Monthly Archives: February 2012

TV Review: Doctor Who Regeneration 1 Series 015 The Space Museum 5/10

Starts with an interesting premise, where the Doctor and company seem to have slipped into a sidestream of time, when they land in a Space Museum, but cannot be seen or heard, but can observe.  They find themselves and the Tardis as exhibits. Eventually, the time sidestream joins back and they become part of a more conventional adventure and become in a power struggle between the ruling Moroks and the enslaved Xerons.  The entire series ends with an interesting conclusion – the daleks are hunting them through time.
Rating: Good 5/10

TV Review: Doctor Who Regeneration 1 Series 014 The Crusade 5/10

Eh not bad, one of the better ‘historical’ Doctor Whos of the early days. Set in 12th century Palestine, we have intrigues and fights involving King Richard and his knights, Saladin and his moors, with the Doctor and his companions in the middle. There’s some interesting plot strands (Barbara tells Saladin of her time with Nero, teh future invasion by the daleks, and the insect planet, and he thinks she could be the new Scheherazade). I liked this one.

Rating: Good 5/10

Lord of the Rings + Top 5 fantasy movie characters 024

In episode 24, Mark and Sam discuss assorted things theve been watching and reading in the last month (including Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, True Grit and assorted games), their favourite fantasy movie characters, and then discuss their marathon watching of all 3 Lord of the Rings movies, the extended editions.

TV Review: Doctor Who Regeneration 1 Series 014 The Crusade 5/10

Regeneration 1 Series 014 The Crusade

Eh not bad, one of the better ‘historical’ Doctor Whos of the early days.  Set in 12th century Palestine, we have intrigues and fights involving King Richard and his knights, Saladin and his moors, with the Doctor and his companions in the middle.  There’s some interesting plot strands (Barbara tells Saladin of her time with Nero, teh future invasion by the daleks, and the insect planet, and he thinks she could be the new Scheherazade). I liked this one.
Rating: Good 5/10

Book Review: True Grit – Fine and authentic-feeling short novel that is a classic 8.5/10

True Grit by Charles Portis

Written in 1968 but feeling like it comes from us from a writer maybe 80 years earlier, this is a fine first-person account from the perspective of a 14 year old girl, Mattie Ross, about how she avenged the cold-blooded murder of her father by paying for the services of a US Marshall, Rooster Cogburn. 

The language used is vivid and authentic, full of nuance and detail that feels genuine and appropriate for this particular girl (who is intelligent, wise, aloof and the former of strong opinions), with a powerful narrative drive propelling the action and story along.  It has laughs, good characterisation in all the main characters (including the head bad guy, Lucky Ned Pepper),  and is a real page turner.

I’d also add the recent movie of this gets exactly the mood of the novel and gets the character of Mattie pitch-perfect, and has very little divergence from this simple, driving story.

Thoroughly recommended.

Rating: Good 8.5/10

TV Review: Doctor Who Regeneration 1 Series 013 The Web Planet aka The Zarbi 2/10

This one was not good.  There were actors dressed up as giant ants, weird woodlouse-type creatures and giant butterflies. The actors were trying to do weird actions and intonations, I guess to appear otherworldly, but it came across as pretty terrible amateur dramatics, and the story went all over the place, but it was basically at first a war between the butterflies and the ants, but then morphed into the ants being controlled by a larger entity called the Animus.  6 episodes was far too many episodes to cover this story.

We get a proper encounter with the Animus by the end (in the last episode), and this really lifted things.  The voice acting and decisions made on how to present this weird, large entity (Vicki describes it as a giant spider, but it’s got legs, tentacles and suchlike, and you feel you’re only seeing part of it) were good choices – this section was rather good.  It’s definitely got something Lovecraftian about it and reminds you of the ‘ancient ones’ in Lovecraft lore – and this point is raised in the Wikipedia pages on this episode.  This end section raised the score a point and a half.

Rating: Bad 2/10