasting through my mind, for the first time not really paying much attention to Saint Sebastian’s condemnation. He’s going to try and sit up here isn’t he? Well there isn’t much room. Between me and the person sitting on the end of the seat I’m not sure where he’s going to go. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Then he lunges for the handle for the emergency exit which inevitably swings open, taking him and half his body with him. My first thought is, “He’s not going to try and smoke out of the exit is he? We’re moving.” There are shrieks amongst the other passengers. Luckily the first thought of the older man sitting next the exit is something like, “Oh he’s going to fall out, I’d better grab him," which he does before most of the ex-sleeper’s body can fall over the threshold. By then I’d realised what was happening and dug my fingers into his jumper, my other on his shoulder, I think.
It all happens far faster than it took me to write that paragraph, but not so fast that I don’t also shout a useless “Hey, hey, hey…” as if that's going to stop him. There is enough alarm that the driver stops the bus. The ex-sleeper, who despite everything has been struggling to free himself from us finally succeeds and leaps off the bus onto the road, only just managing to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic. His cigarette I notice now, has been his mouth the whole time as though he's put it above his own personal safety.
The older man, the man who really saved the ex-sleeper’s life, pulls the emergency exit closed and the bus is moving again. As we watch, the ex-sleeper strolls nonchalantly across the road to the opposite pavement and begins walking in the same direction as us, waving and giving us the thumbs up. I giggle. I can’t help it. It’s the most exciting thing which has happened on the morning bus to work since I began this job, not that I’d be entirely pleased for it to become a weekly occurrence. That would be repetitious.
Only afterwards have I realised how badly it all could have gone. If the older man's hands had slipped, if the jumper had slipped from my fingers, if the ex-sleeper had been stronger for all his lack of consciousness, he would have fallen forward and if the back wheel of the bus hadn't hit him, the other cars on the road would have. That's when some version of shock kicked in, about ten minutes after I got off the bus and it's been a slightly off day ever since. But it could have all been much, much worse. Especially for him.
Competition: Dean Koontz.
I replied "It's not my sort of thing" (I’m also busy with The Oxford Paragraphs) "but my Dad likes his work. I'd be happy to take a review copy of Shadow Street for him to read and then post a short piece about what he thought, if that's ok.". The PR from HarperCollins agreed and here we are.
Some background: Dad reads a lot of books, far quicker than me, though he's retired so has the time. He doesn't particularly favour a genre, though the vast majority of it is fiction. His favourite writers seem to be Jean M Auel, Diana Gabaldon, Wilbur Smith and Robert Ludlum.
On reflection based on the synopsis and the spoilery bits Dad explained before offering his opinion of the book, 77 Shadow Street isn’t entirely outside my genre comfort zone. Here’s what was sent in the press release, a version of which is also on the dust jacket:
I am the One, the all and the only. I live in the Pendleton as surely as I live everywhere. I am the Pendleton’s history and its destiny. The building is my place of conception, my monument, my killing ground. . . .Glancing through the pages myself, I notice that at the beginning of the first chapter is a map of the house not unlike a Cluedo board, presumably the address of the title, presumably so that people can check back to see where particular events are taking place.
The Pendleton, an eerie building with a tragic past stands on the summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home. Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.
But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues, not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows: Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed by a dark tide from which few have escaped.
When I talked to Dad about the book, most of the conversation was about him telling me the story, listing in some detail all of the various elements, though like I said, I’m not sure what’s really a massive spoiler and what’s revealed in the opening chapters, so we'll leave that to one side.
On reaching the opinion portion of the chat, Dad said that he found the book to be a bit convoluted. He said that there’s “too much going on” and that Koontz "has had a lot of ideas and put them in a story which doesn’t need them."
He said that it was a also bit too repetitious. “You get the feeling everyone is going to die,” he says, “But they don’t. Or some of them don't.” But he did want to stress that he thinks Koontz “is a very clear writer” and that you're always aware of the size of the house.
Finally I pressed him on whether he enjoyed 77 Shadow Street. After thinking for a bit he said, “Yes, after a fashion. I didn’t kick it into touch. I finished reading it.” Which isn't the highest of praise, but given the amount of books Dad has abandoned, not as negative as it might seem at first glance.
All of which said here we are at the competition end of the post. There's a selection of Dean Koontz's back catalogue available to one lucky winner from the UK who can answer the following question:
What do Dean Koontz and Doctor Who legend Terrance Dicks have in common?
(Hint: It's something specific and not simply "they're both writers" or "they're both a bit sci-fi".)
(Extra Hint: It's about specific book titles.]
Email your answers with "Koontz Competition" in the subject line to feelinglistless@btopenworld.com.
Closing date is Monday 6th February 2010. Thanks.
Artifacts: Atomic Kitten
Some pop history found today. Signed copy of Atomic Kitten's 2001 cd single, Whole Again featuring the second line up after Natasha had replaced Heidi. 49p. YMCA charity shop. Prescot Road, Liverpool.
an antidote to the bloated hours seen on television
‘Shhh’.
Theatre John Wyver attends Noises Off and ironically has difficulty hearing the show due to the incessant talking from the audience:
"To the Old Vic to sit with Clare in two eye-wateringly expensive seats to watch an immaculate performance of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. The back-stage comic complications, combined with the high-end prices (top whack £85 a seat – that’s eighty-five pounds!), have attracted an audience that is well-heeled, well-dressed… and well rude. I am used to people trying to talk through movies, and I have extensive experience of tapping shoulders or turning round and emitting an urgent, audible ‘Shhh’. But in the theatre?"Now I know it's not just me.
"finding her polite"
Film Miranda July Called Before Congress To Explain Exactly What Her Whole Thing Is:
"Though finding her polite, many lawmakers later described July as largely uncooperative, especially in regard to her responses to the committee's queries, which often took the form of enigmatic aphorisms or the suggestion that members of Congress try looking at a candle for a few seconds to find the answers to their questions."This is pretty formulaic by the Onion's strandards, but some of the details are very well observed especially for fans of Miranda July's work like me.
The Titlebar Archive: Encounter at Farpoint
TV There are perhaps two especially embarrassing home videos of me in circulation (circulation in this case meaning the vaults at the Royal Bank of Scotland and a box in my flat somewhere). The first is of me line dancing to Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head at the end of a corporate team building exercise at a conference centre in Southend-On-Sea , a horror I luckily have never had a chance to see.
The other is of the seventeen year old version of me in a classroom reading from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual as though it were some ancient gospel, being ignored and told to shut up by my classmates before later explaining to them the concept of the IDIC. It’s not so much what I’m saying, but the commitment with which I’m saying it.
Clearly since becoming a Who fan I’ve had conversations and written pieces that probably trump both. But it’s a reminder that at one time I was as much a Star Trek fan and probably would still be if I hadn’t realised timelords were so much more fun and Star Trek: Voyager's production team hadn't made Threshold in the same year as the Who TV movie coming out, two events which can't be a coincidence.
But I do remember seeing Encounter at Farpoint for the first time, on a rental from Video City in Garston, which before the BBC Two broadcasts was the only way us British fans could access it. Clearly having already been watched by several hundred people, the tracking was all over the place but it was still enthralling (and better than the later fifth generation copy which was my first experience of DS9's Emissary).
It’s Star Trek! But set even further in the future! It's all so bright and colourful! Look how sleek the new Enterprise is! It can separate the saucer section! I do like that new doctor!. I do like that new doctor! She's nice! I like her son too! We're the same age as me! We could be friends me and Wesley! Or is that Wesley and I? Then I could see his mother quite often! I like her red hair! (I was weird at that age) (At that age!?!)
But time hasn’t been kind to Farpoint. Now available on blu-ray in a new HD restoration, it’s a fairly ropey piece of entertainment with a bizarrely structured script filled with clunky romance that reintroduces all of Gene Roddenbury’s hoary clichés, menacing Gods, Asimovian machines seeking humanity and a genius teenager. Only later would writers make most of these elements actually work for the series.
Yet the performances are better than expected, with the possible exception of Marina Sirtis, who’s recently disowned hers. Stewart’s undoubtedly the best, commanding the screen as much as the bridge, but even a pre-beard Jonathan Frakes has an easy chemistry with most of the cast and a more contemporary approach would have been about Riker finding his feet with a new crew from the off, saving all the Q business for later in the season.
I since purchased an ex-rental copy of that VHS and that’s been my only experience of the story so the shift into HD isn’t just a step up, in places it's like watching a brand new series. Paramount’s equivalent of the Doctor Who Restoration Team have pulled the original film elements from the archive, rescanned them at hi-res and are re-editing every episode a process which originally happened on video.
The results are extraordinary and in the case of the Enterprise model remind the viewer of what really is gained from seeing a physical object on screen with its weight and physics as opposed to a CG concoction that too often has neither. There’s a majesty to the Enterprise-D that subsequent space shows (that’s you Babylon 5 and Galactica) for all their lighting effects can’t match.
The downside's that we can now also see the corners that were cut in production, which wouldn’t have been noticeable in the old resolution. The floor of the battle bridge is filthy in that way some Doctor Who sets were in the classic series when there wasn’t time to clean up between set-ups. Watch out too for quickly painted wooden bits of sets, especially in Q’s courtroom or polystyrene constructions like the old Bandi village.
HD also brings into focus some moments I previous missed, like the lingering shot after an Ensign has given Riker some directions of her watching him go and then checking out his arse. Performance incidentals too, from Data’s surprisingly emotional reactions (see also Spock in classic series pilot The Cage) or Tasha’s clenched fists just before she’s about to question her new captain’s orders in tackling Q.
Ah Tasha. The show only really found its feet when you died (is that still a spoiler?), and the writers gave some of its other regular characters a proper job rather than just hanging around the bridge as Worf and Geordi do here. Seems only fair to compensate you with a logo bar even if I couldn’t manage to fit your hands in. At least now we’ll see them even better in that moment in Symbiosis when you secretly wave to us before you go.
