Under the Lake

10 October 2015

Last Saturday night we watched an epic battle, and a Welshman hitting an Englishman with a leek.  No, we weren't watching Doctor Who, and weren't at the rugby either.  The thing about being a middle-aged fan, is that you find yourself going to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to watch Henry V.  (I blame David Tennant for the fact that I am now going to Stratford 3 or 4 times a year).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we didn't get to see Under the Lake until Sunday.  A classic  base under siege story, but was it more Waters of Mars or Warriors of the Deep?

It was definitely more the former, with something nasty affecting the crew and turning them into monsters (or 'ghosts') and a remotely-controlled device used to fetch an otherwise inaccessible object, operated by waving the arms around. The final scenes where the Doctor and Clara are separated by the flooded corridor was reminiscent of 42. I also felt that there was something of The Curse of Fenric about it, with an artefact (in this case the alien ship) controlling people so that they carry out the alien's plan.

However, that brings me to a problem. I'm not sure that the plan really comes together. I mean, how much use would those 'co-ordinates' be for a rescue mission from another planet? It's not even as if there is only one drowned town or village with an underwater church on the planet.

But no doubt all will become clear this evening. We are actually at home to watch it live.

And am I the only one who really wants to see the clockwork squirrel?

The Witch's Familar [spoilers]

Sunday 27 September 2015

This week we were at home for the full Doctor Who watching experience.  Having watched it, we weren't sure what to make of it, so watched it again.

I'm still not sure what to make of it.  There were some good bits:

• Missy's pointy stick
• The Doctor's entrance, with cup of tea
• Clara reprising (sort of) her Oswin role from Asylum of the Daleks
• Missy channelling Michael Caine at the end of the Italian Job - I think she even sounded a bit cockney.

But I found the Doctor and Davros scenes dragged on a bit, and I'm not convinced that if the Daleks had rebuilt Skaro since the Time War they would have had time for their sewers to get in quite such a mess...

But the biggest no-no was the sunglasses.  The campaign to bring back the screwdriver starts here.

And so it begins...The Magician's Apprentice

Saturday 26 September

Fortunately the TV in our B&B worked last Saturday, so we were able to see the The Magician's Apprentice in all its glory.  And the wifi also worked, so we were able to watch it again on iPlayer immediately afterwards.  None of which stopped us from watching it again on iPlayer on our TV when we got home on Monday.

My colleague who likes Doctor Who and always discusses developments with me, mentioned on Tuesday that he supposed I hadn't seen it yet, having been away.  When I explained that I had in fact seen it 3 times already, he looked at me a bit oddly and started to back out of the office.

Anyway, cut to the chase. It's back, big surprise (never mind).  And with an epic that references a story from 40 years ago. Hopefully, this approach will work better than it did for Attack of the Cybermen.

As it's only the first half of a two-parter, I can't pass judgement yet, but things I like so far:

• Colony Sarff - a nest of snakes in a dress. What's not to like? "We are Colony Sarff.  We bring...harm."
• The Doctor's anachronistic entrance
• Missy.  I'm still having trouble reconciling this as the same character as that played by Roger Delgado, but Michelle Gomez's 'Scary Poppins' portrayal is brilliant.

Things I'm not so sure about:

• Hand mines.  Interesting idea, but how do they work? What is the eye for, if they are buried in the ground?  I can't help feeling that this is just a pun on 'landmines' that seemed funny on paper.
• UNIT getting the PM to call Clara at work.  Really?
• Invisible planets.

Only a couple more hours to find out how it ends.

It's coming back

18 September 2015

Well, the Doctor is about to return...and am I ready? No. We picked this weekend for a short break.

This is not the first time this has happened. We managed to be at a country house hotel near Rye in April 2005 when the series returned after its enforced sabbatical. If there hadn't been a functioning a TV in the room, I would have been in dead trouble.

The following year, disaster struck when we found that our holiday in Sorrento meant that we would miss Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. When we got home, catching up on Doctor Who was the first priority after slinging our dirty washing in the machine.

But aside from that, and the time we were in Ashgabat when the 2012 Christmas Special was on, we usually manage to be somewhere with a TV where we can see the Doctor. We watched the God Complex in a soulless hotel in Coventry, which was quite scary.

So tomorrow we will be sitting down in our B&B in Douglas to find out what exactly Missy is up to.

Programmes are HOW much?

Saturday 23 May 2015
 


The Audience take their seats

To Wembley Arena for the first  show of the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular UK Tour. Of course, when my husband booked the tickets, we had no idea that our local football team would be in the League Two playoff final the same afternoon. This made for an interesting journey in a train full of Wanderers fans in blue.  On arrival at Wembley, we went in search of a cup of tea, and soon cane across someone wearing a fez - we had found 'our people' at last.
 
Once we arrived at the Arena, we  located our seats, and then husband went off in search of a programme - a large, glossy 32-page brochure, but hardly worth the £15 he told me he was charged for it. 
 
At the appointed hour, we heard the metallic tones of Nick 'Voice of the Daleks' Briggs ordering us to turn of mobile communications devices and not to use flash. "Get lost Nick, you bald git', I muttered under my breath  [I can't help it - Pavlovian response from 22 years ago] and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, aka 'the Doctor Who House Band' were off, with A Good Man?
 

The show was introduced by Peter Davison, who made a number of jokes about the unexploded World War II bomb which had been found the day before, leading to the evacuation of the building, and wreaking havoc with the set up. He also joked about Colin Baker being on stand-by to take over from him in the event of an emergency, and the Doctors being 'like a family - some more so than others.'
 
With ten years of Murray Gold's music to choose from, the programme naturally had to be selective, and the emphasis was on more recent music, predominantly from the Twelfth Doctor's first season (series 8). However, there were also some favourites from previous series, including Song of Freedom and the themes from the first four companions of the new era: Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy. And then the Daleks took over, forcing conductor Ben Foster to play their quasi-Wagnerian operatic chorus. The first half of the show concluded with the music from the 2014 Christmas Special.
 

After the interval, Cybermen roamed the stalls for All the Strange, Strange Creatures. I was slightly disappointed that there weren't more monsters in the auditorium, as there had been at the Prom - though there were some Ood, the Teller and The Foretold on the stage at various points. The second half continued the companions theme with The Impossible Girl and then 66 Seconds from Mummy on the Orient Express. These were followed by The Pandorica Suite, which was a nice chance to see some of Rory on the big screen,  and then Abigail's Song, sung by soloist Ellin Manahan Thomas before we got to the fiftieth anniversary This is Gallifrey, another favourite of mine.  Death in Heaven Suite brought us back up to date before the show rounded off with the best and most famous theme tune in the world.

All in all a very enjoyable afternoon.  But £15 for a programme?

 
 

The Horror, The Horror (Channel)!

It's amazing what you can find in the deeper reaches of Freeview.  I recently discovered the Horror Channel (Sky 319, Virgin 149, Freeview 70), which is showing a rather random selection of Doctor Who classic episodes.

Tonight it was The Seeds of Death. See their website for details of what's on when.

Crossing Over...

So this weekend I'm going to a convention.  Danny Hargreaves will be there, blowing things up.  Maybe I'll get to see Steven Moffat or Mark Gatiss...

Sadly, it's a Sherlock convention.  My other half, who got me into Doctor Who is also a Holmes fan.

I like late 19th and early 20th century crime fiction, but the works of Arthur Conan Doyle are not among my favourites.  Moffat and Gatiss' revamped version for the 21st century is very clever, and certainly watchable, but it's just a (good) TV programme. Maybe the problem is that Benedict Cumberbatch just isn't David Tennant...

Update

Just back from Sherlocked. In comparison with the Doctor Who 50th, which was the last convention I attended at ExCel, it was disappointing.  Not really surprising, when Doctor Who has 50 years of episodes, fiction and related stuff (albeit with a long gap in the middle), whereas Sherlock has only 9 ninety-minute episodes.  We had basic tickets, rather than one of the event 'packages' which meant that we were second-class citizens.  We didn't even get passes, just ink stamps on our hands. With this level of access we were entitled to admission to the main event space and could attend talks on the second stage (most of which seemed to be about cosplay, which doesn't interest me) and the special effects demonstration by Danny Hargreaves in the main stage.  We could also see a taxi and a bus (big deal!)  some room sets and a costume and prop display.  We were however able to buy tickets for another of the main stage talks, 'Ladies of Sherlock', which also gave us free entry to a session with Messrs Moffat and Gatiss.  Without that, it wouldn't really have been worth our while to attend the event.

Wedding outfits from John and Mary's wedding

The problem with the prop and costume displays is that most of the Sherlock  costumes are just fairly ordinary clothes. It's not quite the same as coming face to face with a Silurian or a Cyberman, or meeting K9.  I mean, taking a photo of a London bus is not actually that difficult, if you live or work in London.

I noticed quite a few TARDIS bags (and even dresses) among the attendees, and one of the merchandise stalls had Doctor Who action figures.  It would have been perverse to go to a Sherlock event and buy a 10th Doctor figure, though, wouldn't it?