The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It

 "The unexpected but accurate bisecting of the Belgian foreign minister; the Royal College of Needlework massacre; the strange affair of the seven boiled bishops; and the man-eating poodle of Lambeth Palace enigma?"

This is, shall we say, somewhat obscure. A one-off ITV comedy thing, co-scripted by and starring John Cleese, and with his signature absurdist verbal humour all over it. It's not available anywhere officially, as far as I know, and will certainly never be seen on television again- it was 1977, and there's a little light racism on show here. But let's just say that YouTube happens to exist, shall we?

But damn, this is funny. Don't get me wrong, it's uneven, and it would be absurd to expect the plot to make sense. But there are some delightfully clever touches and, despite the fact it all looks extremely cheap, the performances are excellent. Atrthur Lowe steals the show as the most bumbling Watson ever, but Connie Booth is also hilarious as Mrs Hudson. And Denholm Elliott is, of course, his usual superb self.

It's also illuminating as to the world of 1977- the Chinese delegate to the Police of Five Continents meeting has Mao's Little Red Book; there's a hilarious spoof of both Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford; and there's a rather funny scene with a very 1970s computer. Oh, and there's a nicely casual skewering of all sorts of pop culture detectives.

This is not, by any means, one of the best things John Cleese has ever done. Some bits are funnier than others. But this is just so much fun to watch.

Jack the Ripper: The Highest in the Land?

 "You should see some of the names in the papers we haven't let you see..."

And so we have it... or do we?

The centrepiece of this final episode is the tale introduced to the world by Stephen Knight and then popularised by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell in the exquisite graphic novel From Hell. Essentially, no less a figure than Prince Albert Victor ("Prince Eddy"), Duke of Clarence and eldest son of the Prince of Wales and thus right in the line of succession to the throne, has an affair with a shopgirl, "marries" her, and hasa child by her... but she's a Catholic. And, should a royal be thought to even consider marrying a Catholic... well, the world could not stand it, and nor could the Act of Settlement 1701.

But the illicitly married couple had a servant... one Mary Kelly.The muders were all done to target her. The other four victims may have been cases of mistaken identity, or to make the killing look to have been done by a madman. And the killers were a combination of coachman John Netley and royal physician Sir William Gull.

All this is related by Joseph Gorman, or Sickert, the real person, not an actor. This is the same source used by Stephen Knight in his book just a few years later. It's gripping viewing.

Plausible? Well... Gull was seventy-one years of age, hardly matching the ages of the witness descriptions. He was also rather busy, in late 1888, being in the midst of the series of strokes that would soon kill him. Plus... Gorman would later retract his claims. I'm unconvinced.

This is fascinating telly, nonetheless. The Clevekand Street male brothel stuff, and the dramatised libel trial, complete with the very effete and very obviously gay man who seems to fit the popular image of Oscar Wilde, is a fascinating glimpse into the very alien values of an earlier age- the early 1970s almost as much as the late 1880s.

We end with the haunting suggestion that the cover-up continues to this day. I suspect the killer may not necessarily be as exalted as implied here... but, nevertheless, wow.

Jack the Ripper: Suspects

 "The Ripper played cricket?!!!"

Here I go again, with yet another Jack the Ripper. Fear not, though: tomorrow is Doctor Who, so it won'ty be five consecutive episodes in succession.

This continues to be entertaining stuff but, well, we get a series of lacklustre suspects all linked to czarist Russia, with even Rasputin getting a mention, before things start to get back on track. Still, this never fails to hold the attention and we do, at least, confirm the point that the relevant archival material is somewhat lacking.

Then we get to M.J. Druitt, a plausible-seeming suspect although, I'm sure, one of many... and we can never be sure whether or not he was a Freemason or not. And then off we go on a royal-themed tangent. That's it, although we do at least focus on the point that there must be a reason the Ripper stopped in November 1880 Did he die, move away, get himself committed to an asylum? Like the Freemasonry stuff, this is a point that needs to be explained.

The last two episodes, while good, haven't matched the gripping intensity and intelligence of their predecessors. Let's hope the same can't be said of the final episode.

Jack the Ripper: Panic

 "... and by that I mean the City of Oporto the port, not the City of Oporto, the ship."#

Ahem. Sorry, but this series is a Class A drug. I keep having to see the next one. I will continue with the other stuff I'm blogging, but it's getting hard to akternate as I'm getting so bloody addicted.

Things slow down a bit this episode as we explore the immediate reaction to both the murders and the failings of the police, both in Whitechapel and more widely. The format works really well here, with texts read out by actors portraying those writing them. This allows us to appreciate the pathos and the reality, These were people living not all that long ago, and not so very different from ourselves. The details of Mary Kelly's funeral are heartbreaking.

There's some dark comedy and some mockery of the casual racism of the time ("The Portuguese are notoriously darkened, villainous creatures"), and also an examination of the public fury against both the hapless Home Secretary in Salisbury's Government and the hopeless Sir Charles Warren, whose defence of this decision to wipe away the "Juwes" graffito- to prevent anti-Semitic violence- is almost convincing.

This episode essentially takes a break from the mystery and excitement in order to remind us of the human side of all this. Yes, it slows things down. But it's the right thing to do.

Jack the Ripper: Butchery

 "One does not need to be a Sherlock Holmes…”

This is fascinating stuff. We have the Freemasonry theories about the “Juwes” and clear hints of a desire from on high to cover up the murders, not least within the constabulary. We have Sir Charles Warren covering up the writing. We have a dodgy-seeming coroner and an absurd head of the CID who blames Jews rather than "Juwes".

We even have, from Watt, a fair amount of description of the actual Freemason mumbo jumbo, although not quite to the point of Jah-Bul-On. This is simply extraordinary: this is From Hell stuff, theories supposed to have first been aired by Stephen Knight in 1976. Yet here we are, a full three years earlier, and a nice bit of emphasis on the possible masonic nature of the rituals. I'm calling it: it's going to be Gull. I bet it is.

 Mind you, I'm well aware that all this Freemasonry stuff is far from universally accepted, and it's all rather murky, and that we're all supposed to suspect Charles Lechmere of being the Ripper these days. But, in 1973, this is cutting edge Ripperology.

This episode is extraordinary in the same way as its predecessors. And, er, yes, I know I'm not supposed to be blogging this today. I just had to see the next episode. Sorry! Defenders next time, definitely. Ahem.

Jack the Ripper: Double Event

 "Good at stopping riots, bad ar catching Rippers!"

The second episode is as gripping as the first, with the conceit of Barlow and Watt simply discussing things intelligently being utterly spellbinding television. Once again, this is a drama that does the job of a documentary, but the personalities of our two protagonists add so much more. We even get a dig, this being 1973, of Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher's recent milk snatching antics.

We follow on from the first two murders by looking up at the killing of "Long Liz" Stride, where the Ripper was interrupted, and the immediately following murder of Kate Eddoes, where the Ripper's grisly modus operandi was in full effect. There's much to interest us, from an analysis of descriptions to suggest the Ripper's appearance to speculation that he may not have been left handed after all.

Much is made of the distinction between the area covered by the Metropolitan Police, run by the authoritarian martinet Sir Charles Warren, he of Bloody Sunday the previous year, and the City of London Police, under Major Henry Smith, a seemingly more eloquent and thoughtful character.

Yet we end with something truly extraordinary as the pair discuss the famous graffito "the Juwes are the men who will not be blamed for nothing". The unusual spelling "Juwes" is said to refer to freemasonry, something familiar to those of us who have read Alan Moore's From Hell.... yet this idea is supposed to have begun with Stephen Knight's famous 1976 book. This is three years earlier, when the freemasonry suggestion was not supposed to have been posited. Wow.

I know: I'm supposed to be blogging The Defenders. Next blog post, honest. But I just couldn't wait.

Jack the Ripper: The First Two

 "A middle class Ripper...?"

Yes, I know, this is a fantastically obscure bit of telly. It's a drama, not a documentary, from 1973. It's a spin-off of a spin-off. Two popular detectives- Detective Superintendents Barlow and Watt from Softly Softly, a spin-off from Z-Cars (and no, I'm not going to blog those very old, mostly missing series!) spend the whole episode just investigating and discussing this very cold case, the documented statements from witnesses, police surgeons and the like being nicely dramatised. The effect is something that feels very much like a documentary, and a good one. But it isn't.

Stratford Johns and Frank Windsor are awfully good, excellent actors with loads of charisma. Even just the two of them intrelligently discussing the case is splendidly entertaining in itself, and that's before we get to the dramatised bits.

This is deeply engrossing. It doesn't neglect the social context of 1888- a time where women and boys are sent out of the room at the inquest as the Ripper's incisions to poor Annie Chapman's genitals are described, yet there are 80,000 prostitutes. There's a scene where Charles Booth describes the poverty of Whitechapel. And impressions begin to emerge. A left-handed killer, middle-aged. One with anatomical knowledge and the decidedly middle class of luxury to dispose of the blood from his clothes and so on. Yet a middle class man who would not look out of place in Whitechapel.

The format works brilliantly at acquainting us with details: instead of a dry narration, we get two senior detectives dicussing, debating, questioning the evidence intelligently. Why, for instance, was Annia Chapman killed at 5.25am, when day was well into the process of dawning, rather than earlier? Why such intricate ceremony, taking quite some time after each murder? I know not. But I'm already engrossed.

I, Clavdivs: Some Justice

"That child is a monster!"

This episode takes what is perhaps an unexpected turn as a courtroom drama unfolds. This courtroom drama has wider implications, though, and acts as an ingenious frame around which to explore Tiberius' early rule- he is bitter, resentful but not yet depraved or tyrannical in spite of the baleful presence of Sejanus. However, the elderly Claudius' narration at the beginning (a rare bit of narrative clumsiness) makes clear that this is to change after Germanicus' death.

And the death of the dutiful, popular, republican Germanicus shapes everything here, from the raging desire for revenge of his widow Aggripina on the parts of Piso and Plancina who, as we shall see, are guilty of persecution but not murder, and were acting on Tiberius' orders in any case. Unknown to all, the real killer is the infant Caligula, who horribly terrorised and murdered his father by poisoning and a superstition which the genuinely clever and civilised Romans simply accept, to the incredulity of Herod, speaking for our own culturally Judaeo-Christian worldview. Nevertheless, Aggripina want revenge and the crowd id with her, and it becomes slowly clear that the appearance of justice is only a figleaf for what is politically convenient. Piso must die to save Tiberius, and he becomes increasingly doomed as the episode progresses. Deliciously, Plancina manages to do a deal with Livia, still at the centre of the web, to save herself and her children, and ends up "assisting" her father's suicide. This is delightfully, entertaining cynical. And we Doctor Who fans get the added thrill of Lady Peinforte wanting Monarch dead.

We also see how, thankfully, Claudius now has friends in Aggripina, Castor, Herod and others and, while hardly a confidant of the Emperor, has a degree of respect. Antonia, of course, despises him as much as ever, wishing he had died instead of Germanicus. So does Livia, who is increasingly exasperating her son with her antics and whose scene with fellow poisoner Martina (Nursie from Black Adder II) is a hoot.

This episode essentially sets the scene for the new reign, then. Hugely enjoyable though it is, it hints at much depravity to come. Utterly superb, as though that needed saying.

Cromwell (1970)

"An England without a king is unthinkable!"

I watched this film principally because I wanted to see two great actors- Richard Harris and Alec Guinness- play two iconic roles from history; Oliver Cromwell and Charles I. And they are, indeed, magnificent. Their performances- Harris as a principled sociopath slowly descending into a dictatorial sociopath and Guinness as a politely arrogant congenital liar- are superlative and alone enough to make the film worth watching. The film succeeds brilliantly if seen as a character piece based on its broadly valid idea of Cromwell- a man who can honestly give everything for the supremacy of Parliament and then simply dismiss it when it does not live up to his expectations. For this reason the film succeeds as drama in spite of being so incredibly rush and in spite of its ending so suddenly.

And yet... no film set in the past can be historically accurate in full. I accept this. Events must be compressed into a shorter period of time and simplified to fit the medium of cinema. And yet... here we have Cromwell as one of those MPs whom Charles tries to arrest in January 1642. We have Cromwell present at Edgehill. We have the Earls of Essex and Manchester making speeches in the Commons. We even have arch-republican Henry Ireton (a shockingly young Michael Jayson) trying to persuade Cromwell to take the crown, in spite of having died during the (glossed over) Irish campaign in 1651. All this is a little much to swallow; these are not small things.

I'm also uncertain about the dialogue; a film set in the mid-seventeenth century should either use modern dialogue or contrive to use contemporary speech but contrive to favour those sentence constructions and that vocabulary that would be understood today, preferably the second. Instead we get a bizarre mish-mash of speech which mixes archaisms such as "withal" with modern coinings such as "international". The effect is clumsy and distracting.

Still, it all looks magnificent and, in the final analysis, it's all about the acting. And, judged by this criterion, the film is superb.

Blake's 7: Games

“Your survival is becoming more miraculous by the moment…”

Well, here’s another episode, and here’s another writer who’s unknown to me. Bill Lyons gives us a good, witty script though.

We get some exposition to start with; Avon and his crew are planning to rob an Unobtainium mine run by the Federation; simple enough. Except that this particular Unobtainium is magic, and produces huge amounts of energy at very little cost. It’s notable that, although this story ends with a load of it destroyed, the Federation are still mining another eight planets of the stuff. The subtext continues to be that the Federation are increasingly becoming quite worryingly powerful.

Isn’t Stratford Johns great? Belkov (naturally, the chess player has a Russian-sounding name) is such a fun character- a bit like Vila, but cooler and with more style. I love the booby traps / obstacle course protecting his ship, but the coolness of the character basically comes from Johns’ performance. I love his calm, scheming acceptance of the situation when he’s arrested by Servalan; his refusal to accept the situation and his insistence on bargaining with “Sleer” even seems to gain her grudging admiration. Also, the sheer bare-faced cheek he shows in playing our heroes and Servalan against each other is a joy to behold.

It’s interesting, incidentally, that chess has survived unaltered so far into the future as, although chess computers are apparently some way behind Deep Thought. It’s amusing that this world of interstellar travel and all sorts of marvels should be so far behind our own in this respect, but never mind! At least Gambit seems to have feelings, something beyond our ken, as we see at the end.

This is an episode which seems to return us to traditional Blake’s 7 values in many ways: Avon seems to be motivated essentially by greed, which seems a little inconsistent with his behaviour of late; the landing party is out of teleport range for much of the episode; and Avon even gets to practice his thieving skills, not once but three times. None of these things really seem to belong in this season, but it’s nice to see them all the same.

This is a nice, light-hearted episode, and rather leads me to expect much grimness in the near future. There is one horrific moment, though; we last see Gerren (always doomed to be a redshirt) quivering with fear as Servalan puts her gun in his mouth. It’s hard not to see this as symbolising another kind of violation, although the literal meaning is dark enough. The actor does a great job of portraying real, paralysing terror.

Back to lighter matters, though… isn’t the ‘80s amusement arcade near the end of the episode a fantastic piece of nostalgia? Soolin even acquires a rare couple of personality traits; she’s a crack shot and confident at taking risks to prove it. And Tarrant, of course, is a flight sim fan.

The twists at the end- no unobtainium on the ship, and the ultimate goal being death by black hole- is interesting, I suppose, but it loses something for not paying off anything established earlier. It fails to match the last episode in that respect. And the characterisations of the regulars don’t quite seem to fit in with their more recent development, however vague this development admittedly is. This is very much a standalone episode, then; light, fluffy and entertaining without really advancing the arcs or the characters. But there’s nothing wrong with that every now and then; this is our third good episode of the season. It may not end up such a bad season after all...

Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday

Part One

“How can Earthlings have penetrated us?”

Oh dear, Terence Dudley. I didn’t enjoy his K-9 and Company script very much. But incredibly he’s managed to produce a real gem with this story.

We begin with a spaceship drifting through space like an Imperial Star Destroyer. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for Season Seventeen. Then we move into the TARDIS for a scene which, with three companions, feels almost domestic in its familiarity. Suddenly this TARDIS crew feels fully established, with Adric flying the Ship (he’s being shown a lot more trust by this new Doctor) and Tegan wanting to get back to Heathrow.

The Doctor leaves the TARDIS to explore, in a charming scene with the strange Monopticon- something which would have seemed far more sinister at the time than it does in today’s CCTV infested age. Instantly the new Doctor feels fully-established, and it’s clear he’s going to be great. Already he’s the Doctor. 

Unfortunately, the scenes with the three companions inside the TARDIS are a complete contrast to this. Tegan has a right whinge, really annoying me for the first time, while Adric takes his utter gittery to heights undreamed of as he announces that “That’s the trouble with women. Mindless, impatient and bossy.” This raises even Nyssa’s heckles; there’s a definite sense that this is the story during which she slowly comes to the settled conclusion that Adric is an utter pillock.

The Doctor dangles a spare key around in a moment that feels very low key post “New Series”. The TARDISeers disembark, watched by Monarch, played magnificently by Stratford Johns. He’s a great villain, with eminently quotable dialogue, right from the start. And there are plenty of opportunities for banter between him and the Doctor from the very start. Instantly this story feels fun in a way no story since The Horns of Nimon (or Shada) really has.

It’s 1982, and at last we get the first reference to punk rock in Doctor Who! Apparently the Doctor thinks that wearing safety pins is “barbaric”. Grr! Tegan, on the other hand, seems to prefer the Spandau Ballet look. How very contemporary. 

Meanwhile, further 80s pursuits abound as Adric plays Manic Miner in the TARDIS, bored with Nyssa’s company. Eventually he tires of such pleasures and appears before Monarch, to be heralded as “the boy who got his sums wrong.” Monarch’s dialogue in this scene is all somehow rendered hilarious by Johns’s performance.

After a pleasant chat Monarch dismisses everyone and sods off to have a look at the TARDIS. He is most put out at its refusal to yield to his instruments. Meanwhile our heroes meet the ships motley crew of “Earthlings”. It feels wrong for the Doctor to be describing them as such. And when Adric asks for someone to “pass the sodium chloride please”, clarified by the Doctor as salt, I’m reminded of the educational element of the early Hartnells, and in fact the whole script seems to have a Hartnellesque feel. Of course, it also reminds me of the unfunny Doctor Who “spoof” in the finale of Extras.

Part Two

“Ah, the flesh time!”

It’s odd to have a story which is carried along by intrigue rather than actual peril, but this is gripping all the same. We’re fed bits of information gradually, mainly through Bigon, and he’s an interesting character- rational, sceptical, much tried and rather depressed. We also get this Doctor’s first historical namedrop (Drake) and this era’s first big historical error, that the Mayans existed eight thousand years ago.

There’s more Hartnellesque educativeness with Bigon’s gratuitous mention of photosynthesis, and lots of bizarrely Blue Peter-esque cultural displays. But it all works rather well, however strange and unusual in style it may be for a Doctor Who story at this point.

The revelations continue, all relevant to the story, culminating in the hoplite surviving being stabbed to the heart and Bigon’s revelation that he’s not flesh and blood but in fact an android in the Android Invasion style. Again, no real threat to our heroes, but a magnificent cliffhanger once again.

Part Three

 

“Love?”

“The exchange of two fantasies, your majesty.”

Monarch “explains” the situation to Nyssa and Adric and, before our very eyes, Adric proceeds to leap headlong over a carnivorous fish of the genus Carcharhinus. At least in State of Decay his apparent betrayal was an apparent ruse; here, he is simply being an utter git. And possibly worse than anything is his cheap shot at Nyssa over the Master and her father, which just might be a bit of a sensitive subject.

Sadly, for the first time, Tegan starts to become annoying, panicking and trying to get to the TARDIS for no reason. Only the character’s third story and already she’s being written badly. Still, there are positive aspects to this; the Doctor’s failure to convince her reminds us that this Doctor has far less charisma or gravitas than his predecessor, something he finds frustrating, and this is already becoming a character point. Best of all, of course, is that Tegan hits Adric in the face and knocks him unconscious. I suddenly like her again.

The cliffhanger to this episode, with the Doctor about to be beheaded, is incredibly the first time any of the TASRDISeers are placed in any danger whatsoever. And yet the story has been intriguing, gripping and above all fun.

Part Four

“You may keep the pencil.”

There’s an allusion to the previous era as the Doctor is asked to turn out his pockets, a scene which symbolises that there are things which have changed (a cricket ball rather than a yo yo) but also things which haven’t (the piece of string is something I can imagine Tom carrying). The following scene, in which the Doctor admonishes Adric for being such a complete and total utter git, also throws light on what has changed. Tom wouldn’t have had all this trouble keeping the brat in line. But this apparent weakness of the Doctor actually works well in developing his character; old, wise, but cursed with a young and unprepossessing appearance which leads others to underestimate him. I’m sure there’ll be many changes but Davison’s Doctor seems fully formed at this point. Oh, and Davison was several years younger than I am now when he filmed this, which is in no way scary.

The whole stuff with the cricket ball in space is fab (sod the physics of it, it’s great!) and we get a satisfying ending with Monarch hoist by his own frog poison. 

I’ve always been extremely fond of Four to Doomsday. I know most other fans don’t feel the same, but this is the story which roused my fandom from a semi-inert state when I recorded it from UK Gold in 1997. My mate and I would quote reams of Monarch’s dialogue for weeks. Next week came Kinda, and I was hooked again for good. I was worried this viewing would spoil it for me and it wouldn’t be as good as before, but I should have had more faith. I don’t care that the history is dodgy or the plot doesn’t really make sense- this is the most fun I’ve had with a Doctor Who story since The Horns of Nimon. 5/5.