REVIEW: SMILE and SMILE 2

It was a smiley time this Hallowe’en, with Smile 2 in the cinemas and Smile itself hitting streaming services to cash in on this. It’s been a quick turnaround for writer-director Parker Finn, who released his short film Laura Hasn’t Slept in 2020, built on it with the feature-length follow-up Smile in 2022 and turned out the second feature this year. In that short time, the Smile sequence has established itself as one of the most popular and celebrated horror franchises of the last decade.

Does it deserve this? Well, yes and no. There’s no denying that these films are effective shockers, combining psychological terror with body horror to unpleasant effect. Smile itself, though, doesn’t quite live up to the hype. Originally titled Something’s Wrong With Rose, aesthetically tied more to Laura Hasn’t Slept which it ostensibly follows from directly, with Caitlin Stasey reprising her role, albeit briefly, as Laura, so that she can pass on the (literally) nightmarish curse to psychiatric therapist Dr. Rose Cutter. While Laura has been haunted by a terrifying being that smiles at her from behind different faces, the unsettlingly wide rictus grin didn’t become the focus on the manifestations until the feature, hence the change to the punchier, more intriguing title. It makes for a good poster, too.

The best thing about Smile is undoubtedly its star, Sosie Bacon, who gives an impeccable performance as a woman whose sanity is slipping under constant assault. Focusing on a psychiatrist is a good move, putting her directly in harms way by exposing her to someone already plagued by the… I’m just going to call it the Smiley Thing. It also puts her in the unusual position of a horror protagonist of understanding the dangers to her sanity she is experiencing, making it all the more feasible how long she refuses to accept what is happening is real, and also intelligent enough to admit when she can’t deny the evidence in front of her any longer.

Rose has already experienced intense trauma due to witnessing her mother’s suicide as a child, her entire life revolving around mental illness. Trauma and guilt are at the heart of Smile’s story, with the Smiley Thing specifically channelling and transmitting through unbearably traumatic experiences. It forces its victims – perhaps hosts is a better word – to relive their most painful experiences, while visiting new horrors on them. It warps its victim’s perceptions, so that at no point do they, or the viewer, know whether what they are seeing is real. Most disturbing for Rose is how it enjoys appearing as the long dead, but most effective as horror is when it appears as the still living, taking its time before it reveals itself as an illusion, usually only when reality intrudes and Rose realises that the person she thought was in front of her is actually somewhere else entirely.

It's not as if Rose has it easy in her day-to-day life, having to cope with an overwhelming job at an understaffed hospital and a complex romantic situation – her fiancé (Jessie T. Usher) doesn’t understand her, while Joel, her ex (Kyle Gallner) frequently finds himself in her workplace in his capacity as a police officer. Worst of all is Holly (Gillian Zinser), Rose’s self-absorbed and materialistic sister. Yet you can sympathise with everyone who begins to turn on Rose as her mental health deteriorates, and she is accused of appalling acts that she can’t remember committing.

This is where Smile works best. Finn’s script perfectly captures the experience of declining mental health, as your own mind betrays you, putting you in a place where you can’t trust you perception, memory or actions. It paints the fear and heartbreak as the people closest to you find they can’t cope with the changes in you, who turn away as you need them the most – but also the relief and gratitude towards those who do stick by you and try to help.

The most effective moments are when Rose is made isolated and afraid by her distrust of her own reality. The grotesque smiles on the Thing’s various faces are disquieting, but it’s the moments where you realise that what you’ve been watching, what Rose has experienced, never happened, or happened in an entirely different way to how you thought. Unfortunately, the film relies too much on jump scares which, although they do their job, just aren’t as interesting, original or effective as the core horror of the story. Still, it’s all in service of the Smiling Thing’s process, as it uses these to continually wear aware at Rose’s nerves. The Thing acts as a generic horror movie shock jock a lot of the time, precisely because this helps its mission of driving its victim to the brink. And also just for the kicks.

I really like that there’s no explanation for what the Thing is. It’s clearly supernatural, and acts like a curse, passing on from victim to victim after no more than a week of pushing them to breaking point. Beyond that, we have no idea, although we do eventually glimpse its alleged true form (if it even has such a thing). Horrible though it is, it simply isn’t anywhere near as frightening as someone you thought was on your side slowly breaking out into that appalling grin.

So Smile works, largely down to the powerful central performance of Sosie Bacon, but it never quite reaches the penetrating horror it’s really going for. It’s also hard to avoid comparisons to other films with similar conceits, such as Ringu and It Follows, which gave us implacable, relentless phantoms before and did it better. Smile 2, though, is as much an improvement on its predecessor as that was on Laura Hasn’t Slept. It leans into the gore and violence far more than Smile, which would normally be the sign of a lack of imagination and faith in the story. Finn finds the right balance here, though, using revulsion in service of the psychological horror that plagues the new protagonist, Skye Riley.

Skye is a considerably less likeable main character, but remains compelling and believable. The multi-talented Naomi Scott is absolutely excellent in the role. She has the singing and dancing skills to make Skye a believable pop sensation, and also the acting chops to give an incredibly tense and sympathetic performance as Skye’s sanity goes through the wringer. It doesn’t hurt that Scott is one of the most beautiful actresses in the world, either.

Centring the sequel around a troubled pop star gives it an entirely different aesthetic to the first film. It’s altogether bolder and more colourful, another reason why the increased violence works: everything is heightened. Skye is altogether different to the selfless Rose; her trauma comes from the pressures of fame, her own self-centred lifestyle and her reliance on substance abuse, and the brutal car crash that has left her in physical and emotional pain. It’s no surprise when we find out that the crash was her fault, but the visions of waking up bloodied in the wreckage are among the most haunting in the film. Skye also has to deal with her mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) who has commodified her daughter and puts her career over her wellbeing (although as everything is seen through Skye’s perspective it’s entirely possible her mum isn’t nearly as hard-nosed in reality).

Also giving strong performances are Miles Gutierrez-Riley as Skye’s PA Joshua, and Dylan Gelula, Skye’s once best friend who has been out of her life since a particularly venomous attack by Skye in the lead-up to the accident. Smile 2 picks up a week after the first film, rather perfunctorily dealing with a loose end from that story, before fast-forwarding another week to pass the curse onto Skye as she is just starting to put her life and career back together. There’s the sense that Skye might finally be able to make herself into a better person if giving the right environment, but once the Thing latches onto her, her already shaky grasp on reality is broken.

While the gore is increased, it’s once again the psychological aspect of the Thing’s attacks that hit hardest. It’s more relentless this time round, with entire hordes of zombified, smiling avatars assailing Skye. (Nothing in the film is more terrifying than the little girl at the signing and photo-op, whose manic grin may make her the single creepiest child in horror movie history.) There’s a little more exploration of what the Smiley Thing is in the second film, but it’s all speculation and, importantly, every source of information is unreliable. The Thing seems to be learning from its victims as well, playing with them and their sense of reality more and more. There’s a sense that the entity is aware that it’s in a horror movie and is gleefully playing with the tropes that brings, and is fully genre-savvy. You realise as the film progresses that the Thing has always been in charge of the story.

Smile 2 takes the concepts of Smile further and with greater style. Smile 3 is already in the works; filming is set to start next year so it will likely keep the schedule going and arrive in 2026. It’s hard to see where else it can go beyond Finn’s own promise of “more off the rails;” there’s only so much gore and violence, and only so traumatic its themes can get, before it simply becomes another example of shock for shock’s sake. If he can deliver an improvement once again, though, then Smile 3 will be something very special indeed.

REVIEW: Possum

 

I've been on something of a horror trip lately, catching up not only on recent releases but several from the last few years which I'd never quite got round to watching. Possum is a 2018 film written and directed by Matthew Holness, based on his earlier short story published in The New Uncanny (which I now simply must get hold of and read). If, like me, you know Holness best as his alter ego Garth Marenghi (author, prophet, dreamweaver) then Possum is entirely unlike the kind of horror film you'd expect from him. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace was a ludicrously over-the-top, deliberately hammy, parodic horror series. Possum, in contrast, is utterly humourless. It's quite astonishingly grim and serious in its presentation and subject matter.

Possum stars the underrated Sean Harris as Philip, a children's entertainer who we meet on his way back to his grim Norfolk home, having been thoroughly disgraced by an unknown incident in his work. Philip is a puppeteer, a creepy enough medium when done well, and he doesn't seem to be a performer at the top of his game.We never learn the nature of what happened, and we never learn how Philip normally lives his life. When we meet him, he's in dire straits, returning back to the rotten house he grew up in, still crumbling and ashen from the fire that killed his parents. Forced to live with his bullying and decrepit uncle who brought him up, Philip begins reverting to an almost childlike state, losing himself as he returns to the site of his cruel and traumatic upbringing.

To make matters worse, a teenaged boy has gone missing, and the shuffling, mumbling Philip is an easy target for suspicions. Oh, and Philip is being haunted all the while by Possum, a nightmarish puppet of a character he invented in childhood, that he lugs around in a duffle bag. We can assume that Possum had something to do with whatever incident led to Philip being kicked out of the puppeteer trade, but it's real significance is as a manifestation of everything that preys on his damaged psyche. He repeatedly tries to dispose of the puppet, even burning it, but Possum somehow turns up again and again, lurking in his tiny bedroom, even invading his dreams.

Possum is a deeply unsettling film, haunting and uncomfortable in a way few films these days are allowed to be. Holness has said that he was inspired by monochrome silent horror films of the 20s and 30s, and the deeply disturbing British public information films of the 70s. There's a definite feeling of the latter here, the same seedy, threatening version of reality that those short PSAs subjected kids to back then. (Thank god I only ever saw them secondhand, as an example of how utterly weird British television used to be.) There's a disturbing uncertainty as to how much of what we see is immediately real, how much is a result of Philip's deteriorating sanity, and how much is the truth slowly being uncovered.

Sean Harris is exceptional, giving a performance weighed down with a tangible sadness, perpetually on the edge of full breakdown. Philip is discomforting and untrustworthy throughout, even as he is a wholly sympathetic protagonist. Almost as good and even more distressing is Alun Armstrong as his black-nailed, yellow-toothed Uncle Maurice, a viciously cruel and loathsome character. Yet even between these two men who clearly hate each other's guts there are moments of tenderness, which only makes the cruelties worse.

There's not a great deal to the plot of Possum, but what there is keeps you guessing, wrongfooting you by leaking just enough information to lead you to the obvious but wrong conclusions about what's going on with Philip. Holness's direction is complemented by subtly uncomfortable electronic music and sound by the Radiophonic Workshop, also helping lend a 70s texture to the film. Possum itself is a remarkable creation, a revolting mishmash of spider-like limbs and unidentifiable bits of discarded taxidermy, crowned by a chalk-white cast of Harris's own face. Yet, even as disturbing this creation and its manifestations are, it's the performances by Harris and Armstrong that stick with you long after watching.

WHO REVIEW: Once and Future: Coda - The Final Act

(A few spoilers herein.)

The Once and Future series comes to a belated conclusion, marking Doctor Who's 61st anniversary, which a nice enough idea I guess. I lost interest in this special series, intended to mark the 60th anniversary last year, and never caught the original ending. I grew tired of the increasingle arbitrary combinations of characters and creatures that Big Finish were throwing in. When it reached a team-up between Jackie Tyler and Lady Christina, I stopped ordering them.

This extra little story was far more tempting, though. For one thing, it's not really a chapter of Once and Future's degeneration story, but a prelude to the upcoming Fugitive Doctor series. You'd call it a backdoor pilot if the series hadn't already been recorded and made ready to go. We still haven't had Jo Martin play the Doctor alone, as here she's sharing the limelight with the War Doctor (spoiler alert I guess, but he's the one was degenerating up and down his timeline). This is an interesting pairing; the two outlier Doctors, both inserted into the continuity retroactively. The numberless Doctors, both of them not quite the Doctor we're used to.

It's a pity, of course, that John Hurt is no longer with us, as having him actually take part in another anniversary story and act against yet another Doctor would be a treat. It's never going to be the same having an impersonator standing in for the real deal. Hats off to Jonathon Carley, though; his impression of Hurt is exceptional. This is the first time I've actually listened to Carley beyond a couple of clips and his appearance on Doctors Assemble during lockdown. It's uncanny, by far the most convincing of all the new-old Doctors. Of course, being a good impressionist isn't enough; fortunately Carley's a solid actor as well.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that he's better here than Martin in. Not that she's bad, but there are certain lines where her delivery is a little stilted, where it sounds like she's reading from the script. (I know she is reading from a script, but it shouldn't sound like that.) For the most part, though, she's a pleasure to listen to, and while she has to share the limelight with another Doctor, she gets plenty of time to lead the story and show us what her Doctor can do.

The story is simple but rather great. The Fugitive Doctor is sent by her superiors in the Division to track down a time-travelling war criminal and take him out. The War Doctor, from his perspective, is being targeted by a time-travelling assassin. Neither Doctor is aware that their enemy is another version of themselves. They're ideal incarnations to pit against each other: one has let go of his moral code in order to fight the Time War, while the other has yet to develop that code. Neither is quite the Doctor as we've gotten to know them, and are more similar to each other than their many other incarnations (that we've met so far, at least).

Indeed, the alleged ruthlessness of the Fugitive comes across far better here than in her introduction, where she just carried a big gun and played the sort of dirty tricks the Doctor always plays. This is a Doctow who'll raise an army to get the results she wants. The Warrior does the same, although it turns out his judgment and aggression has been affected by outside factors. This is the one element of the story I really didn't like. That's what the War Doctor should be like, he shouldn't need to be pushed into doing it.

Fixing these Doctors up with Benny is a stroke of genius. She's become perhaps the archetypal audio companion, and knows the Doctor just about as well as anyone. I'm fairly sure she's met more versions of the Doctor than anyone now, even if only briefly (I count fifteen - the first nine numbered Doctors, the Twelfth, the Valeyard, Muldwych and Unbound, and now Fugitive and War). She's the best person to hold both these iterations to account when they stray from what, to her and to us, the Doctor stands for. 

Lisa Bowerman is as great and as sardonic as ever, Isabel Stubbs makes for a fine Elizabeth I (who recognises a younger version of the Doctor she met at the 50th, but he doesn't know her) and even Chase Masterson doesn't sound out of place in her random, but welcome, appearance as Vienna Salvatore. As for the decision to include the Voord... well, I'm always partial to a bit of Voord, and while their about the least interesting sounding creatures, they work well enough in the story. Their involvement even ties into the Four Doctors comic event, where we learned that they were involved in the Time War and had their histories tampered with. (Whether this was a deliberate link or just a case of a similar idea cropping up twice, I don't know, but it's a nice touch either way.)

The agency that eventually turns out to have set the Doctors against each other is apparently already well-established in the Time War audios, but the dialogue suggests they're being set up to tangle with the Fugitive Doctor again in her own series. If this release can indeed be viewed as the beginning of that story, then it should be a lot of fun.

Placement: The Fugitive Doctor has already cut ties with the Division, so this is after Doctor Who: Origins. For the War Doctor, it's after the rest of Once and Future, right in the middle of the Time War. For Benny, it's after her adventures with the Unbound Doctor.

WHO REVIEW: Doctor Who: Origins

Prior to Big Finish getting Jo Martin on their expanding roster of Doctors, the only significant appearance of the Fugitive Doctor outside the TV series was this, a 2022 miniseries by Titan Comics. Titan's main Who writer, Jody Houser, scripted the story; she's a steady pair of hands with a good grasp of different Doctors, and her Thirteenth Doctor range was pretty solidly good. Her regular collaborator Roberta Ingranata provides the artwork, with Warnia Sahadewa providing some excellent colours.

The trade edition collects the four issues, plus the nameless strip that was given out for Free Comicbook Day 2022. This is a fun way to start the collection, pitting the Fugitive Doctor against a small-scale but entertaining threat and saving a bunch of kids in the process. It ties in nicely to the real and fictional history of Doctor Who; the Doctor arrives in 1962, implied to be one of her first visits to Earth (at least, that she remembers), predating the series itself. It's a brief mission, but she finds herself starting to like humans and the Earth. There's a fun coda, in which the First Doctor arrives a year later, having decided this is where he wants to hide out with Susan. He might not remember being the Fugitive, but the link is in there somewhere.

The main story deals with another mission for the Division, and while it's made clear that the Doctor is sent on plenty of diplomatic and rescue missions, there are plenty of more underhand assignments, and she isn't given the full story on all of them. The Doctor is assigned a temporary assistant named Taslo (because there's got to be a companion), new and naive but holding her own secrets. They're sent to take out a cult formed from various aliens who are allegedly threatening Gallifrey, by any means necessary.

There's more to it, of course, and it's no surprise when we find out the Division has being lying to the Doctor's face, but their motives are interesting. In spite of being very directly involved in the outside universe, these early Time Lords are just as rulebound and inflexible as those of the TV series' era, terrified of change and of anything that they view against true Time Lord life. It's clear the Doctor is becoming disenchanted with her role as an agent, but this is the mission that finally makes her decide to go on the run (I guess that's a spoiler, but it's hardly a surprise). 

It's a strong story, and the comics medium suits the bold, brash and colourful Fugitive Doctor. While it looks like audio will be her main home for the foreseeable, I'd love to see some more graphic adventures for her, either as Division agent or Fugitive.

Television Heaven's 25th Anniversary Special - the greatest TV programmes of the last 25 years

The preeminent TV review website, Television Heaven, has reached the ripe old age of 25. Laurence Marcus started the site back in December 1999, and under his oversight it's grown through the 21st century to become an exhaustive and ever-expanding repository of televisual knowledge and opinion. I've been writing for it for about half that time, which somehow seems even more astonishing.

To celebrate, Lol has published two extensive articles critiquing the best, most important, and most impactful programmes of the last 25 years. First, I urge you check out his remarkable list of The Most Important Programmes of the 21st Century, examining the five shows he considers the most vital, powerful and game-changing. Programmes that genuinely changed audiences and even the world, using documentary and drama to explore the most important facts and issues of their times.

Following that, Lol has just put up 25 Shows in 25 Years, a collaborative effort by TVH's crew of regular writers. Each of us has been assigned a particular genre of television from which to pick our five must-see shows. Not an easy task, but between us we managed it. John Winterson Richards has chosen his top five historical dramas; Brian Slade chuckles at his favourite five comedies; Jennifer Ariesta tackles modern drama; and Sunday Summers explores the best of Reality TV.

As for me - well, naturally, I was assigned science fiction and fantasy. My picks are right down the bottom of the article, and believe me, choosing just five was no easy task. (One will be pretty damned obvious, but my other choices may surprise you.) Of course, there were many deserving series that had to be left off, not to mention far too many that remain patiently on my watchlist. You'll no doubt disagree passionately with my choices. Don't write in, it's just for fun! Actually, do write in - tell me your top five!

REVIEW: The Substance

Having not had a chance to see it in the cinema but intrigued by the hype, I've signed up to Mubi specifically to watch Coralie Fargeat's The Substance. While the film has been out for a while, I'll try to be reasonably light on the SPOILERS here, but if you plan to see The Substance, I'd recommend watching it with as little foreknowledge as possible.

While I'm not as blown away by The Substance as some have been, it's undoubtedly an extremely powerful film, an evocative and lurid dissection of the cruelty of our shallow society. I am certain that a woman watching it would find it even more so, as while men are also subject to society's skin-deep judgment, it is women who must deal with it day in, day out. Nonetheless, it is interesting that the one other user of the Substance we meet in the film is a man, when the rest of the focus is so squarely on women.

The Substance is a thematically dense film, most obviously satirising the cut-throat world of Hollywood and its relentless exploitation of young performers. It also takes on themes of the cruelty and inevitability of ageing; parent-child rivalry; elder abuse; self-loathing and depression; self harm; cosmetic surgery; substance (small 's') abuse and addiction; the nature of beauty; society's reaction to disfigurement; the nature of identity, and more. Fargeat's direction is eccentric, exaggerating shots with extreme close-ups that magnify the grotesqueness of human life, yet this is shown to be, if not better, then at least more real than sanitised, airbrushed fakery.

Of course, she also delivers a stunning level of gore and revolting body horror, realised largely with practical effects – far more viscerally effective than endless CGI. (Although one of the most disturbing images of the film, the replication of eyes within eyes as the beginning of the Substance's process, is a brilliant bit of digital wizardry.) It's no surprise that Calgeat is a fan of David Cronenberg, in particular his masterpiece, The Fly; some moments are lifted directly from that film. More pertinent, though, is the shared use of extreme mutilation and deformation as a metaphor for disease and the ageing process. Like The Fly, The Substance is quite restrained in its use of gore and monstrosity, increasing it until the climactic and over-the-top finale. I'm informed that the film is equally indebted to Demi Moore's previous film, Requiem for a Dream; I've never seen that film, but I know enough about it to see that it shares with the The Substance a gruesome and uncompromising look at addiction and its effects on the mind and body.

You have to admire Moore for taking on such as role as Elisabeth, as someone who has been ridiculed for her own response to ageing, including not insubstantial cosmetic surgery, and having gone from the highest-paid actress in the world to someone whose career was largely considered to be over. Moore is astonishingly good in this, giving a painfully real and understandable performance as Elisabeth engages on her path of self-destruction. She has spoken of her discomfort in performing naked in the film, now that she is in her sixties (more than ten years older than her character), but, of course, she still looks incredible – which is, naturally, what the film is all about.

Even the remarkably beautiful Margaret Qualley isn't good enough for the perfection that Sue, Elisabeth's alter ego, represents, wearing false breasts for her own nude scenes. Qualley gives an equally strong performance, embodying Sue with a shallowness and cruelty that she hides beneath a marketable personality of naivete and Apple Pie Americanism. It's fascinating to watch Elisabeth's downward spiral reflected, and largely caused, by Sue's increasingly brutal treatment of her. Equally fascinating is Elisabeth and Sue's gradual emergence as separate identities, even though they are simply facets of the same person. When they finally separate, the event that kicks off their final descent into self-destruction, they are inevitably fused again, in the most horrific of ways imaginable.

Qualley, though, doesn't actually look particularly like Moore, which only serves to make the divide stronger and Elisabeth's story sadder. Sue presumably represents an idealised self-image; the person Elisabeth always believed she could be. That Sue instantly becomes a runaway success only furthers Elisabeth's feelings of inadequacy and low self-image. Elisabeth's binge-eating (judging by the amount of meat and eggs, largely driven by a need for copious amounts of protein to replace what was lost in Sue's “birth” and “weaning”) is a clear sign of her self-hatred. This manifests more blatantly in her rapid ageing and disfigurement as Sue's selfishly extends her own time, as well as both versions' increasingly vicious treatment of one another. (Never mind the events towards the end; the fact that neither aspect ever decides to put something down on the world's hardest bathroom floor for the bodyswap moments speaks volumes.)

The film comes close to being a two-hander, but it's impossible to overlook Dennis Quaid's performance as the loathsome Harvey. Also worth noting is Edward Hamilton Clark's performance as hopeful suitor Fred. Even though Fred seems a decent enough guy, both men are portrayed as physically off-putting – Fred with his yellowing teeth, Harvey with his shameless face-stuffing and constant shouting – yet they face no recrimination for their flawed, ageing appearances.

It's an intensely visual film, using colour, harsh lighting and extreme camera work to disorienting effect. Everything is extreme here, be it monstrously ugly or aggressively beautiful. Sue's “Call On Me” channelling erotic workout show is a case in point: relentlessly sexy but again using extreme close-ups to push this beyond its limits. Nonetheless, Qualley is incredibly hot in these scenes, forcing the viewer to become complicit in the sexualisation and exploitation of her character.

In reality, though, Qualley found filming these scenes traumatic, and could only bring herself to do them while high. Given that both she and Moore were injured somewhat by make-up and prosthetics, and that even Quaid almost made himself sick by devouring kilos of shrimp, it raises the question of when the depiction of exploitation becomes exploitation in itself.

Where the film falls down, unfortunately, is in the final act, which takes things too far into delirious horror. While there's some uncertainty as to how much we see is real and how much is hallucination, it seems we're meant to view the final, brutal events as actually happening. While it's certainly climactic, the final phase of Elisabeth and Sue's “treatment” and its aftermath takes the body horror into the absurd. Ultimately, it's too much, and sits poorly with the rest of the film, as heightened as it all is. It's a shame, as there were undoubtedly ways to complete the story in a similar fashion without going so ludicrously over-the-top. Still, even in this phase, the film is rife with blatant, in-your-face symbolism, almost screaming “Look at this! I dare you!”

Even as it pushes things too far in its final scenes, The Substance is one of the most powerfully satirical – if entirely unsubtle – films in years; a horror movie that relentlessly attacks its own industry and makes the audience question themselves for watching it.

Hallowe'en at Television Heaven

It's spooky season, so it's time to review some classic chillers (because the rest of the year I don't watch monsters and ghosts and things, not at all).

Pop along to Television Heaven for new reviews on the ingenious horror spoof Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, the most terrifying part of which is that it's somehow now twenty years old; the Frankensteinian hammy horror of 1970s Doctor Who serial The Brain of Morbius; and, the Hammer movie Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million Years to Earth), featuring perhaps the very best version of the good Professor. 

Plus, Mark Turner-Box reviews the 1979 miniseries of Stephen King's Salem's Lot, while Malcolm Alexander examines the more recent horror series The Enfield Haunting.

Enjoy an array of Martians, monsters, vampires, ghosts, apemen and invasive broccoli.

REVIEW: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

In the age of the resurrected franchise, the Beetlejuice sequel has finally clawed its way out of Development Hell and into whatever passes for reality these days. It's something that we've said about a lot of movies lately, but this really is a film that didn't need to happen. Still, that doesn't mean it isn't a lot of fun.

Decades of cancellations and delays spared us from Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian and other questionable sequel ideas. The fact that 36 years have passed since the original Beetlejuice means that the new movie has a clear basis for a story, able to explore how the characters of the original have developed and to exposea new generation to the utterly bizarre world that Tim Burton created. Or, to put it another way, to see how this stuff holds up with fans of the original beyond pure nostalgia, and whether kids today will lap it up the way their parents did.

Of course, while we have Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara all returning to their roles behind or in front of the camera, not everyone involved in the original was able to be involved, or indeed welcome. There's no sign of Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin (too old); Glenn Shadix (too dead); or Jeffrey Jones (too nonce). While the Maitlands are mentioned often, their absence is dealt with in a single throwaway line; still, better that than using yet more CGI de-aging to make Davis and Baldwin resemble their younger selves, as ageless ghosts should. Richard Deetz, on the other hand, is surprisingly embraced by the film, which is both decent and hilarious. Jones may be persona non grata, but his character is still a good guy and loved by his family, with the actor's absense being lampshaded through the use of an impersonation, stop-motion animation and, finally, just removing the character's head.

Keaton has aged as well, of course, but given how much make-up he was under as Beetlejuice (or Betelgeuse if you're old school) it doesn't matter so much. Hell, they probably had to use less make-up this time round. He steps back into the role like he never left, and is clearly having a whale of a time. He's used sparingly, which is wise; too much and he'd overwhelm the story, and his schtick would get tiresome.

Winona Ryder remains central, and so she should; Lydia was the heroine of the original (and, I'm pretty sure, my first screen crush, so I may have a biased interest here). Her character is well written, and she performs it beautifully: still the same quirky goth from 1988, but weighed down by the intervening years' strife and the trauma of her first brush with Beetlejuice. It's good to see that she's closer to her father and stepmother, and is now experiencing the same treatment from her own daughter. Having her present a show about her ghostly encounters is perfect; it's just a shame that creep Rory is dragging her down. Lydia grows considerably during the course of the film, taking back control of her life and even facing Beetlejuice without fear when she knew he was the only one who could help her daughter.

Catherine O'Hara is just as brilliant as ever, giving us an older, wiser, not quite as volatile Delia. The new cast are all pretty excellent. Jenna Ortega is perhaps too obvious casting for the next generation of pretty, sulky goth teen, but she's spot on as Astrid, undergoing her own growth and being a likeable character even as she infuriates with her dismissal of her mother. Justin Theroux is brilliant as the instantly-hateable Rory, a character you just can't wait to see get his comeuppance. (Nice of the writers to name a heroine after my daughter and a villain after my dog, by the way.) Arthur Conti, a virtual unknown, is excellent as the charming yet underhanded Jeremy, Astrid's love interest. He's definitely at the beginning of a stellar career.

Among the side characters, Willem Dafoe is predictably brilliant as actor-turned-ghost-turned-cop Wolf Jackson, and Burn Gorman is hilarious as the heavy-drinking, scripture-babbling Father Damien. Monica Bellucci, though, is sorely underused. She looks incredible as Delores, Beetlejuice's ex-wife/widow(?) and the sexiest zombie since Liv Moore, but she's scarcely in it and is more of a plot contrivance than a character. Bellucci deserves more than that. Still, her existence does explain that ring-bearing finger in Beetlejuice's pocket in the original (he must have put it back with the rest of her between films). There are a couple of fun cameos too, which are probably best left unspoiled.

So, we have a great cast performing some strong material. Unfortunately, the film itself is pretty incoherent. There's some great material in here, with some truly surreal moments, but the plot is convoluted and often breaks down into a series of sketches than a solid story, none of them funny enough to justify this approach. With multiple antagonists running around and continual twists and revelations, things never get boring, although the Big Twist that kicks off the endgame is howlingly obvious. 

I dread to say it, though, but Beetlejuice itself wasn't that great a film. It's a cult classic, it's utterly unique (until now, at least) and those who watched it around the right age adore it, but it's objectively an indulgent mess. So it's not a surprise that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is too. That doesn't mean I didn't have a great time watching it; it's got everything you could really want from a Beetlejuice sequel, evne if that means you know pretty much exactly what you're getting. (You love sandworms? I love sandworms!) It suffers, like a lot of modern films, from a trailer that paints something of a false picture (at least one joke falls flat, largely because a much better version was used in the trailer), but even so, you know what to expect going in. Judging by the stellar performance its had in the box office, that's precisely what audiences want. 

Which is a good thing, because it's now inevitable that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will be along in short order. Will it be good? Just like this, objectively not. But who cares when it's this much fun?

REVIEW: Space Dandy Picture Dramas

So it turns out there's a whole bunch of extra Space Dandy eps I never knew about! The Space Dandy Picture Dramas are short-form mini-episodes with simplified animation - more like motion comics. There are only five of them and mostly clock in at under ten minutes, so it works out as equivalent to roughly two proper episodes. These were apparently only ever made available on the Japanese complete series Blu-Ray release, so know wonder I hadn't heard of them.

Fortunately, some lovely person has uploaded them to a playlist on YouTube so we can all enjoy them. Naturally, these are only in Japanese, which is a shame as I adore the English dub performances, but there are subtitles on all of them. A wonderful Tumblr-er called "futuristic-roomba" (that's QT, right?) posted about them, and I've taken the titles from her post, even if they are apparently a bit questionable. Although I've Dandied them up a bit!

They're a mixed bunch and I've written my brief thoughts below. If you want to avoid spoilers, go click on the link above and watch them first.

1. BooBies Pair Adventure, Baby!

This short is a great start to the little series, although it's an oddity in that Dandy is barely in it, showing up for a few seconds at the end (he's been rendered indisposed by a bad case of the trots). This instead focuses on Meow and QT on their own adventure with Honey and Candy. If you don't remember Candy, don't feel bad; she's barely been in it before, briefly appearing in ep. 1-2, “The Search for the Phantom Space Ramen, Baby." She's fun though; I like her just as much as Honey and she has cute hair,

This is good fun. It's close to the standard art style of the series, just with less animation, which is an easy way in but makes it visually less interesting than the other shorts. Seeing two BooBies waitresses trying to become alien hunters is an entertaining way to spend nine minutes, especially as they seem to be completely amoral. (Judging by what we've seen over the series, Dandy and co. are probably the most ethical alien hunters out there.)

I Know This Planet, Baby: Planet Daga is an unreal world where anything you imagine becomes reality - but only within the space of the planet.

2. It's a Launderette from Hell, Baby! 

This is my favourite of the five shorts. The art style is appealing, a sketchbook style with dark, moody hues, which suits the story and the still-art nature of the shorts. This is a full-on Dandy heavy adventure, showing him at his most heroic as he rescues the Ugglies from indentured servitude. It's a pretty serious one, really, dealing as it does with people trafficking and modern slavery. I do love the idea that every launderette/laundromat in the universe links to this one planet and everything is actually washed by hand.

We're Alien Hunters, Baby: The Ugglies are rotund, fish-faced creatures with huge lips and teeth. They come from the Planet Uggly (pronounced to sound like "kiss" which clearly only works in Japanese). They can't write but they can sure fight.

3. Cheerful Wake Me Up, Baby! 

Another great little episode, a QT-focused one which works as a follow-up to 1-13, "Even Vacuum Cleaners Fall in Love, Baby." It gives an insight into QT's existence, as part of a mass-produced line of robots that are visually indistinguishable and can be disposed of and replaced on a whim. It's really the second short in a row that deals with a form of slavery, but none of it gets heavy. 

It's pretty heartwarming, with QT showing how he's grown as an individual and starting to inspire his fellow hoovers, and Dandy showing that he can recognise him and values him. They're a crew, even if they spend most of the time bitching at each other. Nice, drawn-style artwork here, simple and colourful, which suits the story.

4. The Road to Debut is Harsh, Baby! 

I didn't like this one. I don't know, maybe I'm missing the point of it, but it just isn't very interesting or fun. The sloppy, hand-drawn, felt-tip artwork is a big step-down from the others. It's something different and makes this short stand out, but it just doesn't look good.

This one isn't really a Space Dandy story at all, more of a background story. It's all very meta, with Tohn Jravolta auditioning for a role in the series. He's just an ordinary looking guy here, nothing like the Jravolta in 2-9, "We're All Fools, So Let's All Dance, Baby." That guy was a gold-skinned, almost mechanical-looking alien. I guess that's him in costume, and underneath it is this guy. Regardless, this is pretty boring. I assumed the judging panel would turn out to be Dandy and co. but they're actually a bunch of dogs.

5. Let's Take a Bath Again, Baby!

Easily the most meta of them all, and given this is Space Dandy we're talking about, that's meta indeed. Set right after the final episode of the series, in which, lest we forget, the universe ended. Is this the new universe 14.8 billion years later, when we've come full circle? Seems unlikely, as everyone remembers what happened in the finale. 

Of course, that's a pointless question, when the characters are sitting around discussing the show. Incorporating the fourth short as well, we have fictional characters auditioning to play fictional characters, who then sit around discussing their fiction, in character.

Bringing back Space Trucker Dandy and Lady Meow is a nice touch, as they were the most Dandy-ish of the alternative versions appearing in 2-1, "I Can't be the Only One, Baby." I could've done without meeting Manga Hero Dandy again, though. He's just as annoying as ever, and turns out to be really rapey as well. At least he's seen off by the others. This short is a lot of fun, with a really effective artstyle, and makes for a nice final ending to the Dandyverse.

I Know This Planet, Baby: From the look of the plants and the moon in the sky, we might finally be seeing Dandy on Earth.

Important! Please help my friend in dire need of housing support

Cat for attention

My friend Rosie has started a GoFundMe campaign to try to raise money to help our mutual friend B.

B is disabled, fleeing a violent home and has been rendered effectively homeless after years of housing problems. 

I realise that everyone is skint and that there are a lot of crowdfund campaigns for people in need, but if you do happen to have a few quid to spare, please consider donating it to B's fund. It really could make all the difference. If we share this widely enough and enough people donate, we can raise enough to get her housed safely, and that could honestly be the difference between life and death for her.

Seriously, B is amazing but she has been royally screwed over by people and the system. She needs our help.

More details at the link.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/my-friend-n-a-homeless-disabled-woman-who-has-fled-violence

Thank you

WHO REVIEW: Deathworld

Deathworld is the first Big Finish release I've been excited for for quite a while. The latest in The Lost Stories range, this is based on a story treatment submitted by Bob Baker and Dave Martin, classic Who's big ideas men, for Doctor Who's tenth season. It never got further than that, being scrapped in favour of their second idea, which became The Three Doctors. It's very similar to the broadcast story in many ways: all (then) three Doctors appear, the Time Lords are involved, UNIT HQ is beseiged, and the Doctors and their companions are sent to another world outside of their reality.

It's a far more esoteric adventure, however. Instead of facing a disembodied Time Lord in a universe of antimatter, the Doctor is forced to battle Death himself, in his realm beyond time. It's a wonderfully out there idea for Doctor Who, and I've long been fascinated by it as a road not taken. It wouldn't have been completely out of place back in season ten - only one story before the Doctor fought the Minotaur in Atlantis and stood in the vortex facing a god that ate time itself, and in the sixties there were occasional trips beyond reality, to the Land of Fiction of the Celestial Toyroom. Now, of course, the idea of the Doctor facing the Grim Reaper in the afterlife doesn't seem unlikely at all, in the series' new "gods and monsters" phase.

From the sounds of it, this is one of those Lost Stories where there was little more than an outline to go from, so BF writer John Dorney has basically created the entire script from scratch. It's great work; it fair zips along, with the occasional quieter to focus on loss and the philosophy of death. The dialogue is, for the most part, very strong; only once do the characters fall into the trap of describing what they're seeing instead of reacting to it, which makes it better than a lot of BF scripts. Dorney peppers the script with little references to other adventures (the First Doctor asking if the Brigadier is related to Bret Vyon was fun), and his use of the odd phrase or paraphrase from The Three Doctors itself seems appropriate, given that surely some of Baker and Martin's material would have ended up in either version.

There are some irritating bits. Having the different Doctors discovering the same thing then reporting to each other gets repetitive. Why the Brigadier refers to himself as such, instead of his actual name, is a mystery, although this is far from the first story to include that. Looking at the story itself, while it's fun to have the First Doctor and the Brig team up, and it's something we never got to see on TV, it's also a shame one of the First Doctor's companions doesn't take part. This is, I presme, due to who the production team thought they could get involved at the time.

Indeed, they were pretty overconfident there, since in the event Frazer Hines was unavailable to play Jamie, while Hartnell was too unwell to be involved fully, necessitating some serious rewriting. It's wonderful to be able to hear a full team-up of the first three Doctors, their different personalities brought into focus by their interactions with Jamie, Jo and the Brig, as they're busy sniping at each other. Using Death as the antagonist is a clever way to frame the meeting of different Doctors; as they discuss, they are to each other a reminder of their mortality, albeit a very different kind of mortality to humanity's. 

Interestingly, the story involved a number of elements that, by coincidence, appeared in the latest season on TV. While the version of Death here is miles away from Sutekh as God of Death, they fundementally come from the same idea. There are more specific moments that line up; there's even an army tricked into fighting itself. Other parts are hard to imagine televised Doctor Who fully committing to then or now; armies of zombies would either push the boundaries of what the programme could get away with, or be so neutered for the teatime slot as to be pointless. It's one of these time when audio is a benefit; we can let our imaginations run wild, without concern for budget or viewer sensibilities.

There is, however, a fundamental drawback to this whole endeavour. Since the first three Doctors are now long dead, Big Finish relies on its squadron of impersonators to recreate them for this story. Stephen Noonan stands in for William Hartnell; Michael Troughton for his father Patrick; and Tim Treloar is now well-established as Jon Pertwee's understudy. As well as the Doctors, Jon Culshaw portrays the Brigadier in place of the late Nick Courtney. Happily, Frazer Hines and Katy Manning are still with us, but it does make for a strangely distant experience. It does fit with the theme of death and loss, though, and for the most part, the impressions are strong. At times, they're uncannily accurate, while other times they're wildly off, but they're mainly solid so it doesn't detract from the story.

Hats off to Joe Shire as Death himself, as well as his three fellow apocalyptic horsemen. He gives a powerful, sinister, yet oddly avuncular performance as the personification of Death. Joe's got a number of Big Finish credits to his name now (notably he's a regular in Torchwood Soho), but his first turn as main villain is a triumph. Good work, Uncle Joe! Dianne Pilkington gives a good performance against him as the overconfident Lady President of Gallifrey.

The climax to the story does fall under the somewhat frustrating category that undoes the adventure, but it doesn't feel like a cop-out, unlike some. In this case, it's in keeping with the dream-like, otherworldly nature of the story. I'm not keen on the range's continued insistence to force its releases into existing continuity, clumsily segueing here into The Three Doctors. It's far better to let these "what if?" stories remain in their own, unique little universes. Still, it doesn't undo what is a fun adventure, and one that worth waiting for through the recent delays.

Placement: As Dorney has gone to pains to fit this into established continuity, we might as well have a try. As previously noted, for the Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier, this leads directly into The Three Doctors. 

For the Second Doctor and Jamie, it's a little trickier. They're one their way to pick up Victoria, and Jamie mentions experiments by the Sontarans, clearly setting this after The Two Doctors. However, neither of them recognises the Brigadier, so from their perspective it's also before The Web of Fear. This means that The Two Doctors takes place during season five, rather than after season six and the Doctor's trial, where most fans place it. This is probably the work of script editor Simon Guerrier, who took this stance in his audioplay The Black Hole, which dialogue suggests follows this straight after. Funnily enough, The Black Hole was a working title for The Three Doctors. If this is right after The Two Doctors, Jamie has met three extra incarnations of the Doctor in a matter of days.

The First Doctor mentions going to find Steven, so for him, this is presumably between The Daleks' Masterplan and The Massacre. 

REVIEW: Alien: Romulus

As either the seventh or ninth film in the franchise (depending on whether you count the Alien vs Predator crossovers), Alien: Romulus is up against a huge amount of nostalgia and expectation. It’s unlikely any new instalment will ever reach the heights of 1979’s Alien or 1986’s Aliens, yet the lukewarm reception of Ridley Scott’s return with his two prequel films means that Romulus is needed to revitalise the franchise.

Fortunately, it manages that, with a few caveats. Romulus is undoubtedly the best Alien film in years, balancing sci-fi and horror in a way the series hasn’t really managed since Aliens. It’s visceral, violent and unsettling, although less gorily over-the-top than I expected from Evil Dede Alverez. His script, with his regular collaborator Rodo Sayagues, is a decisive critique of the horrors of capitalism and unchecked growth. Setting the film between Alien and Aliens allows the writers to explore a largely unknown period in the series’ future history, giving us a story connected to Ripley’s without impacting it directly.

On the other hand, Romulus’ reliance on knowing references and slavish recreation of the past limits it originality. We have a new cast of characters to follow and root for, an effective updated design for the Alien (now officially named onscreen as Xenomorph XX-121) and a new corner of the universe to explore, yet we have an antagonist almost literally resurrected from Alien’s history and the repeated use of fan-pleasing old lines, regardless of whether it makes sense in context. Much of this is to be expected; we are, after all, living in the age of nostalgia. What I didn’t anticipate was the writers picking up a plot thread from Prometheus, unfortunately one that lacked much logic or coherence in the first place. This comes to the fore in the final act, derailing an otherwise impressive movie.

What can’t be faulted is the cast. While we have an uniformly young and beautiful set of protagonists – no room for the weird and wonderful in this future – they are all extremely impressive in what are solidly well-written roles. The characters are believable in a way we haven’t seen in this franchise for years, making mistakes and rash decisions that we could see ourselves making in the impossible situation in which they find themselves.

SPOILERS FROM HERE

WHO REVIEW: The History Between Us

 

I love that, after sixty years, Doctor Who is still inspiring so much creative fandom. New generations of fans come to the show, explore its history, have their imaginations fired up, and go on to create their own stories. Some of these stories go on to inspire other fans; some writers will even go on to create official Doctor Who. It's all rather wonderful. Admittedly, it's a bit strange for me to see a book full of authors and artists going by their online handles, but then, pseudonyms have a long history and, well, I guess I'm getting old.

The History Between Us is a collection of stories featuring the Doctor and the Master, from the 77 Years Team. This group previously published 77 Years itself, exploring the Dhawan Master's accidental exile alluded to in Spyfall (I've now bought the digital edition of this, so expect another review in the future). This volume, which I picked up on the reprint for the 60^th anniversary and have finally had time to sit down and read properly, is more expansive, covering the two Time Lords' lives from their childhood on Gallifrey to their most recent run-in on TV, and beyond.

Fanthologies are nothing new, and nor is fiction exploring the relationship between the Doctor and the Master. Even the idea that they were once a couple, whose love has turned to an intense enmity that they've dragged out across time and space, isn't without precedent. Forcing them to sit down and talk to a marriage counsellor, though – that's a stroke of genius.

The first thing you notice when you pick up this book is just how gorgeous it is. Kris Merola's cover is absolutely stunning, and only the first of a selection of incredible illustrations in an array of styles. Then, of course, we have the stories themselves – one for each main Doctor, plus a framing story and an extra story at the very end, set some time in the future. (I won't reveal which Doctor and Master this one features, but they may have recently been brought into TV canon.) The stories explore their relationship and its fluctuating levels of friendship and enmity across the centuries. Any romance is included with a lightness of touch – the more intimate details of their relationship is kept to background and inference.

There's a very high standard to the writing here. Every story is strong, with the best being really quite excellent. I have some particular favourites. “On the Contrary Nature of Temporal Exobiology” by Ana M. explores the first meeting and growing friendship between the charismatic Koschei and the awkward Theta at the Academy. “Doctor Who and the Vortex Bloom” by Fennric explores the Third Doctor's life in exile, including the nature of his prisoner tattoo (in reality, Jon Pertwee's tattoo from his time in the Royal Navy, which has caused no end of fan debate). The story has a spot-on portrayal of the affectionate rivalry between the Third Doctor and the Delgado Master (and it's nice to see someone remember that sometimes the Three discarded his fancy clothes and got down to a T-shirt and jeans).

“Taphonomia” by Soph features the Fourth Doctor and “Crispy” Master, on his last legs and desperate. It's a subtly chilling story with a touch of horror. Sariane's Fifth Doctor story “The Wandering Mind” is a fascinating exploration of the Doctor's subconscious. “Nothing but Time” by Red brings the Eighth Doctor and the War Master together, in a tremendously fun, time-twisting tale that handles the tricky business of fitting in with TV continuity better than Big Finish usually manages. The highlight of the modern Doctor-Master pairs is “Not a Vessel for Your Good Intent” by Jay, a thoughtful exploration of the Missy's imprisonment and the reasons she and the Doctor are going through with it.

While these were the stand-out entries for me, every story presents an intriguing take on the Doctor and the Master. Of course, not every Doctor met the Master on TV, and while most of their respective incarnations meet in order, there are some unexpected pairings. A truly masterful collection.

Physical copies of this book are no longer available, however, ebook and audiobook versions can still be ordered through the 77 Live Team website.

REVIEW: Deadpool & Wolverine

SPOILERS FROM THE START

Star Trek at SDCC

Plenty of announcements at this year's San Diego ComicCon piqued my interest. The Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, which has been rumoured for a while, hadn't grabbed me, but now that we have Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw leading I am interested. And as for the Marvel announcement of who's playing Doctor Doom... I actually think that could work brilliantly. 

It's Star Trek that really piled on with the announcements and trailers though, so here's my thoughts on the next phase of Trek productions:

Star Trek: Section 31

I was never too interested in this idea when it was announced as a series, but the TV movie approach has some merit. Both the Mirror Universe and Section 31 are elements of the Trek universe that get bolring quickly, so one big nasty movie is probably better than dragging it out.

Based on this trailer... it's not very Star Trek, is it? Still, maybe that's a good thing. This is a very different take for the franchise, but it could work. Michelle Yeoh will carry it, she's never less than watchable. Cautiously looking forward to it.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 3

Hmmm... that clip does not fill me with confidence. I love SNW and I love the comedy episodes, so I'm up for some more of that, but this just looks like a comedy episode that isn't funny. Got to wonder what mission could need Vulcans that couldn't be more easily completed by bringing in some actual Vulcans. Love Pike's hair though.

Anyway, that's just one episode. Hopefully we'll get a proper season trailer too soon.

Star Trek: Lower Decks - Season 5

This trailer doesn't really tell us anything, but that's fine. It's Lower Decks - if it keeps doing what it's been doing, it's going to be great. I'm actually glad this is ending after five seasons rather than being dragged on past its prime.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

The least surprising announcement of the con: Mary Wiseman is back playing Tilly in this. Also no surprise: Oded Fehr back as Admiral Vance. More of a surprise: the wonderful Tig Notaro back as Jet Reno as a regular.

The big surprise: Robert Picardo back as the Doctor! After her turned down a role on Picard, we've had him for a whole season of Prodigy and now he's back for the 32nd century. I wonder if he's playing the back-up version of the Doctor from VOY: "Living Witness." I've said for a while he should appear in Discovery, it would be about time for him to get back to Federation space.

Untitled Star Trek comedy series

The big surprise of the panel was the announcement that Tawny Newsome Justin Simien are writing a new Trek comedy series. This is going to be a live action show, pitched as a Trek equivalent of The Office or Parks and Rec, and set on a "gleaming resort planet." It's apparently set in the 25th century, which does give us a hundred years of leeway, but if it's early on I wouldn't be surprised if we get some Picard era cameos. I'd be very surprised if Newsome doesn't show up as an older Mariner at some point. Really looking forward to seeing what this will be like.

Television Heaven update

Evening all,

I've a bunch more reviews over at Television Heaven this week.

First, we have the adventures of sleuth, magician technician and all-round know-it-all Jonathan Creek.

Then we join Michael Kitchen as Hastings' finest in WWII crime drama Foyle's War.

Then, having been just announced for a relaunch, I revisit the groundbreaking prehistoric documentary Walking with Dinosaurs.

You may also have missed some classic Tom Baker Doctor Who reviews. Gothic classic Pyramids of Mars introduced the terrible Sutekh, who returned to plague the Doctor in the latest series. A few years later, the Doctor was recruited by another godlike entity to search for the cosmic Key to Time, a season-long quest I've divided into part one (featuring The Ribos Operation, The Pirate Planet and The Stones of Blood) and part two (featuring The Androids of Tara, The Power of Kroll and The Armageddon Factor).

That's it for the moment, while I knuckle down to some fiction.

WHO REVIEW: 14-7 - "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" and 14-8 - "Empire of Death"

After all that, it was just a shaggy god story.

It's been an uneven season, with some real high points and a lot of befuddling near-misses, but on the whole it's been solidly entertaining throughout. One thing's for certain: without the sheer magnetism of Ncuti Gatwa's central performance and the depth that Millie Gibson brought to Ruby Sunday, it would have fallen apart. Their performances have made the series, even in episodes where one or both of them were largely absent, holding the rest together.

They almost manage it with the closing two-parter, but can't quite hold together a storyline this careless. A grand finale in the style that Russell T. Davies gave us each year back when he ran the show the first time round, this unfortunately reminds us that those finales gave diminishing returns even then. Where once we had clear character development that was spiced up by a gently seeded mystery - Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Harold Saxon - this time we had a bundle of seemingly unrelated mysteries increasingly brought to the forefront, with little hope of a satisfying payoff. The identities of the One Who Waits, Ruby's birth mother, Mrs Flood and the various characters played by Susan Twist all jostling for attention, with no real clue why they'd all been forced together. Somewhere in there, these two episodes were also meant to have their own story.

There are a lot of elements here that, individually, work beautifully. I adored the time window, and the use of a scratchy old VHS, combined to allow Ruby to step back into her past and witness her own origin story, complete with flickering, rippling frame edges. Not that many people were still using video cassettes in 2004, but CCTV still did, and anyone who's had to review such a tape knows how satisfying it would have been to get close enough to actually see something. The revelation that the Memory TARDIS is born from this - the image of a TARDIS becomes a TARDIS? - ties in Tales of the TARDIS beautifully and is wonderfully poetic.

The visit to the last living survivor on a dead planet, giving us a gently devastating two-hander between Gatwa and Sian Clifford, is genuinely beautiful. It feels like a scene from an entirely different episode, quietly and carefully played against the bombast of the rest of it, while still tying back to the above, with the nameless woman having lost her child as a cruel reflection of the other unnamed woman giving hers away.

Every scene with Bonnie Langford just works, showing us just how wasted she was in Mel's original portrayal in 1986-7. Her embracing the Doctor as he sinks under the weight of the mounting threat, before cajoling him into action. Her gently cradling his earlier selves' costumes, holding onto those old adventures, as she slips away, unseen by the Doctor and Ruby. Just lovely work.

But it's all almost lost in the noise, and the sheer frustration at the story's incoherence. This is RTD's grand finale finally becoming a self-parody. "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" almost works through sheer verve, but it's ultimately less a story than a bunch of stuff that happens. It could have been saved by a second part that contextualised it all, but "Empire of Death" is somehow even less coherent. The missus and I spent the entire episode saying, "that doesn't make sense" and "that's it?" and words of that ilk. 

The moment Kate Stewart dies, the reset button looms over the proceedings, and then - poof! - everyone's dead, Dave. From that moment on, nothing matters, because the sign that says "Push to reset plot" is now lit up in neon orange. This is Doctor Who doing Avengers: Endgame, only with a fraction of the time and none of the logic. 

With his triumphant appearance in the closing moments of "The Legend of Ruby Sunday," Sutekh is reborn as a monster for the CGI age, even though his snarling demon form is somehow less imposing than either immobile mask that represented him back in 1975. Kudos for getting Gabriel Woolf back to voice him - really no one else could have done. While it's not his first time voicing a villain for the revived series - he voiced the Beast for 2006's "The Satan Pit" - nor even his first return to the Sutekh role, what with Big Finish and all - it's still significant to have him return to voice such an iconic character almost fifty years after he first made such an impression. (If you do look at this series as the new Season One, then, barring clips, I think he must be the first actor to appear in all three versions of the programme.)

I was a bit dubious when Sutekh was revealed as the one behind all the sneaky clues and cosmic games, and that he was being described as a literal god, seeing that he was traditionally of the alien astronaut, sufficiently-advanced-technology kind. Yet this is satsifyingly explained as his having evolved and attained true godhood, and while the trickster angle would genuinely have suited Fenric more than the blunt and brutal Sutekh, overall it works. His MO hasn't changed - he still wants to kill everyone and everything in the universe - and now he has the means to do it.

Straight away, though, the script cuts down its own concepts with elements that don't quite work the moment you think about them. So Sutekh has been riding the TARDIS ever since Pyramids of Mars? The sheer number of stories this renders baffling is outweighed only by the number of memes it has already inspired. Given that it was the Doctor's meddling at the edge of the universe that was supposed to have let all these gods and goblins in, why not use this already comfortably established explanation? Have Sutekh be stuck on the outer membrane of space/time until the Doctor pierced it, and then have him surf the TARDIS back to reality. Otherwise why is the Ship only moaning about it now?

Doctor Who never makes complete sense, and some stories make a lot less. Yet there are just so many infuriating choices and illogical conclusions and great flapping loose ends here it becomes aggravating. Off the top of my head: how can the Doctor fetch evidence from the evil Welsh PM's regime in 2046 when Ruby prevented that timeline from happening, and now Sutekh has ended life on Earth in 2024? It double-never-happened. Where does the Memory TARDIS go, aside from into the spin-off series? Why is Rose Noble working for UNIT, as lovely as her immediate friendship as Ruby was? Why waste Lenny Rush on such a briefly used character?  Why did the Doctor need to go to that planet and meet that woman to borrow her spoon? Sutekh killed living beings, he didn't erase all the metal in the cosmos. 

Perhaps most bafflingly, why end your massive relaunch of Doctor Who, intended to kick it into international streaming super-success, with a story so utterly beholden on the programme's ancient history? It's not that bringing back characters and concepts from the past is a bad idea, but to so deeply hold onto the original stories to the point of including clips from Pyramids of Mars and continually referencing Susan is a bizarre move at this stage. If only there'd been an appropriate opportunity for that kind of nostalgic looking back, say last year...

Ah yes, Susan. It takes some balls, I guess, to throw in an anagram so obvious that not only every fan will pick up on it, but even UNIT, who apparently aren't phased by a new recruit named H. Arbinger, and then to throw it out in favour of a vastly more stupid play on words. I mean, "Sue Tech," for goodness' sake (and no, Doctor, that isn't an anagram). It also takes balls to bate the die-hards with the return of Susan, only to have Twist's character revealed as, basically, evil Clara. In a way, I'm relieved. I'm not sure wha I would have disliked more: making Susan into a villain, or missing the opportunity to have Carole Ann Ford, the only surviving actor from the very first story, play her again.

In the end, of course, the indescribably powerful cosmic evil is beaten absurdly easily, because there isn't time for anything more satisfying. Everything's OK again. Except for the Doctor, once again beating himself up for being "a monster," as if killing the literal God of Death who just killed virtually every living thing in the entire universe is in any way morally questionable. Maybe he's just feeling guilty at the sheer cheek of saying he represents life after the shit he pulled when he looked like Jodie Whittaker.

So, mystery number three: Ruby's mum. The actual discovery of her, the meeting with her, the bringing her back into Ruby's life, is all beautifully done. I love that Ruby completely ignores the Doctor's sage advice about leaving things alone and goes straight into meet her. It's a stunning scene, and Gibson is once again fantastic in it. Unfortunately, we're then fobbed off with the "she's the most important thing in the world - an ordinary woman" reveal, which is such a let down it makes you wonder why we bothered. After all, it makes no sense whatsoever. Why could Sutekh not see this ordinary woman? Why does Ruby have impossible depths and is able to make it snow? I can only hope that the Doctor is hiding something from her, or that her father turns out to be something interesting.

Thankfully, we do get a strong goodbye scene, again sold by the talent and presence of Gatwa and Gibson. It's goodbye to Ruby, except we know she will be back next year. Not sure exactly what the set up will be there, but very pleased we're not losing Millie yet.

That just leaves mystery number four, the quite irritating Mrs Flood. She knows a lot, talks to the audience, and seemingly cosplays as old companions (there's a cohort of fans who are convinced she's Clara because she wears one of her jumper/shirt combos, but she dresses as Romana I in The Ribos Operation at the end). She also starts preaching some very strange portentous language when Sutekh is about to let loose, but then, half the characters start talking like that for some reason. At the end of the day, I can't really muster much interest, when it'll probably be another let down.

Settings: UNIT HQ, London, 2024; Ruby Road, Manchester, 2004 (kind of); somewhere in Britain, 2046; planet Agua Cantina, time unknown.

Maketh the Man: Nice black leather jacket, white T-shirt, jeans and boots combo from the Doctor. A good, practical, stripped down look for a tough mission. I liked his cosy poncho in the Memory TARDIS though.

Throwing back and spinning off: So, the latest Tales of the TARDIS takes place in the middle of "Empire of Death," with the Doctor taking an hour or so off recount an old adventure to Ruby while Mel quietly dies in the corner. As much as I love the cultural appropriation line (in the main episode) and the looting accusation (in the TotT framing), all this really does is highlight how much better Pyramids of Mars was than this.

How's Your Uncle? Pretty funny that while Rose is risking her life, Donna and the Fourteenth Doctor are nowhere to be seen, having nipped off to the Costa Brava or Planet of the Hats or something.

73 Yards: Interesting that this is linked to the TARDIS' perception filter, suggesting that the entire haunting experienced by Ruby and her being pulled back in time was down to the Ship itself.

The Shallow Bit: It's a pity Harriet Arbinger turns into a skull-face and then dies; Genesis Lynea (cool name) is rather gorgeous.

Gods and Monsters: The Pantheon is listed by Harriet, a nice mix of recognisable names and new creations:

• The Toymaker, the God of Games (The Celestial Toymaker, The Giggle)
• The Trickster, the God of Traps (a recurring villain on The Sarah Jane Adventures)
• Maestro, the God of Music, child of the Toymaker ("The Devil's Chord")
• Reprobate, the God of Spite (they're new)
• The Mara, the God of Beasts (Kinda, Snakedance)
• Incensor, the God of Disaster (new)
• Their children, Doubt and Dread (very Sandman)
• The Threefold Deity of Malice, Mischief and Misery (probably new but could maybe be the Gods of Ragnarok from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy)
• Sutekh, the God of Death

Intriguingly, Sutekh is described as "the mother and father and other of them all," in spite of apparently becoming a god later than several of them.

The Problem of Susan: The Doctor apparently hasn't seen Susan since he dumped her in the 22nd century in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, although he doesn't actually confirm this. The Eighth Doctor met her again in his radio series (and also separately in the EDA novels, but you try reconciling those two accounts). Very intriguingly, he suggests that he may not have had children yet, and may have grandchildren before he has children, although he's referred to himself as a dad several times (as recently as "Boom").

Sundry quibbles:

• Repeating a concern from "The Giggle:" what is the Vlinx, and for that matter, what is the point of the Vlinx? It says two words and otherwise just sits there looking stupid and costing money.
• Calufrax has been restored? Bit of a waste of time, it was dead in the first place.
• All of the fan baiting and references in this, and they cut out the scene of Susan Triad meeting the Zarbi? We was robbed.
• Of all the episodes that make you go "Huh?" when you realise Sutekh was sitting on the TARDIS the whole time, surely "The Giggle" is the biggest deal. There are two TARDISes now, so are there two Sutekhs as well?

TREK REVIEW: DIS 5-9 & 5-10

5-9: LAGRANGE POINT 

5-10: LIFE, ITSELF

Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?

Star Trek: Discovery's final two episodes bite off a bit more than they can chew thanks to the late-in-the-day cancellation of the series, but still give us a more satisfying than we normally get with Discovery. In spite of running to only ten episodes, this last season has been tighter and better paced than the show normally manages, with a more coherent structure. 

"Lagrange Point" sets things up nicely, but is very much a first part rather than a satisfactory episode in its own right. It's a taut little thriller, with Michael and co. infiltrating the Breen dreadnought which is, somehow, effectively under the command of Moll after she insighted the rebellion against Ruhn. There's some good stuff here, with Adira stepping up to the plate on a risky away mission against the objection of her space dad Stamets, and some cool-as-a-cucumber stealth work from Rhys, who's finally developed a character this year. Frankly, I was expecting them to kill him off, since he's never been more than a handsome background character till the last few episodes.

Taking the lead in the Breen mission are Burnham and Book, once again showing that they have all the best chemistry even when they're having to communicate through cod-Iron Man helmet cam effects. I love how Book, thrown in the deep end and having to keep one of the various Breen troops occupided, instantly resorts to flirting, and gets away with it. There's a very clunky scene where, in true Discovery style, everything stops so Michael can have an emotional moment with her ex, but at least it's lampshaded. 

The weakness in this episode is that the Breen aren't really living up to their promise as the new Big Bad. The main draw of the Breen was always their mystery, and inevitably, once we started to learn about them they become less interesting. That's pretty much unavoidable. Sadly, while we do get some intriguing snippets about them, they've turned out to be such a generic warrior race that they just fail to hold interest. Once they start speaking English so Moll can understand them, they just come across as a bunch of ranty soldier boys. The fascinating idea of their having two forms isn't explored at all. We learn both too much and not enough about their culture for them to be interesting, and it's a real shame.

This is exacerbated in the final episode, when Primarch Tahal coming to take Ruhn's dreadnought how he's out of the game. She's exactly the same as he was, but with a crackly female voice instead of a male one, only she really is all mouth and no trousers. It's great to finally have Saru back, with Doug Jones giving a great performance as the steely predator-mode Kelpian who'll stare down the aspiring Breen Queen, but Tahal just isn't threatening enough to warrant turning up as an eleventh hour villain. Plus, every time they refer to the Primarch I just thing of a bargain clothes shop.

Where these episodes really sing is in the mindbending science and beautiful visuals. Having the Progenitor's tech sitting in a capsule hanging in the Lagrange point of two black holes is awe inspiring, especially when we learn that the Progenitors may well have created this whole system themselves, just to hammer home how incredibly advanced they were. And, of course, the capsule's bigger on the inside, being merely the entry point to another dimension (where have I heard that one before?) There's a bit of confusion about all this though, as it's also said that the 24th century scientists were responsible for putting it there, which doesn't really mesh with everything else we learn.

It's inevitable that both Moll and Michael will throw themselves across the threshold into the other dimension as the penultimate cliffhanger, but the world they find is nothing short of spectacular. It's reminiscent of the timeless realm of Interstellar, but with some logic to its construction even if we have trouble following it. The idea of the Progenitors having access to a limitless space containing hundreds of worlds is fantastic, and suitably epic for the final discovery. 

However, it all falls down a bit with the final test, which falls into the perennially annoying, ludicrously simple maths puzzle variety. I realise there were other tests of character beforehand, but this simple brainteaser is what convinces the Progenitors that Burnham has what it takes to take control of god-like technology? It's also disappointing that the terrifying threat it poses is apparently little more than growing a clone army. Surely they could have come up with something more imaginative?

We've known for the whole season that eventually Burnham would find the supreme technology, just as we've known that she would inevitably decide it was too advanced and dangerous and that there were just some things mankind was not meant to know, etc. There's only one way stories like this can go, and this duly went there. All fine, all so predictable. Overall, though, it still worked for me, largely thanks to some genuinely nice moments between Burnham and the last Progenitor. (It is frustrating, though, how Michael is constantly fretting about getting out and saving Book, when the alien keeps reminding her that they are outside of time and therefore can take as long as they like.) 

One thing I absolutely adored was the revelation that the Progenitors didn't create this technology at all, just found it along with all the worlds it contains. It's continuous creation, all the way back to the dawn of time and maybe beyond. This brings to mind Pratchett's undersung classic, Strata, although that wasn't the first to use this idea (and subverts it anyway). In any case, love it.

There's a lot going on in this episode, good and, if not bad, then frustrating. Culber's miraculous spiritual experience post-joining is just remembering a few numbers that the Trill scientist handily left in his head. I enjoyed the final defeat of the Breen, using the spore drive to just dump them out by the edge of the Galaxy, even if the science was a bit ludicrous, even for this series. Still, I hope they don't show up again one day, brimming with godlike mind powers thanks to the Galactic Barrier...

After all the excitement, we get what is basically a series of epilogues as they try to wrap up everything. I'll admit, I punched the air when Kovich revealed he's actually Agent Daniels from Enterprise. Very silly, yet absolutely perfect. David Cronenberg doesn't much look, sound or act like Matt Winston, but he did say he's "lived many lives." Perhaps he regenerated? Saru and T'Rina's wedding was suitbaly lovely, even if we didn't see as many Vulcans or Kelpien as we might expect, but is was good to see some old faces again. Then, at the very end, we get a beautifully acted moment where Burnham and Book finally make up for good. Lovely.

Except that's not the end, because one last, very long epilogue was recorded after they learned of the cancellation. This jsut about works. It's too long, for sure, but this little peak at the 33rd century and the much older Admiral Burnham's life is pretty satisfying, even if she does have the same neo-Luddite retirement dream as every other Starfleet captain. Bringing them back to Sanctuary Four, with Book's alien conservation projects, is a nice touch.

What doesn't quite work is the final fate of the USS Discovery itself. Short Treks' "Calypso" was the highlight of that brief series and left us with all sorts of mysteries to ponder, and notably didn't quite line up with the direction that Discovery eventually went. While a nod in its direction would have been nice, trying to explain it all away ultimately leaves us with more questions than answers. Why does the ship need to be returned to its original state, with the "A" scraped off an everything? Why does Zora, a sentient being we might recall, have to be dumped alone for untold decades as part of this mission? How the hell does anyone know about someone or something named Craft turning up at some point in the future, to do something or other? It just doesn't quite work.

Overall, though, both the epilogue and the final episode as a whole manage to tie up this season, and the whole series, quite satisfyingly. This has probably been the best season in Discovery's run, and it's a shame that it had to get canned just as it got the formula right, but better to go out on a high.

Other bits and pieces:

• Book and Burnham's son is called Leto and is a captain in his own right. He's at least in his thirties, so this section can't be set any earlier than the 3220s.
• As for when "Calypso" is set... it still isn't clear whether Discovery really was hanging around for a thousand years, or just made to look like that by being reverted to its old design. The latter seems more likely, but it could still be a good while before Craft turns up. If she does sit there for a thousand years, it's set no earlier than the 43rd century.
• Culber gets a Bones-ism: "I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"
• Kovich/Daniels has Geordi's VISOR, Sisko's baseball and a bottle of Chateu Picard in his collection, making him look like the galaxy's biggest fanboy and tealeaf.
• Tilly basically outright says she's sticking around for the Starfleet Academy spin-off, and no surprises there.
• The planetary landscape filled with fields of flowers is beautiful... and I reckon it's Lurglestrop from The Smeds and the Smoos (the finest science fiction story of our time).
• The Breen apparently practise polyamory and enjoy oil baths. So now you know.