The Chemickal Marriage

Nearly seven years ago I read a book called "The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters" by G.W. Dahlquist, which is set in a semi-steampunk, Victorian-ish, alternate reality. That book is full of adventure, mystery, and quite a lot of sex. As I said at the time, I'd find it very hard to recommend that book to anyone because of what they might infer about me, but it was a rip-roaring romp which I enjoyed quite a lot. At the end of that book, there seemed to be a few lose ends of story not tied up, but the bulk of the story appeared to be done. 

 The sequel, in 2009, called "The Dark Volume" continued the story without really achieving much. I was hugely disappointed, as I blogged at the time. 

 And now the trilogy has come to an end with "The Chemickal Marriage". I approached it hoping that it would be as good as the first book, but fearing it would disappoint as much as the second. Indeed it sat, unread, on my Kindle for the best part of a year before I got around to reading it. Well, its somewhere in the middle between those two books, but sadly closer to the sequel than the original. 

The great success of the first book was the way the author spent the first half of the book teasing the reader with suggestions and tantalising hints about the nature of the mysterious 'process', and with teasing of an erotic nature too, and then spent the second half of the book slowly revealing details of the strange alchemy, and also occasionally revealing erotic stuff too. It was compelling, as a reader, to try and figure out what was going on with the politics, with the science, and with the sexual politics, and then have your suspicions confirmed, or more commonly overturned as the story unfolded. 

The main failing of the two sequels is that they don't really have anything to tease and tantalise the reader with. Sure, we find out a few new things about the properties of the glass, but really there seems to be no purpose behind most of the events and revelations. Stuff happens, more stuff happens, characters die, characters that you thought might be dead turn out not to be dead, and so on, but its really just a jumble of events occurring (oh, and there's quite a lot less sex). Fundamentally, I didn't really care what happened next, I only really wanted the story to make some sort of sense and come to some sort of conclusion. Eventually, it does. The trilogy appears to be over, and that's that. But getting there wasn't half as interesting as the first book. Not even a quarter as interesting.

One thing I noticed in here, which I can't remember noticing in the first two books, is the way in which the author seems to keep getting ahead of himself in the action sequences. Characters, who may have been left behind pages before suddenly reappear without warning and promptly change the way a fight is going, or equivalent. It seems the author is in such a hurry to relate events to the reader that he occasionally loses track of what he's trying to convey. After a while I got a bit fed up with this. The first book was all about anticipation, here we never got the chance to anticipate anything. Things just happened, event, event, rush, rush, rush, event.

Also, the author seemed to forget some of the things he factored in at the start of the book. Early on, Chang wakes from unconsciousness to discover that he's been operated on and has some form of implant on his spine. A chapter later Dr Svenson looks at this and is shocked, but the reader doesn't really find out why he's shocked, and then... the author forgets all about this and it doesn't feature in the story again. This happened to a few other plot points too.

Another annoyance was the way the author stuck to the same pattern as the first book. There are 10 long chapters, each focussed on one of the three main characters. This worked really well the first time about, but I have to say that I really lost interest in all the chapters about Dr Svenson here. I totally didn't care about his story arc.

I could moan about this book for ages, which would give the wrong impression. It wasn't bad. It was quite engaging and enjoyable at times, but it is not a worthy successor to the original.

I wouldn't bother if I was you. Just read the first book and move on.

I really hope G.W. Dahlquist writes a stand-alone novel next time. Tease, tantalise, hint, reveal, action, reveal, twist, end. That would be great.

Doctor Who: Let's kill Hitler [first impressions]

What? Eh? What???

More reasoned thoughts to follow.

Doctor Who opinions... [with spoilers]

So, another series of Doctor Who has come and gone. We have now got to know our new Doctor, and his new companion(s), we've seen vampires, weeping angels, Vincent van Gogh, a future Queen of Britain, some long buried aliens and a wedding. But was it any good?

Well, here's my take on it: It was OK. But not great. Quite a long way from great.

So what about the 11th Doctor?

Well, he's OK as well. Not as good as David Tennant (who was a great Doctor from his very first episode), possibly not as good as Christopher Eccleston either. I quite like the 'eccentric old duffer' persona, although the occasional flashes of arrogance don't really fit well with the character.

What about Amy Pond?

Hmmm. In general I like the character of Amy, she has all the traits of a good companion. And yet her behaviour is quite often inappropriate for a kids tv show on at dinner time. I think they should turn her libido down a bit for the next series. Glad they've kept her for more than one series though.

Rory?

I was quite irritated by the character of Rory at first, and then I was annoyed when they wrote him out, and also a bit annoyed by the way they brought him back at the end. Still don't know why Amy is with him, they really don't seem to go together. He waits 2000 years for Amy, protecting her, they get married, and yet as soon as she gets the chance she's still after a snog off the Doctor, not a good sign for the relationship. I think Rory'll be fairly pointless and useless from here on in and they'll have to write him out again somehow.

River Song?

She still annoys me. All that "spoilers" stuff is just irritating. And it looks like we might have more of her in the next series. Sigh.

So, here's a quick episode by episode comment:

1. The Eleventh Hour: was an ok introduction to a new Doctor and new companion. 6/10
   
2. The Beast Below: so many references to so many preceding Doctor Who stories I hardly know where to start. This felt like a re-hash when it should have had something fresh. 4/10
   
3. Victory of the Daleks: I liked this one. Silly, but quite fun. 7/10
   
4. The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone: the first part had the single scariest moment in any Doctor Who story thus far (when Amy is alone in the ship with nothing but a video looping), which was excellent. After that they kind of lost it and the story went downhill. 6/10
   
5. The Vampires of Venice: silly and fun. Not really tea-time family entertainment though, and the worst FX in the series so far. 7/10
   
6. Amy's Choice: felt like a filler episode. Pointless. 5/10
   
7. The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood: this one should have been really good, but once again the end result was somehow less than the sum of its parts. 6/10
   
8. Vincent and the Doctor: an invisible giant budgie. Sigh. 4/10
   
9. The Lodger: interesting but didn't really seem like a complete story. 6/10
   
10. The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang: could see the 'twist' coming a mile off. As usual with season finales they tried to fit far too much into the story. Nice resolution, but would have benefited with some decent story writing. What happened to the guy who wrote 'The Girl in the Fireplace' and 'Blink'? They should get him back. 7/10

In the grand scheme of things I don't think this series was as good as Series 3 (with Martha; which is certainly my favourite series so far) or 4 (with Donna; next best) or even Series 1 (9th Doctor and Rose), but was much like Series 2 (10th Doctor and Rose) which had some good bits, but the overall effect was less than the sum of its parts.

Hopefully the 'new' Doctor will have got into his stride by the next series.

Movie roundup...

I took a couple of transatlantic flights a couple of weeks back. Which, amongst other things, allowed me the chance to catch up on a few films I'd missed at the cinema.

The selection on offer was pretty good, but I passed on the chance to watch 'Frost/Nixon' or 'Slumdog Millionaire' - I'll watch them on DVD sometime anyway. Instead I watched 'Quantum of Solace', 'Yes Man' and 'The day the earth stood still' on the outbound flight, and I watched 'Milk' on the return flight; which I've already blogged about. I also saw 'Star Trek' while I was there, but that's worthy of its own blog posting, when I get the chance...

Quantum of Solace

I heard several reviews of this along the lines of 'you must re-watch Casino Royale before watching this, or you won't have a clue what's going on', yet I watched this without having seen CR since it was in the cinemas and managed to follow the plot (such as there is) pretty well.

Its entertaining nonsense. But we've known that about Bond for decades. So we have the usual mix of over the top action sequences, espionage and exotic locations. If anything, this owes even more of a debt of gratitute to the Bourne movies than Casino Royale ever did, but its heart is still Bond. Certainly not the greatest Bond film, certainly not the worst.

But the building control officer who approved the plans for that hotel in the desert should be shot! Have these people never heard of risk analysis? ;o)

Yes Man

I haven't (yet) read the book, so came at this with few preconceptions, except the obvious 'oh no, its Jim Carrey girning again' one. I found it quite entertaining and Zooey Deschanel (and Terence Stamp) elevate it to a better film than it probably beserves to be. Light-hearted fluff, but a fun hour and a half. Sufficient laugh out loud moments to make it a good comedy and, of course, Zooey is as captivating and sweet as ever. And Jim Carrey isn't too annoying. But this is Zooey's movie. The cameo by Danny Wallace looks totally staged though.

The day the earth stood still

Keanu Reeves is a relitively emotion-free alien. I can buy that. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but the film is entertainingly diverting for an hour and a half. They could have done more with it, but it could have been so much worse. You do actually care what happens to Jennifer Connelly's character, even if her step-son is an unnecessarily contrived plot device. Don't pay to see it, but watch it if its on...

The Dark Volume by G.W. Dahlquist

You may remember I reviewed 'Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' a couple of years back. Well, this is the follow up.

If you loved Glass Books..., you've probably read the sequel already, so I guess there's not much point in reviewing it for you. So, what did you think?

I found Glass Books a really exciting and engaging experience. It really was one of those books you lose yourself in. But it wasn't perfect. Probably my greatest complaint about Glass Books is the ending - it comes too abruptly and leaves the central characters in an unresolved setting. Glass Books is a very well told exploration of an unfamiliar land, as you read you find out more about the people, more about the place, more about the science, etc. It doesn't all make sense at the outset, but as the story unfolds bits fall into place and you deduce what's going on, or it is revealed to you. But. It ends with the feeling that you've only been told about 9/10ths of the story.

The Dark Volume picks up where Glass Books left off and carries on the story. But the main problem is that there isn't a whole load of story that we were unaware of in the first book. There's still only 1/10th of the story of Glass Books left to tell. And this is padded out to fill a book the size of its predecessor. Indeed, I was very annoyed to discover that the story is still unresolved at the end of The Dark Volume, so we've actually been told less than 1/10th of the story. There's at least another volume to come.

Glass Books worked so well because it teased the reader with tantalising partial revelations for most of the first half of the book, which were then fully revealed later on. There was also plenty of adventure and exploration. But all the revelation was done in Glass Books, there was nothing really new to reveal here. And for the most part we visited the same locations as the earlier book. And the adventure was fairly run-of-the-mill. So, by the end, I really didn't care anymore.

I hope the next book is better. I also hope the next book concludes the story. But what I really want now is for G.W. Dahlquist to go and write a brand new adventure, with new characters and new twists and tease and tantalise us like last time.

Iron Man

I never managed to see Iron Man at the cinema. Something to do with it being released in the same week as the birth of my son... By the time I was able to get back to the cinema, the film had finished its run.

But I got given it on DVD for Christmas.

It's great.

This was the summer of superhero movies, with The Dark Knight (which I did see in the cinema) generally being held up as the biggest and best. Well, the Dark Knight was certainly the biggest (and longest), but I'd say Iron Man is in competition with it for 'best'.

You see, all the best superhero movies are origin movies. Batman Begins was fabulous because it showed us what made Bruce Wayne become Batman, Spider-Man is better than both its sequels for the same reason. Likewise Superman.

And likewise Iron Man. It does all it needs to do with style, tells the story and then stops, before its overstayed its welcome. The Dark Knight, great as it was, was a bit flabby - it had too many bits, some of which were unnecessary.

The only thing that leaves me uneasy about the film is the ending. Because having ended like that, what will they do with the sequel? But next time I'll find out in the cinema...

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

Was it just me, or wasn't it very good?

I mean, it had its moments, but it just failed to live up to expectations.

Nothing was genuinely scary, the Cybercats were just silly and the ending was just, well, a bit of a let down.

But lets face it, none of the Christmas specials have been better than an average episode. Given that they seem to put more effort into the specials, you'd expect more.

I hope the other 'specials' we're getting in 2009 will be a bit more, erm, special than that.

C- Must try harder.

The future is finally here...

Remember when you were a kid and people in sci-fi shows had really cool gadgets in their watches, like Dick Tracey's video watch, or Michael Knight talking to KITT through his watch...?

Well, that future has arrived.

A few years ago I heard tale of a mobile-phone-in-a-watch called 'Wristmo' - it looked really clumsy and was remarkably feature-free. And you only got it in Japan.
Now you can get something so much better that that, in the UK, for a surprisingly reasonable price. The sWaP watch. Get one (appropriately enough) from iwantoneofthose.com for a mere £250.

How cool is that? It is a watch combined with all the features of a contemporary mobile phone. So you can send and receive texts and multimedia messages, it can play mp3s or even mp4 video clips, it has a built in speaker / microphone so you can actually use it as a phone without attaching any extra bits. But if you want to attach stuff you can include a wired 'hands free' kit or even a bluetooth headset.

Here's the features list:

• A watch, a mobile phone and a media centre all rolled into one.
  
• Choose from a number of different watch faces stored in the sWap Watches' memory.
  
• Pop your SIM card into the watch and it's easy to make and receive calls
  
• 1.5 inch TFT colour touch screen so you can watch movies!
  
• Includes a hands free kit, Bluetooth headset and a stylus (plus one spare) for negotiating the touch screen.
  
• The stylus is stored in a handy slot built in to the watch strap.
  
• No need to buy a new SIM card - simply take it out of your mobile and pop it in the watch.
  
• Receives SMS, MMS and can display recent and missed calls.
  
• Store up to 300 contacts.
  
• Built in alarm clock has 5 different tones to choose from.
  
• Compatible with all UK networks except 3.
  
• Record audio using the hands-free kit's mic and use the craftily concealed 1.3 megapixel camera to take pics and record video.
  
• 128MB memory can be expanded up to 2GB with a Micro SD card (not included).
  
• Supports MP3, MIDI, WAV, AAC and MP4 files.
  
• Standby time: 100 hours.
  
• Talk time: 150-180mins.
  
• Requires a 650mAh rechargeable battery (included).

Sounds fantastic! The only alarm bell I get while reading that list is the word 'stylus' - can it not be operated using fingers?

But can I justify buying one? No.

:o(

I already have a gadget phone that does all that and more. And I have an iPod. The combination of those two satisfies most of my portable gadget needs. And the sWaP doesn't do wi-fi, e-mail or mobile internet (well, it does GPRS, but...).

But it is highly cool.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

A man called George Lucas wrote and directed
a kids film called Star Wars. An entire generation
of kids (and some grown ups) loved it. He followed
it up with a more 'grown up' sequel. And everyone
loved it. He followed that with a more kid

friendly sequel and some folk weren't happy...

Some years later he made another kids film and most of his original audience (now in their late 20s and 30s) complained - because it was a kids film. So he made the next two films a bit more grown up, and still people weren't happy. Sigh, some people.

So now, the new Star Wars film is out, and its unashamedly a kids film. And of course people are unhappy. Except the kids, obviously. And kids at heart, like me.

Because if you accept that this movie is a kids film, you might enjoy it. A lot.

What was wrong with the three 'prequels'? In my opinion, it was largely Jar-Jar in 'The Phantom Menace' and the love story in the other two. This film has neither of those two elements.

Its just a simple story of Jedis doing Jedi stuff set in the middle of lots of battles and other action. This is what the kids want. Its great.

The central plot (Anakin and his new padawan are sent to find and rescue the baby son of Jabba the Hutt) did feel a bit like the sort of story you would have got in the old 'Dungeons & Dragons' cartoon in the 80s, but so what? It was wrapped in an all-action, fantastic looking, fully theatrical experience.

I know my baby son is only 3 months old, but I'm already looking forward to watching this with him when he's bigger. (Let's face it, it'll be a long time before I let him watch Episode III).

This film is no more or less than 'Attack of the Clones, part II'. If the thought of that fills you with dread, steer clear. If that appeals to you, you'll like this.

The only bit that seemed a bit odd and out of place was the character of Jabba the Hutt's uncle - who seems to be a giant-slug drag queen in a dodgy part of town. Um, where did that come from, and why?

But I'm really looking forward to the TV series now. Bring it on...

War of the Worlds (one man show)

"Take a look around you
at the world we've come to know,
Does it seem to be much more
than a crazy circus show?
But maybe from the madness
something beautiful will grow,
In a brave new world,
With just a handful of men.
We'll start, we'll start all over again..."

Just a handful of men? How about only one man?

No one would have believed in the first years of the 21st century that Jeff Wayne's musical epic "The War of the Worlds" could be performed in under an hour at the Edinburgh Fringe. No one could have dreamed that it could be done by one man. Few men even considered the possibility that Jeff Wayne himself would give permission for such a show. And yet in one of the Niddry Street vaults of the 'Underbelly' venue, a mind immeasurably superior to ours dreamed up an excellent show and slowly but surely he performed this play before us.

I think it would be fair to say that I'm a fan of "War of the Worlds". I love the H.G. Wells book. I used to have a tape of the talking book of it (in the 1980s) which I wore out through over-playing. I love Jeff Wayne's musical version of it. I like the 1953 movie. I have a tape of Orson Welles's 1938 radio show. I loved the recent movie starring Tom Cruise. Basically, I like it. A lot.

So when I saw it was on at the Fringe this year, it was my only 'must see' show. I went to see it yesterday. I wasn't sure I was going to like it - how could one man perform the story? How could one man sing the songs? (was he going to sing the songs or was the tape just going to play them?) Was he going to try and play any of the music? Hang on, there's at least one female role in there, how can one man perform 'Spirit of Man' (a duet between Phil Lynott and Julie Covington on the original musical)? But I went and found out.

The venue ("Underbelly's Baby Belly 1") is one of the Niddry Street Vaults - supposedly one of the most haunted places in Edinburgh. Its basically a stone and brick cavern, wide enough for ten chairs with an aisle up the middle and deep enough for a stage (circa 10 feet deep) and about 20 rows of seats. The vaulted ceiling is quite high up and was covered in sheets for the Fringe. Basically, its an atmospheric place. The audience were ushered in at the start of the allotted time with "The Eve of the War" already playing. About half the seats in the place were filled. But it was a Thursday at 4:20pm, so that's not too bad.

Once we were all sitting in place, Pip Utton ran up the aisle, leaped onto the stage and began performing with some of the most iconic words in English literature "No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century..."

I'm always the same when watching plays. The opening few minutes are always a disappointment to me. I'm like "is that it? Just a man in a waistcoat on stage..." this feeling of slight disappointment came to a head when he got to the (almost as iconic) "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one he said..." - yes, he sung them. But while he hit all the right notes, the man is clearly not a singer. And his timing on some of the words was off slightly. Oh dear.

But then we got into the meat of the story, the cylinder landing on Horsell Common, and the ensuing events, and I was captivated. Next time he sang I realised he was acting in song, not singing. He wasn't aiming to reproduce the vocal performances of the original musical version, he was telling the story and occasionally doing so in song. Thus, his performance of Forever Autumn, while not as musically perfect as the CD was still beautiful and actually more moving than the original. You could feel the loss in the guy's voice: "A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes, as if to hide a lonely tear, my life will be forever autumn, 'cause you're not here..." Heartbreaking - in a way that the CD never is.

Of course, to bring the show down to about a 50 minute run time, some of the story and songs had to be abbreviated and one of the songs dropped entirely. Given that this was a one man show it was quite reasonable that 'Spirit of Man' was dropped and the character of Beth, the Parson's wife was lost from the story. That was a shame - as I really like that song - but I guess it had to be done. Thus the performer had only three primary roles to play: The un-named journalist who narrates the story (i.e. Richard Burton in the original recording), the artilleryman (David Essex) and the Parson (Phil Lynott). While performing the character of the artilleryman, he used an accent very similar to David Essex's from the original recording, but also somehow managed to convey a different character through body language. Surprisingly, the Parson was portrayed using a Welsh accent. This worked rather well.

The performance was generally excellent, if I hadn't known every word of the script fairly well I'd only have noticed him fluff his lines once (actually I noticed three deviations from the original words, but two of them would have passed the non geeks by entirely). The only prop on stage was a small 'hill' on the right hand side, but its amazing how much of the atmosphere of the story can be conveyed by a masterful storyteller and some careful use of green, red and white spotlights.

So all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended (there's 3 days left, so hurry up). And I'm now - more than ever - inclined to go to the full-scale 30th anniversary tour next year. Tickets on sale in October. If its half as good as the one man show, it'll be great.

The Dark Knight

Batman Begins was a very special movie. Its one of those movies that is greater than the sum of its parts, which is especially impressive when each one of its parts is great to start off with. If you want to see how to make a great superhero movie, watch Batman Begins. The first hour and a bit is as close to perfect as it gets and by the time it descends into mere brilliance towards the end you're so caught up in the plot and the action that you hardly notice.

So, as you might have gathered, I had very high expectations of the sequel. What I have to say should remain spoiler free...


Like its predecessor, The Dark Knight is also a film made up of great parts. However, for reasons I still haven't completely worked out, the final film ends up being slightly less than the sum of those parts. That's not to say that its not very, very good, its just to say that it's not as awesomely, gob-smackingly brilliant as it should be. I think maybe it was a little bit two long, or possibly because there were a couple of non-brilliant links in the chain, but somewhere along the way The Dark Knight loses one star out of the five stars it should have had. But its still a four star movie - way better than average.

Perhaps it fell partially into the same trap that Tim Burton's original Batman movie did - its not a film about Batman, in many ways he seems to be a supporting character. Batman Begins was the first Batman film that was actually about Batman, everyone else in it was just scenery. This film isn't about any single character really. Its not even a film about the Joker (which Tim Burton's original movie was), he too is a supporting character.

It's a film about ideas, not people. This was demonstrated most when it got to the scene where two people were in trouble and Batman only had time to save one. This was two thirds of the way through the film yet, by this point, I didn't actually care enough about one of the characters (I knew what was going to happen to the other character because I've read the comics, seen the old films, etc.) to be bothered either way if Batman got to them in time, yet this was supposed to be the emotional core of the film. Likewise when we got to the bit with the two boats, I really didn't care either way.

But. Visually its stunning. It has so many fab moments that I can forgive its other weaknesses. The whole hospital scene was outstanding, full of humour and perfectly timed. Yes, it was a 'set piece' but so what, it was a great set piece.

• Heath Ledger was brilliant - he produced a totally believable, utterly captivating, psycho. In fact, there was nothing of Heath Ledger there, I genuinely forgot (even given the hype) who was playing the part and just watched the Joker on screen.
• Gary Oldman was excellent. Hopefully he'll get a bigger role if/when they do another Batman movie.
• Christian Bale was side-lined a bit, but still gave a convincing performance as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. They did a silly thing with the Batman voice though.
  
• Maggie Gyllenhaal was OK. To be honest, I preferred Katie Holmes in the role, but MG was OK. I thought MG was fab in the last film I saw her in ("Stranger than Fiction") and - after watching that film - would even go as far as to say that she has the sexiest smile in Hollywood, but sadly the smile was not used much here and we had the lip-trembling face instead, which just never really grabbed me. Sorry.
• Aaron Eckhart was good too, although when he started getting nasty before his transformation, I didn't really believe it, it didn't quite work. He was in the role of the 'White Knight' after all.
  

I think I will return to the cinema to see it again, given the opportunity. Actually, I'd quite like to go and see the IMAX version - six of the big action scenes were shot in IMAX. Hopefully the hospital scene was one of them, that would be awesome. I'll also get the DVD when it comes out, even though I don't have much time for DVD watching these days. I'll make the time.

So, after one viewing, The Dark Knight is currently ranking as my 4th favourite superhero movie after Superman (1978), Batman Begins (2005) and X2 (2003).

Doctor Who: 'The Stolen Earth' & 'Journey's End' (S4E12 & 13)

And so it ends (for this year at least). I've got to say that this has been the best of the four NuHu series so far, and by quite a margin. That's not to say that the previous three series weren't good, but is to say that this series was great throughout, with only a few dips towards 'alrightness' along the way.

If you haven't seen these episodes yet, don't read on, I'm sure to spoil something for you.

This two-parter followed the pattern laid down by previous Doctor Who two-parters in that it tried to achieve far too much in the first part. Too many characters converging and too many things going on. You put Donna and Martha together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Rose together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Martha and Jack and Rose and Sarah-Jane and the Doctor together and try to fit a plot into 45 minutes and we're struggling. By necessity the Torchwood team, Sarah-Jane's son and Mickey and Jackie got sidelined and we didn't have the time to actually care about any of them, which is a shame.

Also, the production team seems to think it is necessary to put the entire world in jeopardy at the end of every Doctor Who series. I'm not sure it really is. You can still pack a two parter with action and an emotional punch even if the entire world has not been ripped out of time and space.
But still. The Daleks are back. Yay! Davros is back. Double Yay! All the recent companions that we know and love are back. Yay! And then the best cliffhanger of any NuHu yet. What will happen next?

But still, I do agree with SFX (.co.uk) who said it was like an extended movie trailer - lots of snippets of what should be a much longer story. But the first half was clearly just there to be a set up for the second...

... and that was just fab. Davros showing the Doctor how he used his companions was a touch of genius, the Daleks talking in German was brilliant and the DoctorDonna was great. Everything that could have been wrong about Catherine Tate being cast as a companion thrown into one scene and somehow tranformed into pure class. 10 out of 10, Russell T.

Then thrown in a few silly bits and a pretty ropey plot whereby Donna has to have her memory wiped and is therefore written out - we knew it had to happen, but I'm sure there could have been a better way. With the prophesy of "One of them will die", I don't know why they couldn't just follow through on that. They killed off Kylie last Christmas, why not kill Donna off properly? In no real way did one of them die. It was a trick.

And of course the Rose storyline is now resolved and ended and she'll not be back again. I liked what they did there with the other Doctor, but it also felt like a little bit of a cheat. But I'm nit picking here at what was a fab ending to a great series. Well done the BBC.

So here's a quick summary of the whole series:

1. Partners in crime: Silly but entertaining. 7/10
2. Fires of Pompeii: Who as Who should be. 8/10
3. Planet of the Ood: A bit weak, but passes the time. 6/10
4. The Sontaran strategy: Entertaining. 7/10
   
5. The poison sky: Fun with dull bits. 7/10
6. The Doctor's daughter: Too simple a plot. 6/10
7. The unicorn and the wasp: Silly but entertaining. 7/10 (initially 5/10 but it grew on me)
   
8. Silence in the library: Brilliant and creepy. 9/10
   
9. Forest of the dead: Continuing brilliance and creepiness. 9/10
10. Midnight: Simple story, well told, some great moments. 8/10
    
11. Turn left: Genius. 10/10
12. The stolen earth: Too much happening, but a great roller coaster ride. 8/10
13. Journey's end: Emotion, heartbreak and some punch-the-air moments. 9/10

Wow, so an episode average of 7.7/10! That's pretty good. By my own scoring rules I should go and buy the DVDs, except that I wouldn't have time to watch them these days... Oh well.

So now its ages and ages until the next Doctor Who (OK, there's a Christmas special, but then ages before the next series). But at least they are making a new series of Torchwood after the summer, so that will hopefully hit our screens early in 2009. And for those of you who don't know, it will be a five-parter, continuous story, showing Monday to Friday one week. And will feature Noel Clarke as Mickey as the new boy on the Torchwood team.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

I finally got around to watching this movie.

• Reasons why I wanted to watch it: Its a superhero movie, I love superhero movies. Its a comedy, I like comedy movies. I mean, Mystery Men was excellent, wasn't it?
  
• Reasons why I didn't want to watch it: It stars Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson. I have never understood why Uma Thurman is cast in roles where she's supposed to be attractive or sexy, I just don't see it. And Luke Wilson is always the same character in whatever film he's in.

But I added it to the list of movies on my online DVD rental selection and eventually it turned up on my doorstep.

And I have to say I quite enjoyed it. Yes it had an almost entirely predictable plot (except for the bit with the shark) and you could see the final two 'twists' a mile off, and all the characters were paper thin and reasonably stereotypical, but it did actually have a heart lurking under there and in the end you did care what happened to the characters. And Eddie Izzard always adds a little fun to a film.

Forgettable but transiently entertaining fluff.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of blah, blah, blah...

Once there was a time when the combination of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg could do no wrong. And during that period they made 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - one of my favourite movies ever. This was the first film I ever saw multiple times at the cinema. I think I saw it on three consecutive weekends when I was 11.

Then they followed it up with 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' a few years later. It was darker and not quite as good, but still great fun.

Then Lucas lost it. He went on to make 'Howard the Duck', the Ewoks movie and ultimately create Jar-Jar Binks; not a great career progression. Speilberg went all serious on us and lost the knack of doing a great blockbuster. The third Indiana Jones movie 'The Last Crusade' was quite good, but not as great as the first two.

And now, after a couple of decades of waiting, comes the fourth, and presumably final, Indiana Jones movie. Was it worth the wait? No. Was it an entertaining film? Yes. Was it another Indiana Jones movie? Not really...

Spoilers below. So watch out if you haven't seen the film...

The basic plot of Indiana Jones movies is that Indy has to get to some ancient religious (and generally magical) artifact before the bad guys (generally Nazis) get to it to use the power for their own evil ends. Along the way we get some whip-cracking, swash-buckling, fist-fighting, gun-toting, truck-chasing action.

But Indy is now 20 years older and we're now in the 1950s. So the bad guys can't be Nazis anymore (actually, I think they could have been, especially since the action mostly takes place in South America - I'm sure there were some Nazis hanging on there in the 50s...) and our hero can't swash his buckle in the same way he used to (actually, as we will see, he can, but the producers obviously thought we wouldn't believe that) so we have a younger sidekick who turns out to be Indy's son. OK, I have no problems with either of those changes.

But let's consider the ancient artifact... Its not a well-known, but lost, Judeo-Christian artifact like the Ark or the Grail in films one or three, its not a fictional Hindu artifact like in film two, its a completely fictional - and clearly alien - artifact from a completely made up religion. You see, from the very outset the rules of this film have changed - we're not in the realm of religious-fantasy, we're firmly in the realm of sci-fi. And that's not Indiana Jones territory.

I'm a big fan of Stargate (the original movie as well as the TV series it spawned), and the premise of this film is very much in Stargate territory. Then there are elements of the Mummy movies thrown into the mix (most notably the swarming ants scene). Then finally there are some elements of Indiana Jones movies thrown in for good measure: hating snakes, truck chases, clifftop fights, a bit of tomb raiding, melting faces, etc., etc. But they are not the starting point, they feel like they've been thrown in there to keep the punters happy. And some of the classic Indy elements are spoiled as they are brought in incorrectly, like the scene with all the natives swarming out of the temple - very much like the opening scene of Raiders, but there Indy only escaped because he had a hapless accomplice with a plane, here we had to resort to sci-fi crystal skulls to scare off the natives. Silly, and not very Indiana Jones.

So this fails as an Indiana Jones movie, and if I'd gone in armed with high expectations I'd have been quite disappointed. Thankfully I'd heard about the silly alien thing (although it pervades the entire movie, its not just the last half hour like some reviewers suggest) and had gone in with as few expectations as I could. And hence enjoyed it quite a bit.

You see, the character of Indy is still intact (even if he's in the wrong film) and Harrison Ford does a great job of making the ridiculous Lucas plot and dialogue seem real, or at least believable. I have no issues with the James Dean-esque son of Indy and thought he brought a new angle to the story. The baddies were a bit two-dimensional with Cate Blanchett behaving like the sort of psycho nutter who is usually second in command to some cat-stroking evil genius. But the cat stroker never appeared, so we were left with a slightly incomplete set of baddies. And Ray Winstone was rubbish.

So what we're left with is a load of quite enjoyable action scenes, a charismatic couple of central characters, a nice re-appearance of Marion from Raiders and some hints of social comment from Speilberg, all tied together with a ridiculous plot and premise.

I liked it. I will certainly watch it again someday. But it was not a worthy successor to Raiders.

Doctor Who: 'Turn Left' (S4E11)

I
loved
it
!

That is all I need to say.

The opening credits to next week's episode are going to go on about half the episode: David Tennant; Catherine Tate; Billie Piper; Freema Ageyman; Elizabeth Sladen; John Barrowman... I wonder if Eve Myles will get opening credits billing? And it looks fantastic. I wonder why so many conincidences happen around Donna?

Doctor Who: 'Midnight' (S4E10)

I quite enjoyed this episode too, even if it did oscillate between carefully observed characterisation and pure stereotype. It was well cast, suitably quirky, had the right amount of tension & release and was generally quite entertaining. Every time it was about to get annoying it managed to get out of it in time.

But I have two gripes.

The first is a complaint against the Radio Times who listed 'Billie Piper as Rose Tyler' in the credits. So I was all excited in an 'oooh, I wonder how they're going to bring Rose back' kind of a way, only to be disappointed that she only appeared onscreen for less than a second and isn't really back yet. (but next week...)

The second is against The Doctor himself. He quite spectacularly failed to save the day and it was only through the self sacrifice of one of the other characters that he (and everyone else) were saved from peril. Our hero failed. This show is all about how The Doctor is, essentially, a superhero and always cleverly saves the day. But this time he didn't, he failed, he lost. Was this because he was without an assistant in this episode? Will there be repercussions in future episodes? I guess we'll find out. But The Doctor himself only gets 4/10 for this episode. Not clever enough by half. Or possibly too arrogant.

Doctor Who: 'Silence in the library' & 'Forest of the dead' (S4E8&9)

Was it just me, or was that the best Doctor Who story of all four series so far?

Erm, probably spoilers in what follows... ;o)

Where should I start? Well, first off, the library setting was great. Looked not unlike something that should have been in Star Wars. And then the 'stay out of the shadows' thing was nicely creepy. Although the 'I have two shadows' thing was a bit silly.

But I can forgive them for that, there were some real gems in there. The whole idea of meeting up with a future assistant was great, although if the series runs for long enough it could give some real continuity problems - it is clear that Prof River Song knew this regeneration form of the Doctor, but significantly aged, so to keep the continuity line right we need to have David Tennant as Doctor for several years yet and then have a slightly younger River Song as an assistant. Possibly more than just an assistant if the hints were accurate... That could be tricky.

The whole library and vashta nerada (or however we're spelling that) thing would have been creepy enough, but the faces on the terminals and the data ghosts made the thing a whole heap more creepy. And then to put the whole thing inside the head of a small girl. Genius.

But what I didn't totally understand was what exactly it was that River Song did at the end that the Doctor was going to do? I had thought that the Doctor was going to upload all the 'saved' people into himself somehow, but the people all rematerialised in the library, so what did River actually sacrifice herself for?

But anyway, I thought it was great and it was the first two parter in a long time that didn't have an 'oh, get on with it' section in the middle somewhere. Fab.

Not sci-fi books. Honest.

When is a sci-fi book not a sci-fi book?

Last year (you may remember) I read and reviewed 'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters' by G.W. Dahlquist. Well, the sequel - 'The Dark Volume' - is out now (hardback) and I popped into my local bookshop to see how much they were selling it for. But it wasn't in the 'Science Fiction and Fantasy' section of the shop. I found it in the 'General Fiction' section.

But the book is clearly SF. OK, it might be a pseudo-Victorian setting, but it is quite definitely 'steam-punk' SF. They have impossible technology. Characters in the book are transformed into super-human (or certainly non-human) beings. So why is this book not shelved with the rest of the SF?

Another SF book I read recently, 'The end of Mr Y' by Scarlett Thomas (hey, I don't seem to have blogged about that one; it was quite good) is similarly shelved in General Fiction, not in SF. Yet that one features time travel and rewriting history.

So when is a SF book not a SF book?

The only conclusion I can come to is that it is not considered SF when mainstream reviewers actually like it. Then they class it as literature.

I had thought perhaps it was when an author who had not previously written SF wrote a SF novel, but then I realised that G.W. Dahlquist hadn't written anything before 'Glass books'. He's never written non-SF.

Its the same on TV and in movies. You get actors being interviewed trying to play down the 'science fiction' aspect of the show or movie that they're in. You know, they might be in Heroes - which is all about superheroes - but they still make out that its not a SF/Fantasy show and claim its really all about character and drama. But so is almost all SF!

Aaaaargh! It makes me want to scream.

Doctor Who: 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' (S4E7)

Was alright, I suppose. Next...

---

Updated following Marcus's comment below:

Yes, sorry, I felt the need to comment on that one but didn't have the time. I quite liked it but also felt it was overly silly (a giant wasp?) and overly talky for its own good. The whole thing about why the wasp did everything in the style of an Agatha Christie story was one plot contrivance too far. But I think the overall idea of trying to do a Doctor Who murder mystery was great, I'm just not convinced the actual end result was as good as it should have been.

Doctor Who: 'The Doctor's Daughter' (S4E6)

I liked this one, but it was a bit of a let down too.

The idea of creating a daughter for the Doctor was good, but given that the whole story had to be wrapped up in 45 minutes, the whole thing was kind of lacking. This would have been done better in the old days where the story could have been played out over a month or six weeks.

So the underlying point - the Doctor gets a daughter - had to be wrapped in the simplest, primary coloured, paper thin plot they could come up with. Why were the Hath and the humans there? Never properly explained. Why did they have guns and replicating equipment and not much else? Never properly explained. Etc. Etc.

Still, some good points were made about nature vs nurture and making your own choices and all that. But it was all too lightly done and too quick. It is possible to convey a story with some meat on it in 45 minutes.

Nice touch that Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, was played by the daughter of a previous incarnation of the Doctor, Peter Davison. And she's a babe, so she's welcome back on my TV anytime. I get the feeling this isn't the last we'll see of her.