The second volume of Roving Reporter, Pencil Tip Publishing's collection of short stories, comic strips and critical essays on all things Sarah Jane is now in print. You can order a copy from Lulu, for the sum of £20/£36 (CAD). All proceeds go towards the British Columbia Cancer Foundation.
The volume includes some excellent new fiction starring Sarah Jane, rounded off with my own story "Remembrance."
1995 saw Nintendo release some of its best platformer titles. Yoshi's Island, Donkey Country 2, Donkey Kong Land, Kirby's Dream Land 2 – all were released this year for the SNES (the former) and Game Boy (the latter). There's one, however, that's been almost forgotten, along with the console it was released for, at least until Nintendo's surprising recent new for its Switch Online/Nintendo Classics service.
Virtual Boy Wario Land is the follow-up to 1994's excellent Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Like that game, it was created by Gunpei Yokoi and Hiroji Kiyotake, leading Nintendo R&D1. Indeed, it was Yokoi and his team who had created the Virtual Boy itself. Nintendo's entry into the 32-bit console market (hence the development code VR32), the Virtual Boy was intended to maintain Nintendo's market share while the Nintendo 64 was in development, to follow the handheld success of the Game Boy and make the jump to true 3D gaming for the company. It was a bold experiment: a portable 3D gaming system. There were, however, some problems: it wasn't portable and was barely 3D.
The Virtual Boy used mirrors to create a basic stereoscopic 3D effect, housed within an all-encompassing headset that caused neck strain and motion sickness if used freely; instead, it sat on a tabletop tripod. The display used red LEDs (the lowest-energy colour to generate and therefore the cheapest) to create harsh, red-and-black graphics. Test users complained of nausea and headaches, so the system was released with mandated rest breaks built in which automatically paused games mid-play. The Virtual Boy, released unfinished and misconceived from the start, was a hopeless failure.
Some have blamed the quality of the games for its failure, but it was really the hardware that was at fault. Only twenty-two games were ever released for the system due to its short market life; a selection of twenty-two games plucked from the range for the NES, SNES or Game Boy would be unlikely to contain many classics. The planned Mario platformer title (known variously as VB Mario Land and Mario Adventure) never made it past the demo stage, with its included 3D version of Mario Bros. released separately as Mario Clash. There was no Zelda title, no Metroid, and a port of Donkey Kong Country 2 was written off early in development. Given time, though, it's probable that Nintendo's flagship series would have been represented, improving the sparse game library.
Virtual Boy Wario Land is the one Virtual Boy game that achieved consistently good reviews. Also known early on by its working titles, Wario Cruise and Wario's Treasure Hunt, and bearing the full title Virtual Boy Wario Land: Secret Treasure of the Awazon in Japan, the game is a direct sequel to the original Wario Land. Having loaded up with loot in the earlier game, Wario's enjoying a holiday at the Awazon river basin when he sees a troop of strange masked creatures disappear behind a waterfall. In the cave system hidden there, he spies vast treasures that he decides to add to his collection, before falling through into the depths of the cave network.
The game plays very much like its predecessor, with Wario smashing, barging and crashing his way through the levels. His primary moves remain the shoulder barge and the ground pound (now as a belly-flop bodyslam), and he is again reduced to a goblin-like stature when hit by an enemy, with another hit costing him a life. The power-ups are similar to those in the first game, albeit tweaked. A garlic pot again turns little Wario back to his full size. Three helmets give Wario powerful abilities: the bull helmet makes him super strong, the eagle helmet grants him flight, and the sea dragon helmet breathes fire. In a new twist, combining the sea dragon and eagle creates the King Dragon with both abilities.
The game employs the Virtual Boy's limited 3D to good effect. Wario can jump to areas in the background using special launch boards, allowing to access bonuses and sneak behind obstacles. While there's little practical difference between the 3D layers and moving up and down between areas by pipes and ladders, it's a fun gimmick that makes the levels stand out against other platformers of the time. Certain enemies also move back and forth, hiding in the depths and lunging at Wario. Aside from that, there's a small amount of 3D rendering to spice things up, but it's a minor cosmetic touch. There are coins to collect and monsters to beat aplenty; a great platform adventure in the classic Mario/Wario mould.
The big flaw with the game is its length. There are only fourteen levels, each of them a literal level in the cave system that Wario ascends using an elevator. This is less of a problem if, like me, you're not actually very good at gaming, since the levels are fairly challenging. A skilled player, though, wouldn't take very long to ascend the whole complex and complete the playthrough. Having all levels set within the caves makes good use of the black-and-red graphics, allowing for a suitably gloomy atmosphere, but it does make the levels a bit samey. Fourteen levels really isn't a lot, and four of them are boss-only levels. The bosses are fairly inventive, however, again utilising the depth effect in their attacks, although the first three are susceptible to the old-fashioned bounce-on-the-head-three-times method. The final boss, a floating demon with a nasty grin, is a little more complex, and again uses the depth process to great effect.
What the levels are, though, is fun. Like in the first game, there are special treasures to collect; one for each of the non-boss levels, hidden throughout the caves. Again, like the original Wario Land, the ending depends on how rich you are when you beat the final boss. The exact ending depends on your coin count, whether you collect all the treasures, and how quickly you reached the end, with a timer continually running as you play. Upon completion, a hard mode is unlocked, which needs to be beaten to see the final ending. The tricky, entertaining levels and the additional challenge of getting the best possible result add a lot of replay value.
It's a real shame that so few people got to play this game back in the day. Virtual Boy Wario Land was the highlight for the system, but with such a limited run for the console, not even being released in PAL regions, it never got the exposure it deserved. Nintendo's surprise announcement that Virtual Boy games will be made downloadable on the Switch and Switch 2 from February 2026 will hopefully grant this game a new audience. However, Nintendo's baffling insistence to make the games playable only with a new headset attachment (which essentially requires strapping the Switch to your head) will surely limit the appeal. While 3D imagery was always intended to be the Virtual Boy's selling point, most of the games – Wario Land included – can be played perfectly well without it, the depth feature still working from a gameplay point of view. With the hardware always being the Virtual Boy's biggest issue, it's a bizarre decision.
Still, it's refreshing to see Nintendo actually embracing the Virtual Boy for once. After Virtual Boy Wario Land vanished along with its console, Nintendo developed Wario Land II for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, implicitly dismissing the Virtual Boy game from the series. Wario Land II went down a different route, more of a puzzle-platform hybrid with drastically rethought gameplay. In some ways, the real successors to Virtual Boy Wario Land are other game entirely. Donkey Kong Country Returns, Mutant Mudds, and especially the recent AntonBlast are all influenced by the game, most obviously through the use of depth levels. The developer of Mutant Mudds, Renegade Kid, even pitched a full colour remake of Virtual Boy Wario Land for the 3DS – Nintendo's eventual successful attempt at a 3D handheld. Bafflingly, Nintendo passed on this, what was surely the ideal way to bring this game back.
If you're a fan of the original Game Boy Wario Land and would love to play a handful of challenging extra levels, you're a Mario universe completist, or you just love great platformers, Virtual Boy Wario Land is worth seeking out. If the costs and discomfort of a new headset puts you off, there are plenty of Virtual Boy emulators out there which can run the game, many of which allow you to play with either the old black-and-red graphics or in a more retina-friendly greyscale. Give it a go if you get the chance. It's smashing.
My latest reviews up at Television Heaven include Alien: Earth, the best installment of the Alien franchise since 1986, and the last two serials of Doctor Who season three, The Savages and The War Machines. I should hopefully have more up before the month's out.
Next on the blog itself I'm planning to review Strange New Worlds season three, and mabe get back onto the Lower Decks and Prodigy reviews when I have time.
Fifty boys walk in a straight line at three miles per hour for as long as they can. If they slow down or stop for too long, they’re shot dead. If they try to escape or even step off the road, they’re shot dead. The last boy walking wins untold riches and his heart’s desire.
It’s a grim premise for a story, and slim basis for a film. Frankly, that Stephen King managed to wring a novel out of it is impressive enough. The fact that he was nineteen when he did so is even more impressive, although it also explains a lot about the story, an angry adolescent polemic against society. Long dismissed as unfilmable, The Long Walk has actually been rattling round Development Hell for years, until finally being picked up by Vertigo with Francis Lawrence as director.
It's probably going to be my film of the year.
It’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time, albeit one that I will probably never watch again. It’s a harrowing experience as you are pulled along with the young men as they trudge painfully on. There’s levity there, but it’s gallows humour, the brutal laughing in the face of misery that so many of us learn in order to survive. The original 4 mph rule of the book was knocked down for being frankly impossible, but even keeping up 3 mph for hundreds of miles without rest is pretty unfeasible for all but the most immaculately trained superhuman. (You just know there are some hypermasculine pricks in the audience scoffing and insisting that they could win it.)
Cooper Hoffman is excellent as the central protagonist Ray Garraty, perfectly cast as a believable but damaged everyman, but it’s David Jonsson who really steals the film as the resolutely optimistic Pete McVries. The friendship between the two is the heart of the film, a friendship built in the most unfriendly of circumstances. We see the best of masculinity as well as the worst, with even the most unpleasant of the walkers (that’ll be Charlie Plummer’s Barkovitch) being sympathetic as we know they are all here out of desperation. Not one of them truly grasps just how brutal the Walk is going to be, with the possible exception of the stoic Stebbins (Garrett Wareing), and even he isn’t truly prepared for it.
Even with the novel’s hundred walkers reduced to fifty, there are too many to fully focus on. Tut Nyuot, Ben Wang and Joshua Odjick all give strong performances as Baker, Olsen and Parker, respectively. Olsen, one of the more unlikely contestants, is especially likeable, but in a way that only drives home how unsuited he is for the gruelling challenge. There’s an unpleasant complicity in the Walk from the audience, spectating from comfort just like the gawping onlookers at the roadside. The brutal Walk is fiction, of course, but the cast still walked for miles in order to get realistic footage, with Hoffman reporting that on some days they walked for up to fifteen miles in the heat.
While King wrote and seemingly set his novel in the 1970s, and the aesthetic of the time has been carried over to the film, there’s no real indication of when the film is set. This is to the film’s benefit, since the themes are timeless and can’t be pinned down to one era. Many have read an allegory for the Viet Nam War in the novel, and while there’s a clear parallel between signing up for the Walk and volunteering for military service (down to youngsters lying about their age to get in), it’s a broader story of desperation and hope amongst hopelessness.
Whenever it’s set, The Long Walk occurs in some distorted alternative history, where the USA has become a fascist dictatorship and undergone economic collapse after an unspecified war devastated the nation. The idea that it would take a war to inflict this on America is laughable; given what you people actually voted for last year, a lot of you practically volunteered for this dystopia to be delivered. As outlandish as the idea of the Walk is, it’s also depressingly easy to believe that it would be enacted, for inspiration or entertainment, and that desperate souls would sign up for it even knowing that it would almost certainly mean a painful death.
So much of the film is spent just waiting for the inevitable, a chilling feeling that makes it an uncomfortable yet compelling experience. None of it would work were it not for the depth of the cast’s performances. While the boys, particularly Garraty, are our way into this disturbing world, it’s brought to life by Mark Hamill’s gloriously loathsome Major, seemingly the head of the military junta in this reality and a snarling figurehead for the oppressive regime. In contrast we have the always wonderful yet still sadly underrated Judy Greer as Ray’s mother Ginnie, who essentially represents all that is good and all that is feminine and nurturing in this brutal state.
There are no punches pulled in this film. Injuries and illness are depicted graphically; there are no clean, screen-friendly gunshots here. Lawrence lingers on the violence just long enough to feel repulsed before forcing us to move on with the rest of the walkers. For all that the Walk is a deliberately contrived kind of brutality, it’s none too far removed from reality in the worst places on Earth. Right now, Palestinians are being marched through Gaza for miles at gunpoint, while men and boys have been forced to walk in front of tanks as human shields. It’s disturbing to think that in Gaza, Sudan or Congo, young men likely would sign up for a gruelling trek with a 1-in-50 likelihood of survival if it meant a chance of escaping and providing for their families.
The film marches along with the boys with a crushing inevitability until we are left with only two. The ending is somewhat predictable (although different to the original ending in the book), yet this only makes the sense of the inevitable more foreboding. Throughout, the cast force you to care about the poor bastards you know you’re going to watch die. And yet, like the best of King adaptations, The Long Walk has an uplifting message at its core: to never give up and to go down fighting.
Good news from Pencil Tip Publishing: Roving Reporter II, the second collection of new adventures for Sarah Jane Smith will be available before the end of the year. This will feature my story "Remembrance" as well as a host of prose and graphic stories, such as Russell McGee's "The Cocoon of Despair," which you can now explore in this timelapse artwork video.
In the meantime, the original Roving Reporter (featuring my story "Exposure") is available for a short time again via Lulu. A full library of PTP fiction and non-fiction books are also available, such as the recent What the Fans Think - Space: 1999, for which I had the dubious honour of reviewing "Space Warp."
I'm roughly 47 years behind on everything I want to write, thanks to many, many real life concerns; however, I have managed to get a few write-ups and reviews done lately. September marked a couple of notable pop culture anniversaries that warranted some attention.
30th September 2025 marks the official 60th anniversary of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's classic series Thunderbirds. I've reviewed the first episode, "Trapped in the Sky," for Television Heaven. Meanwhile on TVH, we've been cracking ahead with season three of classic Doctor Who, with Galaxy 4, The Myth Makers and my beloved The Gunfighters as my latest contributions. I'd written up The Ark previously and Laurence Marcus has also added Mission to the Unknown. I've also reviewed Bookish, the wonderful new murder mystery series from Mark Gatiss.
In other media that gives you square eyes, 13th September was the 40th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. and thus the Super Mario franchise (although, of course, Mario goes back three years earlier, to 1981's Donkey Kong). Head over to Vocal for my two-part play through of every 20th century Super Mario platformer: Part One covers the 1980s (Super Mario Bros. to Super Mario Land) while Part Two takes on the 1990s (Super Mario World to Super Mario 64). Summer also saw two notable Nintendo anniversaries, with Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong Land both hitting thirty. Just like my TV reviews, I can't help but delve into the history of the games as well as replaying them.
Here's a treat: Paul Hanley, who you may recall provided the original art for Forgotten Lives, as well as a whole host of other Doctor Who, cult film and original art, has teamed up with Bret Herholz, another excellent artist and graphic storyteller with a penchant for all things Who, to create The Vampire Inversion, a completely free new comic featuring the Shalka Doctor (as played by Mr. Richard E. Grant back in 2003, and fleetingly appearing onscreen again in 2024).
For this adventure, Paul has written the script and Bret has provided the art, and his scratchy blac-and-white style really works for this gaunt and foreboding Doctor. The Vampire Inversion is a postmodern adventure into vampire cinema, which also explores the hidden corners of Doctor Who's own mythology. As the cover page teases: "Two Doctors, vampires and... Andy Warhol?!" When you've enjoyed the comic itself, you can also read Paul's original script.
Paul and Bret have provided this comic for free, but do suggest that you might like to make a donation to one of the charities they've chosen to support:
The Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT)
TRACTION (Trans Community Action)
The Central Florida Emergency Trans Care Fund
So, go on. Have a bite.
It's been a little while, hasn't it? I've been busy elsewhere, I'm afraid. This seemed the place, though, to mark the passing of one of the greats of twentieth century comedy.
It's hard to actually feel sad at the news of Thomas Andrew Lehrer's death, given that he'd reached the impressive age of 97. The feeling is more one of, oh well, it had to happen eventually. Lehrer himself seemed to have been preparing for his death for the last few years, having put all of his song - lyrics, music and recordings - in the public domain. You can still access and download everything here, although Lehrer did warn that it wouldn't be up forever.
I won't go on with a biography of Lehrer; you can find that in any number of places. I won't spend time on his first calling as a mathematician, his still secret operations in the NSA, or his alleged invention of the Jello shot. No, I'm here, of course, to talk about his songs. Endlessly quotable, raucously singable, bitingly satirical and frequently verging on the obscene, Lehrer's songs are perhaps the greatest comedic songs ever written.
I didn't really come to learn about and love Tom Lehrer until very late on. I knew the wonderfully nerdy "The Elements" from a young age, although I couldn't sing it then or now. It needs an update, of course, with the latest sixteen elements added on, which will need to be inserted as an earlier verse so that the classic final lines remain, rhyming "Harvard" with "discahvarred." "We Will All Go Together When We Go" is another well known song; so fun to sing yet so dark in content.
It wasn't until my partner Suzanne introduced me to Lehrer's greater catalogue of work that I fell for him. I don't think I've ever laughed as much at a song as I have at "I Got it From Agnes," the absolutely filthy but very carefully worded story of communal diseases. It stuns me that he got away with that in 1954, and it became our Covid-19 anthem.
Jostling with "Agnes" for my favourite is the gleefully mrderous "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," which we have localised to "Cyaniding Seagulls by the Shore." Not that our parks aren't full of pigeons, or, for that matter, seagulls. High positions, as well, for "The Love Song of the Physical Anthropologist" (perfect for any anthropoid) and "The Masochism Tango" (truly, a love song for every couple, throuple or otherwise).
Shockingly, there has never been a film of Lehrer's life, and surely now one will finally be made. Although who could be found to play him? An actor tall enough, gangly enough, who can sing such well-crafted lyrics with such speed and only occasionally trip over his tongue will be hard to find.
Still as unhappily relevant now as ever, Lehrer's satire only bites harder for being delivered in song. As a farewell, let's have one of his less celebrated compositions: "Pollution."
SPOILERS, I guess. But I'd be surprised if you don't know by now.
It's a tricky one this. It simultaneously tries to do too much and doesn't go far enough. There's so much potential here; the initial pitch of "Eurovision meets Die Hard" is irresistible, while pastiching Eurovision provides the potential to be the most politcially charged episode in years. (Sorry, I forgot, Eurovision is not political. Honest.)
This is Juno Dawson's first contribution to Doctor Who proper, after writing the radio/podcast series Doctor Who Redacted (which I confess I disliked and didn't finish). It's a lot of fun, while also clearly being an allegory for real world atrocities. But which ones exactly? The obvious target is Israel's genocidal assault of Palestine, and the atrocious double-standard of allowing the country to continue to compete in Eurovision, while Russia was suspended for its brutal invasion of Ukraine. It's frankly impossible to read the episode without making this link, and it's genuinely surprising that the BBC allowed this to go out right before Eurovision itself, so obvious is the comparison.
Yet this was filmed over a year ago, possibly in time for last year's controversy over Israel's Eurovision inclusion, and Dawson would have written it months earlier. That said, even if she did write the script before October 7th 2023, it's not as if Israel's abusive rule over Palestine wasn't already well known, and their ongoing involvement was already controversial. There's also a lot of additional material that can be added during filming and post-production, with some elements - the burning poppy fields being the most blatant - that seem to be explicitly calling on the images of Palestine's suffering.
Yet the faceless villain here is "the corporation," with the Hellions being displaced and smeared so that their world can be turned over for a profitable commodity. Yes, this is a factor in Israel's plundering of the land and its backing by the US-led West, but it's not the driving force, nor what anyone would immediately associate with the genocide. This side comes across more as a general attack on global capitalism, having more in common with Nestle than Israel under Netanyahu.
If this is meant to be about Palestine, then the story is muddled. Kid has a sympathetic background, but his actions are genuinely abbhorent. The attempted murder of 100,000 people is already a vast crime; to then try to kill three trillion is beyond insanity. If he had killed a thousand people and taken hostages, with the corporation then killing thousands of Hellions in retaliation, the allegory would be inarguable. The link is too vague, Kid's actions too extreme, the corporation too bodiless to really work as a story about Palestine, yet there's no way to watch this in May 2025 and take it as anything else.
At the time of writing, we still don't know why Ncuti Gatwa dropped out of presenting the UK's votes on Eurovision at the last minute. We can certainly speculate that he was going to say something that the BBC disapproved of. It almost feels like this is one half of a presentation that was never allowed to finish.
As with the real Eurovision, "The Interstellar Song Contest" remains a lot of fun, in spite of the politcally-charged controveries that sit beneath the surface. It's still a staggeringly messy episode, though, with way too many elements jostling for attention, which is presumably largely down to RTD using it to set up parts of his ongoing season arc. I think that bullet points are actually the best way to approach it, since it seems like the script was written from a shopping list template:
After taking on most of the writing duties himself last year, RTD has invited far more new writers for this season. They're also writers from varied backgrounds, one of the strengths of the hit-and-miss Chibnall era (although the only writer actually returning from Chibnall's showrunning is Pete McTighe, the one white guy of this year's guest writers). Inua Ellams, a celebrated British-Nigerian playwright, is the first black man to write for Doctor Who and only the fourth black writer at all. This is also, I believe, his first television script, one that reportedly draws on some of the content and themes of his stage work. Apparently, he originally piched a different idea that was too similar to another script in production, although this eventually fell through, so who knows what story this might have been.
Ellams, along with director Makalla McPherson, create an episode quite unlike anything we've seen on the series before. The most obvious thing is that the main cast is entirely made up of people of colour and, aside from Varada Sethu, entirely black people. If not for the flashback to the hospital (which could have featured only people of colour with no problem, were it not for the necessity of including Anita Dobson for her weekly cameo), and the parade of earlier Doctors, it could have been an episode that only featured actors of colour. It's also one of very few stories set in Africa ("Praxeus" took place largely in Madagascar, and we've had a few quick visits to Egypt over the years). Ncuti Gatwa got his wish for an episode set in Nigeria, written by a writerwith whom he personally wanted to work.
A Nigerian barbershop is both a wonderfully unusual setting for a Doctor Who story and a cultural space that will be new for a large majority of the audience. After "Dot and Bubble" and "Lux" had the Doctor confront racism, "The Story & the Engine" sees him revel in the inclusion his new form can bring. It's only right that the incarnation who appears as the Doctor's memory of Abena surfaces is the Fugitive, with Jo Martin being the only other black actor to play the Doctor (a fantastic and genuinely unexpected cameo). While they all get a look-in (the barberhsop patrons must have been wondering who all those white guys on the screen were), the other regenerations are a footnote in this celebration of the Doctor's busy past.
I was, based on the Barber's mastery of stories and the glimpses of the giant spider in the trailer, fully expecting him to be Anansi, something the script teases us with. We're so primed now for the Doctor to face down gods that we immediately accept that this stranger is one himself (or several, as he claims). That the Doctor laughs this off thanks to having apparently already met most the gods he claims to be suggests a much longer association with them, beyond the Pantheon of Discord, even before we learn that he tangled with Anansi back when he was a woman with dreds. This is the first story to present gods with any positivity, noting their importance, along with stories in general, to the human condition.
There's a certain incoherence to the plot among these many elements. Omo and the Doctor both act like the former tricked the latter into coming, in spite of the Doctor actually going to Lagos of his own accord to piggyback off their comms. Quite why a gigantic spider has made its home on the Barber's worldwide web is unclear, as is pretty much every aspect of how the ship's engine works. The mysterious little girl who helps Belinda - confirmed in the credits to be Poppy from "Space Babies" - is a baffling conclusion that will presumably be explained further down the line. This messiness hardly matters in a story so packed with inventive visuals and ideas. A barbershop that is also a starship, exisitng both in a Nigerian backstreet and the depths of space and imagination (as close to the original concept of the TARDIS that we've ever seen). A heart within a brain within an engine. A man willing to kill the gods and doom humanity because he's angry he wasn't credited for his work. An entire story centred around hair, from the infinitely regenerating haircuts to the story of cornrows (a vital piece of black history that will be news to many watching).
While Belinda gets short shrift in this episode, it's an absolute showcase for Gatwa's Doctor, allowing him to go all out in a story that would not work for any other version of the character. Sule Rimi and Michelle Asante both give heartfelt performances as Omo and Abena respectively, but it's Ariyon Bakare who impresses the most as the Barber. He gives an unsettling and inscrutable performance, skirting around the scenes to begin with and only slowly becoming a bigger and more emotive presence in the story, until he is fully humanised at the end.
More from Inua Ellams, please, and more episodes from writers from different backgrounds, completely new to Doctor Who.
Setting: Lagos, Nigeria, 2019
Maketh the Man: After a TARDIS scene in which he wears an orange-and-green-striped polo shirt, the Doctor changes into a Nigerian outfit which includes a pale orange kurta-style top, a loose brown waistcoat, a black kufi cap and a necklace. It's a uniue outfit for the Doctor but sticks to this incarnations signature colours.
The God Squad: The Doctor reveals that he knows Dionysus, Saga and Bastet, and we learn of his encounter with Anansi. Yet he doesn't mention the other god the Barber claimed to be, Loki. I was expecting the Doctor to reveal he was Loki himself.
Speculation: A question that arises: how does the Doctor remember an event he experienced as the Fugutive Doctor, a life that was erased from his memory?
There are two possibilites. The first is that it's simply a matter of a memory leaking through, presumably triggered by the presence of Abena. We've seen the Doctor display the occasional bit of knowledge from Gallifrey's distant past, and seen the lost faces in his mind batle with Morbius, so this isn't entirely unheard of.
The second possibility is that the Doctor has opened the watch that contains his stolen memories. This is tempting to believe. Perhaps, during the Fourteenth Doctor's long rehabilitation, he decided to open the watch, meaning the Fifteenth Doctor was born with all his memories intact. This is possibly supported by his openness in discussing his being adopted; perhaps he actually remembers his original childhood now.
Further reading: Inua Ellams has also written a short prequel story to this episode, "What I Did on my Holidays by Omo Esosa."
Of course, the most important thing about an episode is how it hits on first viewing, not pouring over it down the line, and on this basis, this is a cracking episode. Millie Gibson once again holds an entire episode in the almost total absence of the Doctor, giving us a more mature Ruby in a different way to the rapid fast-forward of "73 Yards." Ruby seems to be our standby now for UK-based political stories, acting as the realistic everywoman dealing with life a day at a time, after the Doctor. Considering that "73 Yards" had her continually under threat in one way or another, it's interesting that it's this episode that actually deals with her PTSD, albeit in a fairly shallow way. Doctor Who rarely tackles the long-term impact of the constant danger of TARDIS travel, virtually never on TV. It makes some sense of the sudden rush of former companions joining UNIT; what else do you do when you've adjusted to that lifestyle?
(It's a bit weird that Kate doesn't mention the companion support group that was set up only three years ago. Mel surely would have done, but she's off dealing with "something strange in Sydney Harbour," doubtless a set-up for The War Between the Land and the Sea.)
Even more impressive is Jonah Hauer-King as Conrad. He's just started to become annoying once the staged Shreek attack on his village begins; then it looks certain that he's going to be killed purely due to being an idiot with Doctor-envy, leaving Ruby to feel guilty about it for the rest of the episode. He becomes far more entertaining once the mask has slipped and he's revealed himself as a far-right misinformation peddler and conspiracy nut. As with many stories of this nature, Conrad has to be an unrealistically good actor to pull off the reveal; yes, Hauer-King is that good, but would Conrad really be, day in, day out, and unobserved? Still, that's an intrinsic flaw of the "secret enemy" story type.
There's a dichotomy in this case, though. For all we might cheer the Doctor's furious rebuke of Conrad and the bile-spewing trolls that populate our media these days, he's not entirely off the mark by calling UNIT to account. The joke, that there really are alien invasions every week in this universe and that you'd have to be a fool to not believe in them, falls down a little when you realise that UNIT has been operating for years with minimal oversight, keeping secrets from the general populace and hoarding incredibly advanced technoogy. It's hard to credit those commentators who think Conrad is unrealistic because his motivation is so inconsistent; that's an accurate depiction of the psychology of someone like him, both cynical and an opportunist. Yet, amongst all the nonsense, when it comes to UNIT's operations he does have a point.
Jemma Redgrave gets the her best material probably since "The Day of the Doctor," and gives her best performance to go with it. There's a sense now that the nepotism she allegedly fought against is weight around her neck, as she's constantly expected to live up to the mythical figure her father has become. Her moment of "going too far" is perfectly in character, given this was the woman who was willing to nuke London to deal with an alien threat; this is small beans in comparison. She's also dead right when she says the Doctor would have stopped her, but it's notably exactly the sort of thing the Doctor would do himself in nobody stopped him (q.v. his behaviour in "The Interstellar Song Contest").
There's a sense of this episode lashing out against authority, yet not having the courage to actually condemn the arrogance and unchecked power that both UNIT and the Doctor have. They're presented as the good guys primarily because it's their show and we know they're the heroes, but there's no actual attempt to show this outside their contrast to Conrad and his Think Tank. Of course, we have the finale and the spin-off to come yet, so who knows. Still, given that twenty years ago or so UNIT had its own private Guantanamo for people who got curious, and that even the Brigadier didn't trust them, and that according to (the admittedly baffling) history presented in Flux the organisation was founded by an alien warlord, we might have a few questions for it.
Then again, UNIT has always been wildly inconsistent in its presentation (as is often the case, this episode seems confused as to whether it's a British or international operation). Regardless, Conrad is still an evil bastard, even if he does occasionally have a point. I look forward to him coming back in the finale, and hope to see him get a leg bitten off, the ungrateful bastard. Honestly, like being smothered in Ruby's lipgloss was really such a chore...
Setting: London and Dorset, 2024-5; briefly, London 2007.
Placement: Ruby and the Doctor's initial encounter with the Shreek takes place between "The Devil's Chord" and "Boom;" the Doctor's confrontation with Conrad is somewhere between "Empire of Death" and "The Robot Revolution;" and his and Belinda's meeting with little Conrad at the beginning actually takes place in their "present."
Maketh the Man: Considering he's in it for all of ten minutes, the Doctor gets to show off a lot of looks. In the beginning he wears a long brown duster with big orange checks, over a white T-shirt, black trews and a beanie, which seems almost archetypal for his Doctor. Next we see him in his long brown leather coat, a red-and-orange striped top and blue trousers. Finally, for his TARDIS scene we see him in his much-publicised all-white look. On the subject, the pinstriped business-suit look is fire on Ruby.
Links:
Well, well, well...
There are going to be spoilers from the outset for this one, although if you'd heard the rumours swirling about before the episode aired then you probably know what's coming. However, you can still back out now if you don't want to know the twist in this one. If you don't mind knowing or you know already, click "read more..."
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| Zoinks! |
We're only two episodes into the season, but "Lux" already look like the Fifteenth Doctor's standout story. While it seems to be a bit of a marmite episode, most commenters I've seen really liked it, and I'm with them. This was a barmstormer, an episode that throws everything it can at the screen and manages to pull it off. There a few flaws, mainly with pacing, but this is a story that barely puts a foot wrong.
On the one hand, there's nothing much that's new here. Screaming people trapped on film, threatened with immolation, are straight out of Sapphie & Steel; stepping into black-and-white has been done time and again, from Pleasantville to the most recent season of Black Mirror; even the villain being overwhelmed when they achieve their goal and ascending to the next level of existence has been done before (hell, they even did that on Mighty Max). And, of course, splicing cartoons and live action together has been going on at least as far back as the sixties, with Disney producing a bunch of films that combined the media, with the biggest and most impressive being Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with which this story shares a lot.
Yet it's all put together and realised with such verve and style that the result is exhilirating. Mr. Ring-a-Ding is a technical marvel, beautifully manifested. In the old days cartoons and film would be overlaid by hand and spliced together, whereas now CGI is used. Nonetheless, this is impressive (and the character himself was hand drawn, which makes a real difference). The moment when the Doctor and Belinda circle round Mr. Ring-a-Ding, who stays 2D but appears fully part of the 3D environment, is remarkable. It's even better for it's subtlety, but there are other moments that are just as impressive while being overtly showy: Mr. Ring-a-Ding's gradual evolution into a physical being is almost tangible, as well as utterly hideous, as a cartoon character would be in the flesh.
None of this would mean anything without a strong story held up by strong performances; fortunately, "Lux" is a stunner here too. Alan Cumming gives a suitably manic vocal performance as a godlike being manifested as a cartoon character, becoming genuinely sinister when the story calls for it. Both Gatwa and Sethu give evocative, three-dimensional performances, even when they're reduced to cartoon characters. The script gives them great material to work with, allowing both of them to show sides to their characters that bring them more depth.
We've seen the Doctor faced with racism before, of course, in the equally good (but very different) "Dot and Bubble," but that was a distinctly different situation. Here we see him embedded in a racist culture, albeit fortunate enough to meet understanding and sympathetic individuals. His statement that sometimes he must wait for people to change immoral and corrupt systems is a more mature approach than that seen in "Rosa," although I still believe that episode worked well. It's important to see the series face this again, especially as we have a TARDIS team played entirely by people of colour for the first time. "Dot and Bubble" (and "Rosa," for that matter) warned us against the risk of racism rising again in the future, but the Fifteenth Doctor's trips to the past have sidestepped the issue ("The Devil's Chord" simply ignored it, while "Rogue" was deliberately an unrealistically mixed historical setting).
"Lux" is a clear follow-up to "The Devil's Chord," with Lux Imperator another member of the Gods of Chaos (aka the Pantheon of Discord). This works far better though, taking the concept of the God of Light and that of a living cartoon character, using them to their full potential. It's fascinating to see how Lux manifests as Mr. Ring-a-Ding, showing us that these supposedly all-powerful gods can be constrained by the limits of how they enter the world. (It also raises the possibility for previously defeated gods to reappear in new forms that are more powerful and harder to defeat.) The script sets up numerous elements so that the viewer can guess at how they'll be resolved (although the repeated mention of "Blink" meant I was going "Have we seen Ring-a-Ding blink?" and wondering if that was what he never does).
The most notable element of the story is the Doctor and Belinda's being pulled into the film stock and converted into cartoons, a gloriously silly sequence that nonetheless allows the characters to open up about they're hopes and fears, getting to know each other on a more honest footing. Belinda is still a bit too quick to accept the Doctor's lifestyle but never lets go of her determinaion to get home. The next scene is the fan-pleasing one, where we get to see ourselves (or people like us) as characters in the show. This sequence does go on a little too long and slows the otherwise gripping pace. It's another element that's not remotely original; about half the fantasy shows on TV over the last thirty or forty years have had the characters find out they're fictional characters and meet their audiences and/or actors. (Usually they step out onto the set, rather than push themselves out of the TV.) It works well though, largely thanks to strong performances by the fans (particularly Bronte Barbe as Lizzie, who's tremendously likeable). The self-referencing winks at the camera do go on a bit too long, though, and the Doctor and Belinda are a bit too accepting of the idea that they're fictional themselves.
Linus Roache gives a beautifully sympathetic performance as Reginald Pye, the mourning projectionist, while Lucy Thackery gives a lovely monologue as Renee, waiting for her son to return. It's one of those episodes where everyone is bringing their A-game, in front of the camera and behind, and it really raises the episode to something special.
On the negative side, I have been singing "I'm Mr. Ring-a-Ding!" in a loud, annoying voice all weekend.
Settings: Miami, Dade County, Florida; 1952.
Title Tattle: Missed opportunity to go with "What's Up Doc?" Amazingly, no one says this in the episode.
Alternatively, "Who Framed."
Maketh the Man: The Doctor wears a gorgeous pastel blue suit, with a white shirt and pink bowtie, and two-tone brogues.
The Shallow Bit: Varada Sethu is, of course, very beautiful, but in that yellow dress she is truly stunning.
The Regeneration Game: We might speculate that the regenerative energy Lux drains from the Doctor uses up a life, or maybe even limits his regenerations again. Most likely, though, he's got plenty left for his, apparently, limitless roster of regens.
Flood Warning: Mrs Flood turns up in 1952, the first time we've seen her in another time zone. There's still no clue to her identity. With regards to the overall arc, something to with the Land of Fiction certaily seems feasible, especially with the focus on fictional existences in this story. Impossible to say how, or even if, Mrs Flood or Belinda fit into all this. We might also ask why the Doctor can't just land on May 23rd and take Belinda for coffee until she syncs back up with her own time. Of course, this might lead to him being hit in the face by whatever is waiting on the 24th. It's a fun - and brave - touch to tie this into the end of the series, as right now we don't know if it will be renewed.
Links: This isn't the first time the Doctor has encountered living cartoon characters: the Eighth Doctor arrived in an animated world in the 2002 novel The Crooked World. Neither is it the first time he's crossed over into the "real" world and discovered he's a TV character: both DWM and IDW produced comic stories with this basic idea (the 1999 Eighth Doctor strip "TV Action!" and 2013 Eleventh Doctor special "The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who," respectively).
It’s taken twenty years, but RTD has finally given us a story about a space planet in the future with rebels running up and down corridors.*
Introductory episodes are a tricky business, given that they have to devote a large part of their runtime to creating a new companion and introducing the Doctor and their world to them; and, these days, set up a whole new arc or mystery connected to the new companion. RTD’s favoured approach of a new companion and/or Doctor every year makes this a necessity, so each of his seasons tends to start with a fairly thin story, although he’s too good a writer not to add some extra depth to the adventure.
So, “The Robot Revolution” might be a bit of a runaround, but it fulfils its primary objectives, which are to introduce Belinda and to be entertaining for 45 minutes. Cliched and silly it might be, but it’s tremendous fun, and Belinda is never anything less than fantastic throughout. The basic idea of buying and naming a star leading to aliens thinking you’re their queen is obvious but extremely fun, and I don’t actually recall it being used in sci-fi before (feel free to correct me). At least it’s better than in real life, where naming stars through commercial companies is completely meaningless.
Varada Sethu is brilliant as Belinda, giving an entirely believable and likeable performance as someone who is entirely done with this shit, be it work, romance, or space/time adventures with ancient aliens. She sells the character perfectly even when she verges on the unrealistic, as she does occasionally when she’s a little too easily accepting of the bizarre situation she finds herself in. (Although, this is 2025 Britain in Doctor Who, where alien invasions are a regular feature of recent history.) It’s been a long while since we had a companion who doesn’t want to be one, especially on screen. Donna comes close, but only for her first appearance, and after that she’s desperate to join the Doctor. The last companion genuinely in this vein was Tegan, and of course, she came round as well.
What both the script and Sethu’s performance show so well is that Belinda is both supremely capable and used to being underestimated and taken for granted, especially by men. Alan is clearly one in a long line of men who have treated her as less than she is. Her attitude to the Doctor is perfect: we finally have someone who is suitably impressed by the wide universe that has opened up in front of her, but has no time for the Doctor and his posturing. While the Doctor isn’t exactly a man, he usually presents as one, and while his attitude of superiority might come from being a Time Lord it still comes across another arrogant bloke. It works especially well with the Fifteenth Doctor, whose charm is his primary weapon. Belinda simply refuses to be seduced by this. Sethu and Gatwa have fantastic chemistry, but it’s of a completely different sort to Gatwa and Millie Gibson, with an entirely different dynamic.
It's good to finally have someone call the Doctor on his invasive behaviour as well. I don’t think we’ve had anyone pick him up on this sort of thing since Rose was angry at the TARDIS translating her thoughts without her permission back in “The End of the World.” The Doctor does this sort of thing to friends and foes alike, in all their regenerations, but the smile on Fifteen’s face as he does it makes it especially satisfying when Belinda calls him up on it. As for the mystery he’s investigating, I’m tentatively engaged. While I wish that occasionally Doctor Who would just recast an actor they like in a new role without making a big thing of it in-universe, I like that it’s simple enough that Mundy Flynn is just Belinda’s descendant, while also accepting there must be more to it than that because families simply do not produce identical people generation after generation. We’ve clearly also got some kind of time loop situation going on here, even beyond the one that the episode itself centres on. (It might also be significant that we have an episode coming up set in 2008, the year Alan bought Belinda’s star, but then again, it might not.) Oh, and the imminent destruction of the Earth, for a change.
Everything that happens on planet Missbelindachandra One is hewn from purest cliché, which is rather the point, as it’s been warped by evil Alan’s manipulations. That doesn’t make it any less cliched, of course. The sets and CGI mattes are great, the robots are fun (even if they’re essentially just Hydroflax with a Vardy’s face on), and everything chugs along nicely. However, the humans on the planet are paper thin, most notably Sasha 55. While I love the idea of the Doctor spending six months having an adventure off-screen and building relationships that we only come into at the end, there’s nothing in Sasha’s character or Evelyn Miller’s performance to tell us why he cares for her. Yes, she’s got “doomed potential companion” written all over her, and Gatwa’s acting sells the Doctor’s grief beautifully, but there’s nothing there that suggests he should care about her more than any of the other mooks who get vapourised. Polishbot had more character.
Really, though, all this fluff is there to hang Belinda’s story on, and to make a point about controlling and misogynistic men. This is also quite thin on the surface, but there’s more going on under the hood. Alan’s obviously a prick at the beginning, but not necessarily dangerous, which only highlights the slippery slope men can go down in our society. “Planet of the incels” may be glib, but it’s also a pretty good description of our own. As much as Alan’s transformation and his desire to “weld” with Belinda are nods to Superman III, the concept – both the welding and the enforced marriage – are clearly an allegory for rape. There’s very little made of Alan’s apparent plea for death via his every ninth word, but nothing at all made from his subsequent message: “Belinda mine forever.” It’s the only such hidden message that isn’t spelled out for the viewer, and the most important, showing us that whatever suffering he’s gone through, he genuinely feels entitled to Belinda. This is a fun, silly episode, but it could be made as something much more serious in a more adult series without changing that much.
There really is a lot to love here, even if on the surface it’s by-the-numbers Doctor Who. The Blinovitch Limitation Effect – not that it’s called that here, but that’s what it is – is genuinely satisfying for once, giving us a trippy loop through time rather than the usual fizz of sparks. (Although the Doctor explaining how two of the same atoms can’t occupy the same space at the same time should have been dropped, since there won’t be a single atom in common between the two versions of the certificate.) There’s some nice, dark comedy here, best illustrated by the robot casually vapourising the cat. Most importantly, though, solidly good fun.
*Thanks Miles Reid-Lobatto for that one.
Settings: England, 24th May 2025; planet MissBelindachandra One, around the same time; briefly England in 2008.
Title Tattle: Just a tweak, and "Revolution of the Robots" would be the archetypal Doctor Who title.
Maketh the Man: The Doctor’s outfit at the beginning of the episode, a blue pinstriped kilt with an optional tartan fleece, is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly he has to swap it for beige fatigues for the rest of the episode, although naturally Ncuti Gatwa makes these look amazing as well. Hopefully he’ll be back in the kilt before the season’s out.
Flood warning: Mrs Flood is back, suddenly living next door to Belinda and talking to the camera again. Her “You haven’t seen me,” when the Doctor shows up is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed the character, so hopefully she’ll grow on me as she crops up throughout the season. I’m still finding it hard to care too much who she is given what a let down all the reveals were last season, although I am tempted by the idea she’s Iris Wildthyme. RTD is a fan of Paul Magrs, after all, and if Beep the Meep can show up on the TV series, anyone can. I haven’t seen Mrs Flood drinking heavily, though, so it seems unlikely.
It's been quiet here of late, but I have been a busy person elsewhere, including writing up a bunch of stuff for Television Heaven.
Having discovered the truly remarkable Severance just before the second season began, thereby rather deftly missing the three-year hiatus by being slow off the mark, I've given both seasons a spoiler-lite review.
Twenty years after it aired, and with a new, fifteenth series just round the corner, I've written an in-depth, episode-by-episode review of Series One of Doctor Who, starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper.
We've also got some classic Doctor Who with the bizarre Sylvester McCoy serial Paradise Towers, Chris Boucher's three Tom Baker stories The Face of Evil, The Robots of Death and Image of the Fendahl, and the Jon Pertwee classic Doctor Who and the Silurians.
I've gone even more retro with my old favourite Mike & Angelo, that CITV classic that might just have been inspired by Doctor Who (well, let's be honest, it was.) Both incarnations of Angelo get their moment in this overview.
All three of Sky One's adaptations of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels now have reviews, including the Christmas-themed Hogfather, the first adventure The Colour of Magic, and the superb Going Postal.
And, of course, there's more to come.
Brave New World is the fourth Captain America film for the MCU, and the first to see Anthony Mackie step up as the lead after playing second fiddle to Chris Evans for so long. It's also the 35th movie in the MCU as a whole, and deep into Phase 5 of the increasingly convoluted franchise. This perhaps explains some of the film's messiness and the mixed reviews it's been getting. It's inarguable that Brave New World tries to juggle too much of the franchise's unwieldy backstory, leaving us with a messy script. Yet, for all that, I found Brave New World to be a highly entertaining movie, one of the stronger Marvel movies of recent years, and a great showcase for Mackie's classy new Cap.
Still, it's an odd beast. It's challenging enough for the wider audience that this follows from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a TV series that was released three years ago, and which many watching in cinemas would not have seen. Yet the Marvel masterminds have decided not to make this the true next step in the Captain America story (not for the first time, in fairness: film three, Captain America: Civil War, was an Avengers film in all but name). No, this is a follow-up to The Incredible Hulk, a middling film that came out over sixteen years ago. This is one way to get round the seemingly intractable distribution dispute between Disney and Universal, which has prevented a Hulk-led sequel from being produced. Add to this the involvement of “Celestial Island,” a vast leftover from the equally middling Eternals, and it's impossible to escape the conclusion that Marvel has made this film just to tie up some loose ends. It's also no secret that this film has experienced significant rewrites and reshoots, even more than Marvel usually subjects its films to.
Still, messy as it is, the film works. This is largely down to some excellent star performances. Mackie was popular as the Falcon, but has his work cut out for him taking over from Evans as Captain America, the figurehead not just of a nation but a global franchise. Fortunately, his quietly commanding, resolute performance makes Wilson's Cap easily the equal of Steve Rogers. Still displaying an infectious sense of humour, this is a more serious, more focused Wilson than we saw in earlier films, shouldering an enormous responsibility. Both Wilson and Mackie himself are representing Black people, and more specifically African Americans, something the film comments on and brings to the forefront without ever becoming preachy or overbearing. Wilson may wear a vibranium-laced suit of armour, but he lacks the physical enhancements that Rogers enjoyed. He suffers in his fights, his refusal to back down against overwhelming opponents a potent parallel to the fact that, as a man of colour, he has to be twice as good and work twice as hard to get to the same place.
Harrison Ford is the second star of the film, putting in a more committed performance than I would have expected. It's a shame for William Hurt, who was reportedly keen to play the next stage of Ross's story, but Ford makes an excellent replacement and brings some solid gravitas to the role. In spite of some critics likening President Ross to Trump, he's really not that like him beyond being old and arrogant – for one thing, he advocates coming together as a country, which is pretty much the opposite of the First Felon. Plus, if he'd been meant as a Trump analogue, they'd have made his Hulk orange, surely. Ross's transformation into the Red Hulk was heavily trailered, so there was no surprise in its revelation; rather, a gradual build-up to its inevitable creation. The Red Hulk is a remarkably realistic creation, given how absurd a creature he is. Making it a transformation against Ross's will is far more potent than the deliberate “upgrade” of the comics, with more of a parallel to the original Hulk.
However, the best performance in the film is from Carl Lumbly, who, as usual, is pure class. Lumbly has form playing superheroes, of course, but as in Falcon he shows he's at his best when playing wounded characters carrying the weight of the world. Isaiah Bradley is a lesser known Marvel character, one who is unlikely to be recognised by those who aren't up on the comics or haven't seen Falcon, which is the bulk of the audience. Bradley's story, though, is so straightforwardly tragic and infuriating that anyone coming in can understand how this man was wronged and why he's so important to the story of Captain America. Less essential is the inclusion of Joaquin Torres, the new Falcon, but Danny Ramirez makes him hugely likeable and it would be a poorer movie without him.
As for the villains, the surprise inclusion (well, surprising when the news broke months ago) of Samuel Sterns works fairly well. The beginnings of Sterns's mutation into the Leader, way back in The Incredible Hulk, left the MCU with one of its biggest unresolved story hooks. Now we finally see the fully enhanced Sterns, he looks just right; recognisably like his comicbook counterpart, but distorted and deformed, how someone haphazardly mutated by radiation and chemicals surely should look. With his towering intellect, the Leader can provide a complex plot in which he pulls the strings of our heroes... unfortunately, there isn't really time for all that, so it remains largely sketched in and frustratingly easily resolved. This is one area to which a TV series is more suited than a film; had this been season two of Falcon, say, Sterns's plan could have been made as Machiavellian as it deserves. It's also hard to deny that, while Tim Blake Nelson gives a decent turn as the Leader, he's thoroughly outdone in the villain stakes by Giancarlo Esposito as Seth Voelker. Esposito has a sinister presence that Nelson simply lacks, and his relegation to an impressive but minor adversary is a misstep.
The elephant in the room is the inclusion of Ruth Bat-Seraph, one of the most controversial Marvel characters. As a member of Mossad and an originally highly Islamophobic, Palestine-vilifying character, her inclusion was going to be contentious even before Israel's nightmarish final push began. Disney/Marvel hedged their bets and rewrote the character into an ex-Black Widow, who while Israeli has no overt ties to that regime. I'm all in favour of reinventing problematic characters from earlier times, but it still rankles, particularly due to the casting of Shira Haas in the role. She gives a strong performance, and there's a certain joy in seeing a tiny, disabled actor playing a deadly warrior, but given Haas's historic support of the IDF her casting is bound to cause anger. There's not an easy way round this, and it's not as if Israeli actors shouldn't be cast in major films, but it adds an unsavoury political controversy to the film.
On a far less weighty note, there was one genuine surprise appearance in the film. Not Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes – it would have been more of a shock if he hadn't turned up – but Liv Tyler reprising her Incredible Hulk role as Betty Ross. After trolling the audience by using a perfunctory voice performance which could just as easily have been a soundalike, Tyler appears in the flesh in the film's closing act. We are assured that it is indeed her, and she was present on set with Ford and Mackie, although given the amount of Botox she's clearly had they could have saved a few quid and used generative AI.
The really baffling thing, though, is the act of making this an in-all-but-name sequel to The Incredible Hulk, and not include the actual Hulk. Who knows, perhaps that would have tipped it over into being a Hulk film and invoked the wrath of Universal. Still, it's one of many odd decisions in a film that baffles as much as it entertains. Nonetheless, it does entertain, and should Mackie lead the Avengers in the MCU's next phase he can certainly shoulder the burden. Let's hope Marvel holds its nerve.
