Film For someone who is super sensitive to spoilers to the point of ignoring trailers, pre-publicity interviews and often chooses whether to watch a film based on the poster, I've become quite addicted to reading reviews of the new Fantastic Four film. I have been very much spoilt but nevertheless hope to see it next week even if it does mean traipsing into an Odeon. This then isn't a review. It's a commentary on the concept of making a Fantastic Four based on watching Rotten Tomatoes like a hawk.
For all I know, the current 9% score is unbelievably harsh and unwarranted but every single review is essentially saying the same things. That a decent cast, trying their best, is working up against a poorly thought through concept based on a misunderstanding of the original comic book then made worse by clear studio interference leading to reshoots that lead a narratively nonsensical chronological time jump into a finale which is poorly set up. That exposition replaces convincing interpersonal relationships and that key characters barely have a conversation.
All of which is terribly weird and sad. Josh Trank the director seems to be under the impression that his own brilliant concept has been destroyed by the studio, but if reports are correct, he'd already fundamentally misunderstood what the characters are about anyway, starting with the cast and working sideways, so there wasn't anything much anyone could do. To an extent I have some sympathy with the studio who were presumably expecting one film, he delivered something else and they've tried to fix it in post.
Trank's idea is sound. But it seems a shame to bend an existing property into something it isn't rather than try something new. Or as seems to be the case, Chronicle again. The reason the MCU has been such a success is that its not embarrassed about these characters as they appear in the comics and embraces them and when it knows its a fairly hard sell it puts that on-screen as per Ant-Man, in which Paul Rudd character voices the audiences's concerns about the ridiculousness of the whole then embraces that ridiculousness, so we do too.
But I don't believe the Fantastic Four is hard. The various versions which have appeared on Saturday morning television all seemed to get their head around the concept of a famous family of superheroes fighting the weird and surreal and even the Tim Story films, for all their weaknesses, got some of that. The Incredibles did too as it shamelessly borrowed the concept and even most of the super powers. Yet Trank, with his "superpowers as disability/body horror" concept simply doesn't.
Here's how you structure a Fantastic Four film:
Prologue: Doom and Richards. In the style of Sneakers. Reed and Victor at the moment during the first science project, shit happens, Doom's scarred. Reed goes on to graduate. Cut to:
Titles.
First half hour: Introduce the characters. About the only change I'd make is having Reed and Sue married already thereby underscoring the concept of family early. As for the rest of it I wouldn't vary the origin too much. Reed's research project is in financial difficulties which is what leads him to ...
First turning point - the experimental test flight. Do the rocket thing. Rockets are exciting.
Second half hour: The four discover their powers and what they can do with them with Ben dealing with his deformity. Leading to ...
Second turning point: They very visibly use their powers for good and I wouldn't go for a conventional disaster. I'd have the Mole Man. I'd have a recreation of the cover of the first issue. The whole media is there so cut to ...
Doom watching the whole business in his castle in Latveria. He's a bit cross about the whole thing.
Third half hour: The fame. All of that business. Basically they're the Ghostbusters so we have a montage sequence in here too of them fighting various foes. In the midst of this we have Doom plotting, plotting. But he doesn't want to take over the world, he already rules his own kingdom. He just wants revenge.
Third turning point: This is where it gets tricky. In the comics he kidnaps Sue which in today's terms is a bit rubbish. Or drops a rocket on the Baxter Building. I suspect it would be more interesting if he kidnaps Reed and it's up to the rest of the team to save him with a geopolitical issue in relation to them invading another sovereign nation.
Fourth half hour:
They go in and save Reed. Huge battle sequences of the Fantastic Four fighting armies, the twist being that they won't hurt anyone. Perhaps, just to cover all the classic 60s bases, Doom's somehow in an alliance with the Skrulls (a previous experiment having attracted their attention) and Reed's been replaced by one of them?
All of which looks predictable and cliched but as I discovered during my film studies degree, people tend to like the repetition of genre films, that it's the variation in formula they like and although you can dump that formula, you have to be very smart about how you do it or you can get it terribly wrong and things can go badly.
Of course the ideal scenario would be for Fox to now do a Sony and lease the right to the F4 back to MARVEL so they can appear in the MCU.
But the problem is, much as they're in the process of re-conceiving the Inhumans to act as their version of the mutants, large chunks of the FF concept have already turned up in The Avengers films, notably the idea of having famous superheroes who're idolised by the populace and who don't really have secret identities.
Not to mention the alien invasion idea which would be perfect with the Skrulls has been done too.
Plus if they can just about get away with not having the whole team turn up in the individual films when the shit hitteth at the end, having a Fantastic Four in the verse not helping Thor fight Loki really begins to stretch credulity.
None of which is to say I wouldn't wish them not to at least try. SHIELD still has its problems but that's heading into a third series.
Since we're taking this to its natural conclusion, some casting suggestions for the MCU Fantastic Four:
Matt Smith is Reed Richards
Kristen Bell is Sue Storm Richards
Zac Efron is Johnny Storm
Woody Harrelson is Ben Grimm
Sam Riley is Victor Von Doom
Sigh. If only.
Updated: If only FOX and Trank and everyone involved with this debacle had been able to watch this first:
The St. George's Hall Floor.
Architecture This morning I attended the formal opening of the floor of St George's Hall by our Lord Mayor Councillor Tony Concepcion, or rather the tape cutting since the wooden covering which usually obscures the Minton tiles for safety and preservation purposes were removed before the event. As the press release describes,
The floor has only recently become a more viewable object, with seven appearance in the past nine years. As local historian Steve Binns explained, when it was initially built the hall was mainly used for court purposes so not seen publically and then when the hall was used for events the floor was closed up pretty quickly.
As such it's not that much different in style to most municipal mosaics or what you might find in a church. The difference is both its scale and also how it appears unfettered by supporting columns, the Hall itself being a great architectural feat and expression at the time construction of Liverpool's national and geographical importance.
In case you want to visit, here are some details:
I've uploaded some photographs of the event and floor to flickr but here are some of the highlights:
I now declare ...
... the St George's Hall floor ...
... open ....
... and again for the cameras.
Visitors to the hall to see the floor will be given plastic shoe bags to wear if they want to step onto the floor. Here I am taking my first step.
On the floor.
Into the Hall.
Here's why the wooden cover is important. Find above part of the floor which has just been unveiled.
Here's the same pattern on one of the edges where the public is allowed to walk all of the time. The pattern has worn away.
That's especially acute here were the pattern has almost completely gone.
Today of all days I also discovered the panorama option on my iPod and decided to give it a try for the first time whilst standing on the organ platform also for the first time. Click to make bigger.
The organ.
Here are a couple more panoramas from standing in the centre of the hall. Sorry about the slight lean. I'm still learning.
Finally, here are some shots of the floor itself.
"Amongst the world’s finest examples of an encaustic tiled floor, the handcrafted mosaic of more than 30,000 tiles were concealed in the 1860s to allow dancing and events at the prestigious venue. The intricate and exquisite patterned tiled flooring depict the Liver Birds, the Roman god Neptune, sea nymphs, dolphins and tridents in what was the largest Minton pavement in the world when reconstructed."The Hall is used for so many events it's simply impractical to have the floor open all of the time and keep it preserved, which is ironic considering its inherent utility. So for much of the time the only glimpse visitors have is through small windows through the usual wooden cover. There's a decent history of the hall here.
The floor has only recently become a more viewable object, with seven appearance in the past nine years. As local historian Steve Binns explained, when it was initially built the hall was mainly used for court purposes so not seen publically and then when the hall was used for events the floor was closed up pretty quickly.
As such it's not that much different in style to most municipal mosaics or what you might find in a church. The difference is both its scale and also how it appears unfettered by supporting columns, the Hall itself being a great architectural feat and expression at the time construction of Liverpool's national and geographical importance.
In case you want to visit, here are some details:
"The Hall will be open daily to the public from 10am-5pm (last entry 4pm) where visitors will be able to view Liverpool’s hidden gem and gaze again at the site of the Great Hall in all its original grandeur. There will also be Walk the Floor Tours available each day at 10am-11am and 4pm-5pm and A Night on the Tiles; each evening from 6pm-9pm where guests will be able to enjoy the rare privilege of being able to “walk” on the world heritage site floor."The floor is open until the 16th August.
I've uploaded some photographs of the event and floor to flickr but here are some of the highlights:
I now declare ...
... the St George's Hall floor ...
... open ....
... and again for the cameras.
Visitors to the hall to see the floor will be given plastic shoe bags to wear if they want to step onto the floor. Here I am taking my first step.
On the floor.
Into the Hall.
Here's why the wooden cover is important. Find above part of the floor which has just been unveiled.
Here's the same pattern on one of the edges where the public is allowed to walk all of the time. The pattern has worn away.
That's especially acute here were the pattern has almost completely gone.
Today of all days I also discovered the panorama option on my iPod and decided to give it a try for the first time whilst standing on the organ platform also for the first time. Click to make bigger.
The organ.
Here are a couple more panoramas from standing in the centre of the hall. Sorry about the slight lean. I'm still learning.
Finally, here are some shots of the floor itself.
Elastica.
Back of my head in @LivEchonews's photo gallery for the Tate's new Constellations exhibition. http://t.co/QfoWOI7jNy pic.twitter.com/Gh4ChxKHoZ— Stuart Ian Burns (@feelinglistless) August 3, 2015Art For completion sake, here's the back of my head as it appears on the Echo's website in conjunction with the piece about the ... well, see above. That's the Elastica t-shirt I bought at the V96 festival in Warrington which is one of vintage garments I can now fit into again having lost all of the weight due to my hernia operation of a couple of years ago. Look at that line-up and all in one day.
My Favourite Film of 1987.
Film What was the last film you watched more than once? Not just more than once, on a regular basis, because you had to, because you were addicted to it? Now that the availability of material has signalled the death of cinema, I don't tend to watch much of anything more than once. The MARVEL films certainly, at an auditorium then subsequently on the home release. If I've some kind of viewing project on, like #garaiwatch last year which led me to sit through One Day for a second time. But as a friend commented on social media, seeing something again feels like a luxury with so many other options available.
During the commentary for X-Men: Days of Future Past, composer and editor John Ottman laments that for the audience who turned up for the world premiere, their only experience of seeing all the hard work of himself and his colleagues will be at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York with its crappy acoustics and distracting airport nearby, hoping against hope that they'll get the chance to see it in a better environment. He'll be pleased to know I've now seen his film three times, twice in the superior Rogue Cut, albeit with the commentary turned on for two thirds of those. Yes, that would the other reason I might repeat watching a film now.
But there are films which I've seen over and over and over again and most of them are on this list: the Star Wars films (obviously), When Harry Met Sally, All The President's Men, The Last Starfighter, It's a Wonderful Life, the Three Colours trilogy, Starcrossed, In The Bleak Midwinter (most christmases), Love and Other Catastrophes and Citizen Kane. There are others but these are the films which have wracked up at least ten viewings, some of them over twenty, most from the days before you could watch the latest disappointing Simon Pegg vehicle at the click of a button. We'll cover the film you wish you hadn't even watched the once some other time.
Towering above them all is Adventures in Babysitting. I may have seen Adventures in Babysitting over fifty times. For a period in the early 90s, it's the only film I would watch on Saturday night and because I didn't go out much on a Saturday night I spent a lot of time watching Elizabeth Shue take little kids into the city alone. Within a few months I knew the film backwards and forwards and could quote along with the actors, knew where all the music queues would be and eventually the actual film probably became beside the point. Yet we carried on, every Saturday night, Chris Parker, Brad, Straydog, Sara and me.
During my Art A-Level we were encouraged to do as much homework as possible. As we've discussed before I couldn't draw so my main form of expression was in collage and the giant home project I worked on was a paper and paste mosaic of a woman who I knew to be Deanna Troi from Star Trek, though I don't think ever told my teacher that. This consisted of thousands of tiny squares cut from fashion magazines, of black and red from adverts and flesh colour which across the months I painstaking pasted to a piece of card. When I have an image of it to hand I'll add it here so you can see what I mean.
It's during these evenings that I'd watch Adventures in Babysitting too. Now I can't even do monotonous tasks with a film on in the background. Complain about disappointing Simon Pegg vehicles on Twitter perhaps but not tasks. But on those nights I'd be just as absorbed with Bradley Whitford lying about being contagious as making sure all the squares were lined up properly on Deanna's nose or singing along to Babysitting Blues as matching the various reds in her blouse. Eventually I completed the picture and I like to think it was what upped my grade to a B and enough to go to university.
Except I carried on watching. As Hadley Freeman rightly details in her book, some of the socio-economic and racial politics in the film are borderline. But at the age of sixteen I didn't understand any of that. I was too busy seeing myself in Brad with his crush on Chris and indeed having my own crush on her too. My sexual awakening had come much earlier (at around the time of the original release of the film) with Kylie Minogue as Charlene in Neighbours and those dungarees but my eyes didn't leave the 14" portable screen in my bedroom when Shue mimed to The Crystals's Then He Kissed Me, inconsolable when she utilises the bedpost as an imaginary microphone.
For all that, and this seems crucial as Hollywood goes through a process of remembering how to tell stories with female protagonists, I also identified with Chris, even wanted to be her, going on this big adventure in Chicago (not know then that it was largely filmed in Toronto), albeit with the kids in tow. She's smart, ingenious, brave and funny. In an ideal world, Shue would have been able to leverage this performance into a career as a leading actress. Instead she'd spend the next couple of decades playing wives and girlfriends and even though Leaving Las Vegas reminded everyone she could act, it's not until CSI that she'd really become valued.
All of this mostly before I had a decent copy. After renting the film one night and adoring it, I was later in in receipt of a satellite recording which turned out to be a television melon-farmer version with all of the swearing either dubbed over or removed, sometimes with characters reacting to lines which no longer existed, rather like the daytime cuts of Friends which ran on E4 for years. This was later replaced with an ITV broadcast, but that had adverts and the British title of the film, A Night On The Town at the beginning. It wasn't until WH Smiths on Church Street in Liverpool had a sale that I could afford to buy the sell-through release, swearing intact.
Of course the knock on effect of that was I had to learning all the lines over again. Where Darryl had said, "Watch my mouth? You gotta be kiddin’ me" it was now "Watch my mouth? You gotta be shittin’ me" and even now, with the film available on Netflix and owning dvds in two different regions this jars. When Chris says, "Don't fuck with the babysitter!" it sits badly, even though its a more coherent line than "Don't mess with the babysitter!" especially in the context of the train carriage stuck between two warring gangs. But eventually, I was as profane as the characters and in any case when you're the kind of teenager I was, this was all quite liberating.
Watching it again recently on Netflix, giving myself that luxury, I can now see the influence of Scorsese's After Hours, a series of misadventures in the city at night. If only Chris Columbus could scale its heights again, though I have a great affection for his adaptation of Rent, especially the "Light My Candle" sequence. Yet was still impossible for me to watch it as a "film". Even after ten years, even with the freshness of seeing it in high definition in the correct aspect ratio, I could still anticipate every scene, every music cue, every line of dialogue and talked along with it again. Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.
DLA Piper: Constellations at Tate Liverpool.
Art Sinister computers. Although it would be misleading to say that nothing frightens me, because frankly I'm scared of everything, sinister computers and indeed computers in general would be pretty high on the list along with my own face in the wrong light, biting into biscuits and the future. For a computer to be especially sinister it has to be running but without a particular reason for existence or at least no obvious sense of purpose, even for a limited time. Passing a closed university teaching room filled with computers at night is terrifying, dozens of identical machines with monitor and standby lights flashing in unison. The laptop I'm typing this on is perfect fine right now because it has a working screen, a keyboard and I'm generally master of it, although given that it's a Windows 8.1 machine, "master" tends to be interchangeable with "the things I can get to work". But there are moments, especially when I've closed the lid and my room's dark and the small blue light of the hard disk (pictured) continues flashing when I wonder, "What is it doing? What is it thinking?"
There's a very sinister computer reposing at the new edition of the DLA Piper series Constellations exhibition at Tate Liverpool (for which I attended the press view this afternoon), a Diab DS-101 computer, the exterior for which was designed by the artist Richard Hamilton. Constellations is the semi-permanent display show which fills the first and second floors at Tate Liverpool displaying sections of the gallery's own collection. A particular artwork is explored through a series of pieces by other artists which may be connected either thematically or technically. Elsewhere Louise Bourgeois's wall hanging, Mamelles, which features a three dimensional collage of female breasts in rubber, fibreglass and wood is reflected in a series of piece bringing together ideas of gender and the body including Marcel Duchamp's Female Fig Leaf (the casting of a vagina from another of his mannequins) and Rachel Whiteread's Untitled, one of her customary castings, on this occasion showing the interior of an air bed. The Tate's own website has a better explanation.
The Richard Hamilton constellation is actually "triggered" by a different piece, Towards a definitive statement on the coming trends in menswear and accessories (a) Together let us explore the stars (which as you can see from the image on the Tate's own website) is a collage inspired by JFK's moon speech produced in 1962 at the interstitial point between when the the President said these words and was shot. The rest of the display includes art works which evoke the space age, like Liliane Lijn's kinetic spinning cone Space Displace Koan, with its sleek white surface and lit circular lines which make it seems like the kind of artwork you'd find in the inevitable gallery on the Galaxy-class Starship Enterprise. Artworks about the space race like Pierre Huyghe's video One Million Kingdoms in which an electronic version of Neil Armstrong's voice reads a passage from Jules Verne's Rocket To The Moon computer generating a digital lunar landscape which is explored by a wireframe girl not unlike Rod Lord's animations for the TV version of Hitchhikers. Artworks about the Cold War such as the photographs by Don McCullin of Berlin citizens on either side of the wall.
Then sitting patiently the middle of all that is the Diab DS-101, a short pile of four metal boxes in various shades of grey, the topper most of which has a logo "Diab Data", a cassette drive, a 5.25" floppy drive and another space I can't identity but others have tried. As the accompanying label explains, Hamilton was interested in how the boundaries between art and high end design sometimes merged and was asked by a Swedish computer manufacturer, Dataindustrier AB, in 1983 to design this (what was then) "minicomputer" with a simple three-box design (actually a version of their DS90-3, a UNIX computer with a dual Motorola 68030 processor). So it's a potentially practical object which is also an art object. In the Tate's own image, it looks relatively benign even when you use the little button at the bottom of the photo to rotate it and turn it upside down) and I imagine now that we live in an age when the average microwave has better processing power than this box most people would probably overlook it, or perhaps stop and marvel and how the phone they're using to take its image (since this is an exhibition when such things are allowed) would seem like magic to both the artist and the scientists who designed the innards (though they probably went on to design the phone too).
Except it's actually ghastly, clearly the scariest object the Tate has ever displayed and that includes the faceless infant mannequins in their recent Cathy Wilkes retrospective. I noticed the Diab almost as soon as I entered the exhibition and the fact that it was turned on, the small green and red lights on the front illuminated. There's a cliche about how the eyes on some portraits follow a visitor around the room in stately homes and haunted houses in Scooby-Doo cartoons and these two lights have just that effect, impassive, unchanging and always in my peripheral vision as I wandered the gallery and chatted with friends and even when I couldn't see them, I knew they were there. The reason the Diab DS-101 is sinister is because although it still has utility as an art object, its primary function is obscured and so like the laptop in my room or those university computers at night I can't help wondering what it's thinking. We can find out. There's an array of twenty DVI sockets on the back waiting to output but instead the only form of communication it has is those two lights, one red, one green, both always on somehow, simultaneously reminding us that it exists and is working but also, in my imagination, watching like the circular eye of a HAL-9000.
Which is all, of course, entirely irrational. For a start the processor isn't powerful enough to have artificial intelligence, let alone magically network with the desktop and tablet computer which are surely otherwise in the Tate's ancient building creating a kind of rudimentary Skynet with the potential to overthrow the curatorial direction of the gallery replacing it with some sort of mechanised brain repetitiously scheduling Futurist retrospectives (though it's worth noting - ish - that the WOPR in War Games almost brought nuclear armageddon and that was surely even less powerful than the Diab). Plus there are admittedly far scarier objects in the exhibition, not least the Paul McCarthy video, Painter, a satire on the heroic artist, which is in places so disgustingly scattalogical children aren't allowed to watch it (and here's a shot of me from the Liverpool Echo website doing just that). Yet I am wondering right now if it's turned off when the gallery is closed or is left to sit overnight in the solitary exhibition space plotting our downfall. Perhaps I'd simply be happier if it wasn't turned on at all, if Pinocchio was broken, its strings cut.
DLA Piper: Constellations at Tate Liverpool is free to visit.
"the BBC make-up department in the Doctor Who studios."
TV Recently repeated and so currently in the iPlayer is George Carey's Storyville documentary about KGB agent George Blake who doubled in MI6 sending details of agents to the Soviets during the cold war.
Eventually he was caught and jailed at Wormwood Scrubs but pretty quickly escaped, in October 1966 and was aided in the getaway by two peace activists, Dr Michael Randle and his wife Anne.
Their interview begins about an hour and ten minutes into the piece as they describe how they were contacted by journalists and assumed the police would be on to them pretty quickly. They never were.
During the conversation the following narrative bomb is dropped. My italics for effect:
Eventually he was caught and jailed at Wormwood Scrubs but pretty quickly escaped, in October 1966 and was aided in the getaway by two peace activists, Dr Michael Randle and his wife Anne.
Their interview begins about an hour and ten minutes into the piece as they describe how they were contacted by journalists and assumed the police would be on to them pretty quickly. They never were.
During the conversation the following narrative bomb is dropped. My italics for effect:
Anne Randle:Well and indeed then. She doesn't say that it is someone who worked in the BBC make-up department in the Doctor Who studios just someone who has access but it's still an occasion when the last place you think you'll hear about a link to the franchise is usually the place when you hear about a link to the franchise.
"He'd actually knocked himself out. He had a cut about here and he'd not slept all night because of the pain. So he did look rather gruesome."
George Carey (narration):
"His fall had broken his wrist. So, they found a sympathetic doctor and something to fix it with."
Anne Randle:
"We knew someone who knew how to get hold of plaster of Paris bandages from the BBC make-up department in the Doctor Who studios."
Doctor Who in the Associated Press Archive.
TV Just as they updated the YouTube offering for British Movietone, AP also massed over a hundred thousand more recent clips from the past few decades. Let's have a look shall we?
Sci fi clcassic celebrates 45th anniversary - typos are a feature of this upload. The metadata on this clip says "Peter Davidson" whoever he is. Barnaby Edwards is our spokesman here in a tour of the exhibition in Cardiff in 2008.
UK Prince William meets the stars of Middle Earth at UK premiere - including Sylv.
Entertainment Weekly: The Biographer - post-TVM, pre-Big Finish Paul on the set of a film about Diana in which he plays Andrew Motion featuring Captain Henry Avery and Elder Ood. Yes really. Only ever released in the USA and Japan according the IMDb. There's a longer making of here.
Entertainment Daily: My Kingdom - released on Who's 36th anniversary, a short piece about the gangster remake of King Lear shot in Liverpool starring Richard Harris (and very good it is too).
Entertainment Daily: Invisible Circus - Chris at around the same time. With hair and oh so young. Bless.
There are also lots of clips of John Hurt.
Sci fi clcassic celebrates 45th anniversary - typos are a feature of this upload. The metadata on this clip says "Peter Davidson" whoever he is. Barnaby Edwards is our spokesman here in a tour of the exhibition in Cardiff in 2008.
UK Prince William meets the stars of Middle Earth at UK premiere - including Sylv.
Entertainment Weekly: The Biographer - post-TVM, pre-Big Finish Paul on the set of a film about Diana in which he plays Andrew Motion featuring Captain Henry Avery and Elder Ood. Yes really. Only ever released in the USA and Japan according the IMDb. There's a longer making of here.
Entertainment Daily: My Kingdom - released on Who's 36th anniversary, a short piece about the gangster remake of King Lear shot in Liverpool starring Richard Harris (and very good it is too).
Entertainment Daily: Invisible Circus - Chris at around the same time. With hair and oh so young. Bless.
There are also lots of clips of John Hurt.
Natural Regression (The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who)
Books Given its content, a very short story within an anthology threaded through a fact based look at the television series approach to science, Natural Regression is a nonetheless fairly momentous entry within the franchise. The first new piece of Eighth Doctor prose published by the BBC Books imprint since Fear Itself in 2005 (Spore was a Puffin eBook), it's also the opening salvo in a coincidental multi-platform reveal of what happened him between the end of the Big Finish audios and his regeneration (including a comic series and audio) refreshing the character again. As one of the architects who helped establish the character, despite the slender pagination, Justin Richards instantly captures Eighth in his usual status quo, planets and galaxies exploding all around and just him and his small blue box trying to do their best against insurmountable odds. The motivation for this small adventure fits within the scientific theme of the book (as well as poignantly paying homage to the educational roots of the series) and the only criticism I have is that it ends at just the moment when you want to read about him going off on further adventures with a potential new companion. After nearly twenty years, this version of the character continues to surprise.
Identity Loss.
People The Guardian has a useful piece about memory loss or more specifically identity loss and how it's not uncommon:
"For some, amnesia is specific to a situation: being in car crash or witnessing a murder. In others, it is not a solitary personal experience that drifts away in time but your identity, your self. “Who am I, what have I been doing all my life?”
"Jason Bournes in the real world are usually found by police on street corners and led, in an often dishevelled and confused state, to emergency rooms. No name and no memories. Some have travelled hundreds of miles from home as part of their psychogenic fugue (fugue is Latin for flight). It is a departure from a distant physical location, but a remote place of the mind, too."
My Favourite Film of 1988.
Film Still on air now in a different form and long after I stopped listening to commercial radio on purpose, the "peaceful hour" on Liverpool's Radio City was how I went to sleep during my school years, broadcast between midnight and one. I can't remember who the DJ was, though YouTube suggests it might have been Paul Leckie, but I do have two vivid memories. One that every night someone would request Minnie Riperton's Loving You and there was a brief moment when my tweenie soprano voice could actually reach some of those high notes and the adverts repeated at what seemed like ten minute intervals for the latest film releases at the Video City chain of which our local was in Garston.
These adverts, which included clips of dialogue from the films and what must have been a pithy synopsis supplied by the film company were repeated so often that after a while I could quote them verbatim. Now there's only three films which pierce the fog: The Pick-Up Artist ("Hi, I'm Jack Jericho." "Did anyone ever tell you that you have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas?"), The Boy Who Could Fly ("You told your mother something about a boy who rescued you." "What are you, a shrink?") and Working Girl ("I have a head for business and a bod for sin."). Every night these same adverts. But for some reason I never did actually see any of these films, on rental from Video City, which was odd because we were in there all the time.
As a family we were lent our first video player in the mid-80s. We ventured out that night to buy a blank tape from the Asda at Hunts Cross which would eventually be the permanent home for a recording of the James Spader starring Starcrossed which was broadcast as part of a sci-fi season on Channel 4 (with, if I can complete the memory, a purple sticker across the top which had been given away free with the 2000 AD spin-off "magazine" Crisis). But that evening it allowed us to finally experience the magic of recording something from live television and then playing it back. Pretty soon afterwards we decided to try renting some films and the nearest shop which wasn't also an off license was Video City in Garston.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this is where I first hired Star Trek: The Next Generation, but before that, one summer holiday, I remember working through the whole of the available Police Academy series, loads of Disney and oddly one Sunday afternoon Robocop, which would have been my first 18 certificate film. Not a bad place to start. The decor is about what you'd imagine a mid-80s video shop to be, with woodchip wallpaper and those red plastic display boxes for new released and wall shelves for the back catalogue (with its often lurid box art). There might even have been a small, walled off section for adult selections. The place seems huge in my memory, but was still relatively small, so it could have been about the size of an average off license.
Yet despite all of the advertising efforts I would eventually see these three films through other means. The Pick-Up Artist, starring Robert Downey Jr in his notorious phase opposite Molly Ringwald just after she'd fallen out with John Hughes and was seeking more adult material was broadcast in the middle of the night on ITV back when they didn't simply rerun Loose Women and posh teletext, The Boy Who Could Fly was I think shown one morning on Channel 4 and I think I eventually saw Working Girl on a recording the same relative made of it from Sky for us. Even as I type this, I still can't believe that all these archaic means of accessing film were only thirty odd years ago. Though given that I'm forty, that is actually a very long time. Let the river run.
BBC Genome adds links to actual programmes.
TV The BBC Genome is a massive database of everything broadcast on the BBC from 1923 to 2009 created by scanning in back copies of the Radio Times. Since it went public it's been an invaluable source of information as to what was transmitted when, providing the useful ability to remind us when memories of various shows actually happened.
Now it's even better. Now they're going through and linking entries to actual programmes available on the BBC website across television and radio:
Now it's even better. Now they're going through and linking entries to actual programmes available on the BBC website across television and radio:
"When I started the work to find the programmes, we weren't sure how many published programmes, which are available outside the 30 day catch-up period for programmes available on BBC iPlayer — we would find on the BBC website. Over the years, different departments have uploaded select broadcast programmes, and they sit under different collections on bbc.co.uk – sometimes categorised and alphabetised, sometimes not. We knew about the large and well-documented collections, and estimated there would be many more obscure, single programmes too.They're asking for user submissions, so of course ...
"Our guess when we started was that we might able to link about 3,000 videos or radio programmes – so far, we have found about 8,500 (282 television and 8,200 radio). And we're still working on more."
Are you MARVEL or DC?
Film At a certain point, I began to think of the MARVEL cinematic universe, which I favour because it's good, and the WB/DC projects a bit like political parties or at least with the sort of tribalism with which kids used to defend their favourite 8-bit computer with (a debate I was largely on the fringes of even then with my Acorn Electron during the Spectrum/C64 years and then owning a C64 while people were throwing STs and Amigas in each others faces).
Partly this is because the creatives, or actors at least, are almost choosing which of the big comic book franchises to join to the point and there's little or no crossover between them. As far as I can see, none of the cast of the Suicide Squad or Batman vs. Superman films has previous appeared in the MCU or vis-versa so it's entirely possible for us, or at least me to think of them as either being, "MARVEL" or "DC" and be otherwise disappointed if they've chosen the latter.
Rachel McAdams is a favourite actress, so when she says she might be in the Doctor Strange film, it's a relief because it means she's MARVEL. Finding Amy Adams in the Man of Steel was a shame because I like her too but she's hitched herself to DC (even if she was a predictably good Lois in an otherwise bad Superman film). It should be noted that anything pre-Iron Man or pre-MoS doesn't count so I'm still in hope that Anne Hathaway might play one of the Inhumans or some such.
Is it possible to guess if an actor will turn out to be MARVEL or DC? Maybe, maybe. When the cast list for Suicide Squad was released, I wasn't surprised by most of the names. Looking at other franchises for inspiration, Emma Watson feels very MARVEL, but Rupert Grint is clearly DC. Daniel Radcliffe could go either way. Greta Gerwig, MARVEL. Brad Pitt, DC. Cary Grant, MARVEL. Gary Cooper, DC. No idea why.
Partly this is because the creatives, or actors at least, are almost choosing which of the big comic book franchises to join to the point and there's little or no crossover between them. As far as I can see, none of the cast of the Suicide Squad or Batman vs. Superman films has previous appeared in the MCU or vis-versa so it's entirely possible for us, or at least me to think of them as either being, "MARVEL" or "DC" and be otherwise disappointed if they've chosen the latter.
Rachel McAdams is a favourite actress, so when she says she might be in the Doctor Strange film, it's a relief because it means she's MARVEL. Finding Amy Adams in the Man of Steel was a shame because I like her too but she's hitched herself to DC (even if she was a predictably good Lois in an otherwise bad Superman film). It should be noted that anything pre-Iron Man or pre-MoS doesn't count so I'm still in hope that Anne Hathaway might play one of the Inhumans or some such.
Is it possible to guess if an actor will turn out to be MARVEL or DC? Maybe, maybe. When the cast list for Suicide Squad was released, I wasn't surprised by most of the names. Looking at other franchises for inspiration, Emma Watson feels very MARVEL, but Rupert Grint is clearly DC. Daniel Radcliffe could go either way. Greta Gerwig, MARVEL. Brad Pitt, DC. Cary Grant, MARVEL. Gary Cooper, DC. No idea why.
Tongue Restraint.
History In Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners, David Olusoga describes the legacy of cruelty which underpins our wealth. In one sequence during the first episode whilst visiting Jamaica he's confronted with the instruments of torture utilised to subjugate slaves. There's a clip of this sequence here and amongst the objects is this tongue restraint utilised to subjugate slaves who challenged authority.
The apparatus looked familiar and for the rest of the sequence I asked myself where I'd seen it before. Then I remembered.
In Suffragettes Forever! The Story of Women and Power, Amanda Vickery describes the history of the women's suffrage movement. In one sequence during the first episode whilst visiting the Lancaster Castle Museum she's confronted by this tongue restraint utilised to subjugate women who challenged authority.
The apparatus looked familiar and for the rest of the sequence I asked myself where I'd seen it before. Then I remembered.
In Suffragettes Forever! The Story of Women and Power, Amanda Vickery describes the history of the women's suffrage movement. In one sequence during the first episode whilst visiting the Lancaster Castle Museum she's confronted by this tongue restraint utilised to subjugate women who challenged authority.
Doctor Who in the British Movietone Archives.
TV Associated Press have uploaded the British Movietone archive to YouTube. Find above some glorious images of Liverpool in the thick of winter 1936. Here's some text about the project:
"British Movietone is arguably the world’s greatest newsreel archive, spanning the period 1895 – 1986.Roy Greenslade has had a glance through at The Guardian.
"Shot on 35mm film, this global archive contains many of the world’s enduring images and is rich in coverage of news events, celebrities, sports, music, social history, science, lifestyle and quirky happenings. It was the first newsreel to include sound, the first to use colour film, the first to break many exclusive stories, and is your first and last stop for newsreel footage.
"We hope you will enjoy exploring the British Movietone collection. Please feel free to share our content with friends and embed onto your own websites and social media forums."
Inevitably I've had a glance around for some Who related stores.
Working through the names of the Doctors, all I found was the charming footage of Jon's wedding day from August 1960:
The Boys and Girls Exhibition at Olympia in 1964 which was also in the Pathe cache but worth it here for the announcer attempting to immitate the voice:
The Jersey Battle of Flowers from 1965. Soundless clip which has a Hammer Dalek on a float in the middle:
Another soundless clip, this time of the British Toy Fair in February 1965 which features the Dalek costumes pictured above:
Which is about as far as I've got. The metadata on the clips isn't as extensive as Pathe - you have to click through to the AP website for the dates of the clips - so if there is anything else, it's obscured by a lack of search terms. Vwrop. Vworp.
My Favourite Film of 1989.
Film Politicians are often asked, "What you're favourite [insert album/television programme/film]?" and I'm usually pretty sympathetic when on hearing their answer it clearly sounds like something which has been chosen by their advisors or even through a focus group to best position their candidate or incumbent in relation to the portion of the electorate who aren't cynical about these things. There is in fact no worse question because even your answer, as Nick Hornby writes about in High Fidelity, will have a profound effect on how other people view you for better or worse. Hornby suggests that in the end it's not about what you like but who you're like. But as I think most of us know that's wrong in almost every respect.
For years when I professed to be a film fan knowing full well that the next question would indeed be "What's your favourite film?" I never did have an answer for just this reason. It's horrible. For one thing if you're a film fan there is no single answer because there are films we admire, films we love, films with memories connected to them, films which are technically brilliant and the last great film we've seen which is still marinating in our consciousness before we decided the way in which we love it. And it is also that we know that if we say the wrong film to the wrong person it can change a friendship or relationship going forward. I know, because this has happened to me. In both directions.
One of the harshest examples of this was in the first meeting between students and lecturers during my MA film studies course, just before lectures began when we were to introduce one another. In other words, you're sat in room with peers and lecturers, all of whom are going to judge you in one way or other and whatever you say will be used against you later in some way or other. Having just spent the past few years catching up, I could say without hesitation I rather liked French New Wave but something in me couldn't say I liked sci-fi. I couldn't. So I think I said something like "But I still admire films which are visually interesting even if the storylines aren't that great or some such." On that occasion, I could have said sci-fi since one of the modules was just about that. Yet, I fretted.
It's because of all of this, the pressure, that in the end I decided that I needed to choose a favourite film. By then I'd narrowed it down to the most necessary five, When Harry Met Sally, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Seventh Seal, In The Bleak Midwinter and Star Wars. But keeping those rattling around in my head and knowing that sometimes they have a habit of swapping in and out (In The Bleak Midwinter was Citizen Kane for a while and Ferris Bueller is in for Adventures in Babysitting) and there's also the rather sticky conversational moment when you end up saying, I can't give you one but I have five, which shows you've really thought about this. Oddly, if you can just real off one film people tend to think you haven't thought about it much at all.
Here's how I made the decision. For official reasons related to important things (I know!) I was asked to name my favourite film and rather like the random letters out of the Scrabble bag at the end of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy it allowed me to give the answer without thinking about it and my ultimate answer was When Harry Met Sally. Partly I wonder if it's because it was the first film on that list and with a previous shuffle it could just as easily be Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which was there for a while too and would have been on this list too if it hadn't been for Before Sunset). Then a bit later I was asked the question again in the predicted social setting, gave When Harry Met Sally again and it stuck. When Harry Met Sally is my favourite film ever.
Why? That's always the next question. I think because people are surprised. It's a film which is admired I think but it's from a genre which generally isn't thanks to it being thoroughly devalued by one too many Katherine Heigl or Jennifer Lopez vehicles and a general sense of making them all in the "chick flick" subgenre when for decades they were actually perceived to be enjoyed by men and women thanks to a more balanced approach to the gender portrayal within. Perhaps if they already know me a little bit, on that basis they might expect me to say either something falling out of the art house or science fiction. But I love them both equally so what would be the point. Which isn't to say I didn't spend about six months saying Inception. That was hilarious.
When Harry Met Sally is very funny. Which it is. Pretty much every line is quotable and I do still at length. "You made a woman meow?" "Baby Fish Mouth." "Fur zee vest ov zee dey vee jall tuk lyke ziss." "On the side." "Married..." "There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance." "Sheldon?" But some lines are simply philosophical. "You're right, you're right, I know you're right," are words to live by not least because it reminds you that sometimes you might be wrong and you need someone to remind you. "Everybody thinks they have good taste and a sense of humour but they couldn't possibly all have good taste." "No one has ever quoted me back to me before."
Arguably it's Nora Ephron's greatest script, though she collaborated somewhat with all the main participants, director Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan. Its key feature is that it doesn't have some high concept thing like even her later scripts and pretty much every romantic comedy since, other than that they meet each other over a number of years. The "impediment" which stops them from entering the relationship isn't time-travel, or being geographically separated or a number of dresses, it's that they're afraid that falling in love will ruin their friendship. We don't have enough of these kinds of films any more, at least outside of television movies and even then they tend to be beset by tragedy.
It's perfectly structured. When Harry Met Sally follows the classic Hollywood structure to the minutes. The set-up section which covers the stuff in the past, the opening ride to New York and them meeting on the plane is exactly the first quarter of the film, about twenty-five minutes. The next quarter, almost exactly twenty-five minutes, is about them becoming friends but the turning point is at the New Years Eve party when they realise they have stronger feelings than that. The next twenty five minutes are about them trying to still be friends under these circumstances and the sexual tension leading to them having sex leading to the final twenty-five when they're apart leading to them falling love. Then at the very end Harry and Sally, talk through this structure to camera. Wow.
It's a film which changes as you age. When I first saw the film, on rental video in probably about 1990, perhaps at a friend's house, all of these characters seemed to much older than me and worldly wise and having lives I could only dream of. Now that I'm forty, the characters will seem much older than me and worldly wise and having lives I could only dream of. But the process of aging which is one of the film's many topics runs deeper with me now. Example: When Sally says "And I'm going to be forty!" "When?" "Someday!" "In eight years!""But it's there! It's like a big dead end!" She proposes it's different for men. She's talking about the biological clock but for all kinds of other reasons that scene rings oddly hollow.
This speech: "I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." Which is more than enough to make up for the film resolving to type and having Harry run to the place to try and convince Sally to return to him.
Plus there's the atmosphere. Whilst aping Woody Allen in some respects (though as I suggested in an earlier discussion without actually copying him as the film has reputationally been implied) (that would be Miami Rhapsody) the seasonal colours, the brownstones, the Manhattan streets. When it came time to refurbish my flat, I asked for a faux-wooden floor in my bedroom as homage to carpet rolling scene in When Harry Met Sally. It's the film which made me want to move into a city centre where everything is just accessible, all the time, when it's just as easy to go out for lunch as stay in. Granted it's a dream-like place and like Woody Allen's films ignores most of the rest of the city, but as a school boy this was one of the films which almost acted like a portal to somewhere better.
It's another film I've owned in multiple formats. My first copy was recorded from the BBC during its first network premiere on 26 December 1992 at 10.05pm. Imagine my surprise a few years later when I bought a 4Front budget copy from HMV on Church Street and found that they'd snipped out a whole chunk of the wagon wheel coffee table scene for swearing. In about 1995, The Independent gave away VHS tapes with their paper at the weekend and the first was When Harry Met Sally. I didn't get it. I already had a copy. I eventually bought a dvd from Music Zone in Williamson Square in the early 00s after having established it wasn't one of the films affected by MGM zooming and then in June 2013 finally purchased a blu-ray when it was released in this country.
Having had to reiterate all of that have a feeling that I probably would have chosen it anyway. I can't think of a single reason why I wouldn't. For everything above but also because it's the film I most want to watch. For various reasons I don't have my copy to hand right now and it's "killing" me. I think I might end up buying another one too since Netflix didn't renew their license for it and having written about it again here, I'm desperate to see again. Have you seen it? The film, I mean, not my copy. If you haven't, I hope this hasn't spoiled it for you too much and I recommend, no I plead with you to watch it as soon as you can. It'll spoil the modern romantic comedy for you, but it's worth it for the pretty much the whole thing.
We Need To Talk About Hank Pym.
Film Briefly, very briefly. Having finally seen MARVEL's Ant-Man this lunchtime and in a similar style to The Avengers post because I don't have a coherent, flowing argument just a few random points of order... expect spoilers. Don't read this if you haven't seen the film yet.
(1) It's a bodge but an entertaining bodge. Even after seen the film, I'm not dissuaded from anything I've said previously in these posts:
The Torchwood Problem.
Squirrel Girl!
Reedless to say.
Having pursued the insanity of making an Ant-Man film for years even as the MCU idea invalidated why Edgar Wright wanted to make it in the first place, there needed to be a situation creatively where the director put up and shut up in script terms with Kevin Feige simultaneously allowing him to direct it in his own style or dumping the whole thing and letting Diablo Cody produce Squirrel Girl instead or some such.
Just as the Thors are grand fantasy, or Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a conspiracy thriller and Spider-Man will be their teen series, Ant-Man was supposed to be the Edgar Wright comedy. So when the competent but directorally vanilla Peyton Reed took over, his job he was on to a loser since he couldn't direct what the project is supposed to be but similarly with the lead in he was unable to dump everything and start again, and it shows.
It's a bodge, a project in which two different directors with all obviously different styles are pulling away from one another, one of whom is behind the camera, the other still around as a kind of ghost. It's AI (Kubrick vs Spielberg) or X-Men: The Last Stand (Singer vs Ratner). There are moments which have to have been kept from the Wright/Cornish script, the funniest bits probably, and it makes the whole thing endearingly messy.
If anything, Reed seems to adopt three different styles. The closest to Reed himself and certainly scriptwriter Adam McKay is probably the stuff with Scott Lang and his family which resemble an "adult" comedy or Indiewood piece (underscored by the Judy Greer casting). Whenever the MCU interpolates it's the Russii of Captain America. Everything else from the slapstick to the "mime" montages to all the business with Rudd's friends and visual gags (including the Thomas bit in the trailer) are very Wright.
Of course as anyone who's had to work out which bit of Shakespeare's collaborations are Shakespeare or someone trying to write like Shakespeare or Shakespeare trying to write like his collaborators, the who did what isn't certain and won't be unless the Wright script is leaked (assuming it hasn't already). The casting was apparently mostly done before Wright walked (which is interesting because parts of Rudd's dialogue sound like they were written for Simon Pegg).
But let me be clear: despite all of this, in places, Ant-Man touches on brilliance. Parts of it are as good as anything MARVEL has been involved with. We can argue all we want about who is responsible for that and as I've said before at some point in the future there will be a long essay by someone who has the time arguing that the MCU is franchise as auteur, in which case Ant-Man is akin to The Trouble With Harry in Hitchock's pantheon or Woody Allen's Amazon series. But, yes, brilliance.
(2) Apart from the themes about passing the baton and essentially retelling the same story as Iron Man, Ant-Man is also about how to do an origin story in a universe where superheroes are a "reality" in a similar way to a Doctor Who alien invasion story when they sort of thing happens weekly or the Buffy comics now that magic and vampires are out in the open and actually have their own chat shows. This is the action comedy version of Skye's arc in Agents of SHIELD.
Without going around in circles, the amount of MCU activity might have been why Wright walked and it feels bolted on, although I really did yelp on seeing the top of the New Avengers building wondering if anyone would cameo and very pleased with the answer. See also the working of Spider-Man into the dialogue near the end. For a teenager, he's already making waves in the verse and of course it'll be interesting to see how he appears in Civil War.
Far cry from Iron Man's post-credits. To return to the Who analogy (sorry), we've now gone from Ninth not mentioning Davros by name in Dalek to Davros turning up in Journey's End and remembering who Sarah Jane is. The trick now will be keeping things fresh, and doing away with origin stories seems to be the thing. But shifting into radically "different" genres looks to be a useful process also, though I'd still like to see "non-superhero" material set in the MCU.
(3) The box office. Domestically in the US, Ant-Man's had the smallest box office of any MARVEL film since The Incredible Hulk but is doing well internationally, with a £4m weekend in the UK. But the press have been relatively sanguine about this because the budget was much smaller and expectations were lowered due to the production history. Plus its probably made about as much if not more as it might have done if it had still been an Edgar Wright film.
But content wise it doesn't feel like the kind of film which should be judged a flop on those terms. If this had been an Avengers or any of the other larger films were a building, spaceship or town falls out of the sky at the end then it would have been worrying. But much of the film takes place in and around Scott Lang's apartment, his ex-wife's house, Hank Pym's house or the laboratory which has his name. The most compelling sequence is about a tiny reformed burglar drifting through inner space in a dayglo version of the Orphan Black title sequence.
Ant-Man represents the sort of film I'd like MARVEL to do more of. Much as I like the larger films were a building, spaceship or town falls out of the sky at the end, I'm more often drawn to the minor characters into MARVEL comics, the non-Gods (which is also presumably why I still tolerate Agents of SHIELD). There's a sense of that in Phase Three with something like Black Panther which doesn't look like it's going to be a giant blockbuster either.
Which is why I'd love a sequel. There isn't one planned, but the obvious idea would be for the new Ant-Man and Wasp, mentored by Pym to enter the microverse searching for the older Wasp and with the obscuring of her face throughout, there's clearly a plan for that, leaving the door open in casting terms. Catherine Zeta Jones? Sandra Bullock? Juliet Binoche? Anne Archer? I'm trying to think of actors who haven't already been in this space before. It's tricky.
The problem is there's no space for it as such going forward. The July slot is free next year but that's not enough lead time, which makes the next potential slot November 2019. MARVEL could decide to slot another one in ala Spider-Man and push everything up again, but Ant-Man isn't Spider-Man. Another option would be a DTV film in collaboration with Netflix but they're already tied up with The Invaders series so that seems unlikely too. Sigh.
The Omen of Sefton Park.
Film The QuoDB is a search engine for movie quotes. Imagine my surprise when searching for somewhere local that I should find:
That's Sefton Park in Liverpool mentioned in Omen: The Final Conflict, which I will now have to watch. No there isn't an Ormsby Road in Liverpool, but there is an Ormsby Street, off Lawrence Road in L15.
That's Sefton Park in Liverpool mentioned in Omen: The Final Conflict, which I will now have to watch. No there isn't an Ormsby Road in Liverpool, but there is an Ormsby Street, off Lawrence Road in L15.
A Chronological Checklist for the Eighth Doctor (a work in progress).
TV Having recently completed the decade long business of reading, reading and listening through the mainstream of the Eighth Doctor's adventures and posting reviews, I thought I'd put together something which links to all of those reviews which could also double as a chronology should anyone decide to try and repeat the exercise. Good luck with that. As you'll see from the linked the dates, the novels took almost as long to read as their original publication history.
As I explained in the barebones version a few years ago although there are a number of chronologies available (and I'm grateful to @girlfromblupo for pointing me to this one) many of them tend to mix the various media together. My own version keeps things simple and has the books then the comics then the audios since they're all relatively self contained, especially since Big Finish decided to create a whole new character to explain the reference to Sam from Minuet in Hell.
In the process of completing all of this, there is still a lot of material which I've missed so for the purposes of fannish completism, I'll be enjoying my way through those too and I'll add them into the main trunk of the list once they're reviewed where I think they should be (just to add to the challenge), as well as anything new which is published. Some of the prose is about audio and comics characters so they'll be more obvious. We'll see about everything else.
Finally quick word about format. Anything which isn't in italics is original publication history. Anything in italics was produced after the fact and I've added extra information in the brackets afterwards to explain what it is. Originally, I did have lots more gaps to delineate "seasons", but decided in the end to just separate the more obvious runs of continuous narrative (which then runs aground with Dark Eyes which is a sixteen adventures, four adventures and a single one altogether).
Television Broadcasts
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
Doctor Who The TV Movie (The Target Novelisation)
From Little Acorns/Epilogue (Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership)
Bounty (Earth and Beyond)
Dreadnought (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Descendance (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Ascendance (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Perceptions (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Coda (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Where's The Doctor? (Doctor Who Annual 2018)
The Scent of Blood (BBC Audio Exclusive)
The Juror's Story (Short Trips: Repercussions)
The Bodysnatchers
Genocide
War of the Daleks
Alien Bodies
Kursaal
Option Lock
Longest Day
Legacy of the Daleks
Dreamstone Moon
Seeing I
Placebo Effect
Vanderdeken's Children
The Scarlet Empress
(including The Elixir of Doom (Companion Chronicle))
The Janus Conjunction
Beltempest
The Face-Eater
Femme Fatale (BBC More Short Trips)
The Taint
Demontage
Revolution Man
Dominion
Unnatural History
Autumn Mist
Interference - Book One
Interference - Book Two
The Blue Angel
The Taking of Planet 5
Frontier Worlds
Parallel 59
Growing Higher (Short Trips: Zodiac)
The Shadows of Avalon
The Fall of Yquatine
Coldheart
The Space Age
The Banquo Legacy
The Ancestor Cell
The Burning
EarthWorld
Fear Itself (BBC Past Doctor Adventure)
Vanishing Point
Eater of Wasps
The Year of Intelligent Tigers
The Slow Empire
Dark Progeny
The City of the Dead
Fitz's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Grimm Reality
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Hope
Anachrophobia
Trading Futures
The Book of the Still
The Crooked World
History 101
Fallen Gods (Telos Publishing Novella)
Notre Dame du Temps (Short Trips: Companions)
Camera Obscura
Time Zero
The Infinity Race
The Domino Effect
Reckless Engineering
The Last Resort
Timeless
Emotional Chemistry
Sometime Never...
Halflife
The Tomorrow Windows
The Sleep of Reason
The Deadstone Memorial
To the Slaughter
The Gallifrey Chronicles
We Can't Stop What's Coming (The Target Storybook)
Not in My Back Yard (Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
Endgame
The Keep
A Life of Matter and Death
Fire and Brimstone
By Hook or By Crook
Tooth and Claw
The Final Chapter
Wormwood
Shada
The Time Lord's Story (Short Trips: Repercussions)
The Four Doctors
Benny's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Linking Material (Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins)
Reversal of Fortune (Short Trips: Steel Skies)
...Be Forgot (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
Remain in Light (Short Trips: Snapshots)
The Young Lions (Big Finish Short Trips Rarities)
The Curse of the Fugue (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Flashpoint (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Decorative Purposes (Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas).
Dead London
Max Warp
Brave New Town
The Skull of Sobek
Grand Theft Cosmos
The Zygon Who Fell to Earth
Sisters of the Flame
The Vengeance of Morbius
Situation Vacant
Nevermore
The Book of Kells
Deimos
The Resurrection of Mars
Relative Dimensions
Prisoner of the Sun
Lucie Miller
To the Death
Dark Eyes
The Great War
Fugitives
Tangled Web
X and the Daleks
Dark Eyes 2
The Traitor
The White Room
Companion (Short Trips: Christmas Around the World)
Spore (Puffin E-Book)
The Eye of the Tyger (Telos Publishing novella)
Rip Tide (Telos publishing novella)
Organism 96 (Tales of Terror)
The Body Politic (Prisoners of Time, IDW Comic #8)
Prisoners of Time (Prisoners of Time, IDW Comic #12)
Spore (Puffin E-Book)
The Eye of the Tyger (Telos Publishing novella)
Rip Tide (Telos publishing novella)
Organism 96 (Tales of Terror)
The Body Politic (Prisoners of Time, IDW Comic #8)
Prisoners of Time (Prisoners of Time, IDW Comic #12)
Dreadnought (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Descendance (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Ascendance (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Perceptions (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Coda (Radio Times Comic Strip)
Where's The Doctor? (Doctor Who Annual 2018)
The Scent of Blood (BBC Audio Exclusive)
The Juror's Story (Short Trips: Repercussions)
The Bodysnatchers
Genocide
War of the Daleks
Alien Bodies
Kursaal
Option Lock
Longest Day
Legacy of the Daleks
Dreamstone Moon
Seeing I
Placebo Effect
Vanderdeken's Children
The Scarlet Empress
(including The Elixir of Doom (Companion Chronicle))
The Janus Conjunction
Beltempest
The Face-Eater
Femme Fatale (BBC More Short Trips)
The Taint
Demontage
Revolution Man
Dominion
Unnatural History
Autumn Mist
Interference - Book One
Interference - Book Two
The Blue Angel
The Taking of Planet 5
Frontier Worlds
Parallel 59
Growing Higher (Short Trips: Zodiac)
The Shadows of Avalon
The Fall of Yquatine
Coldheart
The Space Age
The Banquo Legacy
The Ancestor Cell
The Burning
Evergreen (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
Casualties of War
Wolfsbane (BBC Past Doctor Adventure)
Emmerdale: Their Finest Hour (cameo appearance)
The Turing Test
Casualties of War
Wolfsbane (BBC Past Doctor Adventure)
Emmerdale: Their Finest Hour (cameo appearance)
The Turing Test
EarthWorld
Fear Itself (BBC Past Doctor Adventure)
Vanishing Point
Eater of Wasps
The Year of Intelligent Tigers
The Slow Empire
Dark Progeny
The City of the Dead
Fitz's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Grimm Reality
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Hope
Anachrophobia
Trading Futures
The Book of the Still
The Crooked World
History 101
Fallen Gods (Telos Publishing Novella)
Notre Dame du Temps (Short Trips: Companions)
Camera Obscura
Time Zero
The Infinity Race
The Domino Effect
Reckless Engineering
The Last Resort
Timeless
Emotional Chemistry
Sometime Never...
Halflife
The Tomorrow Windows
The Sleep of Reason
The Deadstone Memorial
To the Slaughter
The Gallifrey Chronicles
We Can't Stop What's Coming (The Target Storybook)
Not in My Back Yard (Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
Doctor Who Magazine Comics
The Keep
A Life of Matter and Death
Fire and Brimstone
By Hook or By Crook
Tooth and Claw
The Final Chapter
Wormwood
The Company of Thieves
The Glorious Dead
The Autonomy Bug
Izzy's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Ophidius
Beautiful Freak
The Way of All Flesh
Children of the Revolution
Uroboros
Oblivion
Where Nobody Knows Your Name
Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game
The Power of Thoueris!
The Curious Tale of Spring-Heeled Jack
The Land of Happy Endings
Bad Blood
Sins of the Fathers
The Flood
Thinking Warrior (Short Trips: 2040)
The Ethereal (Short Trips: 2040)
The Glorious Dead
The Autonomy Bug
Izzy's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Ophidius
Beautiful Freak
The Way of All Flesh
Children of the Revolution
Uroboros
Oblivion
Where Nobody Knows Your Name
Doctor Who and the Nightmare Game
The Power of Thoueris!
The Curious Tale of Spring-Heeled Jack
The Land of Happy Endings
Bad Blood
Sins of the Fathers
The Flood
Thinking Warrior (Short Trips: 2040)
The Ethereal (Short Trips: 2040)
Big Finish Audios
The Time Lord's Story (Short Trips: Repercussions)
The Four Doctors
Benny's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
Linking Material (Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins)
Reversal of Fortune (Short Trips: Steel Skies)
...Be Forgot (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
Tuesday (Short Trips Rarities)
Mary's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
The Silver Turk
The Witch from the Well
Army of Death
Dear John (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Mary's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
The Silver Turk
The Witch from the Well
Army of Death
Dear John (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Sword of Orion
Repercussions... (Short Trips: Repercussions).
Letting Go (Big Finish Short Trips Audio 2)
The Light at the End (50th Anniversary Special)
Repercussions... (Short Trips: Repercussions).
Letting Go (Big Finish Short Trips Audio 2)
The Light at the End (50th Anniversary Special)
Be Good for Goodness's Sake (Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
The Stones of Venice
Minuet in Hell
The Stones of Venice
Minuet in Hell
Embrace the Darkness
A Good Life (Short Trips: Steel Skies)
Living Legend (DWM Special)
Solitaire (Big Finish Companion Chronicles)
A Good Life (Short Trips: Steel Skies)
Living Legend (DWM Special)
Solitaire (Big Finish Companion Chronicles)
The Time of the Daleks
Apocrypha Bipedium (Short Trips: Companions)
Foreshadowing (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Apocrypha Bipedium (Short Trips: Companions)
Foreshadowing (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Zagreus
Scherzo
The Creed of the Kromon
The Natural History of Fear
The Twilight Kingdom
Faith Stealer
The Last
Caerdroia
The Next Life
Terror Firma
Scherzo
The Creed of the Kromon
The Natural History of Fear
The Twilight Kingdom
Faith Stealer
The Last
Caerdroia
The Next Life
Terror Firma
The Girl Who Never Was
The Sorrows of Vienna (Short Trips: Snapshots)
Forgotten (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Prologue (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Gazing Void (Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
The Sorrows of Vienna (Short Trips: Snapshots)
Forgotten (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Prologue (Short Trips: The Centenarian)
Gazing Void (Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
Lonely (Short Trips: Transmissions)
Blood of the Daleks
Horror of Glam Rock
Immortal Beloved
Phobos
No More Lies
Human Resources
Blood of the Daleks
Horror of Glam Rock
Immortal Beloved
Phobos
No More Lies
Human Resources
The Further Adventures of Lucie Miller: Volume One.
The Dalek Trap
The Revolution Game
The House on the Edge of Chaos
Island of the Fendahl
The Dalek Trap
The Revolution Game
The House on the Edge of Chaos
Island of the Fendahl
Remain in Light (Short Trips: Snapshots)
The Young Lions (Big Finish Short Trips Rarities)
The Curse of the Fugue (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Flashpoint (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
Decorative Purposes (Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas).
Dead London
Max Warp
Brave New Town
The Skull of Sobek
Grand Theft Cosmos
The Zygon Who Fell to Earth
Sisters of the Flame
The Vengeance of Morbius
The Beast of Orlok
Wirrn Dawn
The Scapegoat
The Cannibalists
The Eight Truths
Worldwide Web
Death in Blackpool
Wirrn Dawn
The Scapegoat
The Cannibalists
The Eight Truths
Worldwide Web
Death in Blackpool
Situation Vacant
Nevermore
The Book of Kells
Deimos
The Resurrection of Mars
Relative Dimensions
Prisoner of the Sun
Lucie Miller
To the Death
Dark Eyes
The Great War
Fugitives
Tangled Web
X and the Daleks
Dark Eyes 2
The Traitor
The White Room
Firelight (Once Upon A Time Lord)
Time's Horizon
The World Beyond The Trees (Big Finish Short Trips Audio).
Eyes of the Master
Dark Eyes 3
The Death of Hope
The Reviled
Masterplan
Rule of the Eminence
Dark Eyes 4
A Life in the Day
The Monster of Montmartre
Master of the Daleks
Eye of Darkness
Time's Horizon
The World Beyond The Trees (Big Finish Short Trips Audio).
Eyes of the Master
Dark Eyes 3
The Death of Hope
The Reviled
Masterplan
Rule of the Eminence
Dark Eyes 4
A Life in the Day
The Monster of Montmartre
Master of the Daleks
Eye of Darkness
Sunset (Planet Krynoid: Nightfall)
Doom Coalition 1
The Eleven
The Red Lady
The Galileo Trap
The Satanic Mill
Doom Coalition 2
Beachhead
Scenes From Her Life
The Gift
The Sonomancer
Doom Coalition 3
Absent Friends
The Eighth Piece
The Doomsday Chronometer
The Crucible of Souls
Doom Coalition 4
Ship in a Bottle
Songs of Love
The Side of the Angels
Stop the Clock
Ravenous 1
Their Finest Hour
How to Make a Killing in Time Travel
World of Damnation
Sweet Salvation
Ravenous 2
Escape from Kaldor
Better Watch Out
Fairytale of Salzburg
Seizure
Ravenous 3
Deeptime Frontier
Companion Piece
L.E.G.E.N.D.
The Odds Against
Ravenous 4
Whisper
Planet of Dust
Day of the Master
Dr. Eighth (Mr. Men series)
Museum Peace (Short Trips Rarities/Subscriber Special/Dalek Empire)
The Forgotten: Revelation (IDW Comic Issue #5)
Doom Coalition 1
The Eleven
The Red Lady
The Galileo Trap
The Satanic Mill
Doom Coalition 2
Beachhead
Scenes From Her Life
The Gift
The Sonomancer
Doom Coalition 3
Absent Friends
The Eighth Piece
The Doomsday Chronometer
The Crucible of Souls
Doom Coalition 4
Ship in a Bottle
Songs of Love
The Side of the Angels
Stop the Clock
Ravenous 1
Their Finest Hour
How to Make a Killing in Time Travel
World of Damnation
Sweet Salvation
Ravenous 2
Escape from Kaldor
Better Watch Out
Fairytale of Salzburg
Seizure
Ravenous 3
Deeptime Frontier
Companion Piece
L.E.G.E.N.D.
The Odds Against
Ravenous 4
Whisper
Planet of Dust
Day of the Master
Time Lord Victorious
Dr. Eighth (Mr. Men series)
Museum Peace (Short Trips Rarities/Subscriber Special/Dalek Empire)
The Forgotten: Revelation (IDW Comic Issue #5)
It's a Wonderful War (Christmas: It's a Wonderful War and Other Stories)
Empire of the Wolf (Titan Comics)
Empire of the Wolf (Titan Comics)
New Adventures With The Eighth Doctor (Titan Comics)
The Pictures of Josephine Day
Music of the Spherions
The Silvering
Briarwood
A Matter of Life and Death
Supremacy of the Cybermen: Prologue (Titan Comics)
The Time Ball (The Many Lives of Doctor Who)
The Lost Dimension #8 (Titan Comics)
A Heart on Both Sides (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
The Diary of River Song: The Rulers of the Universe
Susan's War: The Shoreditch Intervention
The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords
Natural Regression (The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who)
Ghost of Christmas Past (Twelve Doctors of Christmas)
The Sontaran Ordeal (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume One)
Day of the Vashta Nerada (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume Two)
The Pictures of Josephine Day
Music of the Spherions
The Silvering
Briarwood
A Matter of Life and Death
Supremacy of the Cybermen: Prologue (Titan Comics)
The Time Ball (The Many Lives of Doctor Who)
The Lost Dimension #8 (Titan Comics)
A Heart on Both Sides (Big Finish Audio Short Trips)
The Diary of River Song: The Rulers of the Universe
Susan's War: The Shoreditch Intervention
The War Master: Rage of the Time Lords
Natural Regression (The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who)
Ghost of Christmas Past (Twelve Doctors of Christmas)
The Sontaran Ordeal (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume One)
Day of the Vashta Nerada (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume Two)
Cognition Shift
Updated 25/07/2015 I've added "Time War era" in at the bottom because it looks like it's going to be its own multi-format thing. It'll be interesting to see how co-ordinated Big Finish, Titan and whoever else will be. I believe one of the IDW comics already contradicts Day of the Doctor in relation to the nature of the "moment". No more, no more, no more ...
Updated 28/12/2015 I've added The Diary of River Song. The Titan limited series, also set during the Time War is out but I'll post a review of those when the series is finish and add them to the timeline then in case there's something which indicates how close they're set to the regeneration. As I've said elsewhere, the Time War era sounds like it's going to be populated without a clear narrative order unless someone decides to attempt to official apply one. Most likely it'll be like the Baker era between Trial and his regeneration or in Big Finish terms between their ongoing (currently Doom Coalition) and Night of the Doctor.
Updated 15/01/2015 After Foreshadowing, The Elixir of Doom and Bounty (and Klein's Story although that's an alt.Eighth), I'll be hitting the subscriber wall on the audios. The three short stories and The Four Doctors are only available if you sign up to various subscriptions at Big Finish and money is unfortunately an object right now. Copies of The Four Doctors do turn up on eBay now and then, but £30 is still a bit steep. Availability of these old stories is going to be a huge problem going forward especially in the hard copy Short Trips. Expect updates to become sporadic.
Updated 21/01/2015 I've added a Miscellany section for alternative non-canonical versions of the Eighth Doctor.
Updated 04/04/2016 Not that Titan's Eighth Doctor comics series is completed, I'm all caught up with the Eighth Doctor's canonical comics adventures. Unless I've missed something.
Updated 08/06/2016 The Four Doctors, Doom Coalition 2 and The Curse of the Fugue all added which means barring those pesky three subscriber specials and the reading of Bounty I'm all caught up audio wise. Oh and Klein's Story. Oh.
Updated 06/11/2017 Add a new category, Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Eighth Doctor, for stories featuring a version of the character from outside the main continuity: from alternate realities or degenerative cameos, that sort of thing.
The Starship of Theseus
Echoes of War
The Conscript
One Life
The Time War 2
The Lords of Terror
Planet of the Ogrons
In The Garden of Death
Jonah
Echoes of War
The Conscript
One Life
The Time War 2
The Lords of Terror
Planet of the Ogrons
In The Garden of Death
Jonah
Mary's Story (Big Finish The Company of Friends Audio)
The Night of the Doctor
[The Day of the Doctor (TARGET Novelisation)]
-------------------------------------------------
The Night of the Doctor
[The Day of the Doctor (TARGET Novelisation)]
-------------------------------------------------
Alternative Eighth Doctors.
Bafflement and Devotion (Doctor Who Magazine #289)
Dead Man's Hands (IDW Graphic Novel).
Bafflement and Devotion (Doctor Who Magazine #289)
Dead Man's Hands (IDW Graphic Novel).
Phoenix (Indefinable Magic).
The Power of the Doctor.
You Had me at Verify Username and Password (Short Trips: Snapshots)
The Power of the Doctor.
You Had me at Verify Username and Password (Short Trips: Snapshots)
Updated 25/07/2015 I've added "Time War era" in at the bottom because it looks like it's going to be its own multi-format thing. It'll be interesting to see how co-ordinated Big Finish, Titan and whoever else will be. I believe one of the IDW comics already contradicts Day of the Doctor in relation to the nature of the "moment". No more, no more, no more ...
Updated 28/12/2015 I've added The Diary of River Song. The Titan limited series, also set during the Time War is out but I'll post a review of those when the series is finish and add them to the timeline then in case there's something which indicates how close they're set to the regeneration. As I've said elsewhere, the Time War era sounds like it's going to be populated without a clear narrative order unless someone decides to attempt to official apply one. Most likely it'll be like the Baker era between Trial and his regeneration or in Big Finish terms between their ongoing (currently Doom Coalition) and Night of the Doctor.
Updated 15/01/2015 After Foreshadowing, The Elixir of Doom and Bounty (and Klein's Story although that's an alt.Eighth), I'll be hitting the subscriber wall on the audios. The three short stories and The Four Doctors are only available if you sign up to various subscriptions at Big Finish and money is unfortunately an object right now. Copies of The Four Doctors do turn up on eBay now and then, but £30 is still a bit steep. Availability of these old stories is going to be a huge problem going forward especially in the hard copy Short Trips. Expect updates to become sporadic.
Updated 21/01/2015 I've added a Miscellany section for alternative non-canonical versions of the Eighth Doctor.
Updated 04/04/2016 Not that Titan's Eighth Doctor comics series is completed, I'm all caught up with the Eighth Doctor's canonical comics adventures. Unless I've missed something.
Updated 08/06/2016 The Four Doctors, Doom Coalition 2 and The Curse of the Fugue all added which means barring those pesky three subscriber specials and the reading of Bounty I'm all caught up audio wise. Oh and Klein's Story. Oh.
Updated 06/11/2017 Add a new category, Almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Eighth Doctor, for stories featuring a version of the character from outside the main continuity: from alternate realities or degenerative cameos, that sort of thing.
Updated 12/01/2022 Made Time Lord Victorious into its own era because the alliance with the Daleks would seem to indicate it can't occur anywhere during the Time War itself (not to mention what happens to the Daleks themselves early in the general narrative of that event). Yes, I know I'm a bit behind on everything else, but once I've finished TLV, that's my next project.
Updated 23/05/2023 I've finished the printed Big Finish Short Trips! Just the rest of the audios to do now (although the subscriber specials still seem a bit unlikely for now).
Updated 18/12/2023 I've finished the printed Big Finish Short Trips! Again! (missed a couple) Just the rest of the audios to do now (although the subscriber specials still seem a bit unlikely).
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