Cowboys

After last week’s preview of Doctor Who I thought we were going to see a remake of Westworld. Whilst the cyborg gun-slinger in this weeks episode did have a passing resemblance to Yul Brynner’s robot cowboy, what transpired was a western with a science fiction twist rather than a science fiction story with cowboys. It also transpired to be somewhat darker than I imagined with a strong ethical dilemma at the heart of the story. However, just like the dinosaur episode last week, this looked magnificent – in part this was because it utilised Sergio Leone’s backdrop for his Dollar’s trilogy: the Wild West in all it’s authentic glory (as filmed in Spain).

The Western genre has been in decline for years. Cowboy films where hugely popular from the 1930s through to the early 60s but the advent of the space age started to make it look old hat – that and the fact that 90% of Westerns were complete rubbish. The genre does have it’s classics: High Noon, The Magnificent Seven and pretty much anything by John Ford and everything Clint Eastwood has done. I never quite did take to the Hollywood heyday of the films but I do enjoy a decent Spaghetti Western. Why it should be that poorly-dubbed, European-made Westerns should be more appealing than the “real thing” I’m not sure but it is possibly the dark sense of humour combined with the gritty realism that makes them so compelling.

Having watched A Town Called Mercy, Raymond was asking me whether we could watch a Spaghetti Western. I’d like to, and something like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly would be a great starting point. Except, of course, that it is one of the most spectacularly violent films of all time. The X certificate was not there for a joke. I suppose this comes up in conversation quite a bit. He asked about the original film version of Total Recall (I say original as a remake has just been released). Now I love Philip K Dick and Total Recall is one of my favourite Sci Fi movies, but it actually is the most spectacularly violent film ever made – I mean it’s just violent in ways I never even imagined violence could be done. It’s an 18 for a reason!

Anyway, I thought it was another cracking episode of Doctor Who. Despite Steven Moffat’s claims that there would be no big story arc and it would all be one-off episodes I can see some big themes emerging. Where does the Doctor go when not hanging about with the Ponds (and didn’t he say this week that he was 2000 years old?) When did he start dispatching baddies without being “Sorry. I’m so sorry” about it? And what is it with the flickering light-bulbs? Next week we get The Power Of Three. It’s about cubes - obviously!