Requiescat in Pace, John

I was saddened to hear that actor John Normington has passed away at the age of 70. He was one of those actors I was always pleased to see on television. His death will no doubt go unmentioned on the television news, which says more about what society reveres than it does the brilliance of John’s acting. Only last week, my Mum was watching an episode of “Agatha Christie’s Poirot” and I pointed him out to her. He was playing Colonel Clapperton in a story called “Problem at Sea”! By coincidence, I found a really nice picture of him yesterday evening in the role for which I, and every other fan of “Doctor Who”, will always remember him. He appeared in the series twice, as Trevor Sigma in the first episode of “The Happiness Patrol” supporting Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor, but it was as Trau Morgus, in the earlier Peter Davison story “The Caves of Androzani”, that he really stunned audiences in what is a truly superlative piece of work. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, in the Robert Holmes-written, Graeme Harper-directed, Roger Limb-composed masterpiece, John’s character is the embodiment of an ambitious, ruthless, corrupt politician best-remembered for turning to camera and exclaiming, “The spineless cretins”!

It was a pleasant surprise, last year, when John Normington popped up on our screens again playing a character called Tom Flanagan in “Ghost Machine”, the third episode of the “Doctor Who” spin-off “Torchwood”. Yes, it was only a small cameo, as a mild-mannered ageing evacuee gently interrogated by Eve Myles as Gwen Cooper, but he stole the episode, even from the excellent Gareth Thomas! Not only that, the warmth with which he imbued his scene made his one of the standout performances of the entire series. I’ve subsequently seen him as a District Judge in Lynda La Plante’s “Trial and Retribution XIV: Mirror Image” in which he was also excellent. One of his best-known film appearances was as Frank Lockwood the Solicitor in the 1984 adaptation of Alan Bennett’s “A Private Function” alongside a galaxy of fine actors including Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott, Richard Griffiths, Bill Paterson, Liz Smith, Alison Steadman, Jim Carter and Pete Postlethwaite. Ten years earlier, he appeared in my all-time favourite rock movie “Stardust” together with David Essex and Adam Faith. Although it may sound clichéd, I’ve never seen him give a bad performance even in a sub-standard production. I’ve only touched on his screen work and yet John was probably even more highly-regarded as a stage actor. Kevin Spacey, artistic director of the Old Vic, endearingly paid tribute in saying “They don’t make them like him anymore”! I agree. Mr Normington was an actor of rare quality.

Pistols at Dawn!

I don’t believe this… Where’s Freema?!! Why isn’t she on the cover of the “Doctor Who” series three DVD box set with David? I was quite surprised to see how prominently John Simm features on the series three volume four DVD cover, out next month, but at least there’s a glimpse of Martha between John and David’s ears! She’s nowhere to be seen on the front of the complete series and yet she is in all thirteen episodes. John was in but three, two and a bit if you’re feeling generous! This really takes the biscuit!! I can clearly remember an interview in which an excited Freema exclaimed how cool it was that she would be appearing on the cover of a “Doctor Who” box set and now, after all her hard work, she has been denied the privilege. I feel disappointed for her so goodness only knows how she feels about it? I suppose it’s a case of don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. She’s still working for RTD… She began recording her three episodes of “Torchwood” last Tuesday and will, of course, be returning to “Doctor Who”, albeit in a diminished capacity. Ain’t this girl miffed or is she just gonna take the money and run? I don’t think anybody’s been treated this poorly on the programme since Colin Baker was sacked!

I suppose the reasoning behind the box set cover is that Simm is a better known face than Freema’s and thus likely to sell more copies. But, that theory doesn’t really hold water when you consider Freema has just featured heavily on TV every Saturday evening for thirteen weeks. And, more people watch “Doctor Who” than “Life on Mars”! Billie featured on the cover of two box sets and so I think Freema has been cheated out of something rightfully hers. There’s something slightly insidious about new “Doctor Who”. You can bet your bottom dollar Russell Tiberius Davies had plenty of input regarding the sleeve pictures! It makes no difference to whether or not I’ll be buying the set though. I’d already decided not to. I bought the recent Dalek episodes (don’t laugh!) because I love the Daleks, am a fan of Miranda Raison, and didn’t object to “42” as much as some, despite the gaping plot contrivances. First time I purchased one of the vanilla releases! I’m also going to get the current release as, to be honest, “Human Nature”, “The Family of Blood”, and “Blink” are pretty much all the discerning fan needs! These two discs avoid all episodes written by Russell, avoids Catherine Tate and the needless violence of Simm’s Master, but, unfortunately, it also means going without the second of Graeme Harper’s episodes featuring the wonderful Sir Derek Jacobi. I bought the Eccleston series, probably only because it came with extra discount, and was given series two for Christmas but, regarding series three, I would prefer to spend the money on “The Key to Time”. Even though it isn’t my favourite Tom Baker series, I still think it is better value for money and, more importantly, immensely more entertaining. I don’t own any of classic series sixteen, in any format, whereas I recorded every episode of the recent run. I guess we ought to be grateful Catherine Tate doesn’t feature on the front cover of the series three box set. They’re keeping that back for next year!

Wishful Thinking!

Producers of “Doctor Who” have had second thoughts regarding the casting of the new companion. Impressed by her performance as Sally Sparrow, in the season three episode “Blink”, they have come to the conclusion that Carey Mulligan would be ideal to play the Doctor’s assistant throughout the whole of season four! Like Freema Agyeman before her, Carey will not be reprising the role she has already played in the series but appearing as a new character called Rachel. In one of her first adventures, the Doctor takes Rachel to an alien planet, unusual in itself, where she meets a mysterious race of strangely-subservient beings. But, the Doctor has met them before! Once… when they were last seen falling into a black hole and the Time Lord found himself unable to save them!! In “Planet of the Ood”, we discover the origins of the creatures and find out what they have to say for themselves. Why do they behave the way they do - and will the Doctor become their friend or foe? Rachel is certainly in for a shock…

Out for a Duck!

The release of the third DVD volume, from series three of new “Doctor Who”, gives me an opportunity to say a little more on the subject of Steven Moffat’s episode “Blink”. I had high hopes of this story, before it transmitted, and in the first thirty seconds or so the atmosphere created boded well. Unfortunately, as soon as Sally Sparrow peeled back the wallpaper, I knew the writing was on the wall! Yes, it captured David Tennant’s Doctor, without him even being there, but boy did it quickly undermine the mood of the piece. I am, of course, referring to the words “Duck, no really, duck”!! The story was spoiled before it had barely begun. Reading the line made me cringe because, reasonably, no one would bother to write a warning that crass. I wonder whether or not it was in Moffat’s script or if Russell T Davies added it during production. My next gripe followed hot on the heels of the first. I question that the Doctor would conclude his message “Love from the Doctor”. It is established in the opening two-part story on this disc, “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”, that the Doctor has to actually become human in order to understand the very concept of love. For this reason, I don’t think he would’ve used the word “love” and, as he did, I would very much like to know what he meant by it? It does suggest that there is little communication amongst the writing staff of the programme when a single, very important, word directly contradicts what has immediately gone before. I wanted “Blink” to be terrifying but already it had descended into the usual realm of playing silly buggers.

“Blink” repeatedly plays the same card, removing the possibility of building up any tension, by undermining what narrative there is with infantile humour. There’s the scene in which Larry Nightingale stands naked before Sally, covering his essentials with his hands, much to the embarrassment of his sister Kathy! For a moment, I thought I was watching “Torchwood” as I vaguely remember a scene in which Gwen Cooper also apologises, this time for her boyfriend’s awkward lack of apparel. Fine for the target audience of the spin-off series but is it really “Doctor Who”? And, having done it once, couldn’t the team come up with something new? Or, is that the level to which their mindset is immovably fixed? Completely at odds with the knowing (hey, here’s a penis gag in “Doctor Who”) wink to the viewer is the Doctor’s so-called “Timey-Wimey” device. This contraption is thus named so that all the three-year-olds watching this supposedly-adult horror story can also join in the fun. Any self-respecting “Doctor Who” fan ought to be inwardly-squirming in mortification by this stage, rooted to the spot much like one of the Weeping Angel statues in the story itself! Everybody raved about this episode because it was written by Mr Moffat and he is the newly-crowned God of “Doctor Who”. It should’ve been him wafting across the set, angel-like, in “Last of the Time Lords”, not David Tennant. Yet, despite all my criticism, and though it doesn’t say much for the rest of the series, I would agree that “Blink” is still the best of the bunch! That may have far more to do with the “gorgeous girl” at the heart of the narrative than the actual writing itself!! And, that’s not to say the episode was totally bereft of good lines, my favourite being “Sad is the thinking person’s happy”… because, whatever the emotional consequence, the thinking person always acknowledges the truth.

Pudsey Malone

Do you trust the BBC? I’ve long since lost faith in them. It didn’t take this week’s melodramatic revelations, that some of their competitions were faked, for me to feel this way but it certainly bolstered up my argument against the almighty corporation. The BBC have been found guilty of cheating the public during “Children in Need” and “Comic Relief”, to name but two! Is this not a criminal offence, to encourage the public to spend their hard-earned phoning in, essentially, to simply give it away to big business? Were I a charity, and who’s to say that I’m not (!), I would want to distance myself from such shenanigans. It makes the BBC look like gangsters, fiddling money from people any way they can. It even happened on “Blue Peter”, which makes one think that Fagin is running the show! But, in actuality, television lies all the time, especially in the world of marketing and advertising. Pre-recorded video cassettes used to be sold under the slogan, “Own it for life”! That’s assuming the player didn’t mangle the tape during rewind! Now, you can’t purchase a player assuming you still have the tape! You may still own the tapes, you just won’t be able to use them!! When the digital switchover arrives, you won’t be able to record programmes onto videotape in the way that you used to. There won’t be anything worth recording on them anyway! So, what exactly is the incentive to make the investment in order to be able to carry on watching, once the analogue signal is switched off?

Russell T Davies (Yes, him again! You just knew I’d get around to the “Doctor Who” impresario!!) stated a few months ago that Kylie couldn’t possibly be in the Christmas Special because a woman of her stature would be fully-booked for at least two years in advance. Obviously, this was said to dispel internet rumours. But, the writer lied to the public. He deceived us or, at least, attempted to! The truth is that Ms Minogue isn’t in as great a demand as Russell would have us believe!! In other words, she’s not really as popular as the media want us to think she is. It’s all marketing, hype, lies, to manipulate the public into a position where they will feel compelled to watch. Wouldn’t the world be a better place without it? If Russell puts out a statement that “Voyage of the Damned” will be the biggest and best episode yet, there are gullible people out there ready-and-willing to believe him because he is well-known and in the public eye. It must be the truth, it was in the newspaper or on television! There are some of us, in television la-la land, that feel the very-title “Doctor Who”, as used currently, is a misnomer. The series I understand as “Doctor Who” finished in 1989. The current version hasn’t retained enough of the original’s characteristics. So, is it alright to lie? Is avoiding the truth, in truth, a lie? And, is lying only an issue when it affects us financially?

Charmed’s Angels

During the Nineties, in the absence of new episodes of “Doctor Who”, it is fair to say I watched quite a lot of American television! Much of it was broadcast on BBC TWO, on weekday evenings between 6 and 7.30pm. It was in this timeslot that most of the science fiction and fantasy shows were broadcast. With the return of “Doctor Who” to our screens, this little oasis of programming, from every other form of television known to mankind, was vanquished like a demon from the Channel Five series “Charmed” to dwell in the eternity of the television archive, occasionally resurrected to do battle in the ratings at some late hour or on some obscure satellite channel! I mention “Charmed”, specifically, because it escaped the confines of the bridging slot between afternoon and evening telly on the BBC’s minority station of the time to appear at peak time on a Saturday evening, albeit on a then-minor terrestrial channel. If I remember rightly, it replaced “Xena: Warrior Princess” whose ratings must’ve been ailing as this series’ run was never completed. “Charmed” was essentially in the “Doctor Who” slot but on a different channel. It ran for eight seasons, seven of which were broadcast on Five with the remaining season shown on Channel Four, sadly as part of “T4” on Sunday afternoons. The series boasted a terrific theme song in the form of a cover version of The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now” by Love Spit Love.

“Charmed” was what you would get were you to cross “Charlie’s Angels” with “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer”, the latter one of the shows broadcast in the aforementioned fantasy slot on TWO. To begin with, I preferred “Charmed” to “Buffy” though I wasn’t unaware that the Channel Five series was the poor man’s answer to Joss Whedon’s creation. To be honest, I just couldn’t be doing with all that high school nonsense about cute cheerleaders and fraternity footballers! The ladies in “Charmed” were a little older with careers and a sideline in demon-hunting. The problem with the series was that, like the reinvention of “Doctor Who”, it soon became apparent it was bogged down by domestics in order to appeal to a wider audience disinterested in fantasy. I soon lost interest in listening, week in and week out, to crying babies with the odd moment allotted to dispelling the hobgoblin of the week! 178 episodes were made in all, detailing the witch-sisters’ lives, and the series survived a major change of cast at the end of the third season. Leading lady Shannen Doherty, as Prue Halliwell, left and Rose McGowan replaced her, as Paige Matthews, joining stalwarts Holly Marie Combs, as Piper Halliwell, and Alyssa Milano, as Phoebe Halliwell. I occasionally dipped into later episodes but never rekindled my early enthusiasm for the series.

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World!

The smash-hit US drama series “Heroes” makes champions - and villains - of ordinary people, by gifting them with extraordinary abilities: a Japanese office worker able to manipulate time; a cheerleader with incredible regenerative powers; a struggling single mother with a deadly alter ego; a drug-addicted artist whose work predicts a catastrophic future; and a serial killer capable of absorbing all their abilities. Meanwhile, geneticist Mohinder Suresh continues the work of his murdered father - have these gifted men and women entered a new phase of evolution, or are their abilities the result of something far more sinister? Hayden Panettiere is Claire Bennet, the high school cheerleader from Texas with a key role to play in uncovering the truth…

Of particular interest to fans of “Doctor Who”, ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston joins the cast of “Heroes”, midway through its first season, as Claude for five of its twenty-three episodes. The former Time Lord appears in “Godsend”, “The Fix”, “Distractions”, “Unexpected” and “Company Man” (episodes 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17). And, of note to “Star Trek” fans, Sulu-actor George Takei also guest-stars in five episodes, as Kaito Nakamura, namely “The Fix”, “Distractions”, “Company Man”, “Landslide” and “How to Stop an Exploding Man” (episodes 13, 14, 17, 22 and 23). I draw your attention to the fact that three episodes (13, 14 and 17) feature both actors, though whether or not they are in any scenes together remains to be seen! “Heroes” starts on Wednesday 25th July at 9pm, on BBC TWO, with a double bill comprising “In His Own Image” (broadcast in the States as “Genesis”) and “Don’t Look Back”…

Cast Away!

Fans of time-travel cop drama “Life on Mars” should be counting their blessings! While “Doctor Who” fans have been lumbered with Catherine Tate for the whole of its fourth season in what feels like a lump-it-or-leave-it scenario, “Ashes to Ashes”, the sequel series to the two eight-episode seasons of “Life on Mars”, has fared rather better in the casting stakes. The lovely Keeley Hawes is to replace the dastardly John Simm alongside the abrupt Philip Glenister, reprising his role as no-nonsense DCI Gene Hunt from the original. Keeley is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Zoë Reynolds in MI5 drama “Spooks” which she left in 2004. She has, of course, starred in many other things, not least the notorious lesbian drama “Tipping the Velvet”. In “Ashes to Ashes”, Ms Hawes will play psychological profiler DI Alex Drake, an up-and-coming member of the police force in 2008, who finds herself trapped in 1981, eight years on from the previous series. Named after another David Bowie song, it will be broadcast on BBC1 in 2008. Roxy Music and The Human League will feature on the soundtrack which, to my ears, is preferable to the choice of tunes recently featured in “Doctor Who” but, more importantly, appropriate to the setting! “You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, When I met you”!! Maybe I should switch allegiance? Only kidding, but it should be worth a look…

In casting news pertaining to the third “Doctor Who” Christmas Special, and greeted with more optimism by me than the inclusion of La Tate next year, Clive Swift is to appear in “Voyage of the Damned”. He has appeared in the series once before, opposite Colin Baker’s Doctor back in 1985, as Chief Embalmer Jobel, a bit of a ladies’ man lusting after Peri - the cad, in one of my all-time favourite stories “Revelation of the Daleks”. He’s, no doubt, best-known as Richard Bucket, put-upon husband of Hyacinth, in the dreadful BBC1 sitcom “Keeping Up Appearances”, though I prefer to remember him as the equally downtrodden Bishop Proudie in “The Barchester Chronicles”. My imagination has been working overtime at the thought of Mr Swift having a read-through with Kylie! Equally intriguing is the casting of Geoffrey Palmer as the Captain of the Titanic. Another good actor but I wonder if, at 80, he isn’t a little too old to be playing Edward Smith. He, like Clive, has worked on the classic series, though in his case twice and both times opposite Jon Pertwee. 37 years ago, he appeared in “Doctor Who and the Silurians”, by far the best of the pair, and resurfaced two years later in “The Mutants”. His son Charles directed the first two episodes and the Paul Cornell two-parter of the most recent series so it’s likely Geoffrey has watched it since he last took part himself! Like Clive Swift, Mr Palmer senior is probably also best-known for his sitcom work, notably in “Butterflies”, the excellent “Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin”, and opposite Dame Judi Dench in the appropriately titled, considering this latest role, “As Time Goes By”!

Lash of the Time Lords

It’s perhaps a little strange, considering my aversion to new “Doctor Who”, that most of my “Doctor Who” posts are on the modern era of the show! I suppose it’s easier to criticise something than to praise it but I do, genuinely, mourn the programme’s loss of innocence that has transpired from the intervening years while the series was off-air. “Doctor Who” used to be fun. A fine example of this is the 1985 story “Timelash”. Not fine in the sense that it’s a particularly good story. It isn’t. But fine in the sense that it’s good fun to watch. It’s entertaining, if only to laugh at the monster which “terrorises” Peri for most of the story’s duration or cringe at “Blake’s 7” star Paul Darrow’s hammy acting, who seems to think he’s in “Richard II”!! He plays Tekker who has one of the best, scenery-chewing, lines in the whole piece as, threatening the Sixth incarnation with almost-certain fatal-death, he exclaims “Save your breath for the Timelash, Doctor. Most people depart with a scream.” Now, if that ain’t a hoot, what is?!! And, Paul’s performance in the story is by no means the worst. That honour must go to Dicken Ashworth who plays Sezon. He delivers some of his lines as if he’s only just learnt how to read!!!

I presume “Timelash” is being made available on DVD, from today, because it features an encounter with a famous author and, in this respect, ties in with the reinvention of the series. Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor criticised Charles Dickens while David Tennant’s upstaged William Shakespeare and, in this new budget-price release, Colin Baker has a close encounter with a young man called Herbert. It’s only at the end of the story that Herbert is revealed to be none other than H. G. Wells, assuming that you haven’t already guessed it by then! But, at least this writer gets a trip in the TARDIS and thus it’s explained how the great social novelist came to script “The Time Machine”. Ironically, this is the novel which inspired Terry Nation’s original Dalek serial where Wells’s leisure-driven Eloi became the pacifist Thals and the underground-dwelling Morlocks were reimagined as “The Daleks” themselves. “Timelash” also suggests that the villain of the two-part story, the Borad, played to great effect by Robert Ashby, ends his days as the often poorly-photographed monster of a certain Scottish Loch! He, no doubt, joins the cyborg weapon of the Zygons, from the earlier Tom Baker serial, which was the original explanation for Nessie in “Doctor Who”!!

Masterful!

He can be a nice boy when he wants to!