It’s hard to think that it is now 10 years since the first Doctor Who Christmas Special of the revised series. It wasn’t the first Christmas episode of the entire series, though, as there was a curio called “The Feast Of Steven” that was first broadcast in 1965 that was designed as a light-hearted, stand-alone episode offering some seasonal cheer in amongst the battles with Daleks. It is long lost although the audio track remains along with some fan-reconstructed stills photos. It was rather controversial at the time as William Hartnell (along with co-stars Peter Purves and Jean Marsh) break the 4th wall with a Christmas message delivered to the audience at home:
The Christmas episodes of the revised series have been a hit-and-miss affair. The first, A Christmas Invasion, was a gloriously enjoyable tale written by Russell T Davies and was the first to star David Tennant giving his popularity an immediate boost. From there on the RTD era Christmas scripts were rather patchy with star casting taking priority over decent scripts and only The Next Doctor coming close with a great turn by David Morrissey as a man struggling with his identity but somewhat spoiled by some nonsense with Cybermen: a real Curate’s Egg of an episode.
The Stephen Moffat scripted Christmas specials seem to have gone in a cycle of excellent-then-mediocre. His first, A Christmas Carol was a real standout one-off episode which made excellent use of both the guest actors and the mercurial talents of Matt Smith. This was followed by The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe which I can only vaguely recall even after a few viewings as the one with the Ents from Lord Of The Rings in it. We went back to form with The Snowmen with Matt Smith in full Dickensian mode but that was followed by the somewhat patchy Time Of The Doctor which suffered from having to tie up all of Matt Smiths hanging story threads. Last year we had Last Christmas which I would regard as the best of the bunch but did that mean that this year’s episode was going to be pants?
My initial reaction after watching last night’s Husbands Of River Song was that they had rounded off an excellent year of new Who episodes with something of a Christmas Turkey but I’m actually feeling a little more charitable towards it this morning. Just as The Next Doctor had a great human story mixed amongst the aimless action, this year’s episode had one great aspect: a last dinner date between the Doctor and River, somewhat weighed down by a pointless jewel-heist MacGuffin of a plotline. The jewel heist story in itself could have been OK but it made scant use of what was a decent support cast: Matt Lucas may as well have stayed at home as his character was completely surplus to requirements and, whilst Greg Davies was on good form, why bother casting a famously giant comic actor (he is over 2 metres in height) when all that was required was a disembodied head?
The ending of the episode made up for the aimless romp of the previous 40 minutes and the Doctor’s realisation that River is approaching the end of their timeline is quite touching and shows a sensitive side of Capaldi’s characterisation of the Doctor that he seldom gets chance to explore. It also brings another hanging storyline from Steven Moffat’s reign as lead writer to a pleasing conclusion. In fact it leaves both Moffat and Capaldi with a largely clean slate for the next series.
The details of the next series of Doctor Who are rather scant at the moment. We don’t know who the next companion(s) will be and as the filming is not due to start until May it could be quite a while before the next series airs. In fact I am wondering whether the plan is to treat the next Christmas episode as the start of the next series which would provide a longer canvass to introduce the new cast members and would provide a larger audience of casual viewers to re-introduce the series afresh. I’m sure that we will hear more details in the coming months but right now, it feels a very long way off.
Saturday 26 December 2015
Monday 21 December 2015
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
I saw the original Star Wars film when it first came out. At least I saw it when it first came out at our local cinema. It came out originally in the US in May 1977 but didn’t make it to the glittering heights of the West End of London until the end of that year. By the time the film had worked its way around the country to us it was nearly May 1978 and my father offered to take us to see it for my elder brother’s birthday treat. This in itself took two efforts as he initially booked the tickets for a suspiciously quiet Wednesday. It turned out that this was the day of the European Cup final which was being held in Wembley that year and created something of a double booking dilemma. I think we actually saw it the day after but I wouldn’t swear by it. Regardless, I saw the original Star Wars film when it came out (sort of).
In fact, aside from being a cinematic event of the highest order it was also the sort of film that was right down my dad’s street. He was very much a fan of the action-adventure genre and would have spent a childhood watching a mixture of westerns and Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon. Unfortunately, his big sister held the purse strings on the matinee entertainment budget so it was Busby Berkley musicals all the way. I’d like to imagine that the surroundings of the picture house had improved by 1978 although in truth it was probably little changed: the film still had an intermission half way through, tubs of Walls’ ice-cream were the order of the day (I seem to recall a Cornetto was still more than the ticket at this time) and the film was watched through a veil of cigarette smoke with a mono soundtrack crackling away in what used to be the organ pit. I loved it every second of it.
I have actually seen all the Star Wars films to date at the cinema. If I’m being honest this has been a case of diminishing returns. The Empire Strikes Back seemed a bit of an anti-climax at the time although once its place in the original trilogy became apparent it is arguable the most dramatically satisfying. The Return of the Jedi was a reasonable conclusion but the plot was essentially the same as the original except they ended up on the planet of the teddy bears. Aside from some needless reworking of the original trilogy with some dreadfully ill-conceived CGI fiddling the next films were “the prequels”. Given the hype, The Phantom Menace was destined to be underwhelming and it did succeed on that dubious point: even setting aside the excruciating Jar-Jar Binks the plot was dull and the action sequences looked as if they had been designed purely with a video game in mind. Attack of the Clones was better but it was apparent that these were films that could only really appeal to fans of the original trilogy and it is noticeable that The Revenge Of The Sith tied up the series mythos with little regard to the casual viewer and was probably a better film for it.
I hadn’t intended to see new film, The Force Awakens, on its opening weekend but this changed last week when the opportunity of a spare ticket came up. It’s actually quite fortuitous as I had been intent on avoiding any spoilers until I saw it. This is actually very hard these days with a buzzing internet of fevered fandom enthusing for the new chapter but even in 1978 I practically knew the original film by heart before seeing it as I had been collecting a set of bubble-gum cards with a scene by scene resume of the plot (I hated the bubble-gum, by the way, but it seemed a small price to pay to collect the cards). So on Sunday evening, I went into the cinema with pretty much no idea of what to expect: well, I was expecting light sabres, space battles, weird aliens and an assortment of droids, but in terms of the plot I knew practically nothing.
So without actually giving the plot away, what did I think? Well first of all, I have to say I loved it and in a similar way to JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek film. It assumed that everyone knew what to expect and proceeded to offer exactly that. He seems to have ignored the prequels as a misstep and what he has offered is actually very close to the original film in both content and style: a simple story of good vs evil set in the stars, with David Lean style desserts and Akira Kurosawa style wipes. It’s worth remembering that whilst the original Star Wars felt fresh and new, it wore its influences on its sleeve and The Force Awakens does the same, except it is very much a homage to George Lucas’s original film but without being the cinematic game changer that Star Wars was in 1977. What it doesn't offer is any unexpected twists and turns aside from one very big name actor that has a surprisingly small part at the beginning. But what it may lack in originality it more than makes up for in cinematic flair: many Star Wars fans will probably hate me for saying this but I think Abrams is a far more accomplished director than Lucas ever was.
I suppose the critical thing is whether I would like to see the film again. As it is my son’s birthday next week I will get the chance to see it again very soon and I’m actually looking forward to that as it will give me a chance to appreciate many of the subtleties of the direction. I suppose that is as good a recommendation as any.
In fact, aside from being a cinematic event of the highest order it was also the sort of film that was right down my dad’s street. He was very much a fan of the action-adventure genre and would have spent a childhood watching a mixture of westerns and Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon. Unfortunately, his big sister held the purse strings on the matinee entertainment budget so it was Busby Berkley musicals all the way. I’d like to imagine that the surroundings of the picture house had improved by 1978 although in truth it was probably little changed: the film still had an intermission half way through, tubs of Walls’ ice-cream were the order of the day (I seem to recall a Cornetto was still more than the ticket at this time) and the film was watched through a veil of cigarette smoke with a mono soundtrack crackling away in what used to be the organ pit. I loved it every second of it.
I have actually seen all the Star Wars films to date at the cinema. If I’m being honest this has been a case of diminishing returns. The Empire Strikes Back seemed a bit of an anti-climax at the time although once its place in the original trilogy became apparent it is arguable the most dramatically satisfying. The Return of the Jedi was a reasonable conclusion but the plot was essentially the same as the original except they ended up on the planet of the teddy bears. Aside from some needless reworking of the original trilogy with some dreadfully ill-conceived CGI fiddling the next films were “the prequels”. Given the hype, The Phantom Menace was destined to be underwhelming and it did succeed on that dubious point: even setting aside the excruciating Jar-Jar Binks the plot was dull and the action sequences looked as if they had been designed purely with a video game in mind. Attack of the Clones was better but it was apparent that these were films that could only really appeal to fans of the original trilogy and it is noticeable that The Revenge Of The Sith tied up the series mythos with little regard to the casual viewer and was probably a better film for it.
I hadn’t intended to see new film, The Force Awakens, on its opening weekend but this changed last week when the opportunity of a spare ticket came up. It’s actually quite fortuitous as I had been intent on avoiding any spoilers until I saw it. This is actually very hard these days with a buzzing internet of fevered fandom enthusing for the new chapter but even in 1978 I practically knew the original film by heart before seeing it as I had been collecting a set of bubble-gum cards with a scene by scene resume of the plot (I hated the bubble-gum, by the way, but it seemed a small price to pay to collect the cards). So on Sunday evening, I went into the cinema with pretty much no idea of what to expect: well, I was expecting light sabres, space battles, weird aliens and an assortment of droids, but in terms of the plot I knew practically nothing.
So without actually giving the plot away, what did I think? Well first of all, I have to say I loved it and in a similar way to JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek film. It assumed that everyone knew what to expect and proceeded to offer exactly that. He seems to have ignored the prequels as a misstep and what he has offered is actually very close to the original film in both content and style: a simple story of good vs evil set in the stars, with David Lean style desserts and Akira Kurosawa style wipes. It’s worth remembering that whilst the original Star Wars felt fresh and new, it wore its influences on its sleeve and The Force Awakens does the same, except it is very much a homage to George Lucas’s original film but without being the cinematic game changer that Star Wars was in 1977. What it doesn't offer is any unexpected twists and turns aside from one very big name actor that has a surprisingly small part at the beginning. But what it may lack in originality it more than makes up for in cinematic flair: many Star Wars fans will probably hate me for saying this but I think Abrams is a far more accomplished director than Lucas ever was.
I suppose the critical thing is whether I would like to see the film again. As it is my son’s birthday next week I will get the chance to see it again very soon and I’m actually looking forward to that as it will give me a chance to appreciate many of the subtleties of the direction. I suppose that is as good a recommendation as any.
Sunday 13 December 2015
Christmas Songs
“Ooh, I like this one...” I thought the checkout girl was commenting on my shopping. They quite often do this, especially if it’s something that they didn’t know that their shop sold. In a worrying parody of Scottish grocery retailing this usually turns out to be some form of fresh fruit and veg. However, her face then looked glum, “… but it’s Elton John next.” She was actually talking about the shop’s piped selection of Christmas songs which is played on an endless loop by the supermarket to torture their employees as if they were Guantanamo Bay inmates. No doubt the staff Christmas night out involves waterboarding.
In fact the song she liked was a little known Kate Bush single, December Will Be Magic Again, which has never appeared on Ms Bush’s albums and only rarely appears on Christmas compilations. It’s rather a shame as it is actually a very good song in its own right:
I can sympathise with shop workers who have piped music inflicted on them. I actually boycotted our local Lidl supermarket earlier this year when they tried to introduce it: they eventually relented. However, there is a general consensus that all Christmas songs are appalling. Not Christmas carols, of course, which exist, quite rightly, in their own context, but songs that have been written specifically for the Christmas market. Essentially commercial music: cashing-in on Christmas. For the most part, I’d agree with this but there are exceptions to this rule. I’d strongly recommend anyone to listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album which dates back to when he was an innovative record producer rather than a convicted murderer. As commercial records go that was originally a flop but it captures perfectly the R&B girl group sound from the period. In a similar vein is Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. I normally regard Ms Carey as a dreadful, warbling harpy but this record is genuinely uplifting:
I think to make a genuinely good Christmas song they need to be written about Christmas rather than for Christmas. Joni Mitchell’s song, River, is a great example of this: the song is set at Christmas but is about a relationship breakup and the emotional debris that goes with it:
Another song that is seemingly a Christmas tune but is actually something else is John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Written primarily as an anti-Vietnam war song the Christmas message makes it far more accessible to a wider audience:
The interesting thing with most Christmas songs is they tend to appear as asides, throwaway tracks that don’t appear on the artists albums or in their main repertoire. One of the exceptions to this is Jethro Tull’s Ring Out, Solstice Bells which appeared right in the middle of their Songs from the Wood album. The other interesting thing about this song is that it draws upon the pre-Christian pagan origins of the mid-winter festival rather than the celebration of the birth of Jesus (let alone the worship of money that most “Christmas” celebrations seem to centre on.)
There is of course the anti-Christmas song that protest the commercialisation of Christmas. A gereat example of this is Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas which not only takes a swipe at the avaricious hijacking of Christmas but also uses a cracking refrain from Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé:
So is there no place for a commercial Christmas song? Probably the most overplayed song at Christmas is Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody but I still think it’s a brilliant piece of song writing. In the early 1970’s there was a distinct gap between commercial single-orientated pop music and the more album-orientated “serious” music. Slade were definitely a singles orientated band but they were also superb song-writers. I have a greatest hits compilation by Slade and every song is a classic. It is in chronological order for the most part but Merry Xmas Everybody is the closing track which makes for a great party album. Noddy Holder often calls the song his “pension scheme”. Well why not? None of us are getting any younger.
In fact the song she liked was a little known Kate Bush single, December Will Be Magic Again, which has never appeared on Ms Bush’s albums and only rarely appears on Christmas compilations. It’s rather a shame as it is actually a very good song in its own right:
I can sympathise with shop workers who have piped music inflicted on them. I actually boycotted our local Lidl supermarket earlier this year when they tried to introduce it: they eventually relented. However, there is a general consensus that all Christmas songs are appalling. Not Christmas carols, of course, which exist, quite rightly, in their own context, but songs that have been written specifically for the Christmas market. Essentially commercial music: cashing-in on Christmas. For the most part, I’d agree with this but there are exceptions to this rule. I’d strongly recommend anyone to listen to Phil Spector’s Christmas Album which dates back to when he was an innovative record producer rather than a convicted murderer. As commercial records go that was originally a flop but it captures perfectly the R&B girl group sound from the period. In a similar vein is Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You. I normally regard Ms Carey as a dreadful, warbling harpy but this record is genuinely uplifting:
I think to make a genuinely good Christmas song they need to be written about Christmas rather than for Christmas. Joni Mitchell’s song, River, is a great example of this: the song is set at Christmas but is about a relationship breakup and the emotional debris that goes with it:
Another song that is seemingly a Christmas tune but is actually something else is John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over). Written primarily as an anti-Vietnam war song the Christmas message makes it far more accessible to a wider audience:
The interesting thing with most Christmas songs is they tend to appear as asides, throwaway tracks that don’t appear on the artists albums or in their main repertoire. One of the exceptions to this is Jethro Tull’s Ring Out, Solstice Bells which appeared right in the middle of their Songs from the Wood album. The other interesting thing about this song is that it draws upon the pre-Christian pagan origins of the mid-winter festival rather than the celebration of the birth of Jesus (let alone the worship of money that most “Christmas” celebrations seem to centre on.)
There is of course the anti-Christmas song that protest the commercialisation of Christmas. A gereat example of this is Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas which not only takes a swipe at the avaricious hijacking of Christmas but also uses a cracking refrain from Sergei Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé:
So is there no place for a commercial Christmas song? Probably the most overplayed song at Christmas is Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody but I still think it’s a brilliant piece of song writing. In the early 1970’s there was a distinct gap between commercial single-orientated pop music and the more album-orientated “serious” music. Slade were definitely a singles orientated band but they were also superb song-writers. I have a greatest hits compilation by Slade and every song is a classic. It is in chronological order for the most part but Merry Xmas Everybody is the closing track which makes for a great party album. Noddy Holder often calls the song his “pension scheme”. Well why not? None of us are getting any younger.
Sunday 6 December 2015
Hell Bent
The series finale of Doctor Who, Hell Bent, is all set on his home planet of Gallifrey which, as a serious Doctor Who fanatic, should be Manna from Heaven. Except, I’ve never really been that bothered about the Time Lord mythology behind the series. I much prefer that there is an element of mystery about the central character and the big reveal of 1969’s War Games about the Doctor’s origins is as much as I really need or want to know – I would much rather that he was this mysterious traveller that ended up getting into scrapes with Daleks or whatever. In a similar way, I was never that bothered about the internal Federation politics in Star Trek; I much preferred it when the Captain was picking a fight with Klingons.
Hell Bent actually brings us to the climax of a trilogy of episodes with Clara getting her comeuppance in Face The Raven and the Doctor being trapped in a riddle of a prison in Heaven Sent (which I watched again in the week and, if anything, gets even better on a second viewing.) Now we get Clara back in pretty much the first scene (and the last one as well) but quite how we get to that point turns out to be rather interesting. In fact I was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing as I had seen a couple of spoiler-free previews that were less than enthusiastic.
As for the Gallifrey thing it was really the opposite of what I had feared. Rather than dwelling on the shows own internal mythos it was, in fact, closing many of the threads that were dangling from Matt Smith’s last series. I am wondering whether these stories were meant to have been used for Matt’s Doctor if he had done a forth series – sadly we will never know. What I had expected was something like The Deadly Assassin which is regarded as an all-time classic but which never really appealed to me other than the Master’s face rotting off. That seemed to dwell heavily on Timlord backstory but with Hell Bent we have Gallifrey as a backdrop with a few loose ends tied up and the Doctor is away again.
One of the tropes of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who stories is that he never seems to be able to let a character die and this is also true of Clara. However, the device he uses here of salvaging her last moment of life and then wiping the Doctors memory of her (the inverse Donna effect) is really required for the series to progress. Her original story was the “Impossible Girl” arc in which she is meant to have been a ghostly figure in the Doctor’s timeline: always there but never spotted. By wiping the Doctor’s memory she is able to return as that ghostly presence whilst the Doctor can move on to bigger and better things.
There were lots of other little things with the episode that I loved. Seeing the original 1960s TARDIS interior again (complete with wobbly doors) was a great nod to the show's past as was the Doctor’s guitar: I originally thought this was a Gibson SG but on closer inspection it was actually the budget Epiphone version – apparently Doctor Who’s budget still harks back to the 1960s as well! It’s worth noting, too, the total running time of the three-part series finale. In terms of the classic series this would have clocked in as a 7 part story which we haven’t seen since the 1970 adventure Inferno (well, as long as one discounts the linked Trial of a Timelord series which I strongly advise most people to do).
So what of the series overall? Back in September when it started I was feeling surprisingly uninspired: not unenthusiastic, exactly, but not waiting with baited breath either. As the series has progressed I’ve been cursing the tardiness of the week that brings us Saturday night more and more - even being tempted to poke around fan forums for snippets (not that the BBC haven’t done a sterling job in feeding huge great spoilers anyway). I really enjoyed last year’s series; the return to a single long run has helped no end. But two factors have really propelled this year’s series forward: the return to a long format multi-part story has allowed the scripts room to breathe and really allowed the lead actors to develop the dramatic potential of the stories; and secondly the fact that both the lead actors were known to the writers has meant that the scripts are finely tuned to the traits of the main characters. As I mused back in September: it is often the lead actor’s second series where they really make their mark.
If I had to pick a single episode that I liked the best it would without a doubt be Heaven Sent even though half a dozen of the other episodes would be up amongst my favourites. If there was a low point I’d probably go for Sleep No More but I’m still undecided as to whether that was meant to be an actual adventure or a meta-Who episode: I think they missed a trick with this one by not showing it as a Halloween special – that would have swapped it with the Zygon story and made for a more balanced series. That’s nit-picking, though, and I would otherwise find it hard to fault this run. Of course, we still have the Christmas special to come in just under three weeks: The Husbands of River Song. I’m a little weary of where that one is going but I thought that about last year’s festive episode, Last Christmas, and that turned out to be something of a classic.
Hell Bent actually brings us to the climax of a trilogy of episodes with Clara getting her comeuppance in Face The Raven and the Doctor being trapped in a riddle of a prison in Heaven Sent (which I watched again in the week and, if anything, gets even better on a second viewing.) Now we get Clara back in pretty much the first scene (and the last one as well) but quite how we get to that point turns out to be rather interesting. In fact I was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing as I had seen a couple of spoiler-free previews that were less than enthusiastic.
As for the Gallifrey thing it was really the opposite of what I had feared. Rather than dwelling on the shows own internal mythos it was, in fact, closing many of the threads that were dangling from Matt Smith’s last series. I am wondering whether these stories were meant to have been used for Matt’s Doctor if he had done a forth series – sadly we will never know. What I had expected was something like The Deadly Assassin which is regarded as an all-time classic but which never really appealed to me other than the Master’s face rotting off. That seemed to dwell heavily on Timlord backstory but with Hell Bent we have Gallifrey as a backdrop with a few loose ends tied up and the Doctor is away again.
One of the tropes of Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who stories is that he never seems to be able to let a character die and this is also true of Clara. However, the device he uses here of salvaging her last moment of life and then wiping the Doctors memory of her (the inverse Donna effect) is really required for the series to progress. Her original story was the “Impossible Girl” arc in which she is meant to have been a ghostly figure in the Doctor’s timeline: always there but never spotted. By wiping the Doctor’s memory she is able to return as that ghostly presence whilst the Doctor can move on to bigger and better things.
There were lots of other little things with the episode that I loved. Seeing the original 1960s TARDIS interior again (complete with wobbly doors) was a great nod to the show's past as was the Doctor’s guitar: I originally thought this was a Gibson SG but on closer inspection it was actually the budget Epiphone version – apparently Doctor Who’s budget still harks back to the 1960s as well! It’s worth noting, too, the total running time of the three-part series finale. In terms of the classic series this would have clocked in as a 7 part story which we haven’t seen since the 1970 adventure Inferno (well, as long as one discounts the linked Trial of a Timelord series which I strongly advise most people to do).
So what of the series overall? Back in September when it started I was feeling surprisingly uninspired: not unenthusiastic, exactly, but not waiting with baited breath either. As the series has progressed I’ve been cursing the tardiness of the week that brings us Saturday night more and more - even being tempted to poke around fan forums for snippets (not that the BBC haven’t done a sterling job in feeding huge great spoilers anyway). I really enjoyed last year’s series; the return to a single long run has helped no end. But two factors have really propelled this year’s series forward: the return to a long format multi-part story has allowed the scripts room to breathe and really allowed the lead actors to develop the dramatic potential of the stories; and secondly the fact that both the lead actors were known to the writers has meant that the scripts are finely tuned to the traits of the main characters. As I mused back in September: it is often the lead actor’s second series where they really make their mark.
If I had to pick a single episode that I liked the best it would without a doubt be Heaven Sent even though half a dozen of the other episodes would be up amongst my favourites. If there was a low point I’d probably go for Sleep No More but I’m still undecided as to whether that was meant to be an actual adventure or a meta-Who episode: I think they missed a trick with this one by not showing it as a Halloween special – that would have swapped it with the Zygon story and made for a more balanced series. That’s nit-picking, though, and I would otherwise find it hard to fault this run. Of course, we still have the Christmas special to come in just under three weeks: The Husbands of River Song. I’m a little weary of where that one is going but I thought that about last year’s festive episode, Last Christmas, and that turned out to be something of a classic.
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