Postcard

It's always nice to receive a postcard, especially with a picture that brings a smile to your face, and one arrived this morning from my Mum and Dad which did exactly that! Not having had a particularly good day yesterday, it was an excellent way to start the day, but then my Mum has always been good at choosing just the right card. As it can't fail to lighten any moment, I thought I'd share the image with the rest of the world!!!

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.

Congratulations Katie!

Following the phenomenal success of her debut album "Call Off The Search", singer Katie Melua has become a British citizen after pledging her allegiance to the Queen in a citizenship ceremony.

Best known for "The Closest Thing To Crazy", a near-perfect pop song of which there are too few nowadays, the 20-year-old star was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia but moved to Belfast aged eight and settled in Redhill, Surrey, five years later.

She took the oath with her family in Weybridge, Surrey, and said she was "proud to now be a British citizen".

"As a family, we have been very fortunate to find a happy lifestyle in this country and we feel we belong."

Harper to direct Cybermen!

"The Christmas Invasion" filming is well underway and the second season of new "Doctor Who" seems to be shaping up nicely. Best news is that Graeme Harper has been allocated the two Tom MacRae written Cybermen episodes. When I heard Harper would be working on the programme again, twenty years on from "The Caves of Androzani" and "Revelation of the Daleks", I kept my fingers crossed hoping he would direct this story and it has come to pass! Wise move, Russell!! I hope Graeme retains the style and flair visible in his two Eighties classics. There is a tendency to homogenise these days and I just hope they allow him free reign within the structure of the series. He is also directing the second two-parter, which opens with an episode called "The Satan Pit" by Matt Jones, the first story to be set on an alien planet since the show's return.

The organisation of the second series is slightly different from the first. The aforementioned two two-part stories have been pulled towards the centre of the season so that the first one is an episode later than in the first season and the second an episode earlier meaning they are separated by a single episode at the exact middle of the series, set in England during the 1940s/50s, to be written by Mark Gatiss ("The Unquiet Dead"). "The Long Game", regarded by many as the weakest episode of the first season, occupied the central position of Christopher Eccleston's year and it seems as though Russell is aware of the need to strengthen the midpoint of the run judging by the revised structure.

Returning directors from the first season are those that made the strongest stories, not surprisingly! That may have more to do with who is available or who wants to work on the programme again more than the design of the executive producer but you never know. Russell isn't stupid and I'm sure he wants to harness all the strongest elements to make the best series possible. Regardless, it is good to know James Hawes ("The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances") is returning who, as well as directing the Christmas special, is also working on episodes one and three. The first is tentatively titled "The Sunshine Camp" and written by Russell who is writing five of the thirteen episodes for the second season, three less than in the first year, including the season's two-part finale which opens with an episode entitled "Army of Ghosts". The other James Hawes directed episode, "School Reunion" by Toby Whithouse, features the return of Elisabeth Sladen as Pertwee/Tom Baker era companion Sarah Jane Smith and co-stars Anthony Stewart Head, Giles from "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer", promoted from librarian to headmaster of a very strange school!

The second returning director is Euros Lyn ("The End of the World"/"The Unquiet Dead") who will helm episodes two and four. The first of these, written by Russell, is entitled "Tooth and Claw" and features an evil race of cat women. The other is set in 18th Century France and penned by Steven Moffat ("The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances") who is writing just one episode this time round. Writers new to the fold include comedian and actor Stephen Fry who is scripting episode eleven.

All in all, the second season looks very promising and I wish detractors, both in fandom and the press, would keep their mouths shut until they have something to criticise. Personal attacks over David Tennant's appearance are infantile. I think he looks the part, the unbuttoned shirt collar behind the tie reminiscent of Troughton and the footwear suggesting Davison. There is a lot to look forward to.

Sooner than expected - The Doctor is back!

A new series of "Doctor Who" has just begun on BBC7! While we patiently wait for the next batch of TV episodes, four four-part Big Finish audio dramas have just started airing. These stories are already available to buy on CD but are being broadcast for the first time. So, if you don't own the discs, these sixteen episodes represent new material!! The season stars Paul McGann as the Doctor. Choosing his stories, instead of going with the audio adventures of the actors more familiar to us in the role, is an interesting move as it places the possibly-forgotten eighth Doctor centre stage.

Paul was terrific as the Doctor in the 1996 TV movie and it is a shame that a series with him in the title role didn't follow. The all-important ratings were excellent in this country beating, incidentally, all but the first episode of the recent revival with Chris Eccleston. In the States, however, this pilot film didn't fare so well and that was where the co-funding came from. British actor, British writer, British director, American money!

The failure can't be blamed entirely on US involvement. There were a lot of problems with the script. Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy said he had a lot of fun making it in Chicago but that he shouldn't have been in it! What he meant was that changing leads 25 minutes into the movie was a mistake. They should've started out with Paul and avoided changing the face of the hero. Introducing a new audience to the concept of regeneration so soon meant the wait for a new series was extended another nine years!!

Those of us who warmed to Paul's performance back in 1996, as well as new fans of "Doctor Who", now have the opportunity to see how the eighth Doctor develops. He is joined on his travels by Charlotte 'Charley' E. Pollard, a 1930s society girl played by India Fisher. In the first four-part story, "Storm Warning" by Alan Barnes, Charley sneaks on board the doomed airship the R101 with the intention of meeting a young American trader in Singapore on New Year's Eve but bumps into the eighth Doctor instead...

The second story, "Sword of Orion" by Nicholas Briggs, finds the travellers up against old adversaries the Cybermen while in the third, "The Stones of Venice" by Paul Magrs, the pair find themselves in a sinking city. In the final adventure, "Invaders from Mars" by Mark Gatiss, writer of the recent Dickens episode, they meet film director Orson Welles at the time of his radio production of "War of the Worlds". Simon Pegg from "The Long Game" co-stars in this story. Listen out for a great joke during the season finale when the Doctor meets a character called Bix Biro and asks him if it's a pen name!!!