Inauthenticated

I'm afraid that I've now reached the nerdy stage where, when watching the news, no matter how tragic or awful or harrowing the issue being talked about is, much of my attention is filled by the abysmal state of the picture-quality.

Channel 4 News recently showed us Barack Obama addressing an audience apparently made-up of people who were very fat. Yep, all their audience-shots had been filmed in a different aspect-ratio to the President, and had been stretched to fill-up the same frame. The following day a friend remarked to me how Obama had, comparatively, appeared to be "a short guy".

You've spotted this sort of digital-stretching going on yourself, don't pretend.

This afternoon I went to church to enjoy the singing of a choir of visiting Ugandan orphans. This was live, so hopefully they should all be the right shape.

The singing itself was absolutely beautiful, and the show was very well-rehearsed. These kids were nothing short of brilliant.

However the accompanying music was cranked-up so loud that it rather drowned-out their beautiful vocals. Overproduction? Or am I the one being cranky here?

Their songs were intersperced with the charity's video-clips of the kids' home life in Uganda, which had been edited so funkily as to be unwatchable. Despite having presumably started out as a crisp full-colour digital file, some kind soul had removed the colour, obscured the picture with fake film-dirt, made the edges fuzzy, added computer-generated flickering... please, just show us the footage.

I did enjoy the show, but at the end of the day, I would really have liked to have simply heard the kids who were singing in front of me, and seen the footage of Africa they had shot. Like Channel 4 News, this charity had once had some good material to present, but someone had set about subtracting from it.

They asked for donations to their work, but it's hard to donate to something you're just not that clear on...

How Many Children Did Job Actually Lose?

I hope the above title doesn't sound flippant, because it's a serious, and obviously tragic, question.

My quest for answers began on 25th May, when I read the following words of Job, as he was suffering incalculable illness and disease throughout chapter 17 of the eponymous book Job in the online God's Word Bible:

My breath offends my wife.
I stink to my own children.

- Job 19:17 (God's Word)

Whoa! Hang on a sec - back in chapter one, didn't it say something along the lines of all ten of Job's children having died?

While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine at their oldest brother’s home when suddenly a great storm swept across the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It fell on the young people, and they died. I’m the only one who has escaped to tell you.”

- Job 1:18-19 (God's Word)

Hmm... it just says "they died." No total is actually ascribed to the value "they". So when saying "they", could the messenger have possibly been only referring to some of Job's kids, therefore leaving a few others alive and well enough to complain about Job's personal hygiene by chapter 19?

Of course, the God's Word is just one of the many English translations of the Bible that there are on offer. So, not being fluent in Hebrew, I decided to have a quick flick through some of the other English translations, just to find out which, if any, categorically stated that every single one of Job's children had died in that tragic disaster.

Most weren't quite that explicit, but a few were. First-up, ever one to break things to us gently, was the Contemporary English Version.

That servant was still speaking, when a fourth one dashed up and said, "Your children were having a feast and drinking wine at the home of your oldest son, when suddenly a windstorm from the desert blew the house down, crushing all of your children. I am the only one who escaped to tell you."

- Job 1:18-19 (CEV)

Well, that states that they all got crushed, but stops short of confirming that they all died. Some may have survived the accident. So, no hard conclusion there.

Next, here's the New Living Translation:

While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: “Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the wilderness and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you.”

- Job 1:18-19 (NLT)

"all your children are dead." That's sounds pretty definite, doesn't it?

And yet, I suspect that the use of the word "all" might just refer to all of Job's children who were present in the house that day. As the preceding verse 18 just says "Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother's home", this may not have meant that all of them were there in the first place. For example, it might just have meant that most of them were there. Even their oldest brother may not have actually been present for the meal.

In fact, none of the quotes above are specific about how many of Job's offspring were definitely at the house before the disaster struck.

Also, if other people's children had also been feasting there with them, then the phrase "all your children are dead" could just refer to those kids present who belonged to Job's family, to distinguish them from the other casualties. Still no definite conclusion.

In fact, I've been through every English translation that I can lay my hands on (about 20), but all of them have stopped short of definitely stating in no uncertain terms that every last one of Job's children died in that awful event. Some, such as the Darby Translation, even just describe "the young men" as victims. And the young women?

However, even if you do find the wording of the New Living Translation above convincing enough, when it catches-up to the later remark in 19:17, it translates "children" as the somewhat cagier "family".

Could it be that my original reason for asking the question was flawed?

My wife can't stand the smell of my breath,
and my own brothers won't come near me.

- Job 19:17 (Good News)

Sheesh, wheels within wheels...

So, somewhat inevitably, I gave up on the English translations, went to biblos.com and clicked on the Lexicon tab to take a look at the original Hebrew language after all, and even that seems to be a bit vague about it. I find that encouraging however, as it means that the ambiguity of the original text has not been strained-out in translation.

So, given Job's arguable later reference to them in chapter 19, did all of Job's kids actually die in chapter one?

The answer, obviously, is I sincerely hope not.

Insomnia (2002)

So last night I watched Chris Nolan's version of Insomnia, after which I lay awake for about five hours unable to sleep!

I was still awake at 6am, and had to get up for church at nine. Maybe I should have done this before the film, in order to promote empathy with the lead character while watching, instead of aftewards?

Even now I find my consciousness entering into Will Dormer's (Al Pacino) first stages of sleep-deprivation, as I type at this keyboard with both curtains pulled-across to feebly block-out the blinding sunshine outside. Boom! There – I just had one of his blink-and-you'd-miss-it flashbacks of the movie itself last night.

Yep, my waking/sleeping self can still see snatches of that bleak Alaskan landscape... the girl whose murder he and his partner were dispatched there to investigate... his partner's accidental death at Dormer's own gun... now I'm getting snatches of Dormer's own flash-hallucinations of his dead partner's accusing stare at him through the trees...

There's a phone to my right. I really hope that doesn't ring.

"Well, Mr Goble, I see it's 17:47 British Summer Time, meaning that in the last 30 hours you've only spent three of them asleep. So how is your review coming along? Starting to ramble a bit? Going off at tangents and just writing-down your own dreamy stream-of-consciousness yet?"

I could blame it all on director Chris Nolan, but over the years he's quietly managed to become one of my favourite directors.

His tale of an arrogant cop whose slight loss-of-faith in the US judicial system turns into a slippery slope to his own ruination is not only well worked-out but, as usual for Nolan, told very very clearly.

Despite this being a murder-story, I kept track of who everyone was, and was pleased to find that this was much more an examination of the subtle flaws in each of the players' ethics.

There's no bland love story or dumbed-down realisations of obvious simple truths here. This is a good, thoughtful film.

Just this once, Nolan actually resists the temptation to tell the narrative in non-chronological order, like he did in Following, Memento and Batman Begins.

Well, mostly. Like I said above, Dormer's sleeplessness due to Alaska's sun never setting does increasingly riddle his attention with flashbacks and daydreams, but these last barely a second, so hardly count as scenes. I'm getting flashbacks of those same flashbacks now...

I was confused by the amount of time that Dormer spends pursuing Walter Finch (Robin Williams) in secret, as Dormer's colleagues must surely have some false perception of his whereabouts during these sequences. I did wonder if maybe these daylight scenes were set at 'night' while they were all asleep, but the crowds of civvies that Dormer chases Finch through suggest otherwise. I guess a clearer timeframe, eg. more shots of clocks, might have helped.

A strong story, with strong characters, well-acted, competently directed and which never even threatens to descend into sentimentality.

Apart from the swearing, this is what I watch dramas for. Excellent work Mr Nolan. Ahh, what the heck - ten.

I must be dreaming.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Dr. Seuss

Wise son,
glad father;
stupid son,
sad mother.

- Proverbs 10:1 (Message)

Marvel Team-Up Annual #7: Spider-Man and Alpha Flight – The Collected Spider-Man

Fig. 1: GREAT cover, actually enhanced by the barcode-box!

It's been years since I last read of the adventures of Alpha Flight, and other than that they are based in Canada, I've retained very little of it. Which is a real shame, as this story is from the same era as those.

The villain here – the Collector - is an elder of the universe who freezes examples of species with which to repopulate existence should his vision of its doom ever come to pass. (that's what he claims, anyway)

Well, guess who he collects – Spider-Man, and Alpha Flight's Marrina.

When the latter's team-mates show-up to rescue her, what ensues is a huge long fight on board the Collector's spaceship, during which all manner of weird beasts get accidentally released into the fray.

It's therefore really one very long fight-scene, with a couple of more mundane pieces topping and tailing it. I found it a bit long-winded, but fighting is in the nature of team-ups.

There's also a five-page back-up strip about a couple watching super-news-events on TV. As I have no idea of the context of this, or whether it is a purely self-contained story, I was somewhat lost by it.

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

First up – the zombie count.


Urrrrrrrrrr...

I say count. Actually I've stopped counting. Which is a shame, as there haven’t been any zombies in Doctor Who for two whole stories now. Yes, I know, I counted.

The Next Doctor gives the Doctor a new companion in the form of his future self. Except that even before we've reached the opening credits, they've already telegraphed the story's reveal. Taking his cues from the script, David Morrissey plays the part as a parody of the Doctor - specifically of the tenth Doctor - rather than with a fresh interpretation of the role. He certainly isn't intending to take over and do that for maybe five years.

Storywise, I thought there were a lot of unanswered questions as usual. For example, in the opening scene both Doctors use the phrase "Allons-y" in unison, to imply that Morrisey's character is indeed the future Doctor, although that's only a tenth Doctor-ism. When it later turns out that he's not the Doctor after all, Lake's having learnt of the Doctor through his data-stamp doesn't really explain his use of this term. Even the Doctor himself doesn't use the phrase very often.

The Diet-Cybermen return. They build a spaceship that's also a giant robot with a Diet-Cyberman factory inside it. (a vending machine?) This might have rung more true if they'd been the original Cybermen, who were accustomed to travelling through space, unlike these new ones. Likewise, the Doctor's recognition of the ship would also have made more sense.

The show's past also brings the biggest relief here though, as the Doctor projects his own data-stamp onto a wall. Blurring like a standard 8 ciné-movie, the images of Doctors 1-4 flash-up, at which point we cut back to him watching them. I think they were toying with us. We then cut back to the data-stamp and see clear images of all the remaining Doctors, including the ones who've been pussyfooted around in the modern series. That's Doctors five, six, seven and eight. (Nine was there too)


Back in history again: Doctors 5-8 with alien film-damage

Although the Doctor remarks that these images must have been stolen from the Daleks, according to drwhoguide.com, they have nearly all been taken from stories in which the Daleks were not present. So let's all just assume that the Daleks stole the info from the Time Lords' Matrix, and say no more about it.

Anyway, it's a weight off this fan's mind to see the usual avoidance of the John Nathan-Turner years hopefully ended at last. It's a scene that really belonged four years ago in Rose though. (I still don't think the doodles in Human Nature bear any concrete resemblance, no matter what publicity-stills they may have originally been based upon)

Overall, I found this outing to be one of this author's better stories, although that's not paying it the great compliment that I would genuinely like to.

In a positive sense, I found the story to simply not be that strong, which is preferable to a story that is full of contradictions. For example, it made little sense to me for the Doctor to prove his identity to the Diet-Cybermen, but that's not an event that is impossible. Likewise, while the baddies' cessation of killing the Doctor in order to answer his questions is one of this writer's traits, it is still theoretically possible for such an event to take place over and over again. The zombies? Well.

The fact that this episode explained the Diet-Cybermen's absence from the void in Journey's End was a relief, although someone really should have asked that question at the time.

It was refreshing to see a mystery in Doctor Who again, and the final scene between the Doctor and his sometime namesake was a cheery one that made me smile.

Blue Velvet

David Lynch. Directing a STORY! :)

Nonetheless, the scars from having sat through all three hours of Inland Empire a coupla' months back still haven't completely healed, and maybe never will. As a result, watching this much earlier work of his this morning, I found that I could never quite trust it until the very end to resolve its tale in a satisfactory manner.

Ironic, given that the story is reasonably straightforward, and the way Lynch introduces us to the characters proves that he does know how to do regular storytelling as well, if only he can stop drowning it all in his regular weirdness.

But who would honestly want him to do that? Lynch goes to so much trouble over every scene. He's known not just for his images, but his eerie sounds too, and there are several places in this when the two can be found working together. In a regular film it's usually the soundtrack that makes you feel a particular way. Here the picture alone can do it, not that it's ever left to.

The movie opens by drawing you in with lots of bright, happy, contrasty colours, not unlike the colours you find on children's toys. Hey, this looks like a nice film, I'll watch this. By the time we've slid into the dark underworld of Lumberton however, Lynch has sneakily replaced those early joyful hues with much more subtle tones.

The film's weakness is its sexual content and swearing, which carries the usual pretentious air of student filmmakers trying very hard to look worldly. Unfortunately it almost always makes them look like students. David Lynch therefore, 40 when he shot this, really should have known better.

As is usually the case with Lynch though, his confidence, his patience, and his uncompromisingly personal approach to his work make his productions ones that you wouldn't want to change a single thing about. Of the few I've seen, his films have been so unmistakably his.

Jeffrey walks through the darkness, and in the distance we can make-out the echoing hoot of a steam train's horn. Brrrrrrr, rabbits.

Nope, still not over Inland Empire...

Marvel Team-Up #142: Spider-Man and Captain Marvel – Foiled! / #143: Spider-Man and Starfox – Shifts and Planes

As megalomaniac baddies with a personal agenda for solving the world's problems go, the abominable Dr Paulson's in a league of his own.

Dr Paulson: "I created P.R.I.D.E. -- Population Reduction by Inter-Dimensional Expulsion – A system utilizing a new form of energy my researchers discovered –

-- An energy that breaches dimensions, and was used both to bring forth a creature to combat Captain Marvel, and to transport my field crews to where they could obtain Technafoil and the Windstone, needed to conduct and focus the energy for my P.R.I.D.E. generator!

That generator will be used to open space-time gaps around all world capitols, causing them to be instantly drawn into other habitable dimensions!

World population will be cut drastically in a matter of seconds!"

Whew – thanks for saving me the trouble of explaining all that plot, Dr Paulson.

Spider-Man and Captain Marvel succeed in disabling the P.R.I.D.E. machine, by turning it on itself, thereby transporting it into another dimension. Unfortunately the resulting interdimensional interference from the machine prevents the Captain from accessing the plane where her human body is stored whenever she becomes her energy-form. As a result, she cannot transform back into her physical body ever again.

Spider-Man and Starfox hop over into the other dimension to turn the machine off, but discover that many weeks have passed local-time since its arrival, and its use has become essential in a tribal war. Consequently, they have to finish the war so that they can destroy the machine, and go back home.

I can't recall ever having read a Starfox story before, but, for me, he makes for a more entertaining team with Spider-Man than Captain Marvel does. His clipped way of speaking had me reading his part in a British public-school accent, and his politeness lends itself to obvious comedy.

HERE HE COMES! #25

Generally speaking, comics produced by religious or educational organisations get a pretty bad rap. Well, they usually do with me, anyway. To mis-quote Jerry Seinfeld, they don't offend me as a Christian, they offend me as a comic-reader.

I well remember once picking-up a creationist comic-book, only to find that the entire strip inside consisted of two people talking about the subject that it was conveying. Nice artwork. Not much story.


Chicks Publications' Here He Comes! #25 (that's the only title on it) held my attention throughout.

It's a tract that I found years ago sitting by a bus stop in Wellesley Street, Auckland. I didn't know whether it had been thrown away, or left there intentionally, and almost immediately I felt sorry to have missed the preceding 24 issues. (like all shrewd comic-publishers, they had included a footnote-box referring me back to the previous one)

Alas, my merriment was because I was laughing at it.

I found the whole thing to be such a graphically over-the-top depiction of the Book Of Revelation, that it was riveting. I'd enjoyed it, yes, but for the wrong reasons. Today I've calmed down a bit, and am a little more respectful.

To be clear - this post is not a discussion of the opinions expressed in this issue, but purely a review of its merits as a comic. I regularly review comics on this blog, and this is a comic, so they must have got something right there.

Damien is a new Christian, but he suffers a horrific nightmare about the end of the world. Consistent with the creationist comic I mentioned above, his friend Bob takes him through the events that he believes will all take place in the last days.

There are almost non-stop references to Bible-quotes in the footnote-boxes throughout, and this interpretation not only takes it quite literally, but also chillingly portrays the final book of the Bible taking place in contemporary society. The depiction of the Pope as the false prophet makes an intriguing link into the familiar real world.

In seeking to appeal to comicbook readers, there's disturbing violence on display throughout. There are also unexpected moments of sick humour, which I found odd, because tracts usually treat this stuff so seriously.


That's The Matrix's Agent Smith, isn't it?

At the end we snap back to the present with Damien realising that the approach of the apocalypse that Bob has just conveyed to him is the reason why the gospel must be preached.

Then, in the final panel, Bob actually turns to the reader, and delivers the following chilling warning:

Reader, if you reject Jesus and miss the Rapture, you will probably take the mark of the Beast to survive and be cast into the lake of fire. THIS IS NO JOKE! This may be your last chance."

I don't know whether the preceding 24 issues went through the rest of the Bible or what, but today I look at this comic and see it with two hurdles to overcome:

1. It's presented within the context of a tract, which alone makes it tremendously hard to take seriously, and

2. There's little room for characterisation, which automatically makes such characterisation as there is appear simplistic, and therefore unintentionally funny.

But none the less, with 21 (small) pages of great black-and-white artwork, this must be the most readable Bible tract I've ever seen.

Back in the days when I found this, I had often come across other, more text-based, Bible tracts, and regularly redeployed them in a particular nightclub toilet. What else was I going to do with them?

This one I kept.

Website: www.chick.com
Copy of the tract I read here.

(Both comic panels in this post are copyright Chick Publications 2003 and the images were used according to 'Fair Use' laws.)

The Transformers #18-21 (UK): Raiders Of The Last Ark

By implication following-on from The Enemy Within!, Raiders Of The Last Ark introduces us to two brand new characters, both of whom are then quickly written-out again to avoid any continuity issues with the concurrent US strips.

The first is "AUNTIE" – alias the Ark's computer system - who had already been mentioned back in issue #2, (reprinting the US #1) albeit with a slightly different spelling.


In this new story, AUNTIE's character gets, er... fleshed-out, with a face, a voice, and a whole deranged personality to go with them.


No wonder Megatron looks so unhappy. He's clearly furious at being remarketed as a toy for girls, judging by that heart the UK artist has drawn on his chest.

The second new character is AUNTIE's protector-bot. Watch carefully now – see if you can spot his name.


That's one fearsome-looking droid. He's enormous! Just how on Earth can Windcharger and Ravage possibly escape from this end-of-issue cliffhanger?


Oh, right, those are the only two panels he's in.

Well, they still have to cleverly outwit the all-powerful AUNTIE too.


Oh, right, she gets defeated in exactly the same way.

Well, you can hardly blame them for hurrying this plot along. This story was published at a point in time when Marvel UK were squeezing so many other strips into Transformers comic that the lead strip was becoming ever-shorter. That last episode was a mere five pages long – less than half the lead strip's length back in issue #1.

But then, what else can you expect from a 32-page comic packing-in a whopping six strips, plus adverts and features? The Planet Terry 'back-up strip' got nine pages! Maybe it was a costcutting measure due to the US material drying-up.

Although the comic itself was rearranging its parts and transforming into something new, I can't help thinking that what it really wanted to do was to change back.

The Transformers #13-17 (UK): The Enemy Within!

Comic writer Simon Furman has done pretty well out of Transformers.

Contracted by Marvel UK to write filler-stories to pad-out the short-supply of US strips, Furman became so successful that he eventually landed the gig writing all the original US stories too. Ultimately (I gather) readers in the UK wound-up reading a US reprint by Furman, followed by an original UK story by Furman (which the Americans didn't get), followed by another US reprint by Furman.

Of course, like all good writers he began to stretch himself. He'd put stuff into the American stories specifically because he knew what was coming-up in the UK ones. While Marvel UK had a reputation for presenting incomplete runs, Simon Furman was making the polar opposite true. Truly, Transformers became a series that was much better collected in the overseas reprint. (so long as they were being published in the correct order) How many other titles can you say that about?

Yet, Furman's very first Transformers strip hits the ground by screwing-up continuity right from the second page.

According to the editorial pages, this story is supposed to be set at some point during the first eight issues. However, in just one panel at the start of the story, Megatron - the leader of the Evil Decepticons in those early issues - flatly challenges any such notion:


And there it is. According to Megatron above, the Transformers have already had their battle with Spider-Man (in issue #6), so that narrows the point at which this new story can take place to just sometime during issues #7 and #8. The final battle at the Ark takes place throughout #8, so that just leaves sometime during #7.

On the sixth page of #7, Ratchet departs from the Ark to take Buster and Sparkplug to the hospital, so for him to still be around to appear in this new story, these events must take place within pages 1-5.

However, as those pages feature Buster and Sparkplug continuously present at the Ark, while they are paradoxically absent throughout this story, then... then there's no point in the narrative at which this can take place. Even Skywarp, who was damaged in #6 and remained so throughout #7 and #8, is present in this one.

Best guess? The editorial was wrong. This is a story from their future. And I'm not going to read any of the later ones, so that settles it.

However there is another way of reconciling all this, and for this alternative we only need to turn over a single page from the Spider-Man reference to read this...


Yep, maybe the rest of this five-issue story is just Brawn's dream!

How else can we explain the sudden appearance in #15, for two lines only, of brand new Autobot character Ralph, sorry, I mean Red Alert?




And that's it, now he's gone, not to be seen again until #29. He's like Private Sponge on Dad's Army.

Who did you think you were kidding Mr Megatron?

;)

The Sarah Jane Adventures – Season Two Overview

Just as Doctor Who routinely recycles the same structure each season, I have been a tad disappointed to perceive season two of The Sarah Jane Adventures also recycling the same structure, together with the one from their own first season.

Therefore, before viewing the final story, I had little doubt that it would feature the return of the main villain from story one (Kaagh), together with the main villains from season one. (either the Slitheen or Miss Wormwood) If I'd been particularly observant, then I'd have also foreseen the second faction's unexpected return in the 'cliffhanger' at the end of the first episode.

Just for once, I shall skip dwelling upon the presence of a zombie (or character-who-is-not-under-the-control-of-who-they-appear-to-be) in all six stories, because, y'know, to mention it yet again might likewise sound a bit repetitive.

Following a formula doesn't generally leave much room for surprises...

Partly as a result of these things, I have found season two of The Sarah Jane Adventures to have fallen short of the higher-standard set by its preceding series, but not by that much.

After a strong start with The Last Sontaran and The Day Of The Clown, the remainder of the series never quite got it all together again. Three of the other stories feature a terrific part one, followed by a much thinner part two, while The Mark Of The Berserker was a dud throughout.

That's a total of seven good episodes, and five duds. Overall, a good average.

Despite the show's title, in the first season the lead character was arguably Maria, so I was pleased to see that her writing-out at the start of this one was handled so well. It's not simply a case of new girl Rani being another good brainy character who attends Maria's old school and lives in Maria's old house. It's also the way in which Maria left.

She made one exit story, and was then acknowledged throughout the rest of the series in simple cameos and offhand lines of dialogue. The characters remember her just as we do – great. This is much better than the way TV shows so often sweep the departing character under the carpet, hoping that we won't miss them. The characters here miss Maria along with us. There's even been an allusion to her returning for at least one appearance in season three. I look forward to that!

With it, I do hope that SJA manages to regain the ground that it's lost this year. There is some absolutely terrific writing on the show (see those five out of six part ones that I mentioned above!), but this has been sadly cancelled-out by the first-draft part twos and Mark Of The Berserker.

Next season? Well, same again I assume.

:)

Stories this season:

The Last Sontaran
The Day Of The Clown
Secrets Of The Stars
The Mark Of The Berserker
The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith
Enemy Of The Bane

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Enemy Of The Bane

All right, let's get the zombie-count of the way first.

If you've read my other reviews this season, then you might just recall that every single one of those stories has featured at least one zombie. To be clear, I consider a zombie to be a character who is not under the control of who they appear to be. (maybe there is a better word for this)

So, with five stories in a row this season all fulfilling this criteria, would story six make it a full-house?

Right from the word go, here's Rani's entranced mum:


She's been hypnotised by Miss Wormwood. It's a bit like when she was taken-over by the Ancient Lights three stories back, complete with the observer waving their hand in front of her eyes to try to make her blink...


However although Gita is once more standing there like a zombie, fulfilling many other definitions of the word, she don't fulfil mine.

Gita isn't actually doing anything, so isn't, by the strongest definition, actually being controlled. She's really just asleep. So I don't, hand on heart, count her as being a zombie.

Whew!

Of course, then we meet these 'people':









(There are two others, but we don't see them transform)

So, yes, by my definitions, they actually did it. They actually made every single story this series, bar none, include a zombie, or at least a character-who-is-not-under-the-control-of-who-they-appear-to-be.

Letting go of that, ('cos I know I need to) what continues to compensate for The Sarah Jane Adventures' shortcomings for me, is the ease with which it embraces Doctor Who's wealth of mythology.

Scarcely a story goes by without a line of dialogue or a prop concealed somewhere that unobtrusively benefits from this. There's no patronising fear here that today's kids will be too thick to understand that fifty-something Sarah has a past.

This story features the most unashamed riff yet, with the reappearance of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Retired).

Beginning in The Web Of Fear in 1968, he was in the original Doctor Who series on and off for over twenty years, not to mention a heap of subsequent spin-offs. Here he gets called-in by Sarah to help her and Rani break-into UNIT's 'Black Archive' to get hold of an ancient scroll.

The very idea of two actors who used to appear together in the mid 1970s still continuing that act over 30 years later, in a show aimed at children who are far too young to remember the original, is exactly the sort of thing that usually gets stopped these days.

Then, and now:



I can't see the problem myself, and neither apparently can this team. Any kid with no prior knowledge of Who would surely have understood that Sarah had met this guy before, and just got on with watching the rest of the story as normal. A few of them might even have looked-up the old episodes afterwards.

His contribution over, the Brig then takes a backseat for the rest of the tale, which is probably lucky for him as, in a surprising break from the norm, this is not an end-of-season spectacular. It's much more low-key, focusing instead on Luke's having to choose whether to pledge his loyalties to Sarah (who repeatedly saves Earth) or the evil Miss Wormwood. (who... feels differently about it)

It's obviously impossible to accept that Luke has any struggle whatsoever with this choice, but it must be noted that in this script, he's just one of several members of the regular cast who suddenly lose much of that depth that they've been busily building-up for the past two years.

Aside from Luke's hard-to-understand confusion, the idea that Miss Wormwood might have some kind intentions is, well, a bit of a surprise, as is Clyde's disappointing regression back to his shallow identity from when he first joined.

Clyde: "So is this it - the day Clyde Langer finally hooks-up with UNIT? Locked and loaded – ready to fight the scum of the universe!"

(HE MIMES COCKING A SHOTGUN)

Sarah: "Haven't I taught you there are better ways of dealing with aliens than guns?"

While its plot just about holds, I'm afraid I found the overall script to be one of the weakest of both series, only beaten-into second-last place by the still-awful Revenge Of The Slitheen.

Still, some nice lines, ("Luke, I am your mother!") and another opening episode that was quite fun.

:)

Mission: Impossible II

Fun action flick which misses its chance to double as a clever spy story.

There are a few too many moments when someone pulls-off a face-mask to reveal that they are in fact someone else. In the final scene therefore, I guess we could really be watching anyone.

It also suffers from the time-honoured appearance of a device that should really have been used already, but so what.

It delivers fun, action and excitement, so if that's enough for you, then great.

Review of preceding movie here.

Cypher

*** Contains spoilers ***

Well-written and thoroughly absorbing sci-fi thriller, about a man caught-up in espionage between two rival computer-firms in the near-future.

Jeremy Northam plays everyman Morgan Sullivan, who passively finds a way to take breaks from his oppressive marriage by secretly becoming a spy for Digicorp. It's the perfect opportunity for him to live a double-life and play-around with dreaming-up a new identity for himself.

His job is easy – get flown around America to secretly audio-record events at meetings that he's perfectly entitled to be present at. You or I could do that, making Morgan easy to identify with. The trickiest part is explaining it all away to his wife.

Then he discovers that the audio-recorder / microtransmitter that he's been issued with has, all along, been a dud.

So... Digicorp must be flying him to all these meetings for another, private, reason then. But what?

When he discovers what is actually taking place, but still not why, he has to muster all that passivity he's so good at just to remain unnoticed and stay alive.

Then the only way out becomes to instead passively trust Digicorp's competitors. And so it goes on, as poor Morgan realises that there is just no escape from the enormous mindgames of the ever-multiplying factions around him, all of whom are so keen for him to continue playing-along with their equally-powerful competitors. He can't trust anyone, but he has to remain loyal to one of them.

There's so much twisting, turning, and rewriting of everything that's happened so far in this, that what impressed me more than anything else about this film was that I actually kept track of it all! That's quite a big complement I'm paying there to the writer – Brian King - and the director – Vincenzo Natali.

Natali's more famous work is Cube, which didn't quite all follow-through for me. As a result, this is automatically better.

There are probably holes in the plot that I haven't noticed, but until I do, this gets a 9.5.

Not a zero.

The Barron Knights – Get Knighted

Broadcast on 7:15pm on 1st January 1983 on Channel 4, this is the Barron Knights performing a mixture of live numbers and specially-shot videos to many of their well-known, and lesser-known, comedy-songs.

"Weird Al" Yankovic may have since cornered the market in famous song-parodies with new lyrics about food, but the Barron Knights were arguably there first, transforming Queen's famous Bohemian Rhapsody into a number all about overeating.

"I see you scoffing cream cakes and jam.
In your mush! In your mush!
Oh, where did that meringue go?"

Although many of the actual jokes are quite tame, the band's good humour and friendliness elevates almost every number to one that you can't help at least smiling at. For example, I didn't find 'Evolution' particularly gag-packed, but the fact that it's performed by a David Bellamy character, together with such a jazzy underscore, makes the whole thing feel like a sequence from The Goodies.

Some other tracks function perfectly well as serious songs in their own right, were it not for just the occasional bit of silliness creeping-in to scupper everything, often purely in the realisation.

One such song features a man singing of his heartfelt love down a telephone-line, only to keep-on getting cut-off every time his money runs out. It's tracks like this and 'Water' that demonstrate just how straight they'll play it for the sake of a laugh. At one point, there actually is a completely serious song, a revelation that somewhat confuses the context of subsequent numbers.

Having got first together in 1959 under the name "The Knights Of The Round Table", they changed their name to "The Barron Knights" the following year, and are still booked-out with live concerts of their catchy songs well into 2010.

With Peter Langford the only remaining member of the original line-up, at some point, it would be nice if he actually did get knighted.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

*** Contains Spoilers ***

*** (particularly at the start) ***

It may have been 13 years since I saw the trailer to this, but one line of dialogue has resolutely remained in my head, in some form, the whole time...

"This whole operation was a decoy!"

Hardly a smart plot-development to give-away in a trailer.

But, y'know, with a plot this complex, maybe making it that obvious actually helped.

I've said it so many times on here, but I'm still no good at following murder-mysteries, a fact which, strangely, may be one reason why I enjoyed this.

For without the necessary brain-power to take the plot apart and try to understand it, I was able to simply assume that everything worked, and believe that this story was indeed as intricate and cerebral as it appeared.

I guess it helped that there are some terrific action sequences in here. The whole silent progression of events when Hunt breaks-into the CIA had my full attention, as did the final mad helicopter / train chase through a tunnel. If my assumption about the plot was correct, then this film had cleverness and brainlessness in equal huge amounts.

There's a little bit of emotional depth that threatens to get in the way, but fortunately not much. Mission: Impossible is hardly a touchy-feely franchise. These guys just get on with their jobs as logically as they have to.

In tone, I found this surprisingly true to the original TV series too, especially the opening case (in which they unexpectedly turn-out to have been set-up). Even the dreadfully-conceived face-masks are retained for this.

However the inclusion of the TV show's longest-running lead character - Jim Phelps - is also the film's biggest clanger.

The original actor – Peter Graves – quite understandably refused to appear upon learning that after six TV series, he was to now turn evil and get killed-off. Incredibly, the film's producers somehow thought that Mission: Impossible's audience would disagree with him, and even went to the extent of casting a brand new actor in the same role.

Really – if they can change the morality of a lead character for whom we've rooted for so long, then we can hardly root for Tom Cruise's character either. He could likewise suddenly turn-out to be evil at any moment. Duh.

Even renaming the new Phelps character "Dan Briggs" (his predecessor from the very first season) would have been a more respectful solution.

Anyhew, the accidental benefit of this central howler is that it's very much up to the viewer whether this film counts as 'real' Misson: Impossible or not. If you do like it, then this is 'the' Jim Phelps, only played by a different actor, continuing the same role. If you don't like it, then the new actor clearly proves that this is a reboot, and can be dismissed as outside the main canon.

Me? Well I obviously didn't like Phelps' treatment, (as if you hadn't worked that out above) but I did like the rest of the movie. So, I'd really like to suppose that 'Jim Phelps' is simply the position's codename, which maybe several different agents have operated under...

(brief review of Mission: Impossible II here)

Red Dwarf: Back To Earth

*** Contains Spoilers ***

*** Also Contains A Bit Of A Fan-Rant ***

It’s official - Red Dwarf is the Lazarus of TV science-fiction.

No matter how long it's gone off the air for, it's always managed to claw its way back, and this time, after waiting an incredible ten years for it, thank God it finally has.

Not that this 'eleventh series' was especially good. It's just that Red Dwarf has reinvented itself so much over the last 20 years, and inevitably made so many mistakes with it, that my expectations of this series were apprehensively low.

Easy to satisfy then! :)

Sure enough, they've ignored the cliffhanger at the end of the last series, wordlessly swapped new Rimmer for the old one again, and once more jetisoned Kochanski and Holly. They've also gone back to the cold filmic look, and even rashly done away with the laugh-track. Add to that the vague title (they're always getting back to Earth), the slow pacing, (audience-laughter would have tightened that up) and the number of holes in the story, and we have a series that I've thoroughly enjoyed simply because it is, inarguably, Red Dwarf.

After all, with this show, getting the obvious things wrong is part of the norm. (still wish they'd given it a laugh-track though, really, it just doesn't feel funny without it...)

For all that, most of my internal plot-concerns were resolved by the events of part three, which is classic stuff, and enthralling as a result. Even if the whole thing is just a long remake of Back To Reality.

The scene in part two when Rimmer zooms-into three reflections in a photograph in order to read what's written on a piece of paper facing away from the camera is sheer genius.

I would still like to know how the Cat hid a baby despair-squid on Starbug for the whole of seasons 6 and 7 though. :)

And so, once more, we dig our heels in and wait for news of when the BBC might yet deign to make a few more episodes of this series that so many of its viewers actually want to watch, even despite its sprawling quality and haphazard style.

Maybe they never will. The BBC seem far more interested in creating new series that have no guaranteed audience. Still, at least this was a much better way to go out than the end of season eight.

An opinion that, apparently, the programme-makers share.

:)

Watch this clip - exclusive to YouTube!:

So It's Come To This – A Blog Clips Show

It took a bit of doing, (well, 999 bits actually) but this morning I published my 1,000th blog post.

As I've taken 15 posts down over the years for the odd random reason, today's clips-show is a complete index of the remaining 984 entries, broken-up into the sections that they seem to have naturally fallen-into.

1. Autobiographical
2. Bible reviews
3. Book reviews
4. Celebrity Bible-Readers
5. Comic reviews
6. Doctor Who reviews
7. Film reviews
8. Games
9. Multimedia-ish posts
10. Music reviews
11. Radio reviews
12. Stage reviews
13. TV reviews

Some fell-into more than one category, while anything that seemed miscellaneous I just lumped in with 'autobiographical', which they all are, really.

Without a doubt, the posts that I have enjoyed writing the most are the autobiographical ones. For better or worse, my life is a little less-eventful these days, so those pieces have accordingly dried-up lately. I find this a shame, because without them I just wouldn't bother.

So - are 1,000 blog-posts something to be proud of or not? Should I punch the air at such an achievement, or curl-up and hide my shame at having wasted so much of my life on such introspection - worse, introspection on the flipping internet?

I just don't know, but I'm glad to have spent that time actively writing 1,000 articles, rather than more passively, say, watching 1,000 movies or TV programmes. (today's list proves I've only watched 400) ;)

(there are other websites out there that one can spend this amount of time on, with much less to show for it afterwards)

In fact, this index page has been a long time in coming. I've been aware for a while that the only search-devices on here have been the text search-box at the top, and the monthly archives in the side-bar. Not much good for browsing. The milestone of the thousandth post has simply given me the motivation to finally put it together.

For anyone who's interested, I compiled the list by copying and pasting all the hyperlinked titles into an OpenDocument spreadsheet, which allowed me to save them all as html code. Then I simply rearranged them all into order.

Nearly all the 50-odd hits that this blog currently gets each day are for posts from the past, so maybe, just maybe, this will enable casual surfers, be they Bible-Readers or Doctor Who fans, to see what else on here might be of some vague interest.

But still – a thousand? Maybe the time taken to write all that is hard to justify.

The only explanation that I can offer is that I write because, as a writer, I have to.

Is that really such a bad reason?


Fig. 1: In Howick in March 2006, looking forward to celebrating my 1,000th post in three-and-a-bit years' time.

Mission Inaction

I've written before about church services that I've been to in the UK recently which, for some hard-to-define reason, have slightly irritated me.

The same church runs a couple of services during the week aimed at retired people, or as they're called, "seniors". I've been to a few of these, and actually quite like them. There was one recently that featured a guest-speaker talking about how his organisation goes out to equip Anglican ministers in Africa. This week it was a video about hearing dogs for the deaf, complete with guest dog. Afterwards I usually chat to people, and get to help clear-up, which is what I tend to feel most at home doing.

Last Thursday I missed their healing service due to meeting David for a coffee at Starbucks. Afterwards I was poking around W H Smith, when I spotted one of the ladies from the group, who uses crutches. We had a brief chat, and she asked why I'd missed that morning!

Then on Saturday, on my way to the BFCC, I found a guy holding-onto the side of Richmond Bridge for support. He was drunk, and I realised I'd also seen him singing around the riverside a month or so back. I chatted to him, and got him onto a bus home.

Tonight I went to a PACT meeting at the church. ('Prayer and Action Changes Things') I was deliberately half an hour late as usual, because I know how church-groups usually spend that first half-hour.

We watched a video about water and sanitation in the third world, prayed, signed postcards and wrote campaign letters. (I'm going to fax mine)

Throughout the meeting, there was a homeless guy asleep in a chair next to me. Locking-up, we had to ask him to leave. It was even harder than that – his ankle and shin were wrapped-up in bandages. Bandages that had brown stains, and not because he'd spilt any of the coffee on offer down them.

Having listened to him for a bit, including his understandable concerns about amputation, I said "I'm not a doctor, but even I can see that that needs redressing." He agreed to let us phone for an ambulance, and I realised I was a bit useless without a mobile.

The ambulances, as it turned-out, were backed-up, so there would be a long wait of an unknown duration.

I was impressed with the way a girl there sat listening to him with such an overwhelming amount of sympathy. I was impressed because of my disconnection from any feelings for his plight. When she went outside to look for the ambulance, I took her seat again and got chatting with him about movies like Get Carter.

It was getting closer to midnight. I seemed to be the only one left without work in the morning, so in the end I took him on two buses across town to get to the A&E department of West Mid hospital.

Despite the full waiting-room, a nurse called him in instantly, however this initial examination was only a precursor to an estimated four-hour wait to be seen by a doctor. Well, I wasn't hanging around for that.

I walked back home, getting-in at about 1am.

Once more assisting, or maybe just talking to, individuals on the street holds the comfort of familiarity for me, but in all honesty, it's not something that I have a burning passion for. I see it as being a bit like doing the washing-up – it has to be done, so you do it on autopilot.

Basically, I have no love.

So according to that famous piece in 1 Corinthians, all my efforts are useless, right?

But then on the other hand, I like to think that my lack of any actual feelings for the guy also enabled me to be somewhat authentic with him. That girl who had been giving him so much sympathy, well I'll take that at face value and assume that she was being authentic too, but in a different way that I can't.

I feel the same way about the seniors' services that I've attended. I do like helping-out, but I've no real underlying passion. Or if I have, I can't feel it.

I just do it because it's the right thing to do.