Doll parts

He’s shagged Susan Lynch, stolen a bus (causing pensioners to miss their regular game of bingo!), blown up a house (using its central heating system!!) at precisely 6pm and much, much worse in Cracker… attempted to blow up a London railway terminus, as a terrorist in Spooks… mutinied, then had his back flayed for his trouble, in Hornblower… and, if all that wasn’t enough, he wasn’t a particularly pleasant character in Survivors either… but Andrew Tiernan never short changes the viewer. Andy, as he was credited in this week’s episode of Doctor Who, always turns in a bloody good performance. He played the landlord of a rundown block of flats in Bristol, demanding rent money with the menacing aid of his bruiser-of-a-dog, Bernard! Andy had many of the story’s best lines and moments, bemoaning there was nothing to watch on television except thirty-year-old repeats of Bergerac. Lord knows why he was tuned into Yesterday if he was after the boxing! He brilliantly got sucked into his mangy old carpet much to the total disinterest of his pet but, best of all, was his transformation into one of the demon dolls! Possibly the finest use of special effects since Richard Wilson grew a gasmask in the first series.

Then there was Daniel Mays, whose career continues to be in the ascendancy. ITV3 have been running the 2007 movie Atonement, in which he co-stars with James McAvoy, a romantic drama where a man is accused of a rape he didn’t commit. More recently, Daniel attempted to sort out Gene Hunt’s nick, not the easiest task you can imagine, in the third-and-final series of Ashes To Ashes before being banished to the outer reaches of the solar system in Survivors-style drama Outcasts. In Doctor Who he played Alex, father to a little boy, George, unsure how to connect with his son’s phobia of the dark - when all the scary things come out to play. Boy George turned out not only to be adopted but also alien, living his life in fear of rejection. The coming together of father and child, at the story’s climax, was a pure Railway Children moment, and all the more moving for that! If you’re going to “borrow” then do it from the best!!

And the man who wrote Night Terrors, which may well turn out to be this year’s finest episode of Doctor Who… well, all his previous scripts have been set in the past whereas his latest is set in the present day. He tackled Dickens in The Unquiet Dead, when the novelist was in the last year of his life and about to embark on The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, while Christopher Eccleston was The Doctor… bullying in The Idiot’s Lantern, set during the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, was his next choice of subject after David Tennant had taken over the role… and, after a few years away from writing for Doctor Who, he returned to the fold, last year, to pen Victory Of The Daleks, in which the pepper pots from Skaro were outgunned by Matt Smith, with a great deal of help from the forces and spitfires assembled by a certain PM Winston Churchill. I’m talking about Mark Gatiss, author of all three, whose latest (fourth) instalment of everyone’s favourite science fiction series also included the death of a dear, little old lady by multiple black bin bags! Maybe it was because she looked like Patricia Hayes whilst sounding like Frank Spencer?! When Steven Moffat relinquishes his post as show runner, and assuming he wants the responsibility of the top job, surely Mark is his natural successor.

The courage of One’s convictions

British television is in a terrible state! Michael Grade recently claimed TV to be no worse or better than in the supposed golden age but I think he’s wrong. Well, he’s been wrong before! There isn’t much that’s worth watching and when the powers-that-be secure a drama that is… what do they do with it? They throw it to the dogs before it’s barely been given a chance to attract a following. I’m talking about the new eight-part science fiction series “Outcasts”. Clearly, viewing figures must’ve fallen off sharply during broadcast of the first few episodes because the show has been shifted, after what seems like indecision, to a post-news slot on Sunday evenings. Initially, the programme was transmitted at 9pm on BBC One on Monday and Tuesday in the slots vacated by “Silent Witness”. This schedule lasted a fortnight. With four episodes released, “Outcasts” was already halfway through. With four left, surely the schedule would remain the same? No! Episode five went out in its Monday slot but, the following day, new legal-eagle drama “Silk” got underway. Glancing at the following week’s listings, there was no sign of “Outcasts” either on Monday or Tuesday! That’s because it had moved again… this time to Sunday at 10.25pm, or thereabouts (programmes following the news always start late), to a slot recently used for weekly repeats of “The Apprentice”!

The explanation for the turmoil surrounding the broadcast of “Outcasts” is simple. It’s science fiction. Nobody’s interested. It doesn’t matter. Even though, when the genre is at its best, science fiction can go a long way in explaining the human condition, programmes with a truly creative streak are still treated with utter contempt. And thus, so is the viewer. How ironic the corporation choose to advertise their online catch-up service with the slogan “Your Very Own BBC”! My very own BBC finished years ago… if it ever started. There is a pecking order of subjects where scheduling falls by the wayside if, for example, Andy Murray has an “important” tennis match (even when the outcome is a certainty) or when a rich, privileged, couple are to marry! I dare the BBC to broadcast repeats of William Hartnell episodes of “Doctor Who” at peak time on their primary channel. Or, at any time on any channel! Hell, sell them to Yesterday, like “Colditz”, if you’re never, ever, going to repeat them. Put the series on instead of the next General Election. People hate science fiction so much, there might be a better turn out at the polling stations! Of course, the BBC are never going to repeat classic “Doctor Who” when they can sell the thing on DVD at £20 a story.

So, what is “Outcasts” about and is it any good? Watch it and discover for yourself! Does the show deserve better treatment? Am I making a fuss about nothing? I’ve seen the series described as “Spooks” in space. That’s probably because Hermione Norris is in it and it’s made by the same company. Daniel Mays is in it too, so perhaps it’s “Ashes to Ashes” in space. It’s made by the same company! Ashley Walters is in it. “Hustle” in space? Jamie Bamber was in the first episode. “Law & Order: UK” in space? Both made by the same company. OK, you get the picture. Actually, “Outcasts” is more “Survivors” in space, which isn’t made by the same company. It’s not as good as “Survivors” and I’m comparing “Outcasts” with the remake. Where it does score is in the very fact that it isn’t a reworking like so many. “Doctor Who”, “Survivors”, “The Day of the Triffids”, “The Prisoner”… all tell us when the golden age of television was. “Outcasts” is something trying to be new although it contains little that wasn’t made on the cheap in “Genesis of the Daleks”… in 1975. “Genesis” is one of the best “Doctor Who” stories though. Well, it’s a little late to start following the much-more expensive, shot in South Africa, “Outcasts”, if you aren’t already, as the series finishes this Sunday and I doubt very much that it has been re-commissioned. “Outcasts” has been cast out!

Warden’s Watch Special: Highlights of the Year

It hasn’t been a particularly memorable year for those of us interested in brilliantly-crafted television drama. The fifth series of new “Doctor Who” was disappointing but my expectations weren’t that high to begin with. I worried that, under Steven Moffat, the stories would become increasingly esoteric and my fears proved well-founded. One of the problems is that, creatively, the most-successful stories written by both the new Executive Producer and Mark Gatiss were the ones they wrote back in 2005 for Christopher Eccleston! It’s a bit like Ben Aaronovitch trying to top “Remembrance of the Daleks”, in the late Eighties, and coming up with the vastly-inferior “Battlefield”, itself a reworking of one of his earlier scripts. The irony is that the finest story of the year to feature the new, eleventh, Doctor, played brilliantly by Matt Smith, was one of “The Sarah Jane Adventures”! And, to compound the irony, “Death of the Doctor” was the one written by Russell!! It almost made me feel sorry he’s gone and I’m sure that that was his intention. This third story in the fourth series of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” was equalled, if not bettered, two stories later by Rupert Laight’s “Lost in Time”, a two-episode reworking of an entire twenty-six episode (“The Key to Time”) season of classic “Doctor Who”. With segments reminiscent of “Ghost Light” and “The Curse of Fenric”, and another nodding to the Hartnell historicals, the story gently acknowledged the 47th anniversary of “Doctor Who” with the dateline of the newspaper cutting which the three adventurers had initially set out to investigate.

Aside from stories set in space and time, another mainstay of 2010 has been the continuing dreamlike-investigations of American “Medium” Allison DuBois. Freeview viewers have got as far as Season Five while, if you subscribe to satellite, then you’re enjoying Season Six and, for the more impatient among us, Season Seven episodes have been materialising on the internet from the early hours of Saturday mornings for the ten weeks up to the beginning of December with the remaining six scheduled to resume in the New Year! It’s a miracle the show is still with us, having been picked up by CBS after cancellation, while other series, such as “Heroes”, have fallen by the wayside. Back in the UK, we were treated to the second, and sadly final, series of “Survivors” which I believe to be a more successful reworking of an old hit than the reincarnation and enduring saga of everyone’s favourite Time Lord. Why the BBC have picked up ITV’s “Primeval” and dumped their own is beyond me! I wasn’t as enamoured by Season Six of “Hustle”, at the beginning of the year, as I was Season Five in 2009, despite guest appearances by Brian Murphy, Colin Baker and Danny Webb. Last year it was given a new lease of life with the introduction of two new regular characters, as well as the return of a familiar face, so, by this year, the con seemed to have settled back into a familiar routine once again. On the other hand, “Spooks” has benefited from the introduction of new characters! Still not as good as when Rupert Penry-Jones led the cast, Season Nine was a distinct improvement over recent years. “Luther” was this year’s detective success story, although I’m sure there are those who preferred Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s modernisation of “Sherlock”, but it doesn’t look as though the BBC know where to take Idris Elba’s character next as there isn’t to be a second series as such, just a couple of one-hour specials! Bizarre or what?!

The real triumphs of the year came in the form of selected repeats. I’m not talking about the endless rotation of “Inspector Morse”, “Poirot”, “A Touch of Frost” and “Foyle’s War”, for the older generation on ITV3, or the constant repetition of “The Sweeney”, “The Professionals”, “Minder” and “The Prisoner”, for real men on ITV4, as good as all these series undoubtedly are, but a couple of gems that have surfaced on Yesterday. First was a rerun of the six-part Dennis Potter serial “Lipstick on Your Collar”, originally a Channel Four conclusion to the musical trilogy begun and continued on the BBC with “Pennies from Heaven” and “The Singing Detective” but much-underrated in their shadow! Secondly, and unquestionably one of the ten best series ever to come out of Britain, the two seasons of “Colditz” have recently enjoyed a long-overdue re-screening. The first season is the most consistent, especially when dealing with the psychological aspects of imprisonment rather than boy’s own heroics, while the second suffered a smidgen after the “escape” of Edward Hardwicke’s Pat Reid though his replacement, a new character in the German ranks played with thorough viciousness by Anthony Valentine, aids the drama in delving into the infighting of Nazi politics of the time. There’s no incidental music to tell you what to think or how to feel just bloody good writing, acting and directing from the likes of “Doctor Who” stalwarts Michael Ferguson and Terence Dudley. They just don’t make thought-provoking series like “Colditz” anymore.

No More “Survivors” Any More!

I’ve recently discovered the BBC has cancelled “Survivors” and I’m a little disgruntled to say the least! Apparently, the series was given the elbow back in April. There’s nothing like being first with the news!! I found out via a footnote to a magazine competition, of all places. I suppose the powers that be decided there might be an outcry if the cancellation of a science fiction series was announced publicly. Following the furore surrounding the “postponement” of “Doctor Who”, in 1985, the Beeb learnt quite quickly better to brush these things under the carpet, and the series came to a discreet conclusion four years later!

What’s ironic, in the case of “Survivors”, is that the British Broadcasting Corporation has only recently rushed to the aid of ITV’s science fiction show “Primeval” and saved it from the same fate. Why would they save a programme on a competing channel at the expense of one of their own? Strange! I’ve lately rewatched Series Two of “Primeval” and, in all honesty, it isn’t very good. (The worst episode was the one written by “Doctor Who” writer Paul Cornell!) Adding to the irony is the fact that both shows, the revamped “Survivors” and new creation “Primeval”, are the brainchildren of the same man, Adrian Hodges.

The BBC have made a habit of terminating fantasy shows before their natural conclusion. They invested in John Christopher’s trilogy “The Tripods” during the mid-Eighties only to cut it short after two series. Director Christopher Barry claimed the series was better than “Doctor Who”. It wasn’t but it was a nice try. The episodes set in “The City of Gold and Lead”, during Series Two, had beautiful production design. Those filmed on location were not as captivating, where usually the great outdoors aids realism, but the superior model work wasn’t enough to save the series.

A decade later and the treatment of Brian Clemens and Stephen Gallagher’s “Bugs” was appalling. Following episode seven of Series Four, viewers had to wait nearly a year to see the final three instalments. Episode ten ended on a cliff-hanger, with the kidnap of some of the team, only for the series to be cancelled so that we would never learn their fate.

“Survivors” suffered because of the delay in broadcasting the second series. It was supposed to go out last year. When it eventually reached transmission, in January this year, there was a further delay between the first and second episodes due to the BBC prioritising football over drama. Sport is more important than fiction and politics more important than sport in the gospel according to the BBC!

There was a time when dramas went out at the same time, on the same day, every week. Look at the scattered start times of the thirteen episodes comprising this year’s series of “Doctor Who”. In 1985 all thirteen began at 5:20pm and ended at 6:05. A bit early but regular at least! Every episode of the original “Survivors”, broadcast between 1975 and 1977, went out at the same time bar one. 37 out of 38 isn’t a bad strike rate!

I shall miss new “Survivors”. It was serious where new “Doctor Who” is frivolous. I’ll miss Julie Graham’s irresistible Abby Grant as she desperately searched for her missing son against the backdrop of the pandemic. I was already missing Robyn Addison as they killed off her character, Sarah, at the end of what turned out to be the penultimate episode. And, now, we’ll never find out where Tom Price was headed, having stowed away aboard the mysterious Patrick Malahide’s aeroplane!

Who Survives(?)

“Doctor Who” celebrates its forty-fifth anniversary today and there’s not a single programme on television to mark the occasion!

“The Bill” recently celebrated its twenty-fifth year, ITV slipping in a couple of special episodes just in the nick of time, before giving over most of its precious airspace to jungle idiocy. So, why can’t the BBC manage something similar, between dancing bouts, for its flagship science fiction series, especially now they claim it’s so popular once again? Too busy trying not to hurt the feelings of Jonathan Ross no doubt!

Ironically, the BBC are resurrecting Terry (Dalek creator) Nation’s post-apocalyptic “Survivors” tonight, based on his highly original novel and television series from the mid-Seventies. I don’t know whether I should be excited or give up the notion of ever seeing anything as remotely creative as television once was.

“Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)”, “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons”, “Doctor Who” and now “Survivors”… what are the chances of the latter being as good, second time around, considering the quality of those other revivals when compared to their originals? The changes to the structure of the programme don’t bode well…

Two of the three lead characters of the original first season of “Survivors” are now a politically-correct shade of black while the endearingly brilliant Talfryn Thomas, as Tom Price, has morphed into Mr. chunky-hunky Max Beesley.

The new “Survivors” is brought to the Beeb by the same team who sold ITV “Primeval”. Fun as that was, the present undertaking needs to be grim.

It’ll be interesting to see how “Survivors” fares in the ratings up against the aforementioned, oh-so-popular, celebrity lunacy. I won’t hold my breath. Or, perhaps I should, given the nature of the epidemic! People want fun and what better way to have it than see people humiliated down under, credit crunching on bugs. Hopefully, “Survivors” will be intelligent, at the very least…

“Survivors” is the closest we’re going to get to “Doctor Who” (1963-89) tonight, to which I wish a very Happy Birthday!

Anniversaries Galore!

This year sees no less than five British science fiction/fantasy television shows celebrate their initial appearance on our screens. I thought I'd mention them because in 2003, as "Doctor Who" celebrated its fortieth anniversary, "Quatermass", ten years its senior, seemed to get overlooked. The recent DVD release and revival on BBC4 this year have gone some way to make amends for not celebrating its fiftieth anniversary two years ago! Incidentally, new "Doctor Who" David Tennant appeared as Doctor Briscoe in the latest adaptation of "Quatermass" and, having co-starred alongside "Star Cops" actor David Calder in the recent Radio Four adaptation of "Dixon of Dock Green", seems to be making a habit of appearing in revivals of old shows!!

The youngest show to celebrate its birthday this year is "Bugs". Co-starring Jesse Birdsall, and my personal favourite series of the Nineties, it ran for four seasons and a total of forty episodes. Full of action and adventure, explosions and plenty of gadgets, it celebrated its tenth anniversary on April 1st. Co-created by Brian Clemens, better known for his work on "The Avengers" and "The Professionals", and Stephen Gallagher, who'd written "Warriors' Gate" and "Terminus" for "Doctor Who" as well as overseeing ITV adaptations of his novels "Oktober" and "Chimera", "Bugs" wasn't treated particularly well by the BBC. By the time it reached its fourth season it was removed from the schedules midrun and the final three episodes weren't shown until almost a year later!

Three Gerry Anderson shows also have cause for celebration this year. Supermarionation series "Thunderbirds", concerning the exploits of secret organisation International Rescue, has been enjoying repeat runs for forty years! First seen on our screens in 1965, it ran for 32 episodes, 26 of them filmed in 1964 with the remaining six made two years later as well as spawning two feature film spinoffs along the way. A minor gripe of mine is that BBC2 doesn't see fit to repeat "Fireball XL5" for a change, the excuse being that it was made in black and white which doesn't seem to prevent reruns of "Bilko" or "The Munsters"! "Fireball XL5" hasn’t been shown on terrestrial television since ITV repeated it, weekday mornings, twenty years ago in 1985. ITV reran "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" at the same time on Sunday mornings and, even though I prefer the indestructible hero, I remember thinking how much more humourous, and therefore probably more entertaining to the general public, was "Fireball XL5"!!

The other Gerry Anderson shows to celebrate their birthdays are two of the live action series he co-created. Having tested the water with a third feature film, the terrific but vastly underrated live action "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" (1969), recently given a rare though very welcome screening on ITV1, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson went into production with "UFO", first seen on television in 1970. Now 35 years old, 26 episodes were made, an initial 17 being followed with a further nine. It starred the late Ed Bishop as SHADO Commander Ed Straker with George Sewell co-starring as Colonel Alec Freeman in the initial batch of episodes. A second series was proposed but gave way to the other Anderson production celebrating its anniversary, "Space: 1999". Now 30, having first appeared in 1975, this series ran for two very different seasons chalking up a total of 48 episodes between them. It starred husband and wife team Martin Landau, as Moonbase Alpha Commander John Koenig, and Barbara Bain, as Doctor Helena Russell, fighting for their survival after the Moon is blown from its orbit following a nuclear explosion on its dark side.

Last, but certainly not least, and also celebrating 30 years since its first appearance, is "Survivors". This series ran for three seasons and a total of 38 episodes altogether. It was devised by Dalek creator Terry Nation immediately preceding his other great success "Blake's 7". After a flu pandemic is accidentally unleashed on the population of the world, those few left behind face the enormous uphill struggle of building a new life whether battling nature or people with alternative views on how to proceed. The initial run of 13 episodes starred Carolyn Seymour as Abby Grant with James Bond creator Ian Fleming's niece Lucy Fleming as Jenny Richards and Ian McCulloch as Greg Preston. I love all the shows celebrating differing degrees of longevity but, of the five, "Survivors" is my favourite.