Death and the Maiden

Could Lucy Griffiths be the next “Bionic Woman”? Very much looks like it as she works up a sweat in this candid! Nice to see there’s plenty of life left in the young lady and that news of her death has been greatly exaggerated!!

Actually, it’s Lucy’s character Maid Marian, in “Robin Hood”, who has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil.

And, the reason for posting this picture is to add to Steve’s burgeoning collection at Bloggertropolis! He has shown much affection for Lucy, of late, and I know he will appreciate this addition to his hard drive!!

Finally, while I’m at it, I’d just like to take the opportunity to wish all my readers a very Happy New Year! Or, as they say in Vienna, Prosit Neujahr!!

Down and Out in Beverly Hills

I’ve just heard that the remake of “Bionic Woman”, starring British actress Michelle Ryan as Jaime Sommers, has been cancelled after only eight episodes. This is due, partly, to the ongoing US writers’ strike, now two months old, but mostly because, after the pilot episode aired in the States, there was a sharp fall in ratings. Viewers claimed the series was too dark in tone which, personally, I find preferable to a lot of high camp. We’ll have the chance to make up our own minds when the series airs in Britain, in the New Year, on ITV2. You have to wonder what effect this will have on the lead’s future career? I believe NBC signed Michelle up for seven years and the series didn’t even complete a, full, single season! Presumably, that’s a lot of income lost to her which could’ve set the lady up for life, in much the same way that Patrick Stewart is now able to pick and choose the projects he wants to work on because of the money he earned working on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” for seven seasons.

Miss Ryan is likely to receive compensation for early lay-off but it isn’t going to be anywhere in the region of what she would have accumulated had the “Bionic Woman” series been successful. Then, of course, there’s the question of accommodation in LA. I hope she didn’t purchase a property, based on future expectation, but rented instead! I never saw her in “EastEnders”, not being a watcher of soaps, but her performance alongside James Nesbitt in “Jekyll” was accomplished. I vaguely recall something about her auditioning for a companion role in “Doctor Who” which she obviously didn’t get, more’s the pity! I wonder whether Michelle will stay in America, as it’s unlikely a similar break will be offered to her again, not through any fault of her own, or return to the UK where, for the most part, let’s be honest, the work available is far more diverse. I wish her well for the future…

Whatever Happened to Sara Griffiths?

Sometimes when you enjoy an actor’s performance in a favourite programme you keep a sharp eye open in the hope of catching them again in something else. After seeing them once or twice more, they then seem to vanish off the face of the Earth, never to be seen again, and you forget all about them or file them away at the back of your mind. Imogen Boorman was one such actress, for me, who was stunningly gorgeous in the “Hellraiser” sequel “Hellbound”. I believe she gave up acting following stints in “Coronation Street” and “Casualty”. After my last post, in which I compared “Voyage of the Damned” with an old Sylvester McCoy story, I began to wonder whatever happened to Sara Griffiths? I enjoyed her performance as gun-toting tomboy Ray in the “Doctor Who” story “Delta and the Bannermen”, a little over twenty years ago, and am still puzzled, to this day, as to why the producer, John Nathan-Turner, chose Sophie Aldred to succeed Bonnie Langford over the young Welsh actress. Based on their respective performances in “Delta and the Bannermen” and “Dragonfire”, I would’ve gone with Sara rather than Sophie. Sophie’s debut as Ace lacked confidence whereas you believe, wholeheartedly, in Sara’s motorcycle-loving Rachel.

I decided to do a little investigating to find out what became of Miss Griffiths! I discovered that, as a teenager, she was a can-can dancer at the world-famous Moulin Rouge in Paris! She’s appeared on television in the usual round of shows that you might expect to find an aspiring actress, “Emmerdale”, “The Bill”, “Holby City”, but what surprised me was that, for the last two years, she has been working as a presenter on the shopping channel QVC (Freeview, channel 16)! I confess I found that a little sad but a girl has to earn a living. I say girl because when she appeared in “Doctor Who” that’s what she was, a mere 18-year-old, and, naturally enough, that’s how I remember her. However, I managed to find a few screen caps from her appearances on QVC. I can’t say that I would’ve recognised her, after all these years, until looking more closely at her eyes! And, sure enough, that’s her alright, appropriately situated next to a silver Christmas tree! When you consider she is a trained dancer in ballet, flamenco, tap and contemporary dance and also an accomplished musician who plays the flute, guitar, recorder and keyboards, selling goods on telly seems rather a waste of talent but I suppose it all depends on how much you want to appear on TV!

Stardust

I was really hoping for good things from “Voyage of the Damned”, the third successive “Doctor Who” Christmas Special. It couldn’t be any worse than last year’s “The Runaway Bride”, if only for the sole reason that Catherine Tate isn’t in the new episode! I tried to convince myself that, despite it being written by Russell T. Davies, the compensation would come from no less than four quality guest actors. Three of them, Geoffrey Palmer, George Costigan and Bernard Cribbins, I felt were sadly underused while, although good, Clive Swift was better as Mister Jobel in “Revelation of the Daleks”. This wasn’t the actor’s fault but the writer’s. Eric Saward, although heavily lambasted at the time, wrote much better “Doctor Who” stories than does the current head writer. And, producer Phil Collinson set himself up for a fall in a recent online interview with SFX magazine. The interviewer suggested the plot outline of “Voyage of the Damned” was not dissimilar to that of “Delta and the Bannermen” to which Phil replied that his latest production was better. It wasn’t. Interestingly, both stories are the same length but the twenty-year-old “Delta and the Bannermen” is both faster and funnier, more entertaining and even more exciting! The Heavenly Hosts featured in the current story, for example, were highly derivative; Angel masks replacing Santa ones from the two previous Christmas Specials!! They aped the mannerisms of the Ood and it felt, at times, as though we were either back on board the space liner Hyperion III, from the “Terror of the Vervoids” segment of “The Trial of a Time Lord”, or the massive sandminer vehicle which features in “The Robots of Death”. And, seafaring ships in space is, of course, an idea pinched from “Enlightenment”!

I find both Russell T. Davies and Phil Collinson to be more than a little immature and it comes across through the writing and production but, if you need further proof, rewatch the “Doctor Who Confidential” episode that accompanies “Time Crash”. In that same programme you’ll find Steven Moffat and Graeme Harper acquit themselves with far more credibility. Russell recently claimed that the production team can’t afford to make a poor episode, with over eight million viewers watching their every move, and yet the last two years have produced the worst four episodes (“Love & Monsters”, “Fear Her”, “The Runaway Bride”, “Last of the Time Lords”) in the entire history of the series. Even David Tennant seemed shocked by Russell’s recent offensive and insensitive remark that Hitler would’ve made a good Doctor! Huh?!! Davies isn’t even particularly good at bullshitting it seems!!! As was the case with the guest actors, I didn’t think there was enough of guest-companion Kylie Minogue, as Astrid Peth, in the story either. Kylie’s waitress never got to see inside the TARDIS. She was sacrificially-abandoned, along with other characters before her, well before the end; which only served to highlight the inadequacies of the script’s structure. Ironic that there’s an Aussie actress in the show, now the programme is based in Cardiff, when “Delta and the Bannermen” had a real Welsh guest-companion in Ray played by Sara Griffiths (pictured on the back of a Vincent motorcycle with seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy)! The moments of self-sacrifice in “Voyage of the Damned”, together with Mister Copper’s closing contemplations, were good, however, in what, otherwise, left me with that sinking feeling!!

The End of the World?

As the BBC’s screening of the First Season of “Heroes” draws to a close, I was saddened to discover that the future of this imaginative series might be in jeopardy. Firstly, the writers’ strike in America may cause the next run to be cut short. Whereas the First Season is comprised solely of Volume One, the Second is supposed to include both Volumes Two and Three. I believe work is completed on the first eleven episodes, that comprise Volume Two, whereas work has yet to start on the next eleven or twelve “chapters”, that make up Volume Three and the second half of the Second Season. Creator Tim Kring is considering shooting a new ending to episode eleven, “Powerless” (pictured), which may yet turn out to be the Season cliff-hanger if the strike is protracted. Secondly, Season Two has seen a massive decline in ratings in the States, accompanied by poor reviews, and the strike may just provide NBC with a convenient opportunity to “pull the plug” on a show now perceived to be performing badly.

I think it would be a shame to lose “Heroes” after such a short run. A similar fate befell “Twin Peaks”, cancelled after a brief opening Season followed by a much longer meandering Second, whereas “The X-Files” went on and on interminably, well after it had run out of ideas! “Heroes” has definitely not run out of ideas. It is “Peyton Place” for the 21st Century, post 9/11. The relationships are infinitely better-handled than in 21st Century “Doctor Who”, and this comes from someone who, these days, dislikes most American drama. The central relationship between Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and her Dad, H.R.G. (Jack Coleman), is one of the most affecting I’ve seen in a long while and superior in every way to that of Rose (Billie Piper) and her Mum (Camille Coduri) in the British show. “Heroes”, for the most part, treats its audience as intelligent. It resists the easy opportunism of inserting obvious pop songs into the melodrama. “Heroes” by David Bowie and “No More Heroes” by The Stranglers would’ve been on the soundtrack in the hands of a lesser Executive Producer! However, word has it that the Season One Finale, “How to Stop an Exploding Man”, is a bit of an anti-climax, after so much expectation, and it may well be this that proves to be the series’ ultimate downfall.

The Early Life of Verity Lambert

Such is the way of life that having just celebrated the origins of “Doctor Who” in my previous post, I am saddened to report the death of the show’s original Producer, Verity Lambert, on Thursday, 22nd November, 2007. She died on the eve of her most famous creation’s forty-fourth anniversary and just five days before she would’ve turned seventy-two. Verity’s numerous achievements beyond our much-cherished, then-fledgling, Saturday teatime series are well-documented elsewhere so, as you might expect of this author, I am going to focus on her enormous contribution to the success of my favourite programme. Back in 1963, having moved to the BBC from ITV, at the request of Sydney Newman, she was given charge of producing a new, semi-educational, family-orientated science fiction serial at the tender age of twenty-seven. Not only did she become the youngest person to hold such an important position at the Corporation but she was also the only woman which, at that time, was unheard of! Sydney’s faith in her was well-founded though, as borne out in her realisation of his concept. There was minor disagreement over the introduction of those bug-eyed monsters the Daleks but, on realising their popularity, Canadian Newman acquiesced that Verity obviously knew the series better than he did!

Verity Lambert stayed with “Doctor Who” for two years producing a total of seventy-eight episodes (each approximately twenty-five minutes in length) transmitted between Saturday, 23rd November, 1963 and Saturday, 9th October, 1965. “An Unearthly Child”, the opening episode, introduced us to the Doctor, as played by William Hartnell, and his three companions: science teacher Ian Chesterton (William Russell), history teacher Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and Granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford). Central to the story is the teachers’ discovery, in a scrap yard of all places, of the Doctor’s TARDIS; a ship which can travel through space and time disguised from the outside as a Police Box! Ironically, Verity’s final broadcast episode, “Mission to the Unknown”, featured none of the regular cast but was used by way of an introduction to the massive twelve-part “Daleks’ Master Plan” epic which would follow the four-part historical “The Myth Makers”. Between her first and last episodes she oversaw three full Dalek serials, the first two of which, “The Daleks” and “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, are undoubted classics while the latter, “The Chase”, exploded into an all-out battle between the Daleks and the Mechonoids. As her time on the series drew to a close, Verity introduced us to the Zarbi on “The Web Planet” and the Meddling Monk (Peter Butterworth), the original renegade with a TARDIS of his own, in “The Time Meddler”. Perhaps because this was a time when everything seemed fresh and new, the sheer volume of creativity that the original Producer of “Doctor Who” brought to the programme has never been surpassed and is never likely to be.

Happy Birthday to Who

Forty-four years ago today BBC Television gave birth to a little science fiction series which went on to become a national institution. That show was, of course, “Doctor Who”. It was carefully constructed so that three generations were represented aboard the TARDIS. The Doctor was a Grandfather. This was so embedded on my consciousness that when the original Doctor, William Hartnell, requested a holiday, and a plea went out for someone to replace him for a couple of weeks, long before the concept of regeneration was introduced, I responded in keeping with the original concept. I wouldn’t dream of going so far as to suggest that I gave the Producer the idea of replacing dear old Bill but I wrote to “Junior Points of View” and naturally suggested my Grandfather take over at the helm of the console room. My letter was read out on the programme. There are records kept of these things at the Beeb and what I wrote, all those years ago, later resurfaced in an article in “Doctor Who Magazine”. In turn, the periodical of all things “Who” requested that if anyone who had featured on this comments show of the Sixties had stayed with “Doctor Who” would they please get in touch. I turned out to be their only respondent which probably means nothing other than that I need to get out more!

Anyway, I digress! Alongside the Grandfather figure of the Doctor were the two parental symbols in the guise of history and science schoolteachers Barbara and Ian. Clever idea that, to have figures of authority and learning to contrast the lead’s non-establishment outlook who could both look forward and back at events in time. Then there was the teenage girl, Susan, for all us children to relate to; a brilliant child in some respects while a typical transistor radio-listening teen at other times. And she was the paradox pivotal to hooking the viewer in “An Unearthly Child”, the opening episode of “Doctor Who”. Four characters providing the perfect model of how to root a fantasy show in reality. I’m told by my own parents that I watched the series from the beginning but my earliest memories are of the two stories, recorded as part of the first series but held over to open the second, “Planet of Giants”, with its oversized box of matches and rather large kitchen-sink plughole, and the disused warehouses at the start of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”. It saddens me, more than a little, to think that the singular wise old sage has given way to the common young action hero but it is remarkable to think that the thirtieth series of travels in time and space will be on our television screens in 2008... A double Happy Birthday to “Doctor Who”!

High Five!

If you missed the mini-episode of “Doctor Who” during “Children in Need” on Friday, or would just like to see it again, here’s an easy way to view the programme. It holds up well under repeated viewing. As well as “Time Crash” itself, I’ve also included the accompanying “Confidential” documentary for the complete experience!

“All My Love To Long Ago”

“Doctor Who” was back for all of eight minutes, as part of “Children in Need” night, in a mini-episode, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Graeme Harper, entitled “Time Crash”. I’ve already seen it described, subsequently, as “Time Crap” but I thought it was good fun with a rather poignant final minute. My favourite line was actually one given to tenth Doctor David Tennant, and thus the obvious choice for the title of this post, but, overall, I thought fifth Doctor Peter Davison out-acted his successor. He was “let’s be honest, pretty sort-of-marvellous”! Readers may think I’m prejudiced in his favour because I prefer the classic series to Russell T. Davies’ reinvention but that isn’t the reason. Peter wasn’t “My Doctor”, just the better actor on this occasion. They really only got it spot on, during his era, in his final story so it was intriguing to see the actor reunited with the director of that story, “The Caves of Androzani”, for this little, well-balanced, excursion.

While David may have had the best line, the one tinged with A. E. Housman-style regret of a past long since lost, the fifth Doctor had the leading question, and the one I’ve been asking myself for the last two years, when he asks the tenth, “Is there something wrong with you?”! Perhaps David is “the decorative vegetable” rather than Peter’s stick of celery!! Steven Moffat summed up the current Doctor’s predilection for “ranting in my face about every single thing that happens to be in front of him” perfectly!!! My only regret about “Time Crash” is that it wasn’t a full-length episode. Having gone to the trouble of rehiring a popular former-leading man from the series, together with the programme’s best director of that period combined (for the first time) with the writing skills of the current series’ best author, it would’ve been nice to see the central relationship developed further… as in “The Two Doctors”, one of my “Blue Remembered Hills”. I echo the sentiment, “All My Love To Long Ago”.

Wild Child Claire Bares!

H.R.G. (Jack Coleman) needs to control that adopted daughter (Hayden Panettiere) of his a little better! She looks to be in need of some serious discipline!! I could help out, there, if he gives me a call!!! True, he grounded her a while back and, like all naughty teenage daughters, she got out through her bedroom window with the aid of a ladder and her doting Romeo. In the hair stakes, she seems to be sporting a bit of a Phil Oakey. Perhaps she’s getting down to “Open Your Heart”? She and her Dad certainly did exactly that in a “Railway Children” moment at the conclusion of the most recent chapter of “Heroes”, “Company Man”, in which Ted Sprague (Matthew John Armstrong) held the Bennet family hostage before going nuclear… but didn’t die. Claude (Christopher Eccleston) was shot repeatedly, turned invisible, and fell from a bridge… but, as we all know, because it was in black and white, and because it was a flashback and he is still alive in the present day, he didn’t die! And H.R.G. himself had the Haitian (Jimmy Jean-Louis) shoot him in X-marks-the-spot in order to effect Claire’s escape… and guess what?… Noah Bennet didn’t die either. All that violence without any casualties is more amazing than, say, possessing the superpower of retro-metabolism! Below, the lovely Hayden exposes the true power of self-healing!!