This is wonderful! Go and enjoy!

I've been reading about Interesting2008, which took place last Saturday in London. I'd have loved to have gone. Its a conference where various creative-types get up and talk about interesting things.

Annie Mole, of the Going Underground blog fame, described it like this: "A collection of funny, fascinating, funky & often frankly foolish people who Russell Davies collected together to talk about interesting things"

Anyway, this is amazing - a self-confessed geek and LEGO obsessive expounds the delights of the little building blocks we all love. All in 3 minutes ten seconds.

http://www.slideshare.net/rooreynolds/lego-is-full-of-win

Go and have a look, share the geeky joy and do something geeky yourself. Its good for you.

Trust me, I'm a doctor.








All right, I'm not.

But you should do it anyway.

When the night is long...

I find straight-up horror films pretty boring these days. I almost think its fair to say that if a film states that it is a horror film, and is not made in Japan – its probably not very scary unless you’re a horror virgin or too young to see one. They generally end up in three categories, in my experience – the unheard-of, non-english-language original version, the plastic-bimbo-populated Hollywood remake, and the half-baked predictable teen-horror.

What’s impressive with Doctor Who at the moment, is how far they seem willing to push the boundaries for the timeslot they’ve been shoved in (I say shoved in: series 1-3 were all shown in a slot an hour later – and all pulled in roughly a million more viewers per week).

But this hasn’t quietened down the ambition of the production team. This series has had a feel of the inevitable about it – a kind of running dread that has wound its way around the storylines. But – no stories that have tried to freak viewers out with “scary” CGI monsters… Not that spring to mind, anyway.

And RTD’s episode, Midnight, seems to be the pinnacle – so far, anyway.

[Read the rest here...]

And the nation's libraries were empty...

Oh so often in television, cliffhangers are abused. Cruelly used to drag viewers back against their better instincts to watch the next installment of whatever it is they're watching. And often, this is a complete let-down. Imagine sitting back to watch the new episode of Eastenders because the end of last night's has intrigued you - only to find out that its still a soap opera of negligable merit about depressing people and their petty little existences. Nothing is ever discussed - always dismissed as either "it's family" or in fisticuffs. Or a bottling. It is London, after all.

Where are the Krays when you need them, eh?

Well, I'm always worried that a cliffhanger in Doctor Who was just such a hook to drag you into a mediocre fishing net, filled with slippery little bores that rumble on endlessly about continuity, mythology and characters. Incidentally, I'd like to set up a forum for people to discuss and enjoy the good doctor's universe - but it would have a strict policy - the rules of Just A Minute would apply. Say continuity twice and you're out of here!

But why was I worried at the end of the Silence In The Library? Why did I even entertain the idea that the next part would be anything other than magnificent? I'm not sure. But I'm glad I was worried, if only that it meant I enjoyed The Forest of the Dead even more.

[Read the rest here...]

When The Going Gets Tough, The Moff Gets Going

Well. How to describe The Silence In The Library... I sat still afterwards for a few minutes, looking at the now empty screen I'd been watching it all on, and became very aware that I had a dark room behind me...

I've loved this series so far - so many things to like about the writing, the elusive "story-arc" (yawn). But the one thing I think we've been missing is suspense. Last year was not short of suspense - I think most, if not all the stories had elements of suspense - with 42 being extremely tense all the way through, and then the ultimate trio of episodes from Paul Cornell and Steven Moffat topping it all off. But this year, I think we've seen things coming.

The Sontaran story, as enjoyable as it was (and I mean that sincerely - it was incredibly watchable, even if I did have reservations about the plot), was not tense at any point, to me. The Doctor's Daughter gave away the suspense within a minute of the start and from then on was light on plot and pretty predictable (but great all the same). The Fires of Pompeii had some suspense in, and was a cracking early episode, but that's about it.

But as usual, The Moff defies us all. From start to finish, this episode pulsed like one of the classic Dalek tales or the relentless tension in the Web of Fear. There were some fantastic touches in structure - they're sealed in a library, but there's a little girl on earth (? Is it earth?) who can see all and communicate with them - even if she doesn't understand. Shadows that eat you alive - "not every shadow, but any shadow" is how the Doctor described it. Weapons useless against such an enemy is something that also screams classic Who to me - and makes all this even better.

[Read the rest here...]

Trailer nonsense

I am writing at the end of the week where the good Dok-tor was replaced by a bunch of over-made-up European tunebreakers. Eurovision took preference, and Who fans have had to make do with a teaser trailer again.

I also write this just after the first ever get-together of the Ood Cast writers - fine gentlemen, all - and the night before the Moff unleashes what looks to be an even more frightening story than last year's Blink. Only this time, we have to get through two episodes behind our white knuckles!

I actually quite like the break to accomodate Eurovision. And that's not just because I like the Eurovision (although, embarrassingly, perhaps, I do - even if it is mainly for Sir Terry) but it affords us a bit of a breather before we set off on the usually terrifying road to the season finale. And it gives us a chance to ruminate on what's been and get pant-wettingly excited about what's coming up.

But some take this more seriously than others. Some can't stand the week's break (really - think about how long we had to wait for the series to come back, guys - what's a week?), and others take what they're given and over analyse to a ridiculous extent.

[Read the rest here...]

I Think It Was The Giant Wasp In The Library With The...Erm, Giant Wasp Sting?

I can't stand wasps. I have never liked Agatha Christie. I was therefore probably not going to immediately warm to this episode. Gareth Roberts was either going to be onto a total winner or complete failure....

My problems with Agatha Christie are long and deep-rooted. I was kind of brought up with her work (my mum had read every single one, and there were hundreds of them in the house). I studied her work as part of a course at university - compared and contrasted every aspect of her novels with others of both the time, earlier and later. And I was bored rigid of her. Formulaic, predictable and annoyingly elitest, her mysteries were not exactly my favourite time-killer.

But there is a sort of history with Doctor Who and crime fiction. They seem to be natural companions. You see, Doctor Who is not all about saving universes from horrible beings, sometimes what is worth saving is somewhat smaller than a planet. And the Doctor has been pretty good at being the detective - stories such as the Talons of Weng Chiang and The Horror of Fang Rock unfold like Sherlock Holmes tales, while fabulous murder mysteries in their own right, like The Robots of Death (which still stands up as a magnificent piece of drama, in my opinion) carve out this alternative and rich vein in the Doctor's psyche. And here he was again.

[Read the rest here...]

Guns + War + Genetic Experiments = Family?

There was a time - the late 80s spring to mind - that Doctor Who wasn't really viewed as, you know, "proper acting". The Doctor was arriving in places filled with Comedy double-acts trying to stretch their careers for a bit longer, the cast of Cats and actors that people had assumed were already dead...

If there was any doubt to the quality of this show by now, I point you in the direction of The Doctor's Daughter. This is, seriously, the best thing I have seen in a long time. Ok, so being daddy to a small boy, TV isn't exactly something I get to experience all that much anymore. But the point still stands. This was brilliant.

[Read the rest here...]

You know, you'll only spoil it for the rest of us...

This is about Fandom. The wonders of it, and the horrible way it can really obstruct other people's enjoyment of things.

Doctor Who fans, in general (I think) are a wonderful bunch of people. They vary hugely in every way, and cover several generations. Even the younger fans seem to be able to intelligently hold their own in debates over whether the Slitheen should make a wiffy return, or if the Daleks really are the meanest baddies in the "Whoniverse".

(Incidentally, my pedantic side picked up on something that was said by a 12-year-old fan in a podcast I heard recently. He said that he'd seen "just about all the classic series, which is an achievement for a child of just twelve years of age." I agree. Especially since many episodes haven't existed on video since the late 60s/early 70s...)

But there are some who are so set in their ways, so convinced that what went before is better than it can ever be again, that with every new idea, every new theory of the doctor's past or the development of any plot line that has been used before, that they become willfully destructive and just blow up at the slightest provocation.

[Read the rest here...]

Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Huh?

Do you remember that feeling when you were little, when Christmas came round, and you got exactly what you wanted in every way... and then discovered it wasn't quite as brilliant as you thought it would be?

I don't know whether I should be disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I loved the story - and I think the Sontarans are a wonderful baddie. I am, and always have been, a UNIT fan. DT was brilliant as usual, Donna bearable, and Martha was excellent. But I feel cheated. I went on a nostalgic trip after I saw The Poison Sky, and it only made things worse, and because I particularly like the Sontarans and I want to share my pain, I'm going to go a bit geeky on this episode's ass.

[Read the rest here...]

Strategems and Self-discovery

I learnt something very insightful and rather frightening about my future at the weekend. Let me briefly explain. My parents have been watching the series of Doctor Who. On Sunday, when Luke and I went to visit them, my dad said that he didn't understand that week's episode. "It didn't make sense," he said. "Why? What was wrong with it?" He looked up and replied "It had no end - it was confusing..." Everyone turned to look at him. "Dad, you did know that it was the first part of a two-part story, didn't you?"
"Ah. Now that would explain a lot, wouldn't it..."

Let's get on. The Sontaran Stratagem. Like Andrew, I think this will be more tangent than plot talk...so let's start where we mean to go on.

[Read the rest here...]