Christmas Links #3
John Lewis: Christmas comes a week early as advent calendar sold at store gets days horribly wrong:
"Customers who opened the 2 December door today were surprised to be told that the Big Day was not in fact on the 25th, but on the 18th."
Should we stop listening to these Christmas songs?
"Baby, It's Cold Outside is one of those Christmas songs that's about as traditional as mince pies."
Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is the best modern Christmas song:
"Maybe she's a “diva,” but Mariah Carey is also truly excellent at capturing sentiment in song."
Unwrapping new Christmas music:
"From Blues, to Pop to a music power couple, there is a bounty of new Christmas music to make the season festive."
Laura Dern, Issa Rae to Star in HBO Series About Cabbage Patch Doll Riots:
"Issa Rae (Insecure) and Laura Dern (Big Little Lies) will executive-produce and star in an HBO limited series based on real-life riots that started when there weren’t enough Cabbage Patch Kids dolls to go around, our sister site Deadline reports."
In Praise of ‘Krampus’: Celebrating the Pinnacle Anti-Christmas Film:
"Michael Dougherty’s descent into the Christmas season, Krampus, opens with a particularly potent scene that mines an array of familiar feelings we’ve all become accustomed to experiencing during the holidays: ennui, anxiety, rage and, most importantly, utter dread. During a slo-mo shot, a mob of blood-thirsty holiday shoppers take over a department store to the tune of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” while mouths foam and fists fly. It’s an important sequence that sets up the entire message of the fittingly horror film — that Christmas is a horror show all by itself, and that no matter what, we will never, ever, be able to escape it."
The 12 midi dresses of Christmas:
"From the office do to Boxing Day drinks, there’s a midi for that ..."
Two Minneapolis police officers on leave after Christmas tree decorations deemed 'racist':
"The tree was ornamented with Flamin' Hot Funyuns, a pack of Newport cigarettes, a Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen drink cup and police tape."
19 Christmas DIY Projects That Are Both Easy And Adorable:
"'Tis the season to get crafty."
It Takes You Away.
TV "Zagreus sits inside your head. Zagreus lives among the dead. Zagreus sees you in your bed. And eats you when you're sleeping." I don't know about you but those are the words which flickered through my head on hearing the Doctor talk about her grandma's fairy tale about the Scaramucci or whatever it was called (Jodie seemed to have great fun wrapping her chops around whatever was written in the script). For the casuals, Zagreus turned up the second season of Big Finish Eighth Doctor stories, a result of the Time Lord absorbing a shed load of anti-time and becoming the epitome of a Gallifreyan bogeyman. Eventually he trapped himself in a divergent dimension without causality in order to protect the Whoniverse. He then spent a couple of years oscillating between fairly standard adventures and the kind of surreal whimsy the actual television show broadcast tonight. Some of it was quite good.
For a few brief moments, It Takes You Away seemed like it was going to become a full blown homage to that controversial story arc to the point that the Kro'ka and Rassilon might turn up attempting to use the portal to go home (sorry casuals), but instead it's more clearly influenced by Andrei Tarkovsky, most notably his adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, and Jean Cocteau's Orphee which has previous having been a key source for Stephen Gallagher when writing Warrior's Gate (along with La Belle et La Bette). Like Solaris (see also the Soderbergh remake), our travelers are enticed into remaining in the alt.verse by convincing recreations of the recently deceased. Like Orphee, a mirror is the means of entering the alternative dimension in which those loved ones reside. Not sure about the significance of the moths (The Duke of Burgandy?) but the big red torch could be a reference to Lamorisse's The Red Balloon.
Good evening. As you can see I'm back. There will be a review of The Witchfinders during my shiny disc rewatch (although every episode now seems to have been set for permanent residency on the iPlayer so ... shrug.gif ... might be sooner) but I'm in much more comfortable territory with an episode about mirror universes and small rubber frogs as the big bad. If the shot of Dogbolter's cousin raising its tiny hand to banish the Doctor from its solopsistic matrix isn't the image of the series, then I still haven't read enough Paul Magrs novels (which is actually true, I still haven't experienced Verdigris). But yes, it's the second of December, BBC One have already adopted their Christmas idents and I'm feeling much more chipper. Much chipperer. Chipperly? Positively peart. Anyway, the early broadcast means I might be able to finish this at a reasonable hour so I'd best get on.
This season continues its geographic diversity with a trip to Norway. Not having seen much Scandi-noir outside Forbrydelsen or Män som hatar kvinnor, I don't know the extent to which director Jamie Childs replicates the mis-en-scene of those shows, but it certainly feels authentic with its blue washed colour timing and simple camera movements. Both actors Christian Rubeck and Lisa Stocke are both Norwegian and appeared in the types of shows imported by BBC Four for a Saturday night broadcast. Perhaps more interesting is Stocke, who looks under-utilised when we discover she's a graduate of LIPA, was in the original cast of Mamma Mia, the voice of Elsa in the Norgwegian dub of Frozen and has been a contestant on 4-stjerners middag (Four Star Meal), the local version of Come Dine With Me, which ditches members of the public in favour of celebrities. Cue showreel. Since it is nearly Christmas, here she is singing The Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth as part of a charity campaign:
I'd be "drite seg ut" if I didn't note that this isn't the first occasion the revival has visited Norway's lovely crinkly edges, with the anomaly that allowed Tenth and Rose to interface located at Dårlig Ulv Stranden, fifty miles out from Bergen in Pete's World. Perhaps that's also the source of the interface between these worlds, the walls between different realities especially thin across the fjords. You can imagine in about five years Big Finish'll produce a boxed set which ties both of these stories together, along with the shaft in Torchwood's Miracle Day and it'll all be revealed to be a result of Kermit's plastic pen friend. I joke, but honestly however much truthiness Jennifer Saunders offered on Have I Got News For You ("Actually, Doctor Who will probably be busy delivering its lecture on colonialism and the collapse of the British Empire. Probably worth missing that."), there's always a tiny metal munching alien or a universe sized consciousness which manifests itself as an amphibian in the next episode.
This is still Doctor Who, through and through. Ed Hime's script is even structured like an old two parter. Pause the iPlayer version at twenty odd minutes and we find the potent reveal of Erik's wife, which while not life threatening for the Doctor etc, would be a potent choice at Big Finish. Plus Jodie's now entirely comfortable in the character's skin and the writers and director are unafraid to play up her eccentricities. Only the Doctor would be more interested in chewing dirt than taking in the view. Where once the Doctor was a mad man in a box, now she's just a nutter. They've also gained confidence in allowing her to carrying a two hander, something rare in this iteration, and there are shades of Eleventh in The Rings of Arkanoid as she faces the Solitract and offers her history as a trade to save others. But whereas she was then all fire and fury, now she confronts Fredo with peace and compassion.
Speaking of which, as Doctor Who itself has illustrated in the past, the return of a deceased spouse can lead to potent, emotional choices. But unlike Pete Tyler and Danny Pink, here Grace is a manifestation of Graham's memory, a near idealised version of her, someone who is everything he remembers her being which is an incredibly cruel choice for the antagonist. Bradley is incredibly strong in these scenes, his face wretched, underplaying the re-surfacing of his grief and fighting his want to believe. Sharon D Clarke also makes the important choice of making the distinction to make the recreation of his wife colourless, motion going, presenting just enough personality to draw Graham in, but not so much that audience doesn't dismiss its own cynicism, underscores by the Doctor, about these sirens of time.
Ed Hime's another interesting choice as a writer. Chibbers has largely ignored the choice in previous administrations of selecting showrunners from other dramas to write scripts, preferring those with perhaps less experience of television and/or perhaps more used to working in a writer's room. According to his agency website, his only previous TV experience is a couple of episodes from latter day Skins, his other credits mainly found in radio drama and theatre. If he's a fan, and there's enough in here to suggest he is, it's amazing the audio drama wing of the franchise haven't snapped him up already. When and if there is a new series, will Chibbers retain these writers or give others a chance? We're not quite back to the eighties approach of commissioning writers with little to no experience of television, but it is still gratifying that we're looking beyond other successful series to keep the narrative engine running.
In previous years, the penultimate episode was often the tipping point into the finale's hi-jinks so it really is quite odd that we go in there with little or no idea about what to expect. My guess is it'll be like last stories of yore in none regeneration years in which we have an epic story without much in the way of lasting consequences - we know that the whole TARDIS team survives in time for the festive special. But I still have a nagging suspicion Chibbers will pull a fast one and it'll be revealed that there has been a story arc running right through the year hidden in plain sight, the Room 237 nature of which will blow our minds. Something related to most of the villains surviving the episodes, the TARDIS being a bit skittish about were it deposits her passengers or something the Doctor hasn't been saying in order to keep her friends safe. Either way, ten episodes might be the perfect number for a Netflix MARVEL series but it's not been enough for this season of Doctor Who.
Christmas Links #2
The Box Of Delights (Original Television Soundtrack) Roger Limb and The BBC Radiophonic Workshop:
"Included on this CD release is the delightful original theme, Victor Hely-Hutchinson's Carol Symphony: Andante quasi lento e cantabile performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra."
How to make your last name plural this Christmas season:
"Nothing quells my Christmas cheer as quickly as a stray apostrophe. Every year they assault me."
Movie Advent #1: ‘The Apartment’:
"‘Y’see, I have this little problem with my apartment …’ With these words, CC ‘Bud’ Baxter, played with ineffable charm by Jack Lemmon, introduces the setup of one of the bleakest, and somehow funniest, of all festive films. It’s a concept borrowed from another film, a famous weepie. When director Billy Wilder saw David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), the borrowed flat where the lovers meet caught his eye, and his imagination. ‘What about the poor schnook who has to crawl into the still-warm bed of the lovers?’ he scribbled in his notebook. CC is that ‘poor schnook’ and The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) is a film that emphasises the value of home, family, love and marriage – all suitable themes for the festive season – by depicting their absence. That’s why it’s essential viewing, Christmas-wise."
Watch out, Santa! I’m ready for the annual Hanukah v Christmas faith-off:
"It’s hard to convince your kids to care about Jewish holidays when their other parent is opening advent calendars."
Caught Our Eyes: Tapping Out a Giant Message:
"In the era before the development of social media, how did you get a big message across? Type it out on a giant typewriter!"
At last, a partner for the Snowman who has melted hearts for 40 years:
"Illustrators including Quentin Blake and Shirley Hughes celebrate the Raymond Briggs Christmas classic – and one adds a touch of romance."
17 Kiddos From Your Favorite Christmas Movies And What They Look Like Now:
"They're...adults?"
Christmas Links #1
Don’t F with me at Christmas:
"The song is the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. Of course it is. But there’s a problem – actually, there are several but, in typical style, only one’s causing an issue at the moment. It’s a word. An F-word. No, not that one. You know the one. It comes at 2 minutes and 22 seconds into the song and is sung, with gusto, by the much-missed Kirsty MacColl. The word is “faggot”."
Here are the 10 most annoying Christmas songs of all time:
"Why do pop artists have to get involved with Christmas?"
Christmas Number 1 2018: The contenders revealed:
"Who's in line to claim the coveted Christmas Number 1 in 2018? We reveal all..."
From waiting lists to unboxing: the bizarre world of beauty Advent calendars:
"Forget chocolate – this year brands including Nars, Glossybox and Mac are counting down to Christmas with cosmetics. But are they really worth the (often hefty) pricetag?"
Smithfield’s Christmas Eve meat auction returns for 2018:
"Good news for meat lovers and lovers of a meaty bargain as the exceptionally good fun Christmas Eve auction will return to Smithfield this year."
Can I Find Someone Who Loves Christmas More Than Me? A Festive Investigation:
"Meet Jack Monroe, 'Mr Christmas' and Advent Alexa."
18 Tragic Christmas Designs That Deserve To Be Loudly Booed:
"Who approved of these?!"
The Lantern Sleeper.
Life If you've been trying to travel up Lime Street in Liverpool by foot or vehicle the past few years, you will have found it pretty difficult thanks to the demolition of the various old buildings on the station side of the street between the two large pubs including The Futurist cinema.
In their place a different edifice has been raised, a colourfully lit office, retail and residential opportunity called The Lantern which includes a new Premier Inn, walking distance from the other Premier Inn on Hanover Street but more convenient for Lime Street Station.
Last night I slept there, wanting to get away for a night but not wanting to get away too far much as I did in Manchester in September. So armed with some literature, my toothbrush and a change of clothes, I walked there yesterday lunch time and booked in at 2pm.
As you can imagine, the "Have you come far?" conversation at the check-in desk went off the rails fairly quickly because frankly how do you explain that you simply want to go somewhere with a comfy bed and some peace and quiet so you can read a book and just give your anxious mind a rest?
I did not get much piece and quiet and initially my anxious mind did not rest. Not long after being in the room, I noticed a constant wooshing sound. I assumed it was the air conditioner on the blink so I visited the desk and asked if that was the case.
They said yes and that they'd turn it to "auto". Ten minutes later and the noise was still there, thrumming away in the background. Another visit to the desk and they said they'd turn it off. Nope still there. Another visit downstairs to be told that it definitely had been turned off.
For a further half an hour the noise was still there, loudly niggling away at me. By this point I wondering if I'm being unreasonable, but I remember how silent the previous Lenny Henry endorsed rooms I'd slept in had been so decided to not let it go. Elsa.
Another visit downstairs led to different staff member visiting the actual room and I showed him the grill the noise was coming from. Lifting it to one side, we saw the big black box it was coming from. We both stopped and listen. He said he'd investigate.
He investigated, discovering that these grills are in every room and that the box we can see is the air conditioning system shifting the air through the building. It's an access point and there is no way to turn it off. I bothered to record the noise to you can experience it yourself:
I considered just going home, asking for a refund and said so. He explained that I'd have to put a complaint with head office in to get a refund but that if I decided to stay he'd make sure I received a complimentary breakfast. I stayed and eventually managed to tune the noise out for the most part.
How does this happen? Who designs a hotel in which the aircon system is this audibly intrusive notably when there is advertising throughout the room indicating that their key selling point is a comfortable, unobtrusive night's sleep?
But no, this hummed away right through the night, while I was initially trying to get to sleep and then around six hours later when I got up to go to the loo. I'd like to blame it for my usual dream about nakedly running around a fictional town looking for my clothes, but that's just my anxiety.
Which isn't to say the visit was awful. It wasn't. This was the view from my window:
For the uninitiated, that's Lime Street Station.
Plus I did manage to read a whole book, the Black Archive edition about the TV Movie with the Pertwee logo which does indeed manage to find something new to say, despite the Gary Russell paperback, the complete history and the various shiny disc releases.
And I had a bath for the first time in about ten years even if it was too small for me to fit my whole body in and ended up bobbing backwards and forwards. Showers are fine, but this was luxurious and the most relaxing moment of the visit.
In their place a different edifice has been raised, a colourfully lit office, retail and residential opportunity called The Lantern which includes a new Premier Inn, walking distance from the other Premier Inn on Hanover Street but more convenient for Lime Street Station.
Last night I slept there, wanting to get away for a night but not wanting to get away too far much as I did in Manchester in September. So armed with some literature, my toothbrush and a change of clothes, I walked there yesterday lunch time and booked in at 2pm.
As you can imagine, the "Have you come far?" conversation at the check-in desk went off the rails fairly quickly because frankly how do you explain that you simply want to go somewhere with a comfy bed and some peace and quiet so you can read a book and just give your anxious mind a rest?
I did not get much piece and quiet and initially my anxious mind did not rest. Not long after being in the room, I noticed a constant wooshing sound. I assumed it was the air conditioner on the blink so I visited the desk and asked if that was the case.
They said yes and that they'd turn it to "auto". Ten minutes later and the noise was still there, thrumming away in the background. Another visit to the desk and they said they'd turn it off. Nope still there. Another visit downstairs to be told that it definitely had been turned off.
For a further half an hour the noise was still there, loudly niggling away at me. By this point I wondering if I'm being unreasonable, but I remember how silent the previous Lenny Henry endorsed rooms I'd slept in had been so decided to not let it go. Elsa.
Another visit downstairs led to different staff member visiting the actual room and I showed him the grill the noise was coming from. Lifting it to one side, we saw the big black box it was coming from. We both stopped and listen. He said he'd investigate.
He investigated, discovering that these grills are in every room and that the box we can see is the air conditioning system shifting the air through the building. It's an access point and there is no way to turn it off. I bothered to record the noise to you can experience it yourself:
I considered just going home, asking for a refund and said so. He explained that I'd have to put a complaint with head office in to get a refund but that if I decided to stay he'd make sure I received a complimentary breakfast. I stayed and eventually managed to tune the noise out for the most part.
How does this happen? Who designs a hotel in which the aircon system is this audibly intrusive notably when there is advertising throughout the room indicating that their key selling point is a comfortable, unobtrusive night's sleep?
But no, this hummed away right through the night, while I was initially trying to get to sleep and then around six hours later when I got up to go to the loo. I'd like to blame it for my usual dream about nakedly running around a fictional town looking for my clothes, but that's just my anxiety.
Which isn't to say the visit was awful. It wasn't. This was the view from my window:
Which is not something I thought would ever happen, being able to see the goings on in Lime Street from above, albeit on a Monday night when not much is happening anyway. Seeing familiar landmarks from unusual angles is always exciting. See also the view from my breakfast booth:
Plus I did manage to read a whole book, the Black Archive edition about the TV Movie with the Pertwee logo which does indeed manage to find something new to say, despite the Gary Russell paperback, the complete history and the various shiny disc releases.
And I had a bath for the first time in about ten years even if it was too small for me to fit my whole body in and ended up bobbing backwards and forwards. Showers are fine, but this was luxurious and the most relaxing moment of the visit.
The Witchfinders.
TV Sigh. Much as I enjoyed The Witchfinders, I can't quite summon up the imagination tonight to offer an opinion over eight paragraphs, so if you don't mind, I'll leave this for now and go and take care of myself. Think of me as Jacqueline Hill during the fourth and fifth episodes of The Sensorites. Perhaps I'll come back to it. Just so that you haven't wasted a click, here's an excellent primer from BBC History about James I's obsession:
"James’s obsession with witchcraft can be traced back to his childhood. The violent death of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, seems to have inspired a dark fascination with magic. His Highness told me her death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen,” related Sir John Harington many years later, being, as he said, “spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air”."A lecture about witchcraft in general from Professor Wrightson at Yale University:
And a fascinatingly anonymous three column website about the Pendle Witches:
"During the sixteenth century whole districts in some parts of Lancashire seemed contaminated with the presence of witches; men and beasts were supposed to languish under their charm, and the delusion which preyed alike on the learned and the vulgar did not allow any family to suppose that they were beyond the reach of the witch's power."See you next week.
Kerblam!
TV There's little doubt that automation has devastated the organic workforce of the country. Little by little from supermarkets to banks to factories to call centres, companies turning us collectively into Victor Meldrews, replacing people with machines or at least putting the onus of a task on to the customer rather than someone employed to provide assistance. In my own industry, and no I'm still not going to tell you what it is, what was once a profession even at a customer service level has transmuted into something rather more basic, more about being available if the machines break down or modifying the let's say product, so that it can be used within the automation on a less frictionless basis.
Jobs which would previously have been available to people with for whatever reason less qualification no longer exist but unfortunately this isn't being recognised by governments, notably ours, with a benefits system designed to penalise those who can't find work rather than offer them a helping hand, which assumes that people are lazy rather than being in a position were the jobs they might have done or have done just simply aren't available. My Mum worked on a check out starting in the mid-90s for about ten or fifteen years to help us keep above water money wise, years after she would otherwise have joined the workforce and I fear that position simply wouldn't have been available now, at least with the security she had.
Kerblam! suggests that in the future, we'll end up introducing people quota, that we'll artificially force companies to employ humans even in jobs which could just as easily be automated. This does not seem unrealistic although it's more likely that companies will simply end up with a proportionally smaller workforce to maintain the machines, keep things running smoothly. That's already the case in some industries, especially for tasks which require something more complex than a simple algorithm like ad-hoc shelf packing or selling a mortgage or asking for the dispatch of emergency services (although in truth both of the last two are already being achieved via an app or website).
In that way you can understand why Charlie (played by Leo Flannigan who looks like a young Chris Addision) would freak out about this and want to make people scared of the technology enough that they might try and slow progress even if we can't agree with his terrorism. From a certain perspective, we could be at a tipping point were a techno-dystopia is in our future, perhaps not with human androids of some description but at least with rectangular screens willing to fulfill our every whim with even less friction than we have now. Within a few years, we'll essentially have a machine with a HAL-9000 AI in every room.
But Pete "bluray booklet" McTighe's Kerblam! breaks from Doctor Who's usually more Luddite positions. In general, technology is a bad thing in this franchise with the Daleks and especially the Cybermen designed as cautionary tales of how technology could sap us of our humanity. In the modern era, stories as diverse as the Silence in the Library, Girl in the Fireplace, The Rebel Flesh, The Girl Who Waited, The Bells of Saint John, Mummy on the Orient Express, Sleep No More and countless others have been about how technologies designed to protect humans can go bad when we're not paying attention or misunderstand its application.
Kerblam! is on the side of technology. The central thesis is that Kerblam! works and people are happy to receive the parcels and within the limits of the slightly totalitarian androids, the workforce is generally pretty upbeat. Like Robots of Death, it's deliberate sabotage which causes the system to break and it's that system which somehow knew to send a message to the Doctor asking for help, even if it failed to reach her a couple of incarnations later than expected. The fez moment is adorable. Along with the reference to The Unicorn and the Wasp, its good to see the show referencing its recent past more obliquely.
But then, curiously, in the closing moments, we're told that essentially Charlie succeeded in his aims and that the company is returning to a majority human workforce, which seen as a win by everyone. On the one hand, yes, it means the company will employ more people but on the other it sends the message that terrorism, even if its defeated, still wins. Oh and the Doctor goes from admonishing Ryan and Graham for being robophobic when they remark on how creepy they are to blowing up an entire conscripted army of them, albeit with the best of intentions. Perhaps its this confusion within its central these which ultimately makes me like rather than love this episode.
Plus there's the unrealism of how the workforce is portrayed. Despite the warnings about productivity, the actual work is portrayed as being really quite leisurely with the guest artists able to stop and have chats with nothing so much as a repeated warning. Places like Amazon would not have allowed their workers to fall behind and the processes seemed to designed more to provide the closing surprise rather than offer a realistic portrayal of the job. What kind of business loosely wraps the parcels in bubble wrap, stuffs it in an identically shaped box and then sends it out into the ether? What if the product is larger than these standard limits?
Which isn't to say there isn't plenty to like, especially the banter between the main characters who're now very comfortable in the their roles, the chemistry flowing. Structurally we are very much in 60s territory, with Ryan and Yasmin fulfilling the Ian and Barbara or more closely Jamie and Zoe positions of peeling off from the Doctor in order to explore the environment or sent on a mission. A four part version of this story would have had more cutaways to the management, extra co-workers to be interacted with and more stressing on the cliffhanger moments like being discovered in the office going through files or one of the Kerblam! robots menacing Graham.
Perhaps I am beginning to miss the Doctor as a more interior being. On only a couple of occasions this season have we had an intimate moment with her, most notably when she greeted her new TARDIS for the first time. Although it's fun to return to the more runabout nature of the classic series, it's interesting that the Doctor hasn't been put in a position where she's had to properly question the nature of her being. I appreciate that I've recently congratulated the show for not returning to the existential angst of previous years, but they really have to be careful that she doesn't simply turn into an expositional teacher figure.
That said the supporting characters have gained some more depth than in recent years. You'll remember me rolling my eyes at the one dimensional approach to humanity in the likes of Smile, whereas the Kerblam! humans were given just enough back story and personality for us to genuinely feel something upon their demise, especially Dan the picker, gone too soon and killed off-screen. This seems to have been Lee Mack's first dramatic role and although there's only a wafer thin difference between this and his Not Going Out character, the moments when he spoke of his daughter was genuinely effective. The idea of taking on a meater part doesn't seem that far fetched.
Other than that, there isn't really much more to say after a first viewing. Some Who stories are like that. They're enjoyable for the period you're watching them and then you're ready for the next with the obvious suspicion that they'll gain significance in the future within the unfolding text. The model seems to be that the more immediately "important" pieces in this season are the historicals and next week we're placing a female Doctor within a suspicious, misogynistic period and it appears when James I was at his most paranoid. Do you think she's mention having been married to his predecessor?
And we still don't know anything.
Film One of my favourite writers has died. I think most of us would be able to sort the books we've enjoyed onto three metaphoric boxes. Those which we'll read once then move on, those we like enough to keep on the shelf and return to now and then and those books which have a profound effect on who they are. William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade is in the third category for me. My love of movies can probably be traced backwards to reading that book. My interest in film studies was founded in those pages which led to doing the MA a decade ago. But most importantly my understanding that creativity and problem solving go hand in hand, that writing is most often about setting yourself a task and finding the most imaginative way of achieving it and also that you can take that approach with life in general.
It's a book more spoken about than read I suspect. One of its key themes, "Nobody knows anything" is parroted a lot by people who rarely know the context. The full quotes is "Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess—and, if you're lucky, an educated one." In other words, nothing is a sure thing but you can certainly have a hunch. More often than not, especially in the realm of blockbusters, those releasing pictures know that they either have a resilient classic on their hands which will stand the test of time or some piece of shit which they can make a fast buck on. The makers of Black Panther had a hunch that it would do ok, if not necessarily the stellar numbers which ensued judging by the marketing campaign. The makers of Fan4stic knew they has some prime horseshit and let it die.
Honestly you should read this book next. The anecdotes are worth it and there are plenty in there which haven't still done the rounds as well as those which have, about the making of All The President's Men (the clashes with Redford, Berstein and Ephron) and Marathon Man ("My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"). But there's also clear instructional material on writing screenplays, how to construct a narrative and how to deal with source material in adaptation, that whatever it is should be dealt with as raw material rather than some holy scripture. That film is a different media to print and attempting to do a direct adaptation does a disservice to both. The chapter on A Bridge Too Far alone is an incredible resource as Goldman explains how he chose the various stories and then set about working out how they'd be crosscut across the film, making the most of what was sure to be an incredibly starry cast.
His other books are all just as entertaining in varying degrees but I have a soft spot for his collected writing for the likes of Premiere Magazine about specific Oscar years in which he dissects the contenders, such as noticing that framing structure in Saving Private Ryan is utter nonsense because it's from Ryan's point of view which means the film ends with some of the key emotional threads unresolved. I remember reading these on their original publication and thrilling at window they offered on how the needs of production impacts on the writing process and his sheer honesty. His most recent film credits have been as a script doctor on a diverse range of projects and you can usually tell that there was a moment when everything fell into place and then the director began to ignore Goldman's advice.
Of all his films, All The President's Men is still my favourite. As Screentrade explains, not everything which appears on screen is his but the overall structure and much of the dialogue survives. His approach was to show the audience what they don't know. For example, that there were two break-ins at the Watergate, the first successfully planted the listening devices and it's the bundling of the second visit, shown in the film, which led to them being caught. He also decided that the public were all too aware of the back half of the Woodstein story and Nixon's resignation so he concentrated on writing about the parts people didn't know as well, essentially ending his film half way through the book at a moment of failure. In that way he could show that you can't succeed unless you make a few mistakes along the way. RIP.
It's a book more spoken about than read I suspect. One of its key themes, "Nobody knows anything" is parroted a lot by people who rarely know the context. The full quotes is "Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess—and, if you're lucky, an educated one." In other words, nothing is a sure thing but you can certainly have a hunch. More often than not, especially in the realm of blockbusters, those releasing pictures know that they either have a resilient classic on their hands which will stand the test of time or some piece of shit which they can make a fast buck on. The makers of Black Panther had a hunch that it would do ok, if not necessarily the stellar numbers which ensued judging by the marketing campaign. The makers of Fan4stic knew they has some prime horseshit and let it die.
Honestly you should read this book next. The anecdotes are worth it and there are plenty in there which haven't still done the rounds as well as those which have, about the making of All The President's Men (the clashes with Redford, Berstein and Ephron) and Marathon Man ("My dear boy, why don't you just try acting?"). But there's also clear instructional material on writing screenplays, how to construct a narrative and how to deal with source material in adaptation, that whatever it is should be dealt with as raw material rather than some holy scripture. That film is a different media to print and attempting to do a direct adaptation does a disservice to both. The chapter on A Bridge Too Far alone is an incredible resource as Goldman explains how he chose the various stories and then set about working out how they'd be crosscut across the film, making the most of what was sure to be an incredibly starry cast.
His other books are all just as entertaining in varying degrees but I have a soft spot for his collected writing for the likes of Premiere Magazine about specific Oscar years in which he dissects the contenders, such as noticing that framing structure in Saving Private Ryan is utter nonsense because it's from Ryan's point of view which means the film ends with some of the key emotional threads unresolved. I remember reading these on their original publication and thrilling at window they offered on how the needs of production impacts on the writing process and his sheer honesty. His most recent film credits have been as a script doctor on a diverse range of projects and you can usually tell that there was a moment when everything fell into place and then the director began to ignore Goldman's advice.
Of all his films, All The President's Men is still my favourite. As Screentrade explains, not everything which appears on screen is his but the overall structure and much of the dialogue survives. His approach was to show the audience what they don't know. For example, that there were two break-ins at the Watergate, the first successfully planted the listening devices and it's the bundling of the second visit, shown in the film, which led to them being caught. He also decided that the public were all too aware of the back half of the Woodstein story and Nixon's resignation so he concentrated on writing about the parts people didn't know as well, essentially ending his film half way through the book at a moment of failure. In that way he could show that you can't succeed unless you make a few mistakes along the way. RIP.
"right wing onanism"
Politics Just a quick note before midnight. As you will have noticed, we're finally here, the Brexit proposal draft has been published and as predicted by anyone with half an eye on human nature and the other one on having watched politics their whole lives, it's a complete and utter shitshow. Pretty much everyone I spoke to on the 24th June 2016 knew that whatever was agreed would neither please the brexitiers who want to be out completely, the foolish remainers who want to "respect the result" but still want in on the customs union and free movement and essentially staying as a member of the EU in all but actuality and the rest of us who simply just want to remain.
As was outlined last year in this brilliant New York Review of Books piece (Biden's Briefing has an audio version for those of us outside the paywall) the Irish border question is difficult, difficult, lemon, difficult. The new document's approach is to have the UK in the customs union to varying degrees in order to keep the Irish border check free. Except it means the Northern Irish would have much more favourable terms than the rest of the UK which the Scottish aren't too pleased about, and presumably the Welsh although no one ever bothers to go and ask them. There isn't a way to get around this which doesn't involve putting a dagger into the Good Friday agreement.
This has cheesed off the DUP who're reportedly, according to this Torygraph person, threatening to pull out of the confidence and supply agreement which is keeping this Government in power unless Theresa May stops being leader of the Tories and so Prime Minister. Except whoever takes over the job. and god knows who that'll be, won't be able to magically offer something different, some dynamic innovation. Whatever else is agreed, the Irish border question will still remain and how to allow the Northern Irish to retain duel citizenship if they want to. There'll be plenty of back and forth and eventually we'll be back to exactly what happened today.
The only option in the end will be to either crash out without a deal and so there'll be a hard border in Ireland and a successive risk to the Good Friday Agreement along with the rest of us just having whatever Premier Foods are stockpiling to eat or we'll remain with some excuse related to it being for the good of the country, probably with a second referendum in order to provide some legitimacy. Two or three years of right wing onanism, tens of millions of pounds spent not to mention all of the journalism hours expended and we'll be back to where we were three years ago, UKIP on the rise due to ignorant racists wanting to stem the tide of multiculturalism and the rest of us rolling are eyes and enjoying all of the benefits being a member of the EU offers.
As was outlined last year in this brilliant New York Review of Books piece (Biden's Briefing has an audio version for those of us outside the paywall) the Irish border question is difficult, difficult, lemon, difficult. The new document's approach is to have the UK in the customs union to varying degrees in order to keep the Irish border check free. Except it means the Northern Irish would have much more favourable terms than the rest of the UK which the Scottish aren't too pleased about, and presumably the Welsh although no one ever bothers to go and ask them. There isn't a way to get around this which doesn't involve putting a dagger into the Good Friday agreement.
This has cheesed off the DUP who're reportedly, according to this Torygraph person, threatening to pull out of the confidence and supply agreement which is keeping this Government in power unless Theresa May stops being leader of the Tories and so Prime Minister. Except whoever takes over the job. and god knows who that'll be, won't be able to magically offer something different, some dynamic innovation. Whatever else is agreed, the Irish border question will still remain and how to allow the Northern Irish to retain duel citizenship if they want to. There'll be plenty of back and forth and eventually we'll be back to exactly what happened today.
The only option in the end will be to either crash out without a deal and so there'll be a hard border in Ireland and a successive risk to the Good Friday Agreement along with the rest of us just having whatever Premier Foods are stockpiling to eat or we'll remain with some excuse related to it being for the good of the country, probably with a second referendum in order to provide some legitimacy. Two or three years of right wing onanism, tens of millions of pounds spent not to mention all of the journalism hours expended and we'll be back to where we were three years ago, UKIP on the rise due to ignorant racists wanting to stem the tide of multiculturalism and the rest of us rolling are eyes and enjoying all of the benefits being a member of the EU offers.
"Sitting here stressing at 2:30am, about how fast the year can go."
TV Doctor Who Magazine has confirmed what we all knew anyway. This year's Doctor Who Christmas Special isn't. It'll be shown on New Years Day instead as per The End of Time Part Two. Petitions have apparently started and there's been some backlash from fans who've become accustomed to having an episode to watch each December 25th, I'm quite happy about it. There are few reasons why I wouldn't watch Doctor Who live which meant that I'd end up structuring my day around whenever the BBC had decided to broadcast the programme and this year it won't matter. Plus its one less festive offering the next time we binge rewatch the series. About 10% of the episodes since the revival have been broadcast on Christmas Day.
The apparent reason is that Chibbers couldn't think of Christmas related idea which hasn't been done yet since the show returned, although that's patently untrue. There hasn't been a riff on the nativity for one. This needn't involve the TARDIS pitching up in Bethlehem - it could be about the Doctor and friends protecting a primary school which is holding their annual nativity. Plus as the Feast of Steven shows, it doesn't have to be about Christmas, it could be just something different to the usual run of the series, which is pretty much what The Husbands of River Song is, for better or worse, barring the teaser. My guess, assuming the series is broadcast next year, that it'll come roaring back on Christmas Day with much connected ballyhoo.
Anyway, since I don't have any more to say on this topic, here are the proper Sugababes singing New Year in Christmas hats, recorded in 2013. Those vocals, those vocals.
Mutya Keisha Siobhan (Sugababes- New Year LOVE Advent 2013) from Mutya Keisha Siobhan on Vimeo.
The apparent reason is that Chibbers couldn't think of Christmas related idea which hasn't been done yet since the show returned, although that's patently untrue. There hasn't been a riff on the nativity for one. This needn't involve the TARDIS pitching up in Bethlehem - it could be about the Doctor and friends protecting a primary school which is holding their annual nativity. Plus as the Feast of Steven shows, it doesn't have to be about Christmas, it could be just something different to the usual run of the series, which is pretty much what The Husbands of River Song is, for better or worse, barring the teaser. My guess, assuming the series is broadcast next year, that it'll come roaring back on Christmas Day with much connected ballyhoo.
Anyway, since I don't have any more to say on this topic, here are the proper Sugababes singing New Year in Christmas hats, recorded in 2013. Those vocals, those vocals.
Mutya Keisha Siobhan (Sugababes- New Year LOVE Advent 2013) from Mutya Keisha Siobhan on Vimeo.
Christian Marclay's The Clock.
Film Yesterday I fulfilled a decade long dream and finally saw a section of Christian Marclay's The Clock, which is currently on display at Tate Modern. The supercut of supercuts, it's a twenty-four hour video piece in which the artist stitches together thousands of shots from movies featuring clocks which runs parallel to the actual time. So if you're watching at about twenty past two in the afternoon, you can see Peter Parker being fired from his job in Sam Raimi's Spider-man 2 which gives way to shots of Fox Mulder in The X-Files under clock which tells a similar time. It was first introduced to me on The Culture Show in 2010 when it was first released on the occasion of its premiere at the White Cube Gallery.
Judging by that piece, the presentation room is just as much a part of the installation as the film itself. Just as back then, Tate Modern have created a luxurious screening space with pitch black walls and over a hundred IKEA Klippan sofa in white fabric (which I recognised almost immediately because we have one in our living room), just bright enough in the space so that you're able to find a seat without falling over, aided by an invigilator with a torch. On entering I asked if there were any spaces at the front and on spotting half a sofa free up there I made my way over there and sat down, sharing the furniture with a slightly older man of which I can tell you very little else due to the darkness.
By that time it was about twenty to twelve, so I arrived just in time to see Robert Powell hanging from the hands of the Westminster Clock in The 39 Steps, of which extended clips are employed presumably because this is such an iconic shot of a time piece. From that moment on I was enthralled. There are plenty of illicit shots of the piece on YouTube shot with camera phones at weird angles, but none of them quite prepared me for the sheer range of movies and shots and how they intertwine and play off each other, music and sound effects drawing scenes featuring actors and settings originally recorded with decades between, mixing diverse sources, some VHS, mainly DVD, rarely respecting aspect ratio as to make the cuts between less jarring.
With the 2010 release and the artist's background and presumably access to sources, despite the number of films and television programmes included, there is nevertheless a certain limit to the sources. Much of the material is from English language sources although there is some French material. No, I did not see anything from Doctor Who, although my hope is that at midnight during the period which few viewers have seen, the TV Movie's millennium celebration is featured. Plus it's necessarily populist. There was an audible guffaw from the packed room when The Gold Watch sequence from Pulp Fiction emerged and was played almost entirely (it's still probably Tarantino's greatest work).
Something which had been of interest beforehand was how Marclay would deal with the moments when the history of film or at least the parts he research didn't deliver a particular time. Often he simply extends the length of the clip. But more often he takes the opportunity to include a time related moment which doesn't actually feature a clock, a character looks at their watch or there's some dialogue about time itself. There are also shots from an earlier part of a scene which are intercut with other material which pay off later. Or at is the case with Nick of Time we're offered a staccato version of the film as we keep returning to the action at key moments to check in on how the character is doing.
Later in the day, I added the film to my Letterboxd diary. Usually I don't include anything which I haven't seen in its entirety, but since that's near impossible, I made an exception. In the review section, there's an extended comment from someone who claims to have seen all twenty-four hours which I urge you to read. As he notices that these short clips are merciless against the only ok actors in comparison to those who're able to communicate a character's whole being in just a few seconds. He also notes how montage sequences in some films are edited so that they appear in real time, like the aforementioned pizza delivery scene in Spider-man which is reduced to the initial warning that he has to deliver them on time, then the late delivery and then later his firing.
My original plan was to spend the whole day in front of the film, but as the clips continued some interesting things started to happen. After the first hour, my mind began to almost glaze as the clips began to topple onto one another as similar tricks by the artist were being repeated albeit with different footage from other films to the previous hour. I've forgotten almost as many films included as I remember. Plus I can't not admit to dozing slightly here and there, partly because the couch was so comfy. I kept myself awake by guessing the film sources in my head and marveling at actually just how many of these films I'd seen. Plus I felt quite happy about getting up now and then to go to the bathroom, even though I'd be missing something.
Which meant that after about three hours, I felt like I'd seen enough and left. Although I've seen reports online of people watching this continuously for twelve hours, I don't think that's what the artist was expecting. The piece is clearly constructed to be dipped in and out of for various stretches, the viewer visiting the venue at various points in the day and that's certainly how I would have approached The Clock had Tate Modern been more accessible to me. With the show on until January 20th there would be plenty of time. On my way out of the door, I indicated to the invigilator that three hours seemed like long enough (to which he agreed) and wondered if the piece, this copy of which is part owned by Tate might visit Liverpool. Wouldn't that be ironic.
Judging by that piece, the presentation room is just as much a part of the installation as the film itself. Just as back then, Tate Modern have created a luxurious screening space with pitch black walls and over a hundred IKEA Klippan sofa in white fabric (which I recognised almost immediately because we have one in our living room), just bright enough in the space so that you're able to find a seat without falling over, aided by an invigilator with a torch. On entering I asked if there were any spaces at the front and on spotting half a sofa free up there I made my way over there and sat down, sharing the furniture with a slightly older man of which I can tell you very little else due to the darkness.
By that time it was about twenty to twelve, so I arrived just in time to see Robert Powell hanging from the hands of the Westminster Clock in The 39 Steps, of which extended clips are employed presumably because this is such an iconic shot of a time piece. From that moment on I was enthralled. There are plenty of illicit shots of the piece on YouTube shot with camera phones at weird angles, but none of them quite prepared me for the sheer range of movies and shots and how they intertwine and play off each other, music and sound effects drawing scenes featuring actors and settings originally recorded with decades between, mixing diverse sources, some VHS, mainly DVD, rarely respecting aspect ratio as to make the cuts between less jarring.
With the 2010 release and the artist's background and presumably access to sources, despite the number of films and television programmes included, there is nevertheless a certain limit to the sources. Much of the material is from English language sources although there is some French material. No, I did not see anything from Doctor Who, although my hope is that at midnight during the period which few viewers have seen, the TV Movie's millennium celebration is featured. Plus it's necessarily populist. There was an audible guffaw from the packed room when The Gold Watch sequence from Pulp Fiction emerged and was played almost entirely (it's still probably Tarantino's greatest work).
Something which had been of interest beforehand was how Marclay would deal with the moments when the history of film or at least the parts he research didn't deliver a particular time. Often he simply extends the length of the clip. But more often he takes the opportunity to include a time related moment which doesn't actually feature a clock, a character looks at their watch or there's some dialogue about time itself. There are also shots from an earlier part of a scene which are intercut with other material which pay off later. Or at is the case with Nick of Time we're offered a staccato version of the film as we keep returning to the action at key moments to check in on how the character is doing.
Later in the day, I added the film to my Letterboxd diary. Usually I don't include anything which I haven't seen in its entirety, but since that's near impossible, I made an exception. In the review section, there's an extended comment from someone who claims to have seen all twenty-four hours which I urge you to read. As he notices that these short clips are merciless against the only ok actors in comparison to those who're able to communicate a character's whole being in just a few seconds. He also notes how montage sequences in some films are edited so that they appear in real time, like the aforementioned pizza delivery scene in Spider-man which is reduced to the initial warning that he has to deliver them on time, then the late delivery and then later his firing.
My original plan was to spend the whole day in front of the film, but as the clips continued some interesting things started to happen. After the first hour, my mind began to almost glaze as the clips began to topple onto one another as similar tricks by the artist were being repeated albeit with different footage from other films to the previous hour. I've forgotten almost as many films included as I remember. Plus I can't not admit to dozing slightly here and there, partly because the couch was so comfy. I kept myself awake by guessing the film sources in my head and marveling at actually just how many of these films I'd seen. Plus I felt quite happy about getting up now and then to go to the bathroom, even though I'd be missing something.
Which meant that after about three hours, I felt like I'd seen enough and left. Although I've seen reports online of people watching this continuously for twelve hours, I don't think that's what the artist was expecting. The piece is clearly constructed to be dipped in and out of for various stretches, the viewer visiting the venue at various points in the day and that's certainly how I would have approached The Clock had Tate Modern been more accessible to me. With the show on until January 20th there would be plenty of time. On my way out of the door, I indicated to the invigilator that three hours seemed like long enough (to which he agreed) and wondered if the piece, this copy of which is part owned by Tate might visit Liverpool. Wouldn't that be ironic.
Demons of the Punjab.
TV For quite some time I've had an idea for how contemporary Doctor Who on television would handle the old stick of the pure historical. The Doctor plus companion(s) would land at some pivotal point in the past and as the tension rises and whatever tragedy they've stumbled into consumes them, there'd be an ongoing discussion about when the monsters would inevitably reveal themselves. Except they don't and it becomes apparent that we're watching nothing less than real history unfolding, untainted by any outside influences apart from what's stumbled out of the TARDIS. How quickly the Doctor understood this to be an all human shit show was something I hadn't quite decided upon, but I thought it would be a great way of introducing the genre to newer viewers.
Demons of the Punjab, like Rosa before it, is as close as odds as we've had in a long while to being a pure historical and yet it still features "monsters" whom the Doctor and we assume must be up to mischief because of their transmatting and gothic appearance. Except, it emerges, they're really not demons, at least not any more. Initially seeming like Tim Shaw knock offs, it's powerfully revealed that due to the destruction of their home world, they've renounced violence and instead travel the universe remembering those who die alone and commemorating them. As well as communicating the message that appearances can be deceptive, it also shows that people can change, that their fate isn't predetermined. In times like these, this is just the sort of hope we all need.
Could you have written the story without them? Sure. A bit of expositional jiggery pokery perhaps via another character at the house to explain how the Doctor knows everyone's fate. But I also think that over the short format, having these extra science fiction elements allows for this richer discussion of the themes. That they often work best when they're not foregrounded as was the case here. Indeed so focused was I on the raw drama of the Doctor and her friends being unable to intervene in Prem's death (cf, Father's Day) that when Kisar and Almak reappeared at the end, I'd almost forgotten they were abiding nearby. Yet the closing moment, when Prem's face joined a thousand others was one of the post powerful images in the franchise's history.
This is a version of the show in which the edginess comes from the choice of story rather than the actions of its main characters. Surprisingly Partitian hasn't been investigated much by Doctor Who. Mark Morris's novel Ghosts of India had 10th and Donna pitch up in Calcutta during the riots and bumping into Gandhi, who we've also been told Clara Oswald had an argument with (according to Under The Flood). Perhaps it was always felt to be too complex, too difficult to really enunciate to a family audience. But as Gurinda Chadha's underrated docudrama Viceroy's House demonstrates, it is possible to cover this period of history within the limits of a 12A and that's also true of tonight's episode.
Vinay Patel's script is able to provide much nuance despite the limited locale and small number of characters. Perhaps best known for writing BBC Three's Murdered by my Father, Patel puts the politics of the partition directly within the heart of the family, showing also how propaganda can warp a person's views to such a degree that they don't even notice that they've become racist and even see their own sibling as the enemy. That provides a grim reversal of the change in the assassin's creed, that an otherwise sweet person can become the opposite when their ideology is twisted. Perhaps there'll be people watching this episode who see a similar change in those they know. One could argue this is about Brexit. Or perhaps it's just that these a universal themes.
Like Rosa, with which this shares many similarities, the story is about attempting to preserve history, but whereas that was about taking action to that ed, Demons of the Punjab is about inaction. Which isn't to say the Doctor and her friends don't intervene, but we're very much in the realm of having them become part of a history which is already known in the future as per The Fires of Pompei (although it's odd that grandma doesn't remember seeing someone who looks exactly like her granddaughter on her first tragic wedding day). It doesn't overplay this and we're once again offered a contrast to previous TARDIS teamers in that unlike Rose or Donna, when it comes to it, Yaz et al don't break the Doctor's wishes, that they absolutely understand why Prem must die. The Aztecs argument is sidelined quickly. Cue more Bradley tears.
Every element of the episode makes a statement, from Segun Akinola's superb score which avoided the kinds of geographical cliches that dramas set in India rarely do (please can we have the complete version of this title music on the soundtrack please?) to the absolutely gorgeous visuals. But primarily its that we have this cast, telling this story, in prime time. Even Viceroy's House offers a colonial perspective on these events. This is purely from the point of view of those who were affected. Notice too how in following the precedent of the TARDIS translation circuits rearranging accents, the Indian characters aren't forced to speak in a faux geographical accent, adopting a Yorkshire twang, increasing the immediacy of the drama, at least for those of us in the UK.
Good show all round and judging by the social media very well received. At the risk of sounding like a scratched time-space visualiser, this really is turning out to be a vintage run of stories anchored by an incredibly strong central performance. Although Jodie still doesn't look entirely convinced by the technobabble, she makes up for it with her sheer strength of personality, the wedding scene at the apogee of her ability. Most Doctors ultimately become defined by their speeches and Thirteenth's words about her faith that "love in all its forms is the most powerful weapon that we have". Too true.
"Arriva bus's Click service"
Life For the past couple of weeks my foot's been aching which curtailed somewhat my important walks to work and back with all of their exercise potential. The other morning I realised why this was the case as I once again bashed the back of my heal on the underneath of my wooden bed frame as I stumbled out from under my duvet. The other evening after walking around work all day, my right foot was hurting so much I had a pronounced limp. I was lolloping.
Which seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out Arriva bus's Click service which launched at the end of August and is currently piloting in the South Liverpool area. In their words "a flexible minibus service that takes multiple passengers all heading in the same direction", it's essentially a shared Uber or Lyft that starts and stops along adhoc routes governed by the onboard satnav. You can watch the promotional video here and see the areas it covers.
As you can see, the service was originally launched in Sittingborne and has apparently had an impressive embrace according to Coach & Bus Week: "During the pilot in Kent, more than 50% of customers surveyed switched from using private cars to ArrivaClick, with 61% of users using the service a few times a week or more. 43% adopted the service for their daily commute." I can see why. So far it's been marvelous.
Just as I assume Uber works, the user plonks the pick-up and destination spots into a map on the app and either a pre-brooked slot or requests a pick-up there and then. The app then works out the details of the route, tells you where you'll be picked up and tells you when the bus will arrive along with the price. On most occasions so far this has been a ten minute wait, which is just enough time to pop into a supermarket and pick up a newspaper and whatever ever else.
The buses as you can see from the pictures are extreme comfortable, probably excessively so considering the length of the journey most people will be taking. There are tables with cup holders (I know!) (right!), charging ports and an on-board wifi. The blue lighting reminds me of Robert Pattinson's limousine in Cosmopolis which is expressively moody in the evening since the clocks changed and its dark outside.
It's much nicer experience than a standard bus, especially since out of the five trips I've taken so far, I've been the only passenger on four of them. Which isn't not entirely a concern. If this is just a pilot, Arriva are unlikely to continue if the audience doesn't increase. But I have seen Click cars during the day with a few passengers so it might just be the time of day I've been travelling, at the tired end of rush hour.
It's cheaper than a taxi. Trips home have been costing £2.70 which is more expensive than a standard bus (£2.30 flat fair) but compares favourably to a £5 taxi, especially now that the local fares are increasing. The price is calculated based on time of day and remoteness of destination. If I wanted to visit Speke from home it's £5.60 which is more expensive than the usual bus but will presumably be faster depending on the number of stops in between.
The only real problem is that the journey is at the mercy of an algorithm and I'm still trying to find the best pick-up and drop-off slots. The first time I attempted to program a trip, the app offered a pick up point which was within a few streets of home which I had to get to within minutes and was essentially the whole journey. Rebooking from a slightly different landmark, the nearby Subway (sandwich shop) rather than the awkward location of my work seemed to straighten things out.
Dropping off has been a bit random. The app mapping can't quite wrap its digits around the location of our tower block so the bus has sometimes veered off course. Fortunately all the drivers I've encountered so far have been extremely friendly and helpful and been happy to veer off whatever the satnav is telling them to simply drop me outside the main gate to the property. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem; one of the drivers did refer to teething problems.
But suffice to say, I really like this service for all of the reasons I've already mentioned. Now that my foot's better, I'm most likely to be using it on a Sunday so that I can be home in time for Doctor Who or rather a roast dinner and then Doctor Who. My guess is the more people use the service, the more reliable it'll become. I could imagine this replacing other transport as a safer, more viable way to travel. Although it stops at 8pm each evening so it won't replace the night bus just yet.
Which seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out Arriva bus's Click service which launched at the end of August and is currently piloting in the South Liverpool area. In their words "a flexible minibus service that takes multiple passengers all heading in the same direction", it's essentially a shared Uber or Lyft that starts and stops along adhoc routes governed by the onboard satnav. You can watch the promotional video here and see the areas it covers.
As you can see, the service was originally launched in Sittingborne and has apparently had an impressive embrace according to Coach & Bus Week: "During the pilot in Kent, more than 50% of customers surveyed switched from using private cars to ArrivaClick, with 61% of users using the service a few times a week or more. 43% adopted the service for their daily commute." I can see why. So far it's been marvelous.
Just as I assume Uber works, the user plonks the pick-up and destination spots into a map on the app and either a pre-brooked slot or requests a pick-up there and then. The app then works out the details of the route, tells you where you'll be picked up and tells you when the bus will arrive along with the price. On most occasions so far this has been a ten minute wait, which is just enough time to pop into a supermarket and pick up a newspaper and whatever ever else.
The buses as you can see from the pictures are extreme comfortable, probably excessively so considering the length of the journey most people will be taking. There are tables with cup holders (I know!) (right!), charging ports and an on-board wifi. The blue lighting reminds me of Robert Pattinson's limousine in Cosmopolis which is expressively moody in the evening since the clocks changed and its dark outside.
It's much nicer experience than a standard bus, especially since out of the five trips I've taken so far, I've been the only passenger on four of them. Which isn't not entirely a concern. If this is just a pilot, Arriva are unlikely to continue if the audience doesn't increase. But I have seen Click cars during the day with a few passengers so it might just be the time of day I've been travelling, at the tired end of rush hour.
It's cheaper than a taxi. Trips home have been costing £2.70 which is more expensive than a standard bus (£2.30 flat fair) but compares favourably to a £5 taxi, especially now that the local fares are increasing. The price is calculated based on time of day and remoteness of destination. If I wanted to visit Speke from home it's £5.60 which is more expensive than the usual bus but will presumably be faster depending on the number of stops in between.
The only real problem is that the journey is at the mercy of an algorithm and I'm still trying to find the best pick-up and drop-off slots. The first time I attempted to program a trip, the app offered a pick up point which was within a few streets of home which I had to get to within minutes and was essentially the whole journey. Rebooking from a slightly different landmark, the nearby Subway (sandwich shop) rather than the awkward location of my work seemed to straighten things out.
Dropping off has been a bit random. The app mapping can't quite wrap its digits around the location of our tower block so the bus has sometimes veered off course. Fortunately all the drivers I've encountered so far have been extremely friendly and helpful and been happy to veer off whatever the satnav is telling them to simply drop me outside the main gate to the property. This doesn't seem to be an uncommon problem; one of the drivers did refer to teething problems.
But suffice to say, I really like this service for all of the reasons I've already mentioned. Now that my foot's better, I'm most likely to be using it on a Sunday so that I can be home in time for Doctor Who or rather a roast dinner and then Doctor Who. My guess is the more people use the service, the more reliable it'll become. I could imagine this replacing other transport as a safer, more viable way to travel. Although it stops at 8pm each evening so it won't replace the night bus just yet.
"the onslaught of content"
Film Evening. I've talked before about the onslaught of content and not having time for any of it. In the streaming world that's become especially acute especially in television terms with, across the BBC, Netflix, Now tv and Amazon about half a dozen excellent looking series I know I'd love premiering every week. The backlog is mounting up with both Iron Fist and Daredevil unwatched, countless series of Homeland, that new Julia Roberts thing, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel et al, etcetera, etc.
Of course I'd have plenty of time to binge those if I didn't watch as many films but again, there are so many films around now and since that is my primary form of entertainment/worship/education something has to give. I want to watch everything, but I can't watch everything, but ... oh my ... if I do that I won't touch the piles of unwatched books and magazines and how do I choose?
In a panic this week, I created an arbitrary list of rules to bounce any or all new film releases off, the kinds of stories I tend to like anyway as a way of limiting things, streamlining. Not necessarily a rule of thumb, just a way trying to sort between the films I want to watch and those I feel like should be watching. Writing it down or rather typing it into Word was a cathartic act even if I immediately felt a bit guilty.
Reviewed in Sight and Sound and so confirmed a theatrical release in the UK.
Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror?
Musical?
Female lead?
Auteur director?
Weird?
Set in Paris?
Set in Tokyo?
Set in London?
Set in Liverpool?
Set in the United States, especially New York?
Actor I like?
Costume drama?
Courtroom drama?
Detective drama?
Oscar nominated?
Documentary about the visual arts?
Documentary about journalism?
Chinese/Korean/Japanese actioner?
Christmas?
Any Netflix films which are reviewed well in the streaming section of Empire Magazine, mentioned as one of Mark Kermode's Cream of the Streams or everyone seems to be watching.
God, looking at that again seems limited and limiting and bound to mean I'll miss something good. Not to mention that if I keep to this the cinemas of a large chunk of the world will go unwatched. Clearly if there's a cinematic earthquake, I'll make room for it. It's also true that I'm trying to return to my old rule of avoiding anything which has "harrowing portrayal" in the synopsis and that seems to describe much of the content released in the UK from some countries.
Perhaps it's the times in which we live but the motivating incident in a lot of films currently seems to be the death of a parent or wife or child, usually somewhere in the grip of great poverty and/or great social or religious oppression. I'm already basically depressed with myself and the world. I don't need to be watching films which will make me feel even worse, at least at the moment, at least not without an element of hope amid the wretched nihilism.
How do you choose the films you watch with so much available? How conscious are you of your likes and dislikes and could you make a similar list? How important do you feel it is to be across at least some new cinema versus "back catalogue"? Are there some genres you simply can't stand? I think the comments should be open, failing that use your social media channel to send me words? I'm genuinely interested.
Of course I'd have plenty of time to binge those if I didn't watch as many films but again, there are so many films around now and since that is my primary form of entertainment/worship/education something has to give. I want to watch everything, but I can't watch everything, but ... oh my ... if I do that I won't touch the piles of unwatched books and magazines and how do I choose?
In a panic this week, I created an arbitrary list of rules to bounce any or all new film releases off, the kinds of stories I tend to like anyway as a way of limiting things, streamlining. Not necessarily a rule of thumb, just a way trying to sort between the films I want to watch and those I feel like should be watching. Writing it down or rather typing it into Word was a cathartic act even if I immediately felt a bit guilty.
Reviewed in Sight and Sound and so confirmed a theatrical release in the UK.
Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror?
Musical?
Female lead?
Auteur director?
Weird?
Set in Paris?
Set in Tokyo?
Set in London?
Set in Liverpool?
Set in the United States, especially New York?
Actor I like?
Costume drama?
Courtroom drama?
Detective drama?
Oscar nominated?
Documentary about the visual arts?
Documentary about journalism?
Chinese/Korean/Japanese actioner?
Christmas?
Any Netflix films which are reviewed well in the streaming section of Empire Magazine, mentioned as one of Mark Kermode's Cream of the Streams or everyone seems to be watching.
God, looking at that again seems limited and limiting and bound to mean I'll miss something good. Not to mention that if I keep to this the cinemas of a large chunk of the world will go unwatched. Clearly if there's a cinematic earthquake, I'll make room for it. It's also true that I'm trying to return to my old rule of avoiding anything which has "harrowing portrayal" in the synopsis and that seems to describe much of the content released in the UK from some countries.
Perhaps it's the times in which we live but the motivating incident in a lot of films currently seems to be the death of a parent or wife or child, usually somewhere in the grip of great poverty and/or great social or religious oppression. I'm already basically depressed with myself and the world. I don't need to be watching films which will make me feel even worse, at least at the moment, at least not without an element of hope amid the wretched nihilism.
How do you choose the films you watch with so much available? How conscious are you of your likes and dislikes and could you make a similar list? How important do you feel it is to be across at least some new cinema versus "back catalogue"? Are there some genres you simply can't stand? I think the comments should be open, failing that use your social media channel to send me words? I'm genuinely interested.
The Tsuranga Conundrum.
TV There's an oddity in the credits to tonight's Doctor Who. In between the cast and the 1st assistant AD we find, "PTING [tab space] CREATED BY TIM PRICE". This sort of credit is usually reserved for a returning monster, "DALEKS [tab space] CREATED BY TERRY NATION" or "UXARUEANS [tab space] CREATED BY MALCOLME HULKE", that sort of thing. My original thought was that a spin-off monster had been elevated to the big leagues, but a glance at the Googles indicates that this is some new beastie which shares its name with a pop band and slang for teaching potty training. Tim Price was co-writer on Switch and Secret Diary of a Call Girl and is currently teaching on the MA Screen Writing at Manchester University. Did he submit a script which was heavily rewritten by Chibbers that included the Pting or was he part of the writers room, offering ideas without ultimately producing his own screenplay?
As ready made a merchandising opportunity as the Adipose, the Pting is the first monster of this series which feels like it could have returning potential. The genetic refuse of a cross between Beep The Meep, an Alien from Alien and one of Dr. Jumba Jookiba's experiments, if anything, probably due to the budget there wasn't enough of him (or her) on screen, forever in the background as an invisible menace. Clearly if this had been a movie, there would have been a Gremlins like scene of it munching its way through loads of random objects, gobbling anything it could get inside its apparently tiny body with its dimensionally transcendental stomach. But its best moment is its blissed out, orgasmic little face after the bomb explodes. There's probably a fair few similar faces tonight amongst the fans who noticed an old school 70s Silurian on the shipboard Wikipedia, in amongst the Slitheen, the Weeping Angels and whatever that thing with the giant skull head and pin stripe suit is.
The rest of the episode was a fine example of an old school base under siege adventure and another demonstration of how this version of the show is happy to simply offer us decent, base-line Doctor Who with a few laughs, some poignancy and an educational undercurrent, a show the whole family can enjoy. Grumble about that all you want, but as I've said before, one of the problems with recent seasons is the apparent need to offer structurally challenging stories every week, which is fine when it works but can otherwise end up looking like a sphincter exploration. Admittedly with just ten episodes this season, presenting an adventure like this can seem wasteful to some, but I bet kids loved it and that's really the point, isn't it? We might well applaud this show for maturing these past few years, but having a Doctor in a permanent state of existential crisis can become a bit tiring. She has to turn up at a place and inspire everyone to be the best version of themselves every now and again.
Which isn't to say the episode doesn't bat least attempt to subvert some genre and gender expectations. Imperiled in Pregnancy has a massive entry on the TV Tropes website and in a disaster context its almost always about a woman at the end of term giving birth in difficult circumstances perhaps doubting her potential abilities as a mother, usually with male hero goofily helping her to give birth. Here we have a man giving birth, aided by a super competent midwife, with Graham and Ryan offering their support. This side story has already been dismissed as a pointless bit of comedy, but it's thematically essential within the context of this series which among other things is fighting against how men and women are presented in genre television, challenging us to face our own prejudices. Although Graham and Ryan's reactions are played for laughs, it also leads to the scene in which Ryan explains his own mixed feels about his relationship with his father.
Meanwhile, its the Doctor, Yaz and the General Cicero saving the ship when in other shows the roles would most certainly be the other way around. It's a significant moment when the police officer is left to defend the engine of the ship with Plastic Pal Ronan without any sense that she might be out of her depth or not have a plan and then be able to use her wits to capture and drop kick the Pting, referencing Siobhan Chamberlain along the way. Similarly, it's General Cicero who's the expert pilot risking her life to save the rest of the passengers. Perhaps some of us have become accustomed to this kind of casting and storytelling but it really is glaringly different to so much else happening in this genre were Smurfette Syndrome continues to infest the thinking of writers and directors and such moments are reserved for male protagonists. This iteration of the show is beating the Bechtel Test without really trying.
There's been a bit of chatter already on the Twitters (which has been pretty lukewarm about opinion wise) discussing the perfunctory nature of the supporting characters and how robot Ronan in particular lacks depth and doesn't contribute to the story. I'd argue that in Doctor Who not every character has be a functionally important part of the plot. Sometimes they're just cannon fodder. Sometimes they're simply local colour, there to help communicate a sense of place. Not every character in drama has to be three dimensional. Is that true of most of the characters in The Caves of Androzani or Midnight? With just fifty minutes to play with, the most you can hope for is some general elements and fragments of backstory, just enough to keep us interested or cause us to empathise. Wind down your bizarrely high expectations.
Jodie Whittaker continues to be a wonder. In recent years the show has been a bit reticent of really presenting the extent of the Doctor's knowledge outside of that week's fiction. Now she's in full on BBC Four presenter led documentary mode, expounding on antimatter and the miniaturizing of technology. She's inspired and awe-struck by this reimagined warp drive and I can imagine a teenage version of me with his massive crush on the Doctor redoubling his efforts in STEM rather than coasting as I did to an E in Physics at GCSE ("So, physics. Physics, eh? Physics. Physics. Physics! Physics. Physics, physics, physics, physics, physics, physics, physics.") But it's equally important to see the Doctor apologizing earlier for blithely attempting to put the safety of the ship's crew in danger in order to return to the TARDIS. It's not quite braining a caveman with a rock, but it shows her to be an emotionally fallible being which causes her to be even more complex.
So yes, another meme worthy, rather joyful adventure which wouldn't be out of place as a narrated AudioGo exclusive, the very definition of the Gallifrey Base poll option "Well above average, but no masterpiece (very good/7)". Which sounds like damning it with faint praise, but it really isn't. It's comfort television with a lonely God, a beacon of hope at the centre, just the sort of thing you need in these times. Watching The Last Starfighter the other night, I was struck by just how, like so much eighties adventure cinema, it lacks cynicism and ironic detachment from its subject matter, unembarrassed about what it is. That's exactly the vibe which is shining out of Doctor Who right now and good god it's refreshing.
"And what am I going to do now?"
Comics The cover to this final Dark Horse "seasons" issue of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer neatly references their first edition back in 2007, as the slayer drops her scythe and walks away. The story isn't quite that simple. As is the case with any ongoing franchise, the demon horde are simply dormant at the close, ready to wake up and threaten the world, bringing Buffy back to the fight, weapon in hand, if required. There'll be spoilers ahead. If you ever were a fan of the tv series, please do go pick up the trades and graphic novels. It's quite the ride.After reviewing that first issue, I feel like offering a few comments on this last installment. This is the longest sustained period of by a comic book I've had. I can remember nervously visiting Forbidden Planet on Bold Street asking if I could order it and that's where I've bought every issue since, along with the various spin-offs and parallel Angel series. I can't claim to remember everything that happened and still don't really understand what the whole Twilight business was (although I am still amused by how it put IDW in a spot) but I've enjoyed almost all of it.
The best issues and stories have focused on character over spectacle. There's been more of that in recent years, especially after the excesses of Season Eight proved unpopular. Although there was nothing wrong with flirting with massive Peter Jackson style fantasy battles, the character work did suffer and the death of Giles especially was poorly handled. Thank goodness that was reversed and in an imaginative way. By season nine there was an evident realisation that just because you can draw something doesn't mean that you should.
This final four issue arc is a proper summation, self reflexively tying up loose ends and pieces of character business which have been knocking around since the television series. The future as mapped on the previous occasion when Buffy visited the future and met Frey never did quite sit right and so its gratifying that all of that has changed and since this is a reality in which magic trumps science, we're able to forgive the obvious paradoxes which occur. Time can be rewritten if a spell exists to help sustain it.
Will a continuation ever exist? Apparently the new television series is set within the mythology of the tv series so we'll see if that also includes the comics although that's unlikely. New licensees BOOM! Studios have taken the bizarre/interesting step of rebooting the original Buffy series but set in the new century, accounting for the smart phone on the artwork which, even if Joss is involved, seems like its going to be as divisive as DC's New 52 not least because cans of worms will be opened. Does Dawn exist? Is Willow gay? It feels rather in-essential.
But I do love were these characters are left at the end and wished that a Season Thirteen was going to happen. Buffy and Faith as a supernatural Cagney and Lacey. Andrew as the next generation of the Watcher's Council. Xander and Dawn making a home together. Angel and Spike finally getting along, the former already plotting on how to save Illyria and Fred from hell. It's to the script's credit that it at least references Gunn and Connor and so offer something for Angel fans even if it can't find room to offer more than grace nots to the sister series. But it's also noticable that it doesn't attempt to shoehorn in the likes of Cordelia or Anya. They're finally letting the dead rest.
Bye bye for now, Buffy.
Arachnids in the UK.
TV Oh fuck, he's inflicted himself on the Doctor Who universe as well. Followers of my social media channel will know that a couple of years ago I made a pledge that this blog wouldn't mention the Cheesy Wotsit in Chief of those United States but since Chibbers brought it up this week, it simply can't go unaddressed now. Back in the Monks trilogy, footage of the semi-sentient orangutan featured on their propaganda screens, but now we have conclusive dialogue proof that he is indeed the President when Arachnids in the UK is set.
According to the third edition of AHistory (the second volume of the fourth isn't out until early December), Obama served a single term between 2008 and 2012 (following the death of Winters in The Sound of Drums), with a President Mather taking over (as established in the BBC Eighth Doctor novel Trading Futures) until 2016 when Arnold Schwarznegger might have been a two term president (as per Bad Wolf). I think we can now infer that his predecessor on the US version of The Apprentice will also be before him in The White House. One term POTUSes all.
Except, oh ha, here's Chris Noth as Robertson, who doesn't seem like a Democrat, thinking about primarying the Annoying Orange, so time could be rewritten. Unless Arnold, having managed to get the law change related to the nationality of a potential President, decides that the last thing America needs is another hotel magnate and decides to throw his hat in the ring having actually served in office and still ends up winning due to being moderate enough to attract swing voters. Unless the Doctor ends up Robertson giving him the Harriet Jones treatment, although we know how well that turned out last time.
If all of that meandering through US politics in the Whoniverse implies that I wasn't otherwise engaged with the episode, that couldn't be further away from the truth. Doctor Who is just so, so much fun again. Returning to the sweet spot between Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures in terms of ambition, quality and tone, by removing the existential angst of its lead character, providing her with more low key threats and accompanying her with realistic, emotionally complex travelling mates, we're able to relax and revel in the action, verbal wordplay and physical comedy, shutting out the shitty real world for fifty minutes.
Spiders. Shiver. Despite all my other troubles, I've never really had phobias, especially not anything that could debilitate me and thankfully not arachnophobia. Visiting the vivarium at the museum as a child and seeing the eight eyes of a massive tarantula glaring at me through a glass wall, whilst unpleasant, didn't leave me screaming for help. So the test of the episode was whether it would produce spiders more convincing than in the Pertwee's regeneration story and if they'd be creepy enough to wig out even a cynical sausage like me drugged up to the nines on sertraline (Zoloft).
Well, yes, yes it did. Turns out that if you scale them up to the size of a mechanoid and place your heroes in a confined space with them, that a nearly forty-four year old library studies graduate will sit with both hands over his mouth, his legs doing the exact opposite of a man spread, his head disappearing into the back of the armchair. Fifteen years on and Doctor Who's now in a position to create Shelob quality beasties that are just plain huhuhuhuh and also thanks to Sallie Aprahamian's fine direction just as squidgy when they're not even on screen.
But they're notably also not a global threat. As was most often the case in the classic era, these crawling creepies are only really menacing the metropolitan area of Sheffield and although there are some fatalities, there's no great invasion plan. As per Eight Legged Freaks, they're the product of toxic sludge and poor waste management and simply going about the business of survival, any malevolence emanating from their inadvertent creators.
In these circumstances, the Doctor becomes a kind of benevolent pest controller, knowing that this is a threat which has to be neutralized, but without the appetite for straight genocide. Each week we see the Thirteenth Doctor not so much reveal as reiterate the Time Lords core philosophies and Robertson's cold blooded murder of the mother from a cocktail of methane and sulphides and trichloroethylene goes against everything in her being. Granted she is planning on drowning it in essential oils, but as soon as she sees its in distress, she backs away, allows nature to take hold.
With the usual caution about such comments in relation to a mysterious production order, Jodie is really hitting her stride now, making the mental leaps to understand who the Doctor is when she carries a bum bag. As she explains in her interview with Craig "Cotton in Line of Duty" Parkinson on his excellent Two Shot Pod (listen here), she's not really had a role with this much agency before (I'm paraphrasing), with such complex language and intellectual underpinnings. But to listen to her talking about travelling around the world alone for six months, inserting herself into conversations so as not to feel lonely, you can see why this is perfect casting.
The rest of the crew are settling in nicely. After last week's deep dive, Tosin has less to do here but we're increasingly seeing his facility for comedy as Ryan makes shadow puppets in the lab while the Doctor is sleuthing the source of the spiders and introducing her to the works of Stormzy (which I've just added to the Spotify playlist of popular music in the series which I created in the week, alongside the dance tracks from The War Machines). Despite my reservations for having such a large TARDIS crew, as on previous occasions, there is something to be said for having an ensemble of regular characters rather than having two dimensional "red shirts" each week without the potential emotional connection beyond some easy "ins" like threatened progeny.
That's especially true of Yaz who we discover this week might be bi. But unlike previous LGBTQ+ characters this hasn't been foregrounded, we're just assuming as much since her mother, played with Coduri-like zeal by Shobna Gulati, considers both the Doctor and Ryan as potential dating material. This is how it should be. Hetrosexuality is considered the default in most dramas with everything else seen as a variation that can only exist as part of a foregrounded story element, whereas this approach feels more realistic. Kudos too for also not making it a key part of the family dynamic, oh and giving us at least one family which is still complete unit and who haven't fallen through a crack in time or die in mysterious circumstances.
Even with all of this happening, the episode still found time to address Graham's grief, interacting with the ghostly figure of Grace. Such moments are common in funerary tragedies but its rare that it should happen in Doctor Who in quite this way, without it being revealed (yet) to be an alien manifestation as per Torchwood's Lost Souls or Class's Nightvisiting or Doctor Who's Last Christmas. Like Clara, Graham's thrust himself into adventure as a way of coping with the loss of a loved one, but with the maturity, enunciated by Bradley Walsh's humble features, to understand the substituting role his travels in the TARDIS will be, allowing him to put certain inevitable obligations to one side.
For a brief moment, while Graham and Ryan offered us their "it's you isn't it" I considered that Chris Noth was simply playing himself, the scene a meta-reference to the end of the casting trailer at the close of business on The Woman Who Fell To Earth when the viewership probably said much the same thing. A variation of both Big and Peter Florrick and apparently 45 although far too articulate, I think by the end we're meant to assume that Robertson will be back in the future, a trait that all of the antagonists have had so far this season. If nothing else Mike Logan and Ronnie Brooks have finally met. I really must get around to watching Law and Order: UK. Is it any good?
Despite my enjoyment of the episode I do have a couple of questions. Aren't there still some spiders loose in Sheffield somewhere, particularly in Yaz's neighbour's flat? Who's going to clear up all the bodies, human and arachnid? Whose going to inform Frankie's spouse that she's died? What about all the webs about the place? Is that underground landfill simply going to stay there? Why isn't the Doctor also cheesed about the ill considered experimentation at Dr McIntyre's lab which somewhat led to the predicament and ensuing person slaughter, however well intentioned? After the pun in tonight's episode title, can we have an Auton episode next season called Yaz and the Plastic Population?
Anyway, I'm off to go back and watch Inside No.9 which I missed whilst researching the Law & Order portion of this review so I'll fix the typos and tidy up the English tomorrow (updated 29/10/2018: All done. I think). Next week's looks like a homage to the wilder parts of the classic run and so the variety continues. I'm trying to work out what a really duff version of this iteration would look like, especially with this cast. It's such a relief to be back in a space when we can tune in and know we'll have something entirely watchable, with engaging characters, that doesn't feel like it has to innovate whilst simultaneously doing just that.
The Massacre (of St Bartholomew's Eve).
TV How to introduce this? This review of serial five from the third season of Doctor Who was written three years ago for a project I was invited to pitch for but didn't ultimately receive a commission (and that's all I'm going to say about that).
Ever since I've wanted to post it somewhere but constantly wondered if it could be repurposed for something else. But as that seems vanishingly unlikely right now and since it's my birthday week and it's a Saturday, I've finally decided to let you be the joint fourth person to read it.
Note that I have done some retrospective rewriting to adjust anything specific in terms of where it might have ended up. For reasons.
With thanks to Graham Kibble-White for his suggestions and support (and proofreading!) at the time of writing.
The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve
Reviewed by Stuart Ian Burns
The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve is the epitome of what makes the process of revisiting the earlier movements of Doctor Who so compelling. Can you think of another series that, after transmitting 12 episodes of an expressively barmy space opera like The Daleks’ Master Plan, would plunge its regulars into an entertaining, albeit flawed, four-part chamber piece about one of the most tragic, yet important incidents in French history? Which would offer its lead actor the opportunity to play a completely different role?
A progressive dip in the ratings by two million across the tale suggests viewers were indeed bemused by the change in tone. This final commission for ‘pure historical’ specialist John Lucarroti, but heavily re-written by script editor Donald Tosh, makes few concessions to its potential audience.
The first on-screen title might be the epic sounding ‘War of God’, but what follows is an opening episode which cross-cuts the Doctor having a giddily fannish tête-à-tête with an apothecary, Preslin, about the religious intolerance of science, against an expositional free-for-all in which the various Huguenots and Catholics, who we’ll watch fighting for supremacy in 16th century Paris, enunciate their disagreements while consuming the contents of a tavern’s wine seller.
With a glut of glugging guards all introduced at once, it’s reasonably difficult to keep track of who everyone is, not aided 50 years on from transmission by only existing as audio. Even the telesnaps are missing.
With the Doctor “unavoidably detained” (more on which later), Steven is fore-grounded and typically bewildered by history, but not naïve due to the robust Peter Purves. When he exclaims, “I wish I understood what was going on,” although we know it is for our benefit, it’s a perfectly natural reaction to the complicated events swirling around him.
Slowly our ears become attuned to the action, the prosaic announcement of Christian names and surnames and statements of intent (a later trademark of the Coen brothers), and the results are generally enthralling, assisted by a cast enjoying the local colour. When Huguenot Gaston grumbles about the inferiority of what he’s supping - “Have you got no decent wine? Where are the Burgundies? Or even the German wines?” - actor Eric Thompson sounds like a disappointed lush in a 1970s Mike Leigh play.
The facts are these. Henri of Navarre is a Huguenot, a Protestant prince who’s married Marguerite of France, a Catholic. The Queen Mother arranged the union; Catherine de Medici was hoping it would heal the religious crack that's breaking France apart.
Predictably it doesn’t and the subsequent three episodes are about the results of this fateful decision, giant personalities scheming against one another as they seek vengeance for previous confrontations and consolidate their power within the city, first through assassination - the attempted murder of Admiral de Coligny, who supports the Huguenots and has the Prince’s ear - and then one of history’s most ferocious examples of ethnic cleansing.
Joan Young, whose stern surviving publicity shots suggest a disconcerting similarity with contemporary portraits of her real life counterpart, plays the Queen Catherine, the magnetic centre of the action, with steely coldness.
One of the great losses in no longer having the images for the story is the assassination attempt itself, as the hired gun Bondot lines his weapon up to take the shot at the Admiral, a scene which must have had a striking resonance for viewers just two-and-a-half years on from a tragically more successful gunshot in Dallas. To what extent did director Paddy Russell follow the clichéd visuals seen in similar television and film? What was she capable of producing on the Ealing set with this budget?
Dashing through all of this is poor Anne Chaplet, endangered like an unsuspecting office worker in a ‘90s conspiracy thriller because she happens to have heard the wrong piece of information (about the Catholic threat) at the wrong time. Introduced to earlier drafts as the potential new cohort for the Doctor but replaced late in the process, she’s reduced eventually to becoming the companion’s companion asking Steven functional questions whilst simultaneously contributing advice on local geography. But it’s to actress Annette Robertson’s credit that she is never a cipher.
As the story reaches its finale the dialogue becomes gradually more poetic and intense, conjuring vivid metaphors of what is to come. When the Marshal of France, Tavennes (played by Quatermass himself, André Morell), realises the scale of murder he’s just ordered - “We are to unleash the wolves of Paris” - he declares, “At dawn tomorrow this city will weep tears of blood.”
His words resonate right through to the TARDIS dematerialisation as the familiar wheezing and groaning is replaced with the terrifying reverberation of monotonous drums and the gramms of women screaming.
In other words, events proceed much as they would have done if the TARDIS hadn’t landed in Paris in the first place, which in a First Doctor story ranks as a major result.
But in narrative terms it’s a grave weakness because as readers who’ve been paying attention will have noticed, it’s achieved by the Doctor following the advice he would later fail to heed in The Gunfighters (1966), of apparently getting out of Dodge and taking no part in the action, which has the effect of fatally undermining its conclusion.
In most dramas dealing with doppelgangers, the storyline usually shifts between the two distinct characters until they convene and one of them orders, with fingers and pointing, “Kill him, Spock” either because they’re Captain Kirk himself, his copy, or ironically referencing Star Trek. Doctor Who would somewhat follow this structure during The Enemy of the World (1967), interweaving the title character with the dastardly Salamander.
In order to simplify the shooting of The St Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve and to accommodate a holiday for its star in the second week, the script instead has the two characters appear consecutively and introduce the possibility that they might even be one in the same.
After the Doctor leaves Preslin’s shop deep into the first episode, apparently with some task to perform (“Good luck, old man”) for much of the duration of the story we’re then meant to believe his destination is to pose as the Abbot of Amboise who’s been sent by the religious leader of the Cardinal of France to abet in the conspiracy to kill the Admiral. The process is aided by Steven’s conviction, thanks to the verification of his eyes, that this must be the case, for reasons he himself can’t comprehend.
In order to preserve the verisimilitude of Steven’s reaction on inevitably meeting him, Hartnell isn’t granted the latitude to perhaps play the Abbot closer to his own age or with altered speech patterns (any mannerism he might have utilised are consigned to history). He simply sounds like the Doctor in a sterner mood.
In retrospect, we know full well that the Doctor isn’t the Abbot. Every preview of the story mentions the casting opportunity and when releasing the yarn on audio cassette in 1999, BBC Audio felt confident enough that a purchasing fan would be aware of this spoiler that they put two images of the actor on the cover.
The script itself contains seeds of doubt. Roger Colbert, temporary secretary to the Abbot, reveals that he saw his new boss “at an encyclical meeting held by the Cardinal” and though he didn’t actually meet him, it was clearly long enough to recognise him. There’s also the chronology of the first episode in which the Abbot is well in-situ before the TARDIS arrives, and the quandary of exactly where the real Amboise has been stashed if the Doctor’s somehow replaced him.
Plus the only reason the traveller might be doing so is to sabotage the shooting, which would be against the moral code of this early incarnation.
As he explains to Barbara in The Aztecs (1964), "But you can't rewrite history! Not one line!"
So compelling is the action, and so convincingly does Purves portray Steven’s conviction that his friend has taken on this new identity which has ultimately lead to the Doctor’s demise, we simply don’t notice the title character is gone for much of the story and have to assume that a contemporary audience wasn’t meant to either.
But when the Doctor does emerge, his explanation for where he’s been is as thin as the Bordeaux being served in the tavern where Steven was stood up. “Yes, well, I was unavoidably delayed. Never mind that now. Come along, we must go. Come along.”
Which is pleasingly ridiculous, and leaves a gap wide open for Big Finish to jump into.
It also dramatically undermines everything that is to come.
After the Doctor interrogates poor Anne and then sends her off to her potential doom, we can only wonder how he hasn’t already acquainted himself with this information. He’s aware of the curfews, it seems, but hasn’t deduced anything about the coming horrors, which is a bit remiss of him.
If nothing else it means we entirely understand why Steven, who’s met those who are being affected by the horrors, decides to leave the TARDIS on its next landing. You almost expect, if not hope, him to offer an old soap opera stand-by. “You weren’t there! You don’t know!”
The Doctor’s ensuing speech is one of the great ‘lost’ moments in Doctor Who history, in which we can hear Hartnell’s rasping, emotional voice ruminating on all those who’ve left the timeship, poignantly mis-pronouncing Chesterton’s name, and how none of them could understand his burden of responsibility to the web of time.
“I was right to do as I did. Yes, that I firmly believe.” He sounds genuinely old, as though his body is already wearing a bit thin.
But dramatically, it’s entirely unearned due to the character’s absence, because on this occasion the Doctor wasn’t there, he didn’t know and without apparently having those experiences, despite having enough intellectual knowledge to express the events to Steven, it lacks the weight of similar decisions by a number of his successors. When the Tenth Doctor is slumped over the console ready to leave in The Fires of Pompeii (2008), the faces of those he’s deserting are reflected in his features.
Admittedly some of this is clearly a result of the last-minute rewrite to excise Anne as a companion. But the scene designed to introduce her replacement is equally ruined by its portrayal of the Doctor’s thoughtlessness.
Even after having the massacre itself, 20,000 souls - including most of the characters whose lives we’ve just spent the four episodes witnessing - the closing moments of this story concentrate on a much smaller off-screen tragedy as the means of Dodo’s introduction to the series.
The little boy who’s been hurt in an accident.
When Miss Chaplet blunders into the TARDIS interrupting the Doctor’s ruminations, she explains that this is the reason she requires a telephone from a piece of street furniture purporting to have that function. It’s all we can potentially think about, not helped in any way by our hero’s apparent lack of concern for a member of the show’s core demographic. But the extent of his involvement stretches only as far as patronising this waveringly-accented stranger about the emergency services who may be required. “Oh well I’m afraid I can’t help you, no,” he says, “You must run along and phone the police somewhere else and at the same time phone for an ambulance.”
What did happen to the child? He’s quickly forgotten in the narrative requirement to keep Dodo in the TARDIS, the magical nature of which she’s notably unphased by, entirely accepting the Doctor’s unusually florid exposition its existence (“Well, my dear, I'm a doctor of science, and this machine is for travelling through time and relative dimensions in space.”)
In the 1999 BBC novel Salvation, author Steve Lyons rationalises that Dodo’s on the run from an alien force that has been keeping her hostage and is simply blurting out the first thing which comes into her head. This would certainly explain her intellectual dissonance on the topic. But the script and remaining audio do few favours to Jackie Lane, whose staccato delivery offers every indication of the actress knowing she has to do in about five minutes what her predecessors could across a whole story.
In more recent series, her explanation would probably have been a jumping off point for another adventure, with the Tenth or Eleventh incarnations quickly out the door and across the park to the scene of the accident, waving a sonic around to check on the youngster’s vitals, the driver of the vehicle guiltily looking on. Attack Eyebrows might have attended more grudgingly, but at least he too would have gone.
In the 1960s version, the Doctor’s quickly away, dematerialising the TARDIS at just the moment two police officers might also have expected to utilise its outer dimensional skin’s presumed services to help the child.
Another tragedy missed, the web of time preserved.
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