29 December, 2014
Big Finish 162: Protect and Survive
Big Finish stories of recent years generally aren't what they used to be, but there's still the occasional rare gem, and Protect and Survive is one of these. Since the end of the cold war, most, in the west at least, have been happy to forget the period as if the potentially world-ending conflict between East and West never happened, and the cold war has over time become a less and less common subject for popular fiction. That this trend may now be coming to an end, as evidenced by the like of the recent BBC series 'The Game' is a sad reflection on our contemporary politics, as the idiots who run our foreign policy, seemingly desperately hungry for a new cold war, if not worse, go out of their way to seek confrontation and discord with Putin's Russia. Strange how soon we forget, even seemingly those of us who lived through the sixties, seventies, or eighties. How we once grew up somehow having to be reconciled with, or in denial of, the fact that we lived under constant threat of nuclear holocaust. The threat never truly went away, and may even be greater today than it was then, but somehow with all the weight of history behind us, and all the knowledge previous generations lacked (such as just how close we really came to annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis), we'd still rather forget the uncomfortable truth of the recent past. And as for the near-religious belief in the US in the ultimate victory over Communism, in the 'American Century', in the 'single Superpower', in 'American Exceptionalism', well that particular mindset seems bedded in for a generation or two at least. And in the interim, as we shift political power from the generation of the Cheney's and Rumsfeld's to that of the millennials, who have grown up blissfully ignorant of the still very real nuclear threat hanging over the planet ? Well, we're fucked, aren't we ?
Protect and Survive plunges Ace and Hex right into the very apocalypse many of us grew us fearing, and keeps them there in one of the tightest, more claustrophobic, and most atmospheric releases of recent years. The title is taken from a remarkable series of public information films and pamphlets that were genuinely produced in the UK in the 80's with the intent of reassuring and pacifying the public in the event of a nuclear attack from the USSR. Most Americans of a certain age are probably at least vaguely aware of the 'Duck and Cover' pieces of the fifties and sixties, but we're talking about the nineteen-eighties here, and trying to convince modern Britons that taping up their windows and hiding in their cellar for a few days would somehow protect them from the awesome explosions and fallout of the Soviet Union's most powerful weapons, each of them exponentially more powerful than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Protect and Survive does a fine job of both capturing the ultimate futility of such efforts, and imagining the horror of facing the desperate reality of the 'survivors' of a nuclear attack, and in the case of Hex and Ace doing so over and over and over again.
This being modern Big Finish, it is unsurprisingly part of a three-part 'trilogy', and the larger story here regarding the Elder Gods frankly isn't much to get very excited about, but while the focus remains on Ace & Hex and the elderly couple whose shelter they share, the drama and tension is some of the best one could expect from Big Finish. Sylvester McCoy's Doctor remains hidden in the shadows for much of the story, being eventually revealed as much more of the spider at the centre of the web, in keeping with his history on TV, and reflecting a theme of abandonment by the Doctor that seems increasingly common with Who, both on audio and TV, in this case giving Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier that much more opportunity to bounce off one another and to shine in the Doctor's absence. Sound design and editing throughout are excellent. Would that it were financially possible for BF to return to an era of far fewer ranges, and one in which each of the main monthly releases could reach this level or better...
If you truly want to add to your nightmares, the original Protect and Survive videos are available at the Imperial War Museum (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022098) and elsewhere, and remember that this was our actual very recent history, and part of an imagining that could still reflect our very imminent future...or lack thereof. Stupid humans !
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/protect-and-survive-330
Protect and Survive plunges Ace and Hex right into the very apocalypse many of us grew us fearing, and keeps them there in one of the tightest, more claustrophobic, and most atmospheric releases of recent years. The title is taken from a remarkable series of public information films and pamphlets that were genuinely produced in the UK in the 80's with the intent of reassuring and pacifying the public in the event of a nuclear attack from the USSR. Most Americans of a certain age are probably at least vaguely aware of the 'Duck and Cover' pieces of the fifties and sixties, but we're talking about the nineteen-eighties here, and trying to convince modern Britons that taping up their windows and hiding in their cellar for a few days would somehow protect them from the awesome explosions and fallout of the Soviet Union's most powerful weapons, each of them exponentially more powerful than those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Protect and Survive does a fine job of both capturing the ultimate futility of such efforts, and imagining the horror of facing the desperate reality of the 'survivors' of a nuclear attack, and in the case of Hex and Ace doing so over and over and over again.This being modern Big Finish, it is unsurprisingly part of a three-part 'trilogy', and the larger story here regarding the Elder Gods frankly isn't much to get very excited about, but while the focus remains on Ace & Hex and the elderly couple whose shelter they share, the drama and tension is some of the best one could expect from Big Finish. Sylvester McCoy's Doctor remains hidden in the shadows for much of the story, being eventually revealed as much more of the spider at the centre of the web, in keeping with his history on TV, and reflecting a theme of abandonment by the Doctor that seems increasingly common with Who, both on audio and TV, in this case giving Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier that much more opportunity to bounce off one another and to shine in the Doctor's absence. Sound design and editing throughout are excellent. Would that it were financially possible for BF to return to an era of far fewer ranges, and one in which each of the main monthly releases could reach this level or better...
If you truly want to add to your nightmares, the original Protect and Survive videos are available at the Imperial War Museum (http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022098) and elsewhere, and remember that this was our actual very recent history, and part of an imagining that could still reflect our very imminent future...or lack thereof. Stupid humans !
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/protect-and-survive-330
Jam: Mister Lizard
David Lynch couldn't do much better than this, from Chris Morris' Jam. Deliciously creepy performance by Mark Heap really sells it.
28 December, 2014
Top Gear Patagonia Special
Up next on BBC2, the peace- and democracy-loving people of Argentina respond to the arrival of a BBC film crew by staging a spontaneous apology for the utterly immoral and illegal 1982 invasion of the Falklands. Oh right, that's not what happened at all is it ?...
Glad to see no-one was hurt, and they finally got the programme out despite all that. Stupid humans !
Glad to see no-one was hurt, and they finally got the programme out despite all that. Stupid humans !
The Clara Oswald Hour
Below was originally written some weeks ago, before the 'Christmas Special.' After which I feel no reason to rewrite or retract any of the same...
Some few weeks ago, a lot of hot air was vented about the trailer for the New Star Wars movie. Now personally, I think the controversy over a black stormtrooper is just about equally as stupid and ridiculous as putting lasers on the hilt of a light sabre, but then again I never actually watched the trailer...or any of the post-ROJ films for that matter, and nor do I intend to. Fact is I don't really give a shit about Star Wars, or even Star Trek for that matter. I like them well enough, but I don't really have any emotional investment in them. Doctor Who is a different matter. Like so many, I grew up with Doctor Who. It was a part of my life as long as I can remember and it was an established cultural institution well before I was born. I still resent the fact that the BBC cancelled it, and I still see as an act of cultural vandalism the wiping of tapes that took place in the sixties and the seventies. When Russell T Davies brought the show back in 2005, I didn't care for many of his choices, but I stuck with it, and it got better as David Tennant was brought in, as we lost the chavvy companion, as old enemies returned, and as writers like Steven Moffat gave us the occasional compelling stories like Blink. I was initially sceptical of the casting Moffat chose as he took over the reins of 'showrunner' from Davies, but little Amelia Pond quickly won me over as did Karen Gillan as her older self, Arthur Darvill as Rory, and Matt Smith as an impossibly manic childlike Doctor. I thoroughly enjoyed Moffat's early tenure and even as the writing faltered over the two previous half-series, I wouldn't want to miss an episode. And then we had the fiftieth anniversary (with ridiculous number of special this, that, and the other) , followed by the revelation that Moffat was to give us a new darker more alien Doctor, played for the first time in decades by an older actor in Peter Capaldi, a throwback to William Hartnell's original. Brilliant ! So why, so long after the 'eighth' series of Doctor Who ended back in November can I still not get over how impossibly shite it all was ?
Not everyone would agree of course. Some people loved it. Many, more I suspect, hated it. It was if nothing else...divisive. So what you may ask did I dislike about it so much ? Was it Capaldi ? Nope. Jenna Coleman or Sam Anderson ? Nope. Was it the crap opening sequence (Hey, how can we symbolise time in a way that will be culturally relevant to millenials ? I know, antique clockwork timepieces, geddit ?!) or the shit theme tune ? That's not it. The cheapo budget, the almost total lack of multi-part stories, the refusal to use any of the characters created by Moffat's predecessor ? Not really. The writing, it must be the writing, right ? No, at this point, the substandard writing goes without saying, though this series did certainly produce some real stinkers (thinking of you, Kill the Moon). I know, it was Clara, right ? You think it's been turned into 'The Clara Oswald Show, guest starring the Doctor' ? Well...yeah, but it's more than just that.
See, I believe that as a rule, if you want an audience to invest emotionally in a character of yours they have to be either a)Interesting, b)Likeable, or preferably c)Both. Having created a character in Clara Oswald/Oswin/whatever that previously served merely as a sort of cipher, or arguably even a Macguffin, Moffat faced a lot of criticism over the lack of depth or character development in Clara. And he decided to follow up by making the next series of Doctor Who ALL ABOUT CLARA...ALL THE TIME. He turned the show into a sort of soap opera, with a central cast of just three (four, if you count Missy, blech), revolving around Clara Oswald and the conflicting relationships she had with the two men in her life: her new boyfriend Danny Pink and the Doctor. Forget spending more time exploring this newly mysterious and unpredictable Doctor, forget the monsters and the adventures, what we really need is a thorough exploration of the thoroughly toxic relationships between these three characters who spend much of the series lying to one another, threatening and insulting one another, and generally being assholes to one another. Moffat took a character in Clara Oswald who was ('Impossible Girl' not withstanding) not particularly interesting and mildly likeable, and gave us a character who was still not particularly interesting, and over the course of the series increasingly actively unlikable.
Some few weeks ago, a lot of hot air was vented about the trailer for the New Star Wars movie. Now personally, I think the controversy over a black stormtrooper is just about equally as stupid and ridiculous as putting lasers on the hilt of a light sabre, but then again I never actually watched the trailer...or any of the post-ROJ films for that matter, and nor do I intend to. Fact is I don't really give a shit about Star Wars, or even Star Trek for that matter. I like them well enough, but I don't really have any emotional investment in them. Doctor Who is a different matter. Like so many, I grew up with Doctor Who. It was a part of my life as long as I can remember and it was an established cultural institution well before I was born. I still resent the fact that the BBC cancelled it, and I still see as an act of cultural vandalism the wiping of tapes that took place in the sixties and the seventies. When Russell T Davies brought the show back in 2005, I didn't care for many of his choices, but I stuck with it, and it got better as David Tennant was brought in, as we lost the chavvy companion, as old enemies returned, and as writers like Steven Moffat gave us the occasional compelling stories like Blink. I was initially sceptical of the casting Moffat chose as he took over the reins of 'showrunner' from Davies, but little Amelia Pond quickly won me over as did Karen Gillan as her older self, Arthur Darvill as Rory, and Matt Smith as an impossibly manic childlike Doctor. I thoroughly enjoyed Moffat's early tenure and even as the writing faltered over the two previous half-series, I wouldn't want to miss an episode. And then we had the fiftieth anniversary (with ridiculous number of special this, that, and the other) , followed by the revelation that Moffat was to give us a new darker more alien Doctor, played for the first time in decades by an older actor in Peter Capaldi, a throwback to William Hartnell's original. Brilliant ! So why, so long after the 'eighth' series of Doctor Who ended back in November can I still not get over how impossibly shite it all was ?
Not everyone would agree of course. Some people loved it. Many, more I suspect, hated it. It was if nothing else...divisive. So what you may ask did I dislike about it so much ? Was it Capaldi ? Nope. Jenna Coleman or Sam Anderson ? Nope. Was it the crap opening sequence (Hey, how can we symbolise time in a way that will be culturally relevant to millenials ? I know, antique clockwork timepieces, geddit ?!) or the shit theme tune ? That's not it. The cheapo budget, the almost total lack of multi-part stories, the refusal to use any of the characters created by Moffat's predecessor ? Not really. The writing, it must be the writing, right ? No, at this point, the substandard writing goes without saying, though this series did certainly produce some real stinkers (thinking of you, Kill the Moon). I know, it was Clara, right ? You think it's been turned into 'The Clara Oswald Show, guest starring the Doctor' ? Well...yeah, but it's more than just that.
See, I believe that as a rule, if you want an audience to invest emotionally in a character of yours they have to be either a)Interesting, b)Likeable, or preferably c)Both. Having created a character in Clara Oswald/Oswin/whatever that previously served merely as a sort of cipher, or arguably even a Macguffin, Moffat faced a lot of criticism over the lack of depth or character development in Clara. And he decided to follow up by making the next series of Doctor Who ALL ABOUT CLARA...ALL THE TIME. He turned the show into a sort of soap opera, with a central cast of just three (four, if you count Missy, blech), revolving around Clara Oswald and the conflicting relationships she had with the two men in her life: her new boyfriend Danny Pink and the Doctor. Forget spending more time exploring this newly mysterious and unpredictable Doctor, forget the monsters and the adventures, what we really need is a thorough exploration of the thoroughly toxic relationships between these three characters who spend much of the series lying to one another, threatening and insulting one another, and generally being assholes to one another. Moffat took a character in Clara Oswald who was ('Impossible Girl' not withstanding) not particularly interesting and mildly likeable, and gave us a character who was still not particularly interesting, and over the course of the series increasingly actively unlikable.
26 December, 2014
Last Christmas: It was all a dream, again, and you're stuck with Clara Oswald, and me Steven Moffat, like it or not, losers...
Please God, no !? That asshole Steven Moffat has determined to afflict us with another year (or more ?) of Clara fucking Oswald ? Against all odds, I tried again to give Moffat 2.0 Who a chance, and really really wanted to like this Christmas Special; was yet again willing to give the show a chance. I could overlook ripping off Alien, ripping off Inception, ripping off Big Finish (hello, why do you think the show was able to come back to TV in the first place ?), but fuck !... And I never even published (maybe I still will) my rant about how much the obsessive and soap-opera-ish focus on Clara (to the extent of all else) ruined the last year's worth of Doctor Who. But it's Christmas, so I suppose I should say...something nice. Well,...I really appreciated seeing the lovely Natalie Gumede as something other than the psycho-bitch girlfriend of Tyrone on Corrie. Wouldn't mind seeing more of her as anything other than Kirsty Soames. And hell, I dream of the day that I can see Jenna Coleman without immediately thinking of that growing stain on Doctor Who that is Clara 'Greatest Fucking Companion of all Time and Space' Oswald. The 'Moff' just added a year or more to the date of our eventual liberation. Damnit !
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