Eastern Promises (2007)

"London is a city of whores and queers."

I confess that I need to see more early period avid Cronenberg for his trademark body horror, and I will. Yet up to now I've only seen some of his late period non-fantasy stuff- Crash and Cosmopolis, both excellent. So what will I make of Eastern Promises?

Well, the directing is excellent, of course, from the framing of the first shot onwards. This is Cronenberg's London film, a tribute to what remains very much an imperial capital long after its empire has gone, a melting pot, a metropolis and world city far out of proportion to the nation of which it is capital, and a city which now, alas, faces the catastrophe of Brexit.

And yet... despite the excellence of Naomi Watt and the superbly ambiguous Viggo Mortensen, this is a very good but hardly superlative gangster film with both a conscience and an aesthetic for violence (which is excellent throughout). The famous twist is... fairly predictable, and what we have is a film about the Russian mafia, albeit a perfectly good one, and fascinating about the context with the tattoos and that depressingly prevalent Russian homophobia, but this is less good than either of the other Cronenberg films I've seen so far.

What it does show, though, is how many in less fortunate parts of our continent still see London as being paved with gold, so they come, and are abused and disappointed, hopefully not to the extent of poor Tatiana. But what we have here is a good film that, while well-directed, feels more like television than film.,

Game of Thrones: Season 1, Episode 2 ("The Kingsroad")

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone."

I blogged the first episode of Game of Thrones on 18th September 2015 so... yeah. There won't be quite as long before episode three. Promise.

I'm still getting a handle on the setting; this is a fantasy world with only light fantasy elements- so far we've seen dragon eggs but dragons appear to be semi-mythical, and dire wolves seem not to be overtly supernatural. It's a gritty, realistic mediaeval world which is obviously going to focus on the power games surrounding the eponymous throne, and I've heard that this is based on both the Wars of the Roses and the Anarchy of the twelfth century. But Robert Baratheon is certainly no Henry VI; I'm not sure how strong a king he is but he appears laddish yet weighed down by kingship. I suspect he's not all that long for this world, given the apparent premise of the series.

Daenerys is interesting in the sense that she's getting a lot of screen time and her situation- marital rape in the context of semi-forced marriage- is horrific and surely would not be depicted so prominently if she were not eventually to end up powerful and fortunate in spite of it. Her brother claims Robert's throne. Hmm.

Meanwhile, Robert's only son Joffrey is a right little sod, as his behaviour towards Arya and her poor friend illustrates. Sansa is happy enough to marry him, but then she'll be queen. She's so motivated towards this that she's ready to lie under oath about her sister. But I suppose that being queen- a glorified womb- is the best a woman can hope for in this society. Certainly Arya's tomboyish ways are a fascinating way to explore the theme of what we can't really call feminism.

And then there's Tyrion. He's still a sot and a shagger, but there's a more intellectual side, too; he may be a semi-outcast just because he's a dwarf but, crude and direct though he is, he isn't shallow. And his relationship with the literal bastard Jon Snow (not yet a Channel 4 newsreader) is interesting. Jon, a very naive bastard, is off to devote his entire life to guarding the northern walls from whatever lies beyond, which none of his legitimately born relatives would presumably stoop to. Ned is proud but, when he says That "When we next meet, I'll tell you about your mother" I'm left suspecting that, one way or another, they won't ever meet again. Let's see if I'm right.

Meanwhile Catelyn Stark is keeping watch over the thankfully not-dead Bran but, after being attacked, she's off to tell her husband about her suspicions regarding the Lannisters. And, while she's away, Bran wakes- and he knows too much. Why do I get the feeling that the immediate future of the Stark family is not set to be a happy one?

Absolutely superb telly, this.

Doctor Who: Hell Bent

I"I insist upon my past!"

This is a brilliant season finale and a brilliant proper farewell to Clara, yes. That would be enough to make it brilliant. But there's more. Much, much more. Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I much prefer the littler, more character based stories to the big overblown epics: give me The Rescue over The Dalek Invasion of Earth any day. And Moffat clearly agrees. So much so that he takes the big, epic Gallifrey story we've expected for so long, only to swat it away in favour of a nice little intimate character piece.

And it's blatant. Yes, we have Gallifrey, the Citadel, the Chancellery Guards and the Matrix. We even get Donald Sumptrr, no less, as Rassilon. Except... the first twenty minutes of the story consists of the Doctor emphatically rejecting the epic power of the Time Lords in both the narrative and the wider mythology of Doctor Who: his relationship with his companion is far more important than all this fanwank.

Hence the Doctor assumes charge in Gallifrey through doing did all, by his Time War reputation alone. Hence the fact that Rassilon, that iconic figure of Time Lord mythology, played by Donald Sumpter in a real casting coup... is casually expelled from the narrative at a very early point on the episode. This episode is about Clara's death, the Doctor's hubris at refusing to accept it (very The Waters of Mars), and how this is making shades of the old War Doctor seep through. And it's Clara who saves the day. "Run, you clever boy, and be a Doctor".

Not that there isn't some glorious fanwankery, of course. Most brilliant is our first male-to-female regeneration, which has a nice transsexual subtext. Also, Ohica and the Sisterhood of Karn are back for absolutely no reason other than that they're cool, which is absolutely right. It's 2015, and Doctor Who still shows the unmistakable influence of Terrance Dicks, as it should.

The real emotional and dramatic centre of the episode is its second half, from the point at which Clara is extracted to the Matrix from a point just before her death. She's trapped between moments, with no heartbeat, and will eventually have to be returned to her timeline, and death. From this point, Gallifrey and all its flummery are but a MacGuffin in the service of Clara's relationship with her mortality and the Doctor's hubris in bending the laws of time in forever postponing her return to her death.

Clara is horrified to hear that the Doctor spent 4.5 billion years in the confession dial. For her. She, unlike him, appreciates that she has to die. It's in the nature of things, and she has had an amazing life.

The ending is inspired. The Doctor and Clara run away in a TARDIS just like throne he stole all those years ago, with an uber-retro interior exactly as designed by Peter Brachaki, right down to that thingy off the ceiling that was quietly dropped after An Unearthly Child. The Doctor has no solution to Clara's mortality other than procrastination- but isn't that the case for all of us? None of us know how much time we have, so we need to make the most of what time we have.

The Doctor doesn't understand: he just wants her to live. He intends to wipe her memories of him so she will have a better chance of survival, but that misses the point: our memories are our life. And it is better to die young with strove of amazing memories than to die old after a life unlived. 

And this is the bit where we find out what the framing device with the diner was all about. The climax happens at the very end of history, where the Doctor and Clara meet, inevitably, Ashildr. It is she who points out that this is the prophecy referred to as the Hybrid. Pleasingly, it's left open whether or not the Doctor is actually half-human (shudder!) or whether the "Hybrid" refers to both the Doctor and Clara. 

We end with the Doctor in a retooled TARDIS, with a new Sonic Screwdriver, adventuring again. Meanwhile, Clara and Ashildr have their own retro Type 49, its exterior stuck as an American diner...

Oh, and it's just occurred to me: the diner in The Impossible Astronaut was Clara's TARDIS, parked a few feet away...

I can't even tell you how brilliant a piece of telly this is. I'm utterly floored by it.

Coalition

"I'm worried about Nick. He's in a bad place."

"Sheffield?"

I tend to write up my blog posts late these days, what with having become a father for the first time in February, but I just had to get this one out before the General Election and what looks like being a much more tortuous set of coalition negotiations over what could be a lot more than six days.

Also, cards on the table time: I'm on the left of the party, and some way to the left of all of the party's Cabinet ministers, with the possible exception of Vince Cable, but I've always voted Lib Dem until now. And the only reason I won't be voting Lib Dem on 7th May because I have now moved to a Tory/Labour marginal where a Lib Dem vote is fairly pointless under First Past the Post (why oh why is there not a site where I can swap my vote with a Labour supporter in a threatened Lib Dem seat?). I may not be a supporter of Nick Clegg (see below) or Orange Bookers generally, but I don't demonise him as many Labour tribalists do, but he hasn't been good leader since 2010 for various reasons, although he does have genuine achievements to his name and can, on the whole, be proud of his career. This one-off drama, with Clegg taking centre stage, is rather good at showing both his vices and his virtues.

Coalition is as good as this sort of thing tends to be, although you can never get a huge amount of dramatic depth out of a fairly straight reconstruction of recent political events. Obviously the standout cast member is Mark Gatiss who, as every review and preview has said, steals the show as a weary yet still dangerous Peter Mandelson, but all the portrayals ring true.

We begin not with the night of the election but with the leaders' debates, and those heady days of Cleggmania when everything seemed possible. This gives context for the slight deflation felt by many Lib Dems on election night, but the absurdity of election night is best portrayed by David Cameron receiving a call of misunderstanding congratulations from the Governor of California. Hasta la vista, baby. We also establish the relationship between Clegg and Donald Sumpter's elder statesman Paddy Ashdown, both a more left-wing and more substantial figure than Clegg, first shown consoling his protege on the mildly disappointing results, showing him to have rather more steel to him; it's not hard to see that the authorial voice sides with Ashdown rather than Clegg. So do I.

The morning after the night before sees Cameron make his big offer of coalition and Ashdown's prescient remark that "They'd string us up." The personal relationships are fascinating here; Camerpn subtly shows his dominance by insisting on immediate negotiations without sleep, and Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell puts pressure on both parties for a quick deal. Soon there are parallel negotiations going on with Labour, and the contrasts between Clegg's two suitors are fascinating; the Tories are hungry and devious, while Labour are half-hearted (sans Mandelson, a bit), unprepared and saddled by the fact that they simply haven't got the parliamentary arithmetic. Clegg's relationship with Gordon Brown is awkward, while Cameron runs rings round him; a Con-Lib coalition was inevitable, but a Blair clone like Clegg does not a good negotiator make and the script implies, not unfairly, that he was at least partly motivated by the prospect of power. He could have held out for a better deal, Brown leaving Number 10 prematurely notwithstanding. And, although a coalition of course makes it understandable that both sides have to compromise on their respective manifestos, that tuition fees pledge was different. It should have been inviolable.

Clegg's ultimatum to Brown- that he has to leave as PM for a coalition to happen- is both awkward and terrible, and Clegg is right to feel guilt. Brown deserved better, and Clegg cannot feel aggrieved if Labour were to make a similar demand in a week's time. Still, I have no doubt that all sides will be much better prepared. 

There's a nice cameo from Michael Crichton as an ancient Tory backbencher who remembers 1974, reminding us that Cameron too faces pressures, but the dramatic focus remains on a harried Clegg and a dignified Brown. We're reminded of how haphazard the final hours were, with Cameron becoming big PM, in the dark, before negotiations are complete. There will not, I suspect, be such chaos next time.

We end with the rose garden, and actual footage, bizarre in retrospect. Looking back the whole understanding of how coalitions were supposed to work looks extremely naive. I'm sure all parties are now much, much wiser.

Black Mirror: The National Anthem

“The online hive mind did the maths.”

If you expected to see the next Buffy review, don’t worry; the blog is otherwise going to be entirely Buffy (plus a movie most Saturdays) at least until I get to the end of Season Three. After that I might switch to a short, one-off series (probably Edge of Darkness, but we’ll see. It might be Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set- any preferences?) before I start to alternate episodes of Buffy and Angel. After that, I’ll probably do something similar after each 44-episode block. Otherwise, though, the only other stuff I’ll be reviewing is current television. And that pretty much only means Dark Mirror, Sherlock, and Doctor Who. Otherwise it’s Buffyverse all the way!

Anyway… I’ve really been looking forward to this. It’s by Charlie Brooker, for one thing, and the man can (almost!) do no wrong as far as I’m concerned. But the concept seems brilliant; a modern take on The Twilight Zone, with three independent teleplays extrapolating various ultra-modern technologies (Twitter, reality TV, Sky Plus) and extrapolating in a vaguely sci-fi way. Plus, knowing the writers involves, I suspect there’s going to be the exact sort of darkly humorous tone that I like so much.

This episode begins with a ringing mobile phone in the marital bed of prime minister Michael Callow (Roy Kinnear). This is appropriate, as it more or less foreshadows the theme of modern technology, its intrusiveness, and the way it speeds things up to a pace which makes rational thought impossible. I notice the last thing we hear, in the final scene before the flash forward at the end, is also a ringing mobile phone, but the circumstances are horribly distance. It’s a nice touch to bookend things with this motif.

We have the highest of high concept, er, concepts: a terrorist has kidnapped a popular princess, and is going to kill her unless the prime minister has sex with a pig, on live TV, that very afternoon. Eurgh. This is strangely appropriate from a former writer from Oink, a comic I remember well from my childhood. But, obviously, this is really about the media, the twenty-four hour news cycle, the tyranny of mass opinion, and the impossibility of hiding things in our post-superinjunction age. No sooner does the PM see the video than he’s told it’s up on YouTube, and trending on Twitter. D Notices mean nothing in this context, and the British rolling news channels can’t keep quiet if CNN and Al Jazeera are not. The genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

There are some delicious moments of very Charlie Brooker cynicism- the Queen’s attitude; the tweets in general; the journalist getting information by shooting footage of herself naked, and then literally getting shot; and of course the attitude of the public once the severed finger from the princess is apparently received. If there’s one consistent theme in Brooker’s work then it’s a healthy disdain for the mob. Ironically, the PM doesn’t even know of the attempt to fake the… footage in question. But it’s still him who has to face the consequences.

From this point onward we know that the clock is ticking and there’s no escape. Deliciously, it’s the opinion polling that seals the PM’s fate, as well as the clear implication that neither he nor his family would be safe from the mob. From hereon in there are many, many shots of the PM all alone. And that’s what he is, despite the audience of 1.3 billion and the empty streets- Brooker has no doubt that empty is what they would be. We don’t get to see the act itself, mercifully, but the PM’s suffering is very clear. He’s left pounding away for nearly an hour.

The twist, of course, is that it’s all a twisted joke; the ultimate artistic installation from a former winner of the Turner Prize. One year later it’s all back to normal, except that the PM is now dead to his wife, whose final call he couldn’t bring himself to take.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Eternity Trap

Part One

“I bet he made a mean balloon giraffe at children’s parties.”

I knew this was going to be great as soon as I heard the splendidly Dickensian name “Erasmus Darkening”. Absolutely no ambiguity about who the baddie is here.

A ghost story is something very new for SJA, and this feels very fresh. It’s also great to see everybody’s favourite Lib Dem peer, Floella Benjamin, as Professor Rivers, who now even gets given a first name: Celeste. And then promptly, er, disappears. I like the well portrayed and Uriah Heep-like Toby, too, in spite of the fact that he was a bit of an obvious red herring. But this story from Phil Ford is superb not because of any particular stand-out gimmicks but because it feels fresh, it’s very well-told and it’s got oodles of atmosphere. This is simultaneously very kid-friendly and yet as scary as anything I’ve come across during the Marathon.

It’s fun to see Sarah Jane playing the sceptic for once, and as this is a Luke-lite story it’s nice to see more of the developing chemistry between Rani and Clyde. I love the way this story shamelessly and deliberately has fun with all sorts of ghost story tropes, and we even get a blatant Nigel Kneale reference which almost made me fall of my chair. “Stone Tape manifestation", indeed…! The nursery is very scary indeed. A million times more so because of that rocking horse, for some reason. Reminds me of Ghost Light.

This is great. We get Rani being really investigative and Clyde being really witty. We get the missing Professor Rivers “ghosting” through her walkie-talkie, like Miss Evangelista. We get secret passages. Secret passages are cool. We get ancient electronic oojimaflips. And we get “This is Hogwarts, Tim Burton style”. I’m loving this.

Part Two

“Oh boy, this is worse than The Sixth Sense.”

There’s inevitably a slightly disappointing air to part twos in general as the way the plot is resolved is seldom quite as satisfying as it could be, even in a good quality drama. But here it’s satisfying in very possible way: from the plot mechanics side, the all-apparent-magic-is-really-science, Dæmons-fashion, side, from the loads-of-atmosphere side, and from the lots-of-fun-with-tropes side. This is unremittingly great.

I can’t do enough gushing. It all ties up, there are some nice plot revelations, it all looks fantastic, the dashing Lord Marchwood gets to be heroic, Toby turns out not to be such a Uriah Heep after all once Sarah Jane has broadened his horizons, and we get to see Clyde and Rani being very brave and stoic. This is a top 5/5. And although it’s not an “arc” story, or a particularly important story for any particular character, I see no reason to mark it down for being a non-“event” episode. This is the best episode of SJA yet.

Doctor Who: The Sea Devils

Part One

“Crimea?”

“Gallipolli? El Alamein? Does it really matter?”

Not what I expected to be the first thing I’d comment on, but a car with no doors! That’s weird. Why?

Good episode though, concentrating on the regulars and giving them a nice bit of character development. And that’s great- let the plot start later. We realise this is going to be a fun episode as soon as the Doctor comments on the Master putting on weight. And the Doctor’s exasperation with the nice-but-dim Trenchard is just the sort of Pertwee rudeness I like- fun, light-hearted, and doesn’t cross a line. The Doctor’s character is consistently being better written this season.

I’m a bit of a Guardian reading wishy-washy liberal, me, but even I reckon the Master’s got himself a cushy little prison regime. The screws even call him "sir"! There’s a nice scene between the Master and the Doctor in which Delgado shines- he injects just enough irony into the Master’s request for the occasional chat with the Doctor. Pertwee nicely plays the Doctor’s inability to shake hands with the man with whom it now seems he was “practically at school together.

Of course, something fishy is going on. Nice that our first inkling of it is when the Master asks Trenchard for a second television set for his bedroom- “Colour, of course.” And one of the best things in this episode, and possibly in all of television, is the Master whistling along to the Clangers. Possibly the only thing better than this moment is the look on Delgado’s face when Trenchard explains that they’re “Only puppets, you know. For children.”

There’s nothing quite so Doctorish, and necessarily absent from the UNIT years, as the Doctor quickly getting himself accepted by the supporting cast, and it’s pleasantly nostalgic to see him do this with the navy here. Better still, we get some top namedropping action: “Captain Hart, Horatio Nelson was a personal friend of mine.”



Part Two

“I always find that violent exercise makes me hungry. Don’t you agree?”


By this point the music (I’m a fan!) is getting really noticeable. But it’s good to have something new and different in a season which brings more stuff back from the past than we’ve ever seen up to this point. This episode, with the Doctor briefly recounting the plot of Doctor Who and the Silurians (sorry, Doctor Who and the Eocenes!) to Jo, makes it clear that this story will be no exception.

There’s plenty of good stuff here though- the Doctor’s radio geekery, and especially the banter between him and Jo. They seem to be settling into a relationship nicely not based on him snapping at her like a total arse, as was the case last season. Thought has been given to sorting out the characterisation problems, which is good.

It seems everybody can resist the Master’s hypnotism these days, even petty officers! The doctor’s got captain Hart under control though- we’ve already reached the point where he can just demand some transport (how very Pertwee!) and not even deign to explain. Most entertaining. I’m finally warming to this doctor. I mean, dammit, that golf shot trick is cool, and the swordfighting is well classy.



Part Three

“How very kind of you.”

(Pause)
“How very unkind of you.”


Crikey, that’s a huge reprise. And that bit with the knife- you wouldn’t be able to show it nowadays. In other news, the soundtrack goes from weird to weirder (good!). It’s so very early seventies, sounding a bit like German prog of the time for some reason although I can’t think of any band in particular. Popol Vuh, perhaps?

Good to see Jo’s escapology skills put to use again, and also to hear what the Master’s actually been telling Trenchard all this time. Oh, and a Sea Devil comes out of the sea!


Part Four

“Well, I presume you’re a trained diver, in addition to your other accomplishments then, Doctor.”

“Naturally.”

Sonic Screwdriver mission creep continues unabated; now it seems it can both detect and explode landmines. It works in context for now, so I’ll let it slide, but perhaps long term this sort of thing is not too good an idea.

Another great Doctor / Jo scene, as he steals all her food: “For heaven’s sake, jo! What do you think this is? A picnic?” And the plot is thickening, with loads of Sea Devils emerging and, unexpectedly, Trenchard biting the dust. Pity- he was a nice bloke, but his Achilles heel was his unthinking patriotism, and in a Malcolm Hulke script a patriot stands no chance of survival. Well, except when they do. But you can sense the authorial disapproval, and here it’s clearly Trenchard’s tragic flaw.



Part Five

“Nothing too elaborate, my dear. Just a little eggs, bacon, toast, coffee…”

The story’s starting to drag a bit now. After all the fun with the Master at the start it’s become clear that we’re getting a rerun of Doctor Who and the Silurians without much of the depth. We’re still getting some good characterisation, acting and dialogue, but this stage of the story has been done before. We even get a stupid politician- not a civil servant mind, none of us are at all stupid, of course. And just how many sugars does this man take in his coffee?

The Sea Devil leader is strangely more reasonable in his discussions with the Doctor than even the Old Silurian ever was, perhaps too reasonable to be believable. And it’s interesting how the Doctor freely admits the Sea Devils would ultimately stand no chance in a war against the humans, thus depriving us viewers of a fair chunk of our sense of threat.

Interestingly, the role played by Walker with the humans directly parallels that played by the Master with the Sea Devils, but with the Doctor elsewhere he gets his wish from the start. The scenes in the naval base and with the Sea Devils thus counterpoint each other, with the humans coming off as morally worse.

The cliffhanger’s great, and iconic for a reason.



Part Six

“”Dear oh dear, Doctor. Will you never learn?”

Things get wrapped up nicely plotwise, and there’s some good character stuff too. It makes sense that Walker would be a coward, and Jo gets not only to use her escapology again but also to pilot a hovercraft- by now it’s starting to look like her character’s getting some proper sustained development, but perhaps I speak too soon!

Hmmm, so guns now work on Sea Devils? I seem to recall they didn’t in the submarine a few episodes ago…

More good stuff for the Doctor, as he offers the Sea Devils a chance before he blows them up, and finally gets the chance to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow! And now that he’s not going to be in every story, it’s a good thing that the Master’s on the loose again.


Overall, by the end it became too much of a retread of Doctor Who and the Silurians without the depth, but still had plenty of good characterisation and humopur to redeem it. I’ll be generous: it just scrapes a 4/5.

Doctor Who: The Wheel in Space

Part One


"Well, all right. Stick your rod..."


Another Joint Venture recon, so of course we start with another BBC globe. I'm starting to enjoy these! And an interesting combination of writers- David Whitaker (yay!) "from an idea by Kit Pedler".

We start with a reprise from the end of Fury from the Deep with Victoria waving- appropriately, as this story shows she won't have been forgotten. And, just to remind us this is a David Whitaker story, we get the fault indicator! and mercury! how long has it been since we last heard of the fluid link? Things get even odder as the Doctor takes out the "Time Vector generator" and turns the TARDIS into an ordinary police box. "Again", we're told, in contravention of what we were shown in An Unearthly Child. What a very odd beginning!

Fittingly from a story involving both Whitaker and Pedler, we get a food machine scene to help pad out this extraordinarily uneventful episode. There's a nice brief chat about Victoria between the Doctor and Jamie, but otherwise not much happens, and it's only at the very end that we're introduced to the crew of the wheel. Not a promising beginning.



Part Two


"Just you watch your lip or I'll put you across my knee and larrup you."

"Oh, this is going to be fun!"


The story is not looking promising at the start of this episode. Firstly, this is clearly going to be yet another Base Under Siege story, and this is just one too many. Secondly, nothing is happening. it takes ages until the Doctor and Jamie even arrive on the wheel, and Patrick Troughton isn't even in this episode- these absences, which didn't used to happen, are a clear sign that Troughton is starting to get knackered with the pace of production. The clock starts ticking on his era about now.

It's a little jarring to see Jamie who, however much of a TARDIS veteran he may be, is from 1746, operating the Silver carrier's airlock with no problem. But his scene with Gemma where he desperately and unsuccessfully tries to explain his and the Doctor's presence is quite funny- and gives us our first "Doctor John Smith". And then we meet the lovely Zoe!

Oh goody, the TARDISeers are suspected of sabotage again. How original. There's a bit of a twist this time- Jamie really does want to sabotage the big gun so the Silver Carrier isn't destroyed and the TARDIS with it- but it's always just tiresome to see our heroes fall under suspicion from the latest base commander. Can't we just gloss over this bit and start the plot please?

On the plus side, though, I like the new Cybermen design.



Part Three



"Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority."



Er, why is everyone on the wheel suddenly worried about a star going nova? What harm can it possibly do them. But it becomes horribly apparent that this astronomical nonsense is in fact central to the plot. Oh dear.

I'm not sure about the new Cyber-voices- on the plus side they're much clearer, something that had to change, but they're rather characterless. Peculiarly, the Cyber Planner still has the old voice. Oh, and the Cybermats are back!

The Doctor gets a medical, and interestingly there's no mention of a second heart. Gemma would have mentioned it, surely? It's good to have the Doctor back, and very quickly bonding with Zoe.

At last, halfway through part three, the plot starts! Hooray. Apparently the Cybermen are going to get the Cybermats to eat up all the Bernalium rods, so the Wheel's crew need to get some more from the rocket, where they're hiding. So, er, what would have happened if Jamie hadn't stopped it from being blown up? Plus, there are only two Cybermen plus the Planner, and all they seem to do is spout "as you know, Bob" style exposition at each other.

Jarvis is showing himself to be the biggest tit to command a base under siege yet. how long do we have to wait until the Cybermen kill him? Or do anything at all, come to think of it?



Part Four


"The Cybermen are here!"


Just as things seemed about to happen, the plot goes into hibernation again- the Cybermen's plan involves hiding in crates which are destined for the Wheel, thus entailing them doing sod all for ages. How exciting.

So, Jamie, who earlier in the story, operated an airlock with no problem, now turns out not to understand the concept of recorded sound? I can understand a little inconsistency over how much technology would be familiar to someone from 1746 who'd spent a year or so mainly in various time periods in his own future, but surely this is just plain sloppy?

I've been harsh on this story, I know- maybe it's my developing allergy to base under sieges, held in check by the undeniable excellence of the last couple of stories. But this is very slow, and consists mainly of dull characters doing dull things in dull corridors, with very little sense of threat from the extremely lethargic Cybermen and a threat from some meteors which never seems to actually materialise and which is scientifically a load of cobblers anyway.

Still, there are a couple of interesting points. The portrayal of working in space as actually rather dull sort of anticipates Alien. And I like the thematic contrast between Zoe and the Cybermen- Zoe's logical and emotionally repressed, and is coming to realise she'd rather feel things more and be less narrow in her thinking. Her desires are the exact opposite of the Cybermen.



Part Five



""I was trained to believe logic and calculation would provide me with all the answers."



So, Gemma wants to give Jarvis some electro-shock therapy?

At last, the meteors arrive! And, er, it's all very dull. Just lots of people shouting out numbers. And the Doctor sends Jamie and Zoe on a highly dangerous mission to get his Time Vector Generator back! This Doctor's still a manipulative, callous old sod at times.




Part Six


"I imagine you have orders to destroy me."


Some actual footage, on DVD no less, and it's immediately apparent that Jamie and Zoe are on wires! And, er, how exactly are they propelling themselves across space?

If I had a dirty mind, which of course I don't, I would have sniggered a bit at the Doctor's apparent mention of the "sexual air supply". And the Cybermen saying that "Effective penetration should be immediate." Still, such distractions are not actually needed to be able to watch this episode, as things are actually happening at last. We even get a wonderful Troughton scene in his confrontation with the two Cybermen. Unfortunately we also get Cybermen walking through space and flapping their arms for some reason, but at last we get an episode which at least manages to entertain.

How bizarre- the Doctor introduces Zoe to the Ship by showing her some clips from The Evil of the Daleks...



Overall... well, I didn't like that very much. Could you tell? I was surprised to see after I voted about half an hour ago that most people seemed to like it, but I just found it incredibly slow and dull, with the plot not even starting until halfway through. I was close to giving this a 1/5, but some good dialogue and the lovely Zoe just about raise it to a low 2/5.

Awful as this story was, though, it still doesn't prevent this otherwise excellent season from proving my favourite so far, with an average score of a highly impressive 4/5.