Chris talks about Who exit

Actor Christopher Eccleston quit “Doctor Who” after one series because he “didn’t enjoy the environment and the culture” of the show.

Eccleston, who is about to star in BBC Four biopic “Lennon Naked”, took on the role of the Time Lord when Russell T Davies revamped “Doctor Who” in 2005.

He told the Radio Times he was proud of the show but “wasn’t comfortable” working on it.

“I think it’s more important to be your own man than be successful, so I left.” Rumours, at the time, suggested Chris had had a huge falling out with one of the directors!

Christopher Eccleston has also said he has no jealousy towards his former “Our Friends in the North” co-star Daniel Craig, who made it big as James Bond.

Eccleston said: “No, really there wasn’t. You wouldn’t cast me as Bond physically. The sexual charisma that Dan has was a huge part of it.

“And I’m a different animal. I saw him on those billboards and it was a great feeling.

“I was an obsessive Bond fan as a kid. I loved the Sean Connery Bond and Dan is just as good. Fantastic.”

Eccleston will next be seen on TV playing John Lennon, whom he called a showman, but a cripple inside. “Torchwood” and “Absolutely Fabulous” actress Naoko Mori, whom Chris has worked with previously on the “Doctor Who” episode “Aliens of London”, features as Yoko Ono.

Elsewhere, “Doctor Who” star Karen Gillan has hit back at the “uproar” over her character Amy Pond’s sexy clothing - saying feminism was not the issue any more.

Gillan said Amy did not conform to a simple “girl next door” formula - and her short skirts were typical of what young women like to wear (no contradiction there then, Karen).

The 22-year-old told the Radio Times Amy was a “strong female” who would not stand around in awe of the Doctor.

She said the relationship between Amy and the Doctor was one of equals - and she liked the fact that Amy was the one who sometimes drove the plot with her own storylines.

Wooing Tosh

Go on, Owen, give her a kiss! You know you want to!! Why does the poor guy now find it so tough? Only a year or so ago he was deeply into the fuck-buddies thing. A few episodes later and he’s a big softie! Once the hard man, at least between his legs, Owen is now Mister Sensitive!!

Why didn’t Toshiko offer him a ride back to/at her place like she did that deaf, dumb and blind kid from 1918? Hasn’t she sensed Owen’s new found tenderness? Get it on, girl, and bang his gong!

And then there’s Jack and Ianto’s totally gratuitous homosexual kiss, no doubt justified by the producers as contrast. I’ve already heard that moment described as awesome. Can’t Americans, and even some English, find a different adjective to qualify something they like?

Anyway, it does seem as if the characters of “Torchwood” have all made personality U-turns. Not so long ago, Tosh was a les getting it on with Daniela Denby-Ashe in “Greeks Bearing Gifts”. Now she’s straight or if you argue that she’s bi doesn’t that beg the question as to why everyone swings both ways in this show? How ludicrous is that?!!

These essentially undefined characters shift, like those in a soap opera, to suit a given narrative rather than have the script work around the natures of the collective individuals. As story is all-important, the most interesting thing the writers could do, following “To the Last Man”, is have Toshiko pregnant with “Out of Time” Tommy’s love child!

Trading Places

I don’t know how interested readers of this Blog are in stills from science fiction television series but I seem to amass them fairly rapidly, more than I can ever possibly use. I suspect it’s a continuation of collecting sweet cigarette and bubble-gum cards from when I was a child but without that teeth rotting element! I can remember a shop keeper going through her entire “Thunderbirds” stock, in a little newsagents in Paignton, during a summer holiday long ago, looking for that one elusive card to complete my set of fifty. She didn’t find it but I bought a packet anyway. I must have found it eventually, although where and when eludes me, as I still have them stored away for posterity. I actually have two sets of the first series, possibly one belonged to my brother, and a single set of the second. I prefer the latter, being made up of photos as opposed to artists impressions of the vehicles and characters. I also own a set of the sixty-four “Captain Scarlet” bubble-gum cards which mix artwork with photos and when collectively reversed make a single image.

Moving effortlessly on from Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles to a certain Sport-Utility Vehicle, I have to admit that, despite some reservations, my imagination seems to have been captured a little by episode seven of “Torchwood”. In a parallel universe, there might well be a set of trading cards for the series although, considering what I assume to be the age of the intended audience, that seems less likely than for “Doctor Who”! With this in mind, I’ve put together a little ten-picture gallery featuring the two leads from “Greeks Bearing Gifts”. It was Tosh’s episode but benefited greatly from the guest star, Daniela Denby-Ashe as Mary/Philoctetes, appearing throughout, rather than briefly at the story’s conclusion as was the case with Owen Teale in “Countrycide” and Gareth Thomas in “Ghost Machine”. The first of the set is above showing the moment our heroine first tries on the alien pendant with the remaining nine directly below in a separate post. Pictures two through six continue the exchange that took place in the Cardiff bar with the remaining four from the story’s climax at the heart of the Hub.

A “Gift” of a Gallery

In need of Resurrection

I have to admit a success on the part of Russell T. Davies! He successfully fooled me, and no doubt countless others, into believing second-in-command Suzie Costello (Indira Varma) would be a regular of the “Torchwood” team. But she’s not, and that’s why she wasn’t at the press launch last week and thus absent from the subsequent photo (see post before last). She was simply a guest in the opening episode, “Everything Changes”, despite the misleading publicity, appearing with the other five on the cover of the Radio Times and with a profile inside, equal to that of the truly-regular members of the cast. I’m not usually so gullible. At least, I hope not. As soon as I saw Tom Cruise confiding in Max Von Sydow, for example, (the previous evening) early on in “Minority Report”, I guessed the outcome. For all its SF trappings, Spielberg’s film is a very traditional affair. And it isn’t as if “Torchwood” is the first series to bump off a “regular” so soon. I’m sure fans of “Spooks” haven’t forgotten the almost immediate demise of Lisa Faulkner. So I was taken in, tricked, not surprised exactly because I hadn’t really had a chance to get to know the character. Was this ploy meant to endear me to the new series or irritate me into dislike? Alienating the audience is becoming a habit with RTD shows. It happened in the last series of “Doctor Who”, at least twice, at the beginning of both “Rise of the Cybermen”, with the humiliation of Mickey, and on arrival in “The Impossible Planet”, whatever the merits might be of the remainder of those two stories.

I didn’t really warm to “Torchwood”, regardless of being duped. The rain looked fake in the opening scenes and the blood spurting from the neck of a hospital porter, having been bitten by a rogue Weevil, the main creature in this new series, was over enthusiastic. Adult doesn’t have to mean copious amounts of gore, cartoon sex and what is euphemistically called strong language! For much of its original run, “Doctor Who” was, and still is, a far more mature affair than either new “Doctor Who” has so far proved to be or “Torchwood” looks like being. A secret subterranean base, the Hub, beneath the centre of Cardiff, reminds of “Batman” while the stone lift rising to street level, cloaked in invisibility until disembarkation, is reminiscent of “Thunderbirds”. Mix what is generally thought of as the province of children’s television with generous lashings of tonsil tennis and supposedly risqué ideas, in the second episode, Chris Chibnall’s “Day One”, lifted from “The Outer Limits” episode “Caught in the Act”, which starred “Charmed” actress Alyssa Milano, only goes to prove Mr. Davies doesn’t have a clue for whom his new series is intended. A person’s level of writing speaks volumes about their maturity. That’s why Claire Tomalin was able to successfully reveal on “The South Bank Show” (later the same evening), with great warmth, wit and enthusiasm, the true nature of Thomas Hardy, the poet, novelist and most-importantly the man, from his writing alone, given that he had destroyed all important documentation pertaining to his life. Unfortunately, there is too much on record for this to be the case with Russell T. (for “Torchy, the Battery Boy”) Davies!

Countdown 2 "Torchwood"

The press screening of episode one of “Torchwood”, “Everything Changes” by Russell T. Davies, took place in Cardiff earlier in the week. The above picture features five of the six regulars who we’ve been introduced to, with great rapidity, in the trailers. From left to right are Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper, John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness, Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato, Gareth David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones and Burn Gorman as Owen Harper. David Tennant, Billie Piper and Noel Clarke, author of episode ten entitled “Combat”, all attended but Torchwood’s second-in-command Indira Varma as Suzie Costello doesn’t appear to have been present. There are no less than seven opportunities, all within the first week, to see the first two episodes of "Torchwood", six of them back-to-back; the first four and final two screenings on BBC3, beginning on Sunday 22nd at 9pm, with a terrestrial airing on BBC2 on Wednesday 25th, also at 9pm.

Since my two previous posts, episode four has changed its title from “The Trouble with Lisa” to the more obvious, and more revealing, “Cyberwoman”! No chance of keeping that little twist a surprise for the general viewing public now!! It reminds me of the “Doctor Who” story-title change, back in the mid-Eighties, from “The Androgum Inheritance” to “The Two Doctors”, the former being a much more inspired choice and the same is the case now. Anyway, “Cyberwoman” is directed by James Strong, who previously helmed “The Impossible Planet” two-parter, so the signs are good for this episode. Series regular Ianto is protective of the Cyberwoman because, before her part-conversion, Lisa and he were an item… This episode of “Torchwood” premieres on November 5th, the 40th anniversary, to the day, of Patrick Troughton’s debut as the Doctor. A fitting tribute, seeing as the Cybermen were this incarnation’s most frequent adversary!