PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Catagory 7: The End Of The World 2005 TV Miniseries

Catagory 7: The End Of The World 2005 TV Miniseries Written by Christian Ford and Roger Soffer, directed by Dick Lowry. This is a sequel to Category 6: Day Of Destruction. Cat 6 & 7 don't exist on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS). Cat 5 has winds up to 157 miles per hour. Anything after that you have to use the sandpaper grit scale.

With a cast lead by Randy Quid, Shannen Doherty and Gina Gershon, a bad script, low budget effects, an amazing lack of meteorological knowledge, the movie delivers nearly three hours of pain and suffering. The people in the movie don't do so well either. At least they got sucked off by the storm and smashed to the earth so they no longer have to suffer. I made myself go to the end. It sure wasn't worth it. There's nothing good to be said for this TV movie. Don't watch it. There's a copy on YouTube but I'm not even going to supply the link. I'm doing you a favor.

Science Fiction Sunday 765

Torchwood Series 1 Episodes 6 - 9

 

Countrycide November 19 2006 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Andy Goddard.

 

A gang of human flesh eating humans is killing people in the Brecon Beacons. Apparently the cannibals harvest human bodies every 10 years then live off the canned meat. The Torchwood gang find some flesh stripped bones. Owen left the keys in the car and the baddies steal it. The Torchwood gang follow the car's tracker and everyone but Jack gets caught by the gang. The cannibals even have members in the local police force. I've seen that plot device in several horror films.

 

Luckily Jack arrives at the last moment before the gang get slaughtered. He crashes a tractor through the wall and gets the drop on the cannibals. The story ends with the police taking the baddies away.

 

Greeks Bearing Gifts November 26 2006 Written by Toby Whithouse and directed by Colin Teague.

 

The Torchwood gang investigate a skeleton found on a building site. Toshiko meets a gal at a bar called Mary, we'd already seen her among the spectators at the building site. Mary gives Toshiko a special pendant that lets her read minds. It shows how shallow and dismissive some of the gang are. I wouldn't want to hang round with them. I'm on the fence about hanging around with Jack. The production wants to be an adult SF drama and that means a lot of character development. Problem is the more I get of their personality the more I'm disappointed in the characters.

 

Mary reveals herself to be an alien and gets Toshiko to takes her to Torchwood. Jack has figured out that Mary is an alien and a serial killer. He's found the alien transporter, repaired it and set it for the middle of the sun. When Jack hands Mary the transporter he turns it on and she disappears. Ha ha. We need more bad aliens in the middle of the sun.

 

They Keep Killing Suzie December 3 2006 Written by Paul Tomalin and Dan McCulloch, directed by James Strong.

 

Suzie, who killed herself in the first episode, has a plan in place to revive her with the glove. It requires a good number of people to die. Various things happen that lead Jack to reviving Suzie. Gwen wields the glove and she does such a good job that Suzie doesn't die again, in fact she gets better.

 

Suzie tricks Gwen into taking her to her father. Suzie kills her father. I could see that coming. Jack chases after them and shoots Suzie. She doesn't die until he has the glove destroyed. Suzie had been draining the life out of Gwen. Makes me think Jack needs a good HR department recruiting department to vet his staff.

 

Random Shoes December 10 2006 Written by Jacquetta May and directed by James Erskine.

 

A young man called Eugene is killed on the highway, Torchwood investigates because he was known to Torchwood as a collector of alien artifacts. He'd often turn up at their investigation sites. Now dead Eugene follows Gwen around as she investigates the alien eye he was selling on eBay.

 

It's a rather sad story of a nice young guy with jerks for friends. That's Eugene's sad mom on the right. Two of his friends secretly bid on the eye to get Eugene excited about the sale until someone else runs the bid up to £15,000. One of the two pals bids an extra £5.50 and wins. When Eugene shows up at the meet up place he finds it's them. They want the eye for next to nothing so they can resell it for a lot of money. Nice guys, huh.

 

In a struggle for the eye Eugene swallows it and runs out of restaurant only to get run down. The alien eye inside his dead body is what kept him there and it gives him a chance to save Gwen at the end of the episode. He becomes corporeal, allowing him to push Gwen out of the path of an on coming car, and then disappears with everyone looking upward.

I watched two discs this week, there were only 2 episodes on each disc. I find I'm speeding through the episodes more than I had been. The extras are some making of featurettes and a commentary for each episode. I kind of skipped through the featurettes and gave a miss to the commentaries. Just not that interested.

Deadloch Series 1 2023

Deadloch Series 1 2023 Created by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan. They co-wrote the scripts with Kim Wilson, Christian White, Anchuli Felicia King, Kirsty Fisher and Madeleine Sami. The directors were Ben Chessell, Gracie Otto and Beck Cole. An Australian murder mystery that's a parody of shows like Broadchurch but with more lesbians and swearing. The story is spread over 8 episodes that first aired in June and July 2023.

That's Kate Box, Madeleine Sami, Tom Ballard, Nina Oyama and Naarah going left to right. They all live in a small coastal town in Tasmania. Kate is Dulcie, the local police sergeant, she's married to the local vet Cath, a hyper-sexual, super needy worry wort who's had affairs with many of the local lesbians. She's always texting inappropriate stuff to Dulcie while she's at work.

Madeleine Sami plays Eddie Redcliffe, she's a detective from Darwin, sent to help with the murder of a local. Eddie is a piss poor cop who's been sent because no one wants to work with her anymore. She's not a team player, she's impulsive, she doesn't listen to anyone, she jumps to quick conclusions, she accidentally shot her partner and she's very annoying. Madeleine is so great at playing Eddie, I wanted to punch her. I can feel Dulcie's pain.

Nina plays Constable Abby, what she lacks in self-confidence she makes up for with enthusiasm. When the murder happens she's in the middle of getting ready for her wedding, she's marrying the local forensic examiner, a guy called James, he's self important, controlling and very sloppy at his job. He's more interested in getting on social media when he's presented with a really interesting corpse than doing a good job investigating the body. Poor Abby. Tom plays Sven, he's another constable but a lazy one who's also somewhat incompetent. Naarah plays a local gal who provides some local gossip.

The rest of the town is filled with plenty of characters and the cast is well up to bringing them to life. The story is pretty straight forward cop show material that's awash with gags and absurd situations. I laughed a lot each episode. I saw it on Amazon Prime, it's free with subscription, and wish it was out on DVD/Blu-ray here. eBay has Chinese all region Blu-rays but I'm not sure if I'll buy one. I'm sure I'll be wanting to watch this again sometime. Hope they do another series at some point.

Science Fiction Sunday 764

Torchwood Series 1 Episodes 3 - 5

 

Ghost Machine October 29 2006 Written by Helen Raynor and directed by Colin Teague.

 

An alien artifact lets people see events in the past. Gwen sees a lost boy at a train station in 1941, Owen sees a young woman murdered under a bridge in 1963. The Torchwood team find both the young boy and the murderer survived to the modern day. Gwen meets the young boy as an old man while Owen confronts the murderer and gets driven out of the man's house.

 

They find the guy who had the alien device, he'd managed to get away during an earlier encounter. He doesn't know anything about it but he's got the other half. Activating it has Gwen see herself holding a bloody knife and crying. She later accidentally kills the murderer. The artifact gets put in the vault.

 

Cyberwoman November 5 2006 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by James Strong.

 

Ianto is keeping a woman in the basement. She was his girlfriend before the Cybermen started converting her. They never finished the conversion and Ianto thinks he can save her. He fails miserably and the cyberwoman nearly kills everyone before Jack covers her with BBQ sauce that attracts the company pterodactyl.

 

While Jack is yelling at Ianto the cyberwoman revives and kills the pizza delivery girl. The cyberwoman puts her brain in the pizza gal's body and everyone blasts her with guns. Ianto goes back to making coffee.

 

Small Worlds November 12 2006 Written by Peter J Hammond and directed by Alice Troughton.

 

Deadly fairies are scaring and killing people that bother their chosen one. The chosen one is that little girl in the yellow dress. She reminds me of that kid in The Twilight Zone that puts people into the cornfield.

 

Jack loses an old friend to the fairies. The Torchwood gang goes after them. Captain Jack tries to stop the fairies from taking the chosen one away but eventually Jack lets them have her. The fairies are unkillable and they'll kill more people if he keeps their chosen one from going with them.

Three fair episodes. I thought the producers trying to sex up the show was kind of weak. The cyberwoman in a bikini and a metal bra? Why didn't Captain Jack toss Ianto out for making such a big mistake? I wouldn't be so forgiving.

 

The fairies episode was the more interesting to me but it also reminds me that Torchwood sure reminds me of an earlier US show called Special Unit 2. A team of monster fighters working for the government to find and kill monsters of one sort or another. I liked that series, it had a nice sense of humor.

There were commentaries for each episode, I listened to them but found myself a bit uninterested so I skipped ahead now and again. There was the usual short making of film for each episode.

Destination Space 1959

Destination Space 1959 Written by Rip Van Ronkel and directed by Joseph Pevney. A TV movie that was a joint production from Paramount Pictures and CBS. I don't recall ever seeing it before. According to the Wikipedia it was a possible pilot for a TV series. It was passed over for the Men In Space series.

Harry Townes is the director of the US Space Program and in charge of the US Space Station. A meteor strike damages the station and interrupts a launch. The US senate wants to cut costs and he's got to keep them coughing up the cash. Edward C Pratt is an observer come to the station to check things out. A few other things go wrong but most everyone is OK.

The film uses some good amount of stock footage from the 1955 Paramount film Conquest Of Space. It's nothing to write home about, it's a bit dry, I still managed to get through it. I saw it on YouTube. You might like it. There's also an Alpha DVD available too.

Science Fiction Sunday 763

Torchwood Series 1 Episode 1 - 2

I'm watching the Torchwood British DVD box set that came out in 2012. There's 18 discs in the set. I watched the first disc of the first series. There are two episodes and some extras. Series 1 has a lot of extras, Series 2 has a lot less extras.

 

Everything Changes October 22 2006 Written by Russell T Davies and directed by Brian Kelly.

 

Cardiff police officer Gwen Cooper takes an interest in the people from Torchwood when they take over a murder investigation. She sees them bring a corpse back to life with a metal gauntlet.

 

The next day she gets knocked down on the job. She has her knocked noggin checked at the hospital and sees Jack running up a stairwell. She follows and finds the floor taped off. She goes through the barrier only to encounter an alien called a Weevil. A maintenance man shows up and is killed.

 

Jack shows up and captures the Weevil and Gwen starts investigating Torchwood, she fakes a pizza delivery, she gains access to the headquarters and Jack takes her out for a drink. He spikes her beer with an amnesia pill.

 

A strong memory of a strange looking knife breaks the pills control and she returns to the Millennium Center where Torchwood has their secret underground lair. Doctor Who fans should remember that that area is home to a space and time rift that occasionally lets aliens and their technology through. Torchwood collects the aliens and artifacts and stores the bad ones away.

 

Gwen encounters Suzie, one of the Torchwood team, and realizes that Suzie is the killer. She just wanted some dead people to test the gauntlet on. Suzie kills Captain Jack, when he revives she kills herself. Jack asks Gwen if she wants a job and she accepts.

 

Day One October 22 2006 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Brian Kelly.
 

On her first day on the job Gwen accidentally releases an alien from a meteor. It's a pink cloud that inhabits the body of some poor random woman. The alien cloud turns her into a sex fiend wanting men for their orgasm. Sadly, for the men, this means their deaths when they are turned into a pile of sexless dust. 

 

Using plenty of technology they figure out who she is and the chase begins. The Torchwood team is mostly too late to save the dozens or more victims but they catch her in the end. They get the alien out of the young woman and return her home. Gwen has some bits of business with her boyfriend.

 

It seems that Jack has lumbered himself and Torchwood with some less than stellar co-workers. Suzie is a crazy psycho and Owen is perfectly happy to use a alien spray to attract partners for sex. That seems a bit date rapey but the series is certainly trying to be grittier than Doctor Who.

I'll be curious to see how it goes. I plan to watch a disc each week, maybe two if there are less extras to plow through. The first disc had a commentary for both episodes and there were three making of featurettes.

Science Fiction Sunday 761

Doctor Who 2 Series 13 Episode 5 - 6

 

Survivors Of The Flux November 28 2021 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Azhur Saleem.

 

The Doctor gets turned into a Weeping Angel for a while then she meets the woman, Tecteun, who experimented on her when she was the timeless child. The Doctor has no memory of Tecteun's experiments and subsequent use of her genes to create the race of Time Lords. Those memories were erased and stored in a Time Lord watch. Tecteun created and runs the Division and that Ood helps her. Tecteun created the Flux to kill the Doctor for being such a nuisance, one who interferes with her experiments. When Swarm shows up he will put an end to Tecteun in a most satisfying way. She is a monster.

 

Yaz, Dan and Jericho are lost in 1904 trying to figure out when the world will end. Kate Stewart confronts the head of UNIT with his being a traitor and he opens the Earth defense to let the Sontarians take over.

 

The Vanquishers December 5 2021 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Azhur Saleem.

 

The Doctor gets split into three bodies in three timelines. She brings the various groups together and they battle the Sontarians. The Sontarians wipe out the Lupari and then lure the Daleks and the Cybermen into a location where the Flux devastates their fleets. The Daleks and Cybermen have been wiped out so often and returned it seems a bit pointless.

 

The Sontarians get consumed by the Flux and the Flux is consumed by one of the Passengers. Time destroys Swarm and Azure and the Doctor maroons the head of UNIT on a small asteroid. They should have popped him into the sun. He's a real bastard. Most of the problems are wrapped up. The Doctor, Yaz and Dan head off for the next adventure. 

There's a handful of making of shorts as extras. There's just the three specials to go and I'll be done with the series until the David Tennant specials air. I think I'll watch Torchwood next.

Science Fiction Sunday 759

Doctor Who 2 Series 12 Episodes 9 - 10 & Special

 

Ascension Of The Cyberman February 23 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone.

 

In the far future the Tardis gang meet up with the last of the humans. They are attacked by the Cybermen, lead by the damaged Cyberman from the last episode. The Doctor runs about and smashes their plan until the Master shows up to complicate things.

 

The Timeless Children March 1 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone.

 

The Master is filled with hate and anger, he wants to destroy everything. He tells the Doctor that she's the Timeless Child and she's the reason Gallifreyians have the power to regenerate. There's apparently a whole backstory to the Doctor's backstory but the Gallifreyians have wiped it out. Too bad the Doctor can't go back in time to find out more.

 

The Doctor screws over the Daleks and the Master and everyone heads back to the Earth. The Judoon arrive and arrest the Doctor and put her in prison.

 

Revolution Of The Daleks January 1 2021 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Lee Haven Jones.

  

The Tardis gang are missing the Doctor, it's been 10 months. She arrives with Captain Jack, he broke her out of prison, and there's a bit of cold reception from Ryan, Yaz and Graham. Yaz is so mad she pushes the Doctor. The Doctor has been in the prison for decades but none of the Tardis gang even ask her low long she's been gone.

 

The evil American business man called Robertson returns, he was in a previous episode, now he's built a defense drone based on the Dalek body. One of his scientists has cloned a Dalek creature that has some human DNA in it. Robertson tells him to destroy it but the Dalek takes over the scientist and builds a cloning factory.

  

The Doctor calls the Dalek death squad to come wipe out the impure Daleks. There's more running about, the Daleks are wiped out again. They fail to kill off Robertson after he tries to save his hide by making a deal with the Daleks and I was greatly disappointed.

 

Back home Jack takes off to catch up with an old friend from Torchwood. Ryan and Graham decide they are done traveling but Yaz chooses to stay with the Doctor.

In the previous series there were stand out episodes that had something smart to say, some bit of joy, despite the terrible story. There doesn't seem to be much of that in the Chris Chibnall era. It's all dark, it's all doom, it's all rushing about, it's all rather tiring.

There wasn't much by way of extras, a few weak making of featurettes.

Science Fiction Sunday 756

Doctor Who Series 12 Episodes 1 - 2

 

Spyfall Part 1 January 1 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone.

 

The Tardis gang get rounded up by MI6. Nice to see Stephen Fry as C, sad he had such a short role. There have been several spies killed by mysterious glowing white humanoid creatures. A media guy is suspected to be involved. Lenny Henry plays the media guy Daniel Barton.

 

The Doctor makes contact with O, an MI6 agent investigating alien activity. The Tardis gang investigates Daniel, eventually chasing him onto an airplane. It turns out that O is really the Master.

 

Spyfall Part 2 January 5 2020 Written by Chris Chibnall and directed by Jamie Magnus Stone. 

 

The Doctor is transported to the alien's world where she meets Ada Lovelace. They get dropped into 1834 where they meet Charles Babbage. The rest of the Tardis gang are after Daniel but he's got connections and he's branded them criminals.

 

The Doctor and Ada transport to 1943 Paris where they meet a woman in the resistance called Noor. The Master starts his plan to destroy the human race but the Doctor foils his plan and sends him to the alien's world.

 

The Doctor finds out that the Master has destroyed Gallifrey.

My interest was buoyed up by guest stars Stephen Fry and Lennie Henry but generally I'm not too excited to see the new episodes. I was more excited to see the Murdoch Mysteries that I watched a month or so ago. Despite liking the new Master but I'm rather tired of the character in general. Hope he won't come back for a while.

Both episodes had a commentary and a making of featurette. They were fairly entertaining.

Starhunter Redux Season 2

Starhunter Redux Season 2 Created by G Philip Jackson, Daniel D'or and Nelu Ghiran.

I did watch the second series, it was a few months ago. Just never got to mentioning it. I don't get around to everything, especially some TV shows, I also don't want to spend as much time on blogging some shows or movies.

I did enjoy watching the series, it was odd to see Caravaggio in instead of the lady who was on the original season 2. Sadly Murray Melvin past away last April. He was 90, so good on him.

I'm glad that they put the series out, a bit sad they never got a longer run, I'd rewatch it again.