Not enough hours in a day...

It's probably not escaped your notice (it certainly hasn't escaped mine) that I've not been posting a lot recently. I'm not going to make up excuses for why I've not been active; other than the fact that I've not been able to keep with with the blog when finished with my homework schedule.

I'm going on Holiday for a week so there's little chance of me updating anything while I'm there, but when I get back I hope to write another triple-bill Doctor Who review with The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People and A Good Man Goes To War.

Heading towards summer my schedule should start to free up a bit. You'll hopefully be getting reviews of Lost, which is beginning to wrap up, Being Human Series 1-2 and an overview of this series of Psychoville.

Thanks.

Review: Lost 4.10: Something Nice Back Home

Jack supervises his own operation.

My main problem with both Jack and Kate is simply that they're either not doing anything particularly interesting or they're being incredibly unlikeable in a variety of ways. Both of these things are true in this episode, whose main focus is yet again the series' tiresome Love Quadrangle between Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Juliet. However, quite like the last Kate episode, Something Nice Back Home provides us with some other useful distractions to keep us interested. And, with only four episodes of this season left to go, it needs to.
     In the future (after Eggtown and The Beginning of the End but before the Season Three finale), it turns out that Jack is living with Kate and is helping to raise Aaron. They're quite cosy; Jack's starting to take a few pills, but otherwise everything fine and dandy. Upon his request, Jack visits Hurley who tells him that he now believes that the six are in Purgatory, that they died on the island. He says he knows this because Charlie has been talking to him in visions, and has asked Hurley to pass on a message - that Jack shouldn't be raising his child.
     Jack is a little freaked out but he tries to keep it off his mind. Later, Jack proposes to Kate and she accepts.  That night, at the Surgery where he works, Jack goes to fix a faulty fire alarm and sees a hallucination of his father, as predicted by Hurley. Completely stressed, Jack hits the pills and the bottle, heading home. The following night Kate returns home to find Jack drunk on the sofa. He probes her about why she's been late the past few nights, and after some coercing she reveals, frightened, that she was running a last errand for Sawyer. Jack goes off on one, telling her that Sawyer made his choice to stay and that Kate isn't even related to Aaron.
     I've never really liked Jack's character. Every character needs flaws but there's nothing really redeeming to go with Jack's daddy issues, and his main system of belief (that science is the way forward) is shattered by the series end. And just think; considering my general opinions on the vapidness of Kate's character, realise that this episode manages to make her seem like the vicitm! Jack's behaviour in this episode casts a long shade of doubt over the series finale, which settles the insipid quadrangle by pairing these two together.

Jin confronts Charlotte on her eavesdropping.

     The present storyline isn't much better either, a series of events driven by inconsistent quadrangle stroking. On the beach, we pick up where we left off with Jack collapsing after confronting Daniel. Jack manages to wake up and settle the survivors, telling them not to get too angry about it, before collapsing again. Although Jack tries to shrug it off as a stomach bug, Juliet confronts him and says that they both know that he has apendicitus. Jack says that she can operate; on condition that he can assist via use of a mirror.
    Jin, Sun, Charlotte and Daniel are sent off to the The Staff (a medical station left by the island's previous inhabitants) and Jin realises that Charlotte can understand Korean and has been eavesdrpping on all their conversations. He makes a deal with her to do whatever she can to get pregnant Sun off the island in exchange for keeping Charlotte's secret.
     Jack insists that Kate (whom he's suddenly decided he loves) has to be by his side during the operation. In practice it doesn't go well, and Juliet sedates him and finishes the job herself. While Jack sleeps, Juliet and Kate talk, with Juliet telling her that, "that kiss was for you."
     The only interesting thing about this side of the storyline was the interaction between Jin and Charlotte, which was some fun character development for what is an otherwise undeveloped character. Again, I abhor this romantic nonsense and it really added nothing of any value to the episode.
     Elsewhere in the present, and Sawyer, Miles and Clare (with Aaron in tow) are wandering back to the beach. Nothing much really happens in this side of the storyline, but there's some interesting character work. Sawyer acts like a protective big brother and warns Miles not to talk to Claire. Miles discovers the corpses of Rousseau and Karl in shallow graves using his powers. The night after having to hide from Keamy's group moving thrugh the forest, Claire disappears after seeing her father (who just happens to be Jack's father, too) leaving nothing but a baby behind.

Sawyer gets protective over Claire.

     Claire's disappearance has always really bugged me - in Season Four the issue is forgotten and in Season Five it's never spoken of; when the character returns in Season Six she's a gun-toting lunatic. Way to ruin the character, writers! I know Claire wasn't the most exciting person in the world - her main arc was about motherhood and with Charlie, both of which were were running thin. I just think that the haphazard way in which she was temporarily offed was rather opaque; mysterious for the sake of being mysterious.
     Something Nice Back Home is strangely captivating despite its many flaws - notably its reliance on the show's romantic angle as a structure, which offers very little narrative tension. Where the episode tried its best o stray from that, it provided some mediocre entertainment in the meantime. It's a shame that Lost's "protagonists" are its weakest characters; Ben and Locke were absent here for the first time in a while,and it really shows. All of this extra stuff had to happen while they were busy, I suppose, but it doesn't make for captivating watching. We've only four episodes left, and I can tell you that Jack's apendix is not a key part of this season's arc...

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who 6.2-4: Day of the Moon, Curse of the Black Spot and The Doctor's Wife

Spoilers will always follow.

Season 32 / Series 6, Episode 2 - Day Of The Moon

More like an episode of drama Twin Peaks than Doctor Who, this conclusion to the premier made Monty Python look like Have I Got News For You. The solution, of what little existed, was controvertial and the way in which the episode neglected it for more soap-opera moments got collossally tiring.
     Picking up three months after the premier, and Canton is chasing the companions around the US, killing them whereever he goes and bringing them back in body bags. The Doctor, locked up, is being trapped in a small prison made of white-dwarf-star-alloy, which is the densest substance in the Universe. Once the bodybags and Canton are locked into the prison, they awaken from the body bags in what turns out to have been an elaborate ruse to escape the Silence. Piling into a conveniently hidden TARDIS, the five discuss their progress in tracking the Silence. The Doctor inject's everyone's hands with microphones so as to allow them to make a recorded description of the creatures before they forget them. Trying to find the little girl from the spacesuit, Canton and Amy are sent off to a creepy children's home while The Doctor hacks into Apollo 11 and places a microphone system there, too.
     Amy discovers entire rooms of the Silence at the children's home as well as what appears to be the child's room; it features pictures of the child, as well as one of Amy holding a baby. Canton shoots one of the Silence and holds him captive, shortly after which they abduct Amy, just in time for The Doctor, River and Rory to arrive. 

    Tracking her back, The Doctor finds The Silence at one of their underground bases and reveals his plan. Canton had asked the wounded Silent what Humanity should do, and then recorded it saying "You should kill us on sight" The Doctor, receiving this recording, implanted it into the broadcast of Apollo Eleven, turning it into one massive subliminal message encouraging the human race to destroy the Silence. He encourages them to run. After River gets into an over-long and gratuitous gun-fight with the Silence, the five leave. Canton is dropped off at the White House, River at Stormcage and the three go off on their merry way. Concerned about Amy's uncertainty regarding her pregnancy, The Doctor does a scan that seems to reveal that she is both pregnant and not pregnant in a Schondinger's Cat way. Meanwhile, in an American back alley, the Girl from the suit regenerates.
     Of course, turning the entire human race into a subliminally drived army doesn't really place The Doctor anywhere on the moral high-ground. Oh, it's awfully clever, for sure. And to be honest, it's not that out of place with The Doctor's character, but it doesn't sit easily on my stomach. (Although that might be the bug I've had this past week.) The episode is still good, and provides a lot of food for thought, but some of the more gratuitous and soap-opera like scenes, as well as this contant feeling of repetition, are starting to get to me.

Season 32 / Series 6, Episode 3 - The Curse of the Black Spot

Guest stars Hugh Bonneville and Lily Cole arrive to mark the first stand-alone story since last year's The Lodger, which despite still soaked in this series' darker themes manages to be a little more fun than the premier. I think you have to make sure that your turn into serious drama doesn't go over the top, which I think this series is doing; instead it seems melodramatic and ridiculous to an extent that makes me uncomfortable. The companions are starting to really wear and for me, at least, their appeal is running thin.
     Not following directly on from last week, the Tardis Three find themselves on a 16th Century pirate ship anchored in the middle of the ocean, its crew plagued by a "demon" known as the Siren (played through blue-screen by supermodel Lily Cole) who seems to destroy anyone ill or injured after automatically marking them with a black spot. Soon Rory is "marked" and the pirates (led by troubled Captain Avery, Hugh Bonneville) stock up downstairs. Believing that she can travel by water, they hide in the powder room, but the Doctor's encounter with Pirate treasure shows that the Siren can travel through any reflection. Pirates disappear left, right and centre until Rory and then the three survivors are "killed". Awakening on what appears to be an alien ship, The Doctor realises that the sixteenth century ship crashed into a future ship parked in the same spot, and so the ship's automatic healing hologram (the "Siren") went around abducting and taking care of the human sailors. There's a terribly melodramatic climax where Rory for some reason relies on Amy alone to give him CPR, and then both the pirate crew, on the alien ship, and the Tardis three, fly off.

     This was, disappointingly, an episode that hung more off of its ideas than its plot. The character movements were dull and the plot revelations came in a jarring and splintered form that almost certainly writes this off as a one-view. However, those ideas were captivating enough in themselves to justify this to an extent. True, especially, for our main guest star, Hugh Bonneville, whose character is an interesting addition and slightly more realistic (despite the more piratey overtones) than Canton. Oh, and Rory dies again. I really, really didn't care.
      My opinion is an unpopular one to say the least, but I really couldn't help but enjoy this week's more straightforward tale to last week's labyrinthine abyss. It has its problems, and it may seem disappointing when compared to the last forthnight's premier, but I think it has a hell-of-a-lot of charm.

Season 32/Series 6, Episode 4 - The Doctor's Wife


The Doctor and Idris (promotional picture)

Fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, a known Doctor Who fan, delivers us an enchanting and poignant episode this week that stands out amongst this series' trappings so far. Originally intended for the previous series in place of The Lodger, the episode does feel a lot like series Five, except this time it can take a little more pleasure in its indulgences now that the Tardis is out of danger.
     Upon collecting a small box, The Doctor immediately identifies it as a Time-Lord distress call belonging to The Corsair, a renegade whose calling card was a tattoo of the Ouroboros. Following the signal, they pass through a rift into a bubble universe containing only one, very dense, asteroid. Upon landing they meet the mad Idris (the stunning Suranne Jones), who calls The Doctor "her thief", two weird-looking people named Aunt and Uncle (Adrian Schiller, of Being Human fame, and Elizabeth Berrington, who last played Ruby on Waterloo Road.) and a green-eyed Ood named Nephew. Aunt and Uncle reveal that the asteroid is occupied by a green sentient mass known only as House (voiced by the magnificent Michael Sheen), who can possess Aunt, Uncle and Nephew as well as "fix them when they break."
     Amy and Rory are unwittingly locked back into the Tardis by a concerned Doctor, who investigates further to find that any Time Lords he thought lived here were long dead. Examining Aunt and Uncle, he finds that they are "patchwork people," made up of the bodies of dead Time Lords that House has lured here. Fascinated by Idris's previous ramblings, he finds her locked up and she reveals that her mind contains the sentient matrix of The Doctor's Tardis, which House has now possessed and is flying off with Amy and Rory inside. House eats Tardises, but he has to get rid of the immensely powerful core before he can even try, so he places the core into a human body so it can fizzle out safely. This time, however, House knows that there are no more Tardises left, and so has gone off to find more food in the Outer Universe.

     Argueing with the now-sentient Tardis about various things ranging from which way the doors are supposed to open and how reliable it is, the two recreate a Tardis console out of scraps of Tardis left on the planet's surface. Meanwhile in the Tardis, House is torturing Amy and Rory by making them run through the Tardis corridors and essentially mind-rapes Amy into believing that Rory has died. Again. Idris and The Doctor, ready to set off, send a telepathic signal to Rory telling them to go to one of the Secondary Control Rooms, which in this case is the Tardis used in RTD's era, a welcome return. The two materialise just in time, and The Doctor bluffs House into deleting the old console room just before Idris finally dies, unable to support the Tardis matrix. However, this redeposits them back into the main console room, where the Tardis Matrix returns to the ship's core and essentially eats House.

Nephew keeps Idris captive.

     The most essential contribution that this episode makes is to finally settle the nature of the Tardis's consciousness, showing that the Tardis stole him by deliberately leaving itself unlocked. Suranne Jones' manic and often loving portrayl made it all the more poignant when she had to return to the console, revealing a side of the Doctor's relationship with the Tardis that we've never really seen before. This, combined with the episode's myriad of well-placed references to the Classic series and to Time Lord mythology (aparrently Time Lords can traverse gender with their regenerations.)

     For the first time this series, the episode left me excited for next week; maybe it's because I'm a real who fan and I loved all of the little references, but I also think that even Not-We can appreciate this episode's magic and potentcy. It was complex in a delightful way and most importantly, the complxity payed off for a powerful finale.

Thanks.

List: The Top Five Songs I Hate (At The Moment)

You all know that here at Audenshaw Reviews I like to keep things positive (with a few exceptions). I don't like pain, and so I try to avoid reviewing anything that's actively or offensively bad, but I can't help but find these things in daily life. Especially in the horrendous modern music scene. So here, to apologise for my lack of posts due to illness, are my least favourite five songs in the charts, or about to enter the charts, at the moment.

5.) Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennett and Goonrock




Not all of the songs on this list are wrong, offensive or necessarily bad. I'd never heard of the brashly named LMFAO before this rather quite clever song, and I probably won't hear of them again. The video is very clever, and the song does fit its purpose as a dance track, as the nearly eponymous title suggests. However, you didn't read this article to here why I liked these songs.
     The simple fact is that this song is on every UK music channel at several times throughout the day. It's on the mainstream radios, it's on soaps and on supermarket song-systems. And, being a dance song, it's fairly repetitive. To make a long story short; I'm sick of it. I'm sick of hearing it, I'm sick of hearing about it. It's the Number One at the moment, and like many other tracks before it it suffers from crippling over-playing. I never, repeat, never want to hear this song ever again.

4.) Wonderman - Tinie Tempah ft. Ellie Goulding



Ah, Ellie. I've reviewed some of her music before; in my last review I was wondering whether she was heading in the wrong direction, trying to feed the populist market after her less than stellar chart history. Here she proves my point exceptionally by lending her talents to the modern British superstar, Tinie Tempah.
     I don't usually find Mr.Okogwu so offensive; I actually liked his two Number Ones, "Pass Out" and "Written in the Stars." They weren't perfect, by any means, but they were well constructed and pandered to the modern chart-music audience. Here, however, Okogwu decides here to simulatenously boast and whine about his newfound fame in a song disguised, at least in the chorus, as one about a comic-book superhero down on his luck. Apparently his main advice is that, "when the fans start grabbing you, Show gratitude with a little brag or two." Need I say more?
     Also, the video gives us no context as to exactly why blowing up a building is a heroic act. Could be an arsonist for all we know. Luckily enough, the structure of the song is decent enough and it's perfectly listenable... if you don't focus too much on the lyrics.

3.) On The Floor - Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull



It was Number One over here, guys. Pitbull. This walking insult to modern pop music releases a song with a washed out popstar, and the wise people of the UK decided to put it to number one, giving a boost to both of their careers.
     The song's lyrics are, of course, vapid and empty. This is a club song, a song mass-produced for no other purpose than to facilitate the gyrations of several drunk and sweaty people in dark, expensive night-clubs across the country. I think we can all accept that this is not a song that starts out with any reputation for musical integrity. I think what clinches the real hatred for me is the crippling repetition of the main verses, which make it often akin to fingers drawn down a blackboard.


2.) The Lazy Song - Bruno Mars 


I'll say it now; I thought Bruno Mars was actually quite a promising star when he appeared onto the British Charts in the Summer of 2010. He wasn't annoying, and his songs felt like genuine, modern love ballads with some real point to them. His collaboration with B.O.B, "Nothin' On You," was a favourite of mine during the summer, and felt like the best love song the other side of the Pond had produced in quite a while.
     Then, for some reason, Mars released "Grenade," a whiney song whose hyperbolic, logic-bomb melodrama made it unbearable. It wasn't, however, particularly hateful, unlike this entry. The Lazy Song is cocky, arrogant and irritating, taking an appropriately laidback track and inverting it with lyrics so horrible that they beggar belief.


Tomorrow I'll wake up, do some P90X
Find a really nice girl, have some really nice sex
And she's gonna scream out
This is great
(Oh my god, this is great)

What a long way we've come from, "You look amazing, just the way you are." I could accept that this was tongue-in-cheek, but that's no excuse to be so obnoxious and cockey about it. This, and the song's inane video, means that this song makes my skin crawl. Also, it's Number effing Two on the UK charts. Pull yourself together, UK.

1.) Bass Down Low - Dev



We're here, ladies and gentlemen. The song that inspired the list, a horrific American splodge that insults the neurons and destroys the eardrums. A sequel of sorts to the equally vapid "Like A G6," Bass Down Low takes the abject stupidity of that record and manages to fully drain it of any miniscule positives. 
      Its similarities to G6 are immediately apparent; the bassline is identical and Dev's contributions to that earlier track help to imbue this opus with much of its familiar obnoxious arrogance. That, of course, coupled with both songs' meaningless lyrics, tinged with only the slightest smudge of relevance. Dev claims with some confidence that any possible suitors of hers must be aware that, "I like my beats fast and my bass down low." And? What does that have to do with anything? The irony is especially apparent; the song's tempo is surprisingly casual and the bass isn't particularly lower than any other song I've heard recently.
      Of course, to any American readers this is old news; the song dropped out of the charts there with a peak of #64. But the song is currently in my native charts in the UK, climbing because of an impromtu remix with that omnipresent figure, Tinie Tempah. I can only hope it goes the same way as in the States. 

And that was my Top (Bottom?) Five Songs I Hate. I hope that the above songs haven't offended your sensibilities too much, as they offended mine. 

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That Doctor Who review will appear some time next week, as either three seperate articles or as one bumper-review covering Day of the Moon, Curse of the Black Spot and the highly anticipated The Doctor's Wife. I also hope to finish Lost 4.10 and maybe take a glance at Being Human 1.4, but I'm making no promises whatsoever. 


Thanks.

Review: Being Human 1.3

Gilbert helps Annie find out her Unfinished Business.

We're at the half-way point in the first series, and the character arcs are developing nicely. This week is mainly Annie focussed, and she quickly proves to be one of the series' more interesting characters - assisted, this week, by the appearance of an interesting guest who helps make a big revelation about her storyline. Similar to last week's storyline, perhaps, but does it work?
    In an attempt to help Annie cheer up, Mitchell introduces Annie to 80s Guru Gilbert, who's been a ghost for 20 years. For a while his old-fashioned and alternative attitudes simply bore Annie, but he soon helps her to realise that she has unfinished business to resolve. She interprets this as trying to do the things for Owen, her fiancee, that she was unable to do due to her death - notably, being his wife. She helps out around his house but he doesn't notice, and is visibly shocked when Annie leaves him a message on a mirror. Following Owen on his private visit to the flat, she watches as Owen retreives a thong stuck in the piping system - and suddenly Annie remembers why she fell down the stairs. Owen had found the thong and accused Annie of adultery; he pushes her in a fit of jealous rage. After Annie discovers this she goes into a quiet depression. Gilbert comforts her and reveals that he now knows that his unfinished business was having never loved, and now he has fallen in love with Annie. He notices his Door to the afterlife, and moves on.
     Gilbert (Alex Price, who has made appearances on Doctor Who and narrates Doctor Who Confidential) is an interesting character to witness on screen; a sort-of satirical parody of 80s music snobs; notably scoffing at a DJ on an 80s night for playing something released in 1990. His character, and its subtle complexity (albeit not a subtle parody) are a demonstration of how seriously the series takes character at this point. By the end, I cared for Gilbert, and was glad that he passed in peace. Yes, he's probably just a plot device to introduce the concept of the Door, but that just further illustrates my point.

Nina and George share a kiss.

     This plotline also saw Owen's transformation from distressed everyman to creepy murderer, a change carefully choreographed throughout the episode and building up to the reveal. Again, it's nice to see such complex character work - a few words here or there change everything.
     The other main plot was George's ongoing relationship with Nina. He invites her back to his flat and they have a tense date before moving upstairs, where George feels unable to "perform" for fear of hurting her with his pre-werewolf agression; something she interprets as a different problem. The day after, on the actual full moon, he avoids Nina. When she corners him, on his way to transform, and starts discussing ways to get around what she perceives as his "problem," he takes her and they have sex before he runs out to transform.
     Aside from a few snarks from Annie and Mitchell, this subplot provided most of the episode's comedy; George at this point designated the series' comic relief character, mainly because of Russell Tovey's passion for melodrama. The main jokes in this episode were based on jokes about comparing werewolf-based-fear to premature ejaculation; the humour may have just worn off over time, but I didn't find it that funny when I viewed it yesterday; it seemed a bit juvenile.
     Once again left on the back foot, Mitchell's plotline saw him try to help Lauren. He confronts her about the tape, confessing that he liked it a bit, and after a blood-filled sex party he talks her through trying to give up blood; vampires require the life from the blood, so blood from other vampires, and from hospitals, won't work. After feeling rejected, Lauren runs into Seth and goes back to Herrick. Annabel Scholey's performances are consistantly zany and interesting, but the subplot on the whole wasn't as active as the others. It did, however, flow into the others in a cohesive and funny way.

Gilbert sees something nice through the Door.

     So; from a technical point of view, much the same as last week - a character meets someone who helps them to work out the wrinkles of their condition while revealing something fundamental about what caused it in their individual circumstances. Aside from Mitchell, there's a comic-relief plot lumbering along n the background All good. But, of course, this week the contrasts at play were much sharper - the main plot had a more sombre edge to it and the comic-relief seemed more garish as if to compensate.
     1.3 is a showcase for the series' complex characters, and portrayed a somewhat chilling portrayl of an abusive relationship being held from public view. On the other hand, its subplots were extravagent and over-the-top in an attempt to keep the series to a comedy focus, something that I think is unnecessary. A good episode, all in all, but don't hurt yourself on the sharp edges.

Thanks.

New Timetable

Since I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things, I'm going to be changing my review schedule. I'll be resurrecting my Super Sundays feature, this time mainly written and/or posted on Saturday. The weekend will also have a review of that week's episode of Doctor Who, and I'm planning on reviewing some of the classic serials when that half-series is over. Lost will be reviewed on Fridays and if I get the chance, Being Human  will be reviewed on Mondays.
    May's Super Sundays will be on the topic of Life Stories; inspirational stories that look at people's lives, however extraordinary (or fictional). Films covered this month will be Big Fish, about the adventures of Edward Bloom, Catch Me If You Can, the true story of con-artist Frank Abignale, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the curious case of Benjamin Button, Riding In Cars With Boys, based on the autobiography of Beverly Donofrio, and The Aviator, the story of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes. 
     I hope that you'll enjoy the next six weeks of my lineup. As usual, my posts will be posted on the Facebook page and @AudenSReviews on Twitter. 

Thanks.

Review: Lost 4.9: The Shape of Things to Come

Ben confronts Keamy over the phone.

After last week's exposition hoedown, we return to the action with a Ben-centric episode. Ben is one of the show's greatest anti-heroes/villians, his marvellously scheming ways hidden behind a somewhat pathetic exterior. This episode takes a look at his role in the island's power-struggle, while reducing him down to his bare, human core. It also returns to the flash-forward device, here used to forshadow the finale.

     The mercenaries take their hostage, Ben's daughter Alex, to the Sonic Fence around the Barracks where Locke's group is staying. In dearming the fence she sends a signal to Ben, who immediately barricades his house with everyone except Sawyer and Clare inside, telling them that they're coming. The mercenaries start by showing the barracks with bullets and bombs; Sawyer only just manages to save Clare and get her back into the house. They send in Miles with a phone connected to mercenary leader Martin Keamy, who gives Ben an ultimatum. After Ben uses the knowledge he aquired from Michael on the boat, Keamy threatens to kill Alex if he doesn't come out. Trying to bluff him out of it, Ben claims that she is nothing to him before Keamy shoots her in the back of head. Shocked at what he considers an act of war from his enemy, Charles Widmore (the owner of the Freighter), Ben summons The Monster to destroy most of the mercenaries, before going off with Locke and Hurley to find the Cabin, where the Island's mysterious leader Jacob is said to live.

The group watch The Monster at work.

     Our flashforward starts with Ben waking up in the Tunisian desert, wearing heavy Arctic gear. After an encounter with two angry natives, he steals a camel and checks into a nearby hotel. Seeing the death of Sayid's wife Nadia, he goes off to Iraq during her funeral to track down her murderer, an agent of Charles Widmore. Sayid confronts him, at first believing him to be paparazzi. Ben tells him about Widmore's agent, and later on Sayid kills him. In a neat lead back into The Economist, Sayid swears to kill the rest of the Widmore agents involved in Nadia's death and in the faked ruins of 815. Later Ben travels to London and confronts Widmore in his penthouse apartment, saying that he has broken the rules of their conflict and that his daughter, Penny, is going to die.

    In Jack's camp, the body of the Freighter's doctor washes ashore and Faraday sends a telegraph asking what's going on. They reply that the Doctor is fine, and when an ill Jack questions Faraday he admits that it was never his intention to help them leave the island. Ok; boring. We did this a few weeks ago. It was just as fun.

    I've said for a while that the scene, from this episode, leading up to Alex's death is a great example of a man breaking down. This was the first time that things really went against Ben's plan, and it's immediately visible in simply his facial expression; for the first time he is feeling a deep-seated grief, and an unexpected one at that. In past weeks I've said how much I admire Michael Emerson's acting, but here he really goes above and beyond to present a very three-dimensional human being. Everyone else just seems exemplary; other notable turns come from Jake Holloway as Sawyer, who takes the action of the episode well, and Tania Raymonde does a nice breakdown. The Jack storyline, meanwhile is getting a little tired and trite at this point. Nothing of real interest is happening, and the exciting time-travel aspects of that plotline are almost punctuative. 

Ben awakens in Tunisia

     While I love Emerson's acting and the episode's examination of his character, the episode needs that something extra to keep it on top. Ben was forced to play both adventurer and exposition, with other characters reduced to question-asking blanks. I think it's yet another testament to Emerson that he can hold up an episode like this and I'm still draw back to watch it again and again.

Thanks.

Review: Doctor Who 6.1: The Impossible Astronaut

The Eponymous Astronaut

Doctor Who returns with an episode with as many faults as it has highlights, a somewhat tangled mess of ideas that won't really pay off until next week; for the first time in NuWho the series is starting with a two-partner. Steven Moffat throws us another timey-wimey plot with some weird aliens, but certain sensationalist and blatantly promotion-based sequences ruin it. Spoilers follow.
     The Doctor, through a series of envelopes, invites Amy, Rory and River to the middle of Utah in 2011, several months after the last episode. They chat and have a picnic, during which a spaceman walks out of the nearby river and kills this Doctor stone dead. After mourning, the companions burn his body on a pyre and go back to the nearby diner, where they find that the Doctor also invited his younger self in an attempt to save himself. Having already seen an old man named Canton Everett Delaware III, who was invited to the "wake," they head back to 1969 with a mistrusting younger Doctor in tow. They end up landing in the Oval Office with the younger Canton, who is being briefed by President Richard Nixon about phone calls he is receiving from a creepy little girl.
      Meanwhile, Amy goes to the bathroom feeling queasy and finds a horrific alien that she finds she can't remember if she looks away (having seen it at the wake). It kills another woman (who we learn from the alien was called Joy) and it tells Amy to tell The Doctor her message. Leaving, she forgets. Returning, the Doctor traces the phone call and the companions, plus Canton, bundle into the Tardis and end up in a warehouse near Cape Kennedy. Having far too many companions with far too little to do, Rory and River go off through some tunnels, discovering (and forgetting ) more of the aliens and then finding what looks like the attempted Tardis from The Lodger. (Same prop/set? I don't know.) Upstairs, the astronaut appears, Amy reveals that she's pregnant and then shoots the intruder, who is shown to be the creepy little girl.

A "Silent".

     The episode's characterisation efforts were mainly companion based, developing River, who has some sad suspicions about her death (which we've already seen) and Amy, who after regaining her parents is a little more psychologically stable. This left our semi-eponymous hero a little out of it, what with his death in the first ten minutes. He came off a little smug and manic at times, and never got a chance to put his skills to good use. Matt Smith was trying his best, however, especially in the scene where he questions his companions on their sudden sadness at his appearance.
     Canton Everett Delaware III is an interesting side-character in that for some reason he's treated like a one-off companion, something we really could do without when The Doctor's got three in tow already. Canton's few moments for characterisation paint him as a stereotypically smarmy US agent, thrown out of the FBI for wanting to get married. Mark Sheppard plays him to perfection, and on his own is an exciting addition to the cast.
     This episode's villians, The Silents, have been argued over since the beginning of Series Five. Here they present an interesting idea for a villian, but it all feels a little samey when compared to Moffat's previous evils - creatures that do things when you're not looking, and things that affect one's memory. 

President Nixon takes the phone call.

     The whole timey-wimey death sequence is rather painful to watch; akin to watching a bear try and swim up a waterfall. You know that what's happening is wrong and will be undone eventually, but it's presented as a remarkable spectacle that is to be taken with with the utmost seriousness (this is where my similie breaks down, I'm afraid.) It's something that Moffat keeps doing and while the ideas were fresh five years ago they're quickly beginning to stale - and I loved the last two episodes, both of which went mad with the idea.
     The first half of this promising open left me more with a deep-seated feeling of ambiguity about the series' future. No doubt this was intentional, but as a series opener the episode failed rather spectacularly and as an episode on its own it felt quite empty without its second, concluding half. Thus, I look forward to next week, where we can sort out the mystery of the Silents once and for all... .

Thanks

P.S. This week's episode had a tribute to the recently diseased Lis Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in the program from 1974-6 and then made some appearances in NuWho as well as in her CBBC spin-off Sarah Jane Adventures. A lot of fans were irritated, however, when no memorium appeared for Nicholas Courtney, who died a few months ago. He was involved in the Doctor Who Universe throughtout its Classic history, first staring in the First Doctor serial The Daleks Master Plan in 1964 and making his final appearance in Battlefield in 1989. My condolences go out to both of their families.

A Few Words: The Hotel

Not since Airline has real life so reflected fiction. In this eccentric Channel Four show, we take a fly-on-the-wall look at a real hotel (the Damson Dene) in the Lake District, where characters are seemingly around every corner. The "manager" Wayne, whose work consists of shifting tables and whose residence is a small caravan outside the hotel where he lives with his dog. The kitchen staff, composed almost entirely of full-time Eastern Europeans, and the Manuel-like Amos.
     These people couldn't get closer to a Fawlty Towers type farce if they tried, and yet every second of it is real. The editing is a tad manipulative, perhaps, but the fact is that this is relaity TV - no constructed environments, no "challenges," etc.: the perfect Car Crash TV. The Hotel takes real, ridiculous characters and slaps them on our screen. Essential Sunday viewing.
     Well. Better than Lewis anyway.

Thanks.

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I can't make any promises about scheduling, but I'm hoping to have Lost 4.9 out tonight and Being Human 1.3 sometime later in the week. Thanks for your patience.

Review: Being Human 1.2

"It's a chicken on a piece of string."

Second week, and Being Human is already delivering on its premise. This week took a focus on George in particular, and his vicious backstory provided the fuel for the episode's main conflicts. At times it did rely a tad too much on its main guest, but said guest provided some excellent character development for George and Annie. The Vampire storyline, meanwhile, rumbled along nicely.
     Our main man was Tully (Dean Lennox Kelly), a brash womaniser who meets George in the forest, aware of and empathising with his condition and willing to help him prepare for his monthly changes. He's soon invited to move in, and starts taking over the household - George begins to idolise him, and he has Annie under his thumb. Tully outstays his welcome, however, when an altercation with Annie forces Mitchell to evict Tully and make George realise what Tully's been doing to him. Before they transform in the woods, Tully lets slip that it was he who originally converted George two years prior, and that he's been mentoring him. Angry, George makes it up with his friends and then goes back to the woods, facing Tully and warning him away.
     Another instantly interesting appearance was that of Nina (Sinead Keenan), who as my regular readers will know goes on to feature in the rest of the series. Nina's characterisation was very well done from the start, and her interactions with George felt natural. There was a moment of cringe-comedy as George tried Tully's masculinist charms on her, but by the end it felt as if they both had a natural chemistry.

Lauren tempts Mitchell.

     Annabel Scholey played another slightly awkward performance as vampiress Lauren, who this week arrived to give Mitchell something to do, tempting him with dirty talk and a vampire porn video. I feel as if Mitchell's storyline works better on the sidelines like this, especially when there's so little going on at the moment. The more condensed feel of this six-episode series means that everything flows more easily, so I guess I can pass this once. 1.1 was very Mitchell-heavy anyway, and this episode allows us to neatly focus on the other characters while he's resting.
     1.2 is predominantly a male-bonding character exercise, and the writing is superb. The vampire subplot was rather lacking, but all of the strands held together and ultimately all characters came out a little more three dimensional than they had in the premier. As a second episode, 1.2 does what it needs to do - develop character - and more so, taking on our heroes, and their pasts, with impressive gusto.

Thanks.