PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 741

Doctor Who 2 Series 8 Episodes 1-5

A new series with a new Doctor and new open credits. Only 12 episodes this series which aired August 23 to November 8 2014.

 

Deep Breath August 23 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Ben Wheatley.

 

The Tardis gets swallowed by a T-Rex off screen and carries the poor beast to Victorian London. It coughs up the Tardis and that coughs up the 12th Doctor.

 

Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax are investigating the T-Rex when that happens.

 

Clara gets their help in dealing with the new Doctor's regeneration. He settles down after it seems there's a mystery afoot. 

 

A robot man has been killing people, and the poor T-Rex, for their body parts. It's become tired of replacing it's body over and over again. The Doctor tries to help him.

 

Clara gets a call from the 11th Doctor and the robot man winds up in Heaven with a lady called Missy.

 

Into The Dalek August 30 2014 Written by Phil Ford and Steven Moffat and directed by Ben Wheatley.

 

The Doctor picks Clara up from work and takes her for a ride inside a Dalek. It's a Dalek with issues, it's seen beauty and it wants to destroy the Daleks for being evil. The Doctor finds a radiation leak and fixes it. The Dalek is back to hating everything.

 

It calls the Dalek mothership. Clara and the Doctor try to change the Dalek's mind and it works. He now wants to destroy the Daleks again. It had seen the hatred of the Dalek's in the Doctor's mind and focused on that. It least it sends the mothership away.

 

Robot Of Sherwood September 6 2014 Written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Paul Murphy.

 

Clara wants to meet Robin Hood and the Doctor fights the jovial young man on a log over a stream. Both of them get wet.

 

Robin enters the Sheriff of Nottingham's archery contest. The Sheriff is a right baddie and we find out he's got robot soldiers. A spaceship had landed there ages ago and the robots are trying to rebuild the engines. They need a lot of gold.

 

Listen September 13 2014 Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon.

 

The Doctor picks up Clara after her rather uncomfortable date. They investigate the belief that there's something under the bed and rescue a guy at the end of the universe.

 

Time Heist September 13 2014 Written by Stephen Thompson and Steven Moffat and directed by Douglas Mackinnon.

 

The Doctor and Clara break into the universe's most secure bank.

 

It turns out to be a rescue mission to help the last two of an alien race. He puts them down on a nice empty planet.

I'm quickly getting used to the new Doctor. Peter Capaldi is entertaining and noisy. There were a couple of commentaries, a couple of long making offs and few shorter bits and pieces.

Reacher Season 1

Reacher Season 1  Based on the 1997 Reacher novel Killing Floor by Lee Child, developed by Nick Santora.

Reacher is a one man wrecking machine, if you come up against him you most likely will die. If your lucky, you might get away with being crippled. Alan Ritchson plays Reacher in the series.

In the 8 part series Reacher visits the town of Margrave Georgia where he's arrested for murder. He gets out of jail and finds out his brother had been murdered there a week ago. The town government and police force are corrupt. Reacher teams up with a couple of the local police who aren't corrupt and takes the baddies down.

It's fairly entertaining and there are plenty of fights. You can see it on Amazon Prime. I don't know that I'd watch it again but I will keep an eye out for the second season. Filming finished in February so maybe later this summer.

Death In Paradise Series 3 - 6

Death In Paradise Series 3 - 6 Created by Robert Thorogood.

The third series starts with the murder of DI Richard Poole, played by Ben Miller, and DI Humphrey Goodman, played by Kris Marshall, arrives from London to help with the investigation. He has a bad start, his wife dumps him over the phone, but he gets his predecessors murderer. The Commissioner asks him if he'd like to stay and he does.

Humphrey has a nice time on the island until he meets an old flame on the island. In the middle of series 6 he leaves the island to help on a London based case where he reconnects with the old flame and never goes back to the island. The team meets DI Jack Mooney, played by Ardal O'Hanlon, who takes the vacant position Humphrey left.

The stories follow the formula and keep up the level of quality. I enjoyed the addition of Kris to the team. A couple of other characters leave during this run, Sara Martins as DS Camille Bordey and Gary Carr as Sergeant Fidel Best but Danny John-Jules as Officer Dwayne Myers, Elizabeth Bourgine as Catherine Bordey and Don Warrington as Commissioner Patterson continue getting a paycheck. They are replaced by Josephine Jobert as Florence Cassell and Tobi Bakare as Officer Jean-Pierre (JP) Hooper. They are decent replacements. I'll be getting on with the rest of the series.

Science Fiction Sunday 719

Doctor Who 2 Series 3 Episodes 8-10

 

Human Nature May 26 2007 Written by Paul Cornell and directed by Charles Palmer. First of 2 parts.

 

To hide from the Family of Blood the Doctor hides his Time Lord self in a watch and uses the Tardis to change the cells in his body to human Calling himself John Smith, he hides in 1913 England and takes a job as a teacher at a boy's military academy. Poor Martha gets to be a maid in employ at the school. She's keeping an eye on John Smith as he has no knowledge of his past life, other than his strange dreams. He's written some of them down in a journal.

 

Jessica Stevenson plays Joan the school nurse, she's fallen for John Smith and he's reciprocated. Sadly the aliens show up and things get a bit hairy. Lucky for the Doctor he's got Martha and psychic student to help him, John Smith turns out to be a bit of nervous nelly.

 

The Family Of Blood June 2 2007 Written by Paul Cornell and directed by Charles Palmer. Second of 2 parts.

 

The baddies attack the school. I haven't see that many kids shooting guns in a boy's school since I last saw If... many years ago. In the finale John Smith has trouble giving up his life and Jessica is not happy to see the Doctor when he's back to normal. Can't blame her, she was robbed of a good life as much as John Smith. The Doctor digs into his dark side and the Family of Blood gets some unique personalized punishment.

 

A good two parter with a nice sentimental bit at the end. I like the way that the stories have more connections between them than the stories in the original series.

 

Blink June 9 2007 Written by Steven Moffatt and directed by Hettie MacDonald.

 

In 2007 London Sally Sparrow finds a message from 1969 under the wallpaper of an old and abandoned house. It's to her, from the Doctor, he's warning her not to blink and to duck. That saves Sally from nearly having a fatal encounter with the Weeping Angels.

 

They're aliens who appear to the eye as statues, they can move about when no one's watching but if you look right at them they freeze and appear to be solid stone. One of the side effects of an encounter with the Weeping Angels is being time shifted to another time and place. Sally's friend Kathy got sent back to 1920 and lived a whole new life.

 

The Doctor and Martha have an encounter with them and get time shifted to 1969 London. The Doctor uses Sally and a couple of other people to help him get the Tardis come pick him up. A future encounter between the Doctor and Sally will put even more info in his hands. Oddly the Doctor doesn't do anything to rescue the time shifted people.

 

The Doctor defeats the Weeping Angels with a clever bit of biz. They are a creepy monster and deserve it. Another good story.

 

The commentaries were fair but didn't keep my attention as much as some of the other's have. There's a video diary from David Tennant and an actual Easter Egg. If you find it you get the complete DVD message the Doctor sends Sally. That was a nice fun thing. I hardly hear of anyone doing an Easter Egg on a DVD anymore. I hardly look for them but this seemed like the disc that should have one.

Fisk Series 2

Fisk Series 2 Created by Kitty Flanagan and Vincent Sheehan, written by Kitty Flanagan and Penny Flanagan, directed by Kitty Flanagan and Tom Peterson. There were 6 episodes in the second series and they aired October 26 to November 30 2022. Kitty won most popular actress in the 2022 Australian Logie Awards for series 1. The show itself was nominated for most popular comedy program but did not win. That's like the Emmy in the US. I think she's great in the role and her writing is top notch.

Kitty plays Helen Tudor-Fisk, a probate lawyer at Gruber & Gruber, a small firm in Melbourne that specializes in probate law. Ray Gruber is the head of the firm. She's still dressing in that rather drab brown pant suit. Lucky for her clients she does a better job on their cases than she does picking her wardrobe.

That's Aaron Chen as George, he's the firm's receptionist and webmaster. George is generally good for a laugh.

That's Julia Zemiro as Roz Gruber and Glenn Butcher as Viktor. Roz used to be a lawyer but she got struck down and became a mediator. She runs a small mediation business from the Gruber and Gruber office. Viktor is Helen's father Anthony's partner, he retired and driving Anthony crazy with the regiment of their day to day life. Helen gets him a job at the office, he's just odd enough to fit in.

In the last episode Helen winds up fighting for her reputation and career when a stupid client unjustly turns an investigative journalist on her. Ray steps up to save the firm and Helen. It turns out he was the best defamation lawyer around 20 years ago. The high stress gave him a heart attack at 35 and he settled into the less stressful job of making wills with his sister. Ray gets his power suit out of mothballs, smartens Helen up, and they go kick some ass. The TV station folds like a pack of soggy playing cards, they retract the piece and apologize, they demote the investigative journalist to hosting a cartoon show, make a $20,000 donation to charity and give the firm some free prime time ads. Back at the office the show ends with an even higher note.

This was one of the few shows where I anxiously waited for the episode to air each week. Each week they delivered a show that was funny and characters that were fun to be around. It's nice sense of the absurd and some good physical comedy. Be nice for some streaming service to pick this up. I hope they come back with more series, if they don't I have a dozen wonderful episodes to rewatch.

Dead Set 2008

Dead Set 2008 Created and written by Charlie Brooker, directed by Yann Demange. I like Charlie Brooker when he's talking about the world around him on the Wipe programs he did. His scripted fictional show Black Mirror (I've watched the first two series and the Christmas Special) is an anthology show that's hit or miss for me.

Setting Dead Set in the Big Brother house makes sense considering Charlie's long relationship with television and media. DS is also made by the same company as BB. Davina McCall was the host of Big Brother at the time this was made and she's playing herself here. Nice job playing a rabid zombie, Davina.

It's a pretty much standard people trapped in a place with a zombie outbreak going on outside. The zombies are the quick kind, their attacks are filled with hyper active cutting and increasingly annoying jitter-cam. Whoever invented that should Fuck Off.

Most of the people in the house are annoying and things get more dire for them by the hour. Eventually everyone dies. It's a bit long in the tooth, the 142 min running time seems even longer. I gave it a shot. I got to the end. I wouldn't need to see it again. Burma Shave?

Murder, They Hope Series 1 & 2

Just watched the first and second series of Murder, They Hope with Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson. They play a former tour coach driver and tour coach guide who are following Sian's dream to become detectives. Johnny would rather drive a tour coach. Much better chance to have a steady income. The pair of amateur sleuths sleep on a sofa bed in Sian's sister's house. She's an awful woman. Sallow and self absorbed are her best features. Sadly the wannabe detectives are totally useless at the sluethin'. Only through sheer luck do they manage to survive to the end credits. The first series consists of 3 episodes that aired in May last year. The second series just dropped a couple of days ago, it's got three eps also. I thought the first episode of series 1 was kind of funny, maybe I wasn't quite used to their sheer lack of knowledge and mental agility. The second ep was funnier, I was enjoying their ineptitude. In the third things get bat shit crazy as Sian and Johnny encounter a serial killer from their past life. The number of awful self absorbed, mean spirited and incompetant people grows. They're just ready to get slaughtered in some of the oddest ways. I was laughing a lot and at the worst possible things. The second season continues the serial killer story through all three episodes with the story getting more and more complex and silly. Not quite as funny as the 3rd ep of series 1 but still plenty of good laughs. There's an entertaining group of actors and comedians. I see both series are on BritBox.

Science Fiction Sunday 713

Doctor Who 2 Series 2 Episode 5-7

 

Rise Of The Cybermen May 13 2006 Written by Tom MacRae and directed by Graeme Harper. Part 1 of 2.

 

The Tardis malfunctions and drops the Doctor, Rose and Mickey in a parallel London. Unbeknownst to them a dying businessman has been creating Cybermen to keep human brains alive. He's going to force the process on everyone.

 

The Age Of Steel May 20 2006 Written by Tom MacRae and directed by Graeme Harper. Part 2 of 2.

 

 

The Doctor puts an end to the evil plan and Mickey decides to stay on the parallel London because his nan is still alive here.

 

The Idiot's Lantern May 27 2006 Written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn.

 

The Doctor takes Rose to London but lands in London in 1953. It's the day before the Queen's coronation. An entity from space called the Wire has taken residence in the TVs of a local shop owner. He's been selling cheap TVs and the Wire is using them to steal the faces of the locals. The Doctor soon puts that to rights.

I listened to all the commentaries and they were mostly entertaining. It's nice that the people doing the show are still alive and there's plenty of them who want to comment. No other extras on the disc.

Cunk On Earth 2022

Cunk On Earth 2022 Written by Jason Hazeley, Tom Baker, Charlie Brooker, Ben Caudell, Eli Goldstone, Diane Morgan, Joel Morris, Michael Odewale and Sam Ward, directed by Christian Watt. Five episode series that aired September 19 2022.

Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) takes a look at the history of the Earth. She wonders about a bit and visits with various experts. Her questions are certainly probing, there's just some uncertainty on what they're probing.

There's plenty of laughs, at least for me, and I will certainly watch these again down the road. You can see them on a guy's YouTube channel in the link above. You can find a good bit more more Cunk on YouTube with a quick search. Here's a nice interview with Diane, Sam and Charlie.

The Indian Doctor Series 1

The Indian Doctor Series 1 Created by Deep Sehgal and Tom Ware, written by Bill Armstrong, Nicholas Martin, Catrin Clarke, Sian Naiomi and Rob Gittins, directed by Deep Sehgal and Tim Whitby. It's a 5 episode series that aired November 2010. It was followed by two more series.

Sanjeev Bhaskar and Ayesha Dharker are Dr Prem Sharma and his wife Kamini. It's 1963 and they've come to this small Welsh mining town to take over the local surgery. Dr Sharma finds the town is mixed on his arrival. There were very few Indian doctors in the NHS at that time. Kamini isn't too happy with the two and talks of leaving and going back home. It's hard to make friends.

There are several patients with problems related to the coal mine. In a story that arcs through the series Mark Williams plays the mine manager who's been breaking safety regulations to increase production. It's increased the number of miners getting black lung and dying. The manager is hoping that increased production will look good to the head office and he can get promoted to a bigger and nicer town. He's a right bastard that deserves more punishment than he finally gets.

The Sharma's befriend a troubled boy who's father is a drunken miner. Kamini helps him with his schooling. Prem and the pub landlady develop a friendship that almost goes too far. She helps him with the last doctor's medical diary by translating the Welsh. It leads to more evidence of the miner's plight.

I really enjoyed the story, the scripts are well written, there's a great cast and plenty of beautiful locations. They capture the 60s quite well with good costumes and props. I'm looking forward to the next series.