ABC - 28th January 2009 - 9.00pm

Now where were we?

Oh, yes. Back in November Sam got a lead that took him to a basement where something really strange happened but we don't quite know what yet. And Sam's dad shot him. So, then ABC doesn't schedule any further episodes until this week. Do we get any inkling of the previous events in new episode Take A look At The Lawmen ? No, we effing don't. Talk about stringing us along and then pretending nothing important happened back in November. Still, it's actually rather comforting to have the U.S versions of Sam, Gene and company back.



The story again mirrors an original UK episode (the rivalry between Gene and Harry Woolf in the first episode of Series 2) but manages to take the similar relationship between Gene and Lt. Anthony Nunzio and spin this out into a more detailed and personal story of how both of them loved the same woman and Nunzio has held a long-running grudge against Gene Hunt for succeeding in marrying her. It's a well played, slightly sentimental story and offers Harvey Keitel some particularly good opportunities to further flesh out his version of Gene, show his vulnerability and tenacity. The competition between the two police officers and their precincts to solve a bank robbery and murder is more or less played as farce. The opening sequence, where Gene and Sam are trying to talk down a would-be suicide from a window ledge, even goes for very black humour. After a few jokes about mobile phones, Nunzio arrives and brags that he can use reverse psychology on the poor man and get him down. Yelling at him to jump actually has the unintended but desired effect - he jumps and kills himself.

...the comedy gives it a feel of Prizzi's Honour

This comedy is eventually taken to some rather silly extremes. The bank robbery is tied in with a mob of Russian gangsters (perhaps some comment on the black market regime of the oligarchs in the present day Russian Federation) and there is a great deal of rather talky, slow paced scenes in the episode and the comedy gives it a feel of Prizzi's Honour but one lacking in much charm or sophistication. The confrontation between Gene, Nunzio and the Russians turns into a fist fight around and in a swimming pool to the strains of Thin Lizzy's 'Whiskey In The Jar', not in itself a bad match, but you are left feeling it would have been so much better to have re-capped on the strange events of Episode 7 than spend a whole episode gearing up for a comedy fight in a pool. There are some splendid locations to compensate - the pool area is a lavish rococo affair as is the rather splendid building for the bank robbery.



More successful was the attempt to give Sam some love action. Social worker Maria Belanger, spikily played by Maggie Siff, doesn't beat around the bush when it comes to fancying Sam. Sam actually gets laid! And he clearly enjoys it, much to the annoyance of Annie who then spends most of the episode figuring out her relationship to Sam. The conclusion to this love triangle is a bluff - Annie attempts to tell Sam something, we assume she's going to confess her love for him, but then Maria's dad turns out to be Gene himself and thus Annie's actually trying to impart this to Sam. It's a good twist on the relationship and the timing between Gretchen Moll, Jason O'Mara and Siff is spot on. Perhaps the best scene in the episode.

...the series is still not building up the double-act between Ray and Chris

Jason O'Mara is as strikingly handsome as ever and his 'innocent abroad' take on Sam Tyler is very appealing and he's fast become the backbone of the series along with Keitel. There are still strange little moments involving miniature robots popping out of corpses in the street and from under the skin of a suspect he's interviewing that seem to have a connection the 'soul' of Sam Tyler and how it is still chained to the present day. Michael Imperioli is improving each episode and this is perhaps his most rounded performance as Ray. Jonathan Murphy gets a few more lines as Chris but the series is still not building up the double-act between Ray and Chris that made the UK series such fun. If they're trying something different then their tendency is to leave Chris on the sidelines in the U.S series.



So, not a terribly exciting episode to re-open the season with and that's not going to help the series in the ratings. It's slow, the bank robbery plot never really engages and the comedy is often misplaced. A shame because all the performances remind us that they've got a pretty good ensemble cast who do their best to try and make scripts like this one work. Not even their efforts can save this from being dull.

ABC Life On Mars site

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S P O I L E R S
A H E A D

More filming took place on the 26th January in St. Mary's Street (the site of Henrik's where Rose used to work) complete with bus, David Tennant and Michelle Ryan. Ace DWF reporter Scooty was on site: "Filming had been going on since about 8pm...part of the road, just down from Howells had been closed and the red double decker was parked up. The one scene, that was endlessly being shot from various angles was DT and MR getting onto the bus. MR gets on first, looking rather panicked, talks to the bus driver, then takes her seat. DT follows, flashes his psychic paper at the driver then takes his seat next to MR."





27th - 28th January also saw the crew return to the Butetown tunnel and filming of more UNIT sequences, complete with rocket launcher! Man on the spot alun.vega had this to report: "There's a barricade facing the tunnel entrance. UNIT soldiers pointing guns into the tunnel. Stage directions say: "The bus flies over your heads. Monsters fly out of the tunnel." The soldiers raise their guns as if tracking something flying over them." Lots and lots of shooting (as in UNIT troops firing), Magambo shouting orders and rocket launchers firing.








And here's Brian_Damage's location video of the whole thing too!



And mugim0e's close up view:



The evening of the 28th also saw David Tennant, Lee Evans and Michelle Ryan on set at the tunnel with the double decker bus and the TARDIS. Pictures from the brilliant alun.vega!





And here's ahremsee's video of this filming too!



With special thanks to Scooty, alun.vega, brian_damage, mugim0e and ahremsee from the Doctor Who Forum for their reporting, photos and video. Splendid stuff.

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"If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door."

Getting the dramatised story of Harvey Milk to the screen has been something of an ongoing battle. Back in 1991, Oliver Stone was originally going to produce the film after having written a script, The Mayor Of Castro Street. By 1992 Gus Van Sant was assigned to direct with Robin Williams in the lead role but he then left the project due to creative differences with Warner Bros. By 2007, The Mayor Of Castro Street was being prepped by Bryan Singer whilst Van Sant was back to direct a new script, that became Milk, by Dustin Lance Black. Singer's production stalled due to the writer's strike but Van Sant's moved ahead with Sean Penn now signed as the lead. Milk is the fruit (forgive the pun) of a long cherished desire to bring Harvey's story to a wider cinema audience.

...the hope is that this superb film will galvanise future opposition to such anti-gay measures.

So what's so important about Harvey Milk? I first found out about Harvey Milk back in 1984 (I was 22 and still closeted) with the release of Ron Epstein's brilliant documentary The Times Of Harvey Milk. I just can't stress how life-changing Milk's story was to me personally. Probably for most gay men of my generation the activism of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, was and continues to be an inspiration. Milk's courage and hope in eradicating bigotry and his fight for equality certainly helped me to finally come out, recognise the rich history of gay activism and understand the need to continue the fight for equality, particularly in the early days of the AIDS crisis. It's as much a part of my gay upbringing as Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant. Van Sant's film reaffirms that struggle. It is ironic that Milk was released in the middle of the Presidential campaign of October 2008 and the general elections where California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 legislation was passed, paralleling the anti-gay rights Proposition 6 that is explored in the film. Milk would have been outraged at Proposition 8 and the hope is that this superb film will galvanise future opposition to such anti-gay measures.

Van Sant's use of archive footage is inspired

Milk opens with 1950s and 1960s newsreel footage of gay bars being raided by police, patrons being arrested and cuffed, finally capped by Dianne Feinstein's November 1978 announcement that Supervisor Milk and Mayor Moscone had been assassinated. This use of archive footage allows Van Sant to mark out his historical territory with the film, slipping the narrative back and forth through periods of time, embedding the drama within actual footage, creating a powerful verisimilitude. He pulls you into the times and places, in which most of the grand narrative is set, with great ease using this technique. The other device that works extremely well is the single narrator of Milk himself as he records his initial thoughts about a potential assassination, effectively his last will and testament, into a tape recorder nine days before his actual murder. The fact that you know Harvey's fate right from the opening titles doesn't dilute the power of the film, rather it energetically charges it towards a fateful conclusion which you know is coming and that you wish could have been different. Van Sant's use of archive footage is inspired and he mashes it up with faithful recreations of the events where his camera whips and whirls, matching the raggedness of the clips he's used. It often gives the film a dream like quality.

Sean Penn, playing Milk, provides a captivating performance

The film does tend to stutter into life, flitting forward in time until it finally settles down and takes the story of Milk and his first lover Scott Smith to San Francisco, an old camera store and the dawning of Harvey's political views. Various unsuccessful campaigns are covered until Milk wins a seat on the Board Of Supervisors for the city. Sean Penn, playing Milk, provides a captivating performance, incredibly well observed, thought out and powerful in his understanding of Milk's complexity. His mission to demystify Milk, that is to knock the halo to one side slightly and show a rather calculating, often smug, but passionate man, whose hunger for political success often eroded away his personal life, is entirely and beguilingly successful. You fully believe in Penn and it is quite an astonishing piece of acting. Milk subsequently meets fellow Supervisor Dan White, former police officer and firefighter. White, a politically naive conservative has a complicated and difficult relationship with Milk. White is played by Josh Brolin and, uncannily and eerily, he looks like Dan White. As White, Brolin seethes and twists with resentment and awkwardness, an intense performance that catches the impulsiveness of the man, brooding over Milk's mastery of the media and political zeal. He even manages to evoke some sympathy for the disgraced Supervisor with a performance that does show how brittle the man was in the face of Milk's often overwhelming charisma.

Van Sant's balancing of the political and the personal is astute, if a little tokenistic

As the film hurtles towards its conclusion, Milk is fighting against the Proposition 6 anti-gay legislation foisted upon the states by conservatives John Briggs and Anita Bryant. The Proposition, if passed, would effectively sack any gay teachers or empathetic colleagues from state schools. His relationship with Scott has ended due to his intense commitment to politics and his relationship with Jack Lira, a sweet-natured but unbalanced young man, comes to a shocking end when Lira, paranoid, jealous and angry perhaps about all the attention Harvey is pouring into his political career and colleagues and where there is little time for him, hangs himself. Van Sant's balancing of the political and the personal is astute, if a little tokenistic, but could possibly have had a richer intensity in the film if he hadn't quite paid so much attention to Milk's politics. What personal moments there are, are handled well but I think we could have done with more, redressing the balance slightly. Lira's death is shocking but I was slightly taken aback by this vision of Harvey, denying a period of mourning and getting right back on the campaign trail. It makes Milk appear heartless because there isn't a point later where he does pause for thought about Lira. James Franco is darn sexy as Scott Smith and quite honestly there wasn't enough of him in the film. Scott's story is rather brief, he disappears half way through and only returns towards the conclusion. As Lira, Diega Luna provides a suitably twitchy, claustrophobic performance but one that does grab the audience's sympathies.

...you have got to give them hope

Prior to the actual assassination, I did find the prefiguring by Harvey of his own death by watching a performance of Tosca a bit ridiculous. Its heavy handed symbolism; Tosca is about political torture and killing and suicide with a sadistic twist. The three main protagonists die in quick succession; is not helped by the unintentionally hilarious footage of Catherine Cook's Tosca tumbling off the castle ramparts and restating the opera's theme by having it be the last thing Milk sees through his office window. Yes, Milk did go to see a performance the night before he died and his office was opposite the San Francisco Opera House but Van Sant's use of it seems a bit overwrought. The confrontation between Milk and White, however, and Milk's gunning down is brutal and cold, really dispassionate and all the more upsetting for it. Van Sant avoids mawkishness and just shows the deed as clinically as possible. I also dare anyone not to shed a tear over the candlelit vigil (it's also the moment in Rob Epstein's documentary where I really lose it too) or not get carried away by Harvey's wonderful 'Hope' speech as the film reaches its emotional catharsis at just the right point.

"Two days after I was elected I got a phone call and the voice was quite young. It was from Altoona, Pennsylvania. And the person said "Thanks". And you've got to elect gay people, so that thousand upon thousands like that child know that there is hope for a better world; there is hope for a better tomorrow. Without hope, not only gays, but those who are blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's: without hope the us's give up. I know that you can't live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope."

And here in the 21st Century with an African American President in the White House perhaps we've finally got a little bit more of that hope. A terrific film deserving of its awards and critical reception, with a stunning Sean Penn performance and an uplifting, hopeful and uncynical message about the power of personal politics.

MILK (Cert 15. Released January 23rd 2009. Directed by Gus Van Sant)

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BBC3 - 25th January 2009 - 9.00pm

The pilot went out last February and immediately developed an appreciative following who petitioned BBC3 Controller Danny Cohen to commission a series. After all, he'd jumped at Phoo Action, another of the six pilots that aired, and commissioned that. And Being Human was far better. A year on and Phoo Action didn't make it past the commissioning stage and Being Human arrives for a six part run on BBC3 minus the brilliant Andrea Riseborough who played the original Annie and Guy Flanagan as the original Mitchell. Still hanging on in there is the sweet Russell Tovey as George. And the catch? Mitchell's a vampire, Annie's a ghost and George is a werewolf and they share a flat.

...which raised a cheer in this house at the sight of Tovey's bare arse

Writer Toby Whithouse and Matthew Bouch have seemingly gone back to the drawing board and basically tweaked a number of elements from the pilot claiming to have made it less Gothic and more funny. The pilot's now not considered part of the series. So, the first episode interestingly takes the set up from the pilot and squashes it down into brief origins for the main characters that opens the first episode and highlights some of the subplots that are later teased out in the episode. We get a voice over from Annie and flashbacks to how Mitchell became a vampire and George became a werewolf. These are done really well, suggesting a First World War setting for Mitchell's transformation at the fangs of Herrick (here played with oily menace by Jason Watkins and played in the pilot by Adrian Lester) and his seduction of Lauren; George's encounter in the Scottish Highlands with a cursed creature which raised a cheer in this house at the sight of Tovey's bare arse (he was not averse to spending much of the pilot in nude and semi-nude states) and finally a backstory for Annie (now played by Lenora Crichlow) who is seen on the floor in a pool of blood and haunting her own wake.

great ensemble playing

This immediately gets into its stride with the goofy scene between Annie and the pizza delivery fella. Clearly excited that a mortal can see her, she fires off a barage of questions at the rather bewildered chap who ends up confessing he trained on his moped in a car park and lives with his dad. She's also delighted that the driver of the local recycling van called her a slag. Crichlow hits the ground running and provides a somewhat more upbeat interpretation of Annie here. Tovey steps straight back into George's shoes too and Mitchell (now played by the much sexier Aiden Turner) continues his struggle to 'keep off the wagon' as far as draining people of blood is concerned. Tovey is so endearing and Crichlow and Turner both effortlessly slip into their characters to provide great ensemble playing. All three want to have a normal life - George and Mitchell work at the local hospital trying to keep down normal jobs whilst coping with George's 'time of the month' werewolf transformations and Mitchell's blood addiction. Back home, Annie fills the house up with cups of unwanted tea and makes an attempt to get seen by her former love Owen, who is also the landlord.

...genuine moments of emotional drama

The great thing about this is that it mixes the farcical elements of traditional British sit-com; accidental meetings, frenetic activity, unlikely coincidences; with riffs on classic modern horror movies like An American Werewolf In London, The Hunger, Dog Soldiers complete with fairly gory sequences and convincing transformation effects. Like all good situation comedy it is more about the tragic consequences of the characters actions that push them into the social entrapment that epitomises the best of British comedy. With that then comes an empathy for the characters and some genuine moments of emotional drama. Here, the farce comes from George discovering that his isolation room, where he can turn into a werewolf without hurting anyone, is being converted into an admin block and he has to try and find somewhere to transform. This takes him on a frantic journey through the park, disturbing all sorts of nocturnal activity until he gives up, goes home and wrecks the flat. But whilst he undergoes his painful change, Annie watches and shares with us some of sadness at the pain of what George goes through before she has to leave him alone and wait for morning. They find George, curled up, foetus like amongst the rubble of the front room.

...the fine line between the monstrous and the human

Equally, both she and Mitchell have their dilemmas to face. Annie's chance meeting with her ex spins off into a gorgeous little scene between Tovey and Crichlow where they bond and share their troubles. Mitchell's problem is trying to date a woman without having to indulge his desire for their blood. This is further complicated by a previous date, Lauren, as seen in the opening 'origins' sequence, now a vampire and constantly pricking his conscience about his true nature. The tragedy is that she horrifically murders his date in a powerfully emotional scene to prove a point and the episode delves into some very dark corners about the nature of relationships, compulsive disorders, the fine line between the monstrous and the human. And it still manages a few laughs with the very stuff of everyday life: landlords, dates, dealing with your exes, going to the pub, trying to do your job. Also throw in Hettrick and his vampire mafia trying to get Mitchell on side and you've got a very heady brew and an entertaining comedy drama. Although Demons may be for an earlier timeslot it could learn a great deal from its wiser, wittier and should we say, more British counterpart on BBC3. In comparison to the pilot, this opening episode does tone down the Gothic trappings, particularly with Herrick and his cohorts but actually felt less funnier. Instead, much more humanity has been injected into the characters who spend time articulating their sadness, fears and desires. Definitely one to watch.

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SCI-FI HD - 23rd January 2009 - 10.00pm

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR UK VIEWERS

So the search for Earth is over and with this chapter Ronald Moore examines just where that leaves all the various factions within the fleet, especially in relationship to the rebel Cylons. Now, you could argue that this is just a filler episode or a bottle show but I don't think it is. The destruction of hope is going to have its consequences and quite clearly Moore is setting out his stall to discuss what those consequences will be. Essentially, this is about the humans vying for political and military might over one another. Thus, we get the disenfranchised Tom Zarek, Baltar and Gaeta circling like vultures around Adama, Roslin and Starbuck.

is the crudity of his false leg symbolic of his need to remain human?

Gaeta. What a slippery little bastard he's turned out to be. Shacks up with the Cylons and Baltar back on New Caprica, gets spared an execution and loses a leg. He appears quite content to sell his soul to any of the various devils the show throws in his face but, apart from obviously feeling somewhat pissed off that he's now only got one leg and can't get the medical care because Doc Cottle's too busy cooing over the forthcoming Cylon kiddy, I still don't understand his real motivations. Beyond being as scared as anybody else, just what is it that he wants? Here's hoping that his fifth column dissention and partnership with Zarek will actually shed some light on this. For the moment, he just seems to be 'bigot for hire'. If he played his cards right surely he could get a nice new Cylon leg? Or is the crudity of his false leg symbolic of his need to remain human?



For Adama, again brilliantly played by Eddie Olmos, it's a case of picking up the pieces and using military jurisdiction to pull the fleet together. But he's falling apart. The poor bugger's knocking back the Anadin every five minutes and trying to fathom out what the hell has got into Roslin. She's popped her turban back on again, thrown her drugs away and is jogging round the ship like a maniac. She's pretty much given in to her cancer and it seems just wants to live out the rest of her days. The scenes between Adama and Roslin are again beautfully played. That final scene, in a sense, is their two fingers up to the rest of the world and, even though we've been building up towards the Adama/Roslin bed scene, it feels sad rather than happy. However, the other feeling I get here is that they are being complacent. Perhaps it's a generational thing too as both of them seem to have reached a point where they are almost prepared to devolve their power to younger men and women.

But then, aren't the Final Five citizens too?

Baltar returns too and whips his crowd of adoring fans into a frenzy as he takes pot shots at supposedly human and Cylon gods, the 'father' of the fleet (Adama surely) and the sin of ever believing these figures, real or imagined, would ever deliver them to the promised land. 'His' perfect plan is in tatters and Baltar's out for blood. There is a sense here that Moore is making this analogous to the Israel/Palestine struggle for recognition of a home state. Which is ironic considering that he's using the self-serving Baltar to make this comparison. Like Gaeta, I suppose, he's questioning the morality of forming an alliance with the Cylons - the same Cylons that four years ago wiped out the colonies and relentlessly hunted down and oppressed the remaining humans on New Caprica. There are some deep questions here about whether you can forgive the sins of your oppressors, put on your love beads and sing a few hymns or whether there should be a reckoning and you kick back. But then, aren't the Final Five citizens too? Don't they have rights?

In the middle of this is a rather weakly inserted soap opera element, Tyrol's questions about paternity when it is clear that his blood won't do to ease his son's renal failure. Sure, there are hints of a debate about racial purity in there, but the whole story element about Cally's unfaithfulness just seemed rather hastily bolted onto this script. It's obvious to me that they had to do this once Tyrol was revealed to be a Cylon as Hera is supposed to be the only living Cylon/human hybrid. A further weakness is Zarek's attempt to seize power. This clearly is something we've seen before - using a controversial issue to make a power grab by attempting to undermine the popularity of the decisions made by the current administration. Adama's bluff is well executed but we don't really understand Zarek as a complex character. If you compare him to Baltar, it is clear that he only thinks one way and lacks the subtle manipulation that Baltar has been using.



There are some lovely bits of sarcasm here too - from the crackling tension of the barbed conversation between Gaeta and Starbuck as he sticks the knife in about her attempt to chuck him out of the airlock for being a collaborator to Zarek's pot shot at Lee about how he's had so many jobs in the fleet. This is all building towards a face-off at some point during the remaining episodes. So, pretty much a set-up for the future, well directed by Moore himself, full of high quality performances and brilliant production values we've come to expect. Just not as good as last week.

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ITV1 - 24th January 2009 - 7.45pm

This is such a frustrating series. Lucy Watkins' script is half-decent, certainly the best one we've had so far, and she finally goes for the one thing that the series has definitely lacked so far; characterisation. And she deals a winning hand by taking the only decent character in the series, Mina Harker, and gives us back story, emotional motivation and positions the woman in a moral limbo. Mina, if you already hadn't guessed, is the Mina Harker from the Bram Stoker novel and Watkins logically develops the character from the book - she did get infected by Dracula' blood, she did have a son called Quincey - and spins a rather sad tale out of her desperation to save her son from the horrors of the First World War. To do so, she makes him a vampire and this week's episode primarily concerned the return of her prodigal son. What solidifies the drama are the two flashbacks to the war when Mina visits her son in a hospital as he dies. It adds dimension to a background that we kind of suspected in the first place.

the story dumps the feral nature of such creatures

Revived to the strains of AC/DC, Quincey prowls around London, attempting to persuade his 'half-life' mother to join him. Ciaran McMenamin is obviously channelling Spike from Buffy but does turn in a rather charming performance and a good chemistry is established between him and an exceptional Zoe Tapper. What's lacking is some genuine neck-biting! Quincy is a bit of a lame vampire - posing as a doctor to drain old patients dry in a blood donor clinic - and he smoulders wonderfully but, along with the traditional means of seeing off blood suckers, the story dumps the feral nature of such creatures. And he has a side kick, Zippy, who can unzip his head. What exactly is the purpose of this? Sure, it makes for rather a daft bowling match, but is that how Zippy threatens people - by throwing his head at them?

He needs to be kicking ass and not sitting on it.

What also spoils these intriguing and engaging developments is the presence of Luke and Ruby. The series is clearly not benefiting from their presence and both Christian Cooke and Holliday Grainger remain irritating and one dimensional. Ruby's function seems to be to get one over on Galvin and bitch at Mina and Luke just simply seems to train at fighting and forget all his moves when it comes to the real deal. He points guns, pouts prettily and that's the lot. There are hints from Quincey that Galvin certainly has something to do with the death of Luke's father but like Mina's true nature, we kind of guessed that from day one. Galvin now seems to mutter his way through each episode in his mid-Atlantic strangulated accent and actually does very little apart from blunder in to each situation and get captured. There's no sense of this man having real power, of being a threat to the various beasties that roam the city. He needs to be kicking ass and not sitting on it. Again, poor old Glenister goes through the motions but doesn't seem to be able to imbue Galvin with any depth.

all the characters assume they've been funny and laugh their socks off

The story moves along slowly and as it isn't about smiting creatures every five minutes a younger audience may well have been bored senseless by now. The reveal in the final act, that Quincey is Mina's son and she is a vampire who dampens her urges by treating her own blood, is worth waiting for. It seemed reasonable that to get Galvin and Ruby out of a sticky situation she would need to become a vampire to fight her own son. This leads to quite a good action sequence, a first for Demons as much of the action to date has been badly shot and choreographed, and I liked the fact that she can see in her vampire state. Bet she was glad she clapped eyes on Luke and Ruby, then. But again, it's another facet to her character that adds interest and is reasoned out. I didn't like all that nonsense about only vampires being able to kill vampires - it simply pisses all over established lore for no logical reason - and humans using living DNA to kill them just seems a very silly way to dispatch them. Stick to stakes and garlic - far more potential for drama. The death of Quincey is quite sad but then it's back to the 'stacks' for some light-hearted banter and a toe-curling conclusion where all the characters assume they've been funny and laugh their socks off. Didn't know it was a comedy.

Best episode so far then but the series has some very serious problems - two uninspiring young leads saddled with irritating roles, an experienced actor who has misjudged his playing of a central role, thin plotting and poor guest villains. It has to try much harder.

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City Of Death

October 1979

"I say, what a wonderful butler! He's so violent!"

"Well...you're a beautiful woman. Probably."

City Of Death is a triumph despite its make do and mend origins. Considering the scripts were last-minute, balls to wall, coffee inspired rewrites by Douglas Adams, David Fisher and Graham Williams, the plotting and dialogue are what lift an already pretty good production to its legendary status in the series canon. Not only does it manage a sublime pastiche of Dashiel Hammett and Mickey Spillane but it also spins off into Pink Panther caper-movie territory with a script that gives you exceptionally funny, almost Wildean, dialogue, that's meant to be serious exposition and also an abundance of terrific throw away lines too. It also resembles Bob Shaw's comical farce The Giaconda Caper, about a psychic detective hired to discover the mystery of an additional Mona Lisa. Overall, it is the template for the Williams era, where he was struggling to make his mark on the format against budgetary problems, and for four episodes he gets it spot on, with this being light years away from the mucking about with Daleks that started the season off.

...John Cleese and the TARDIS as art object

All the various elements from the production team are slotting together nicely here, creating iconic images and witty storytelling. There's the truly lovely Ian Scoones created visual effects sequences of the Jagaroth space ship hovering over, and then exploding above, the Earth's primordial landscape, the location filming in Paris accompanied by some of the best Dudley Simpson music in the series, Julian Glover pitch perfect as Scarlioni, the Tom and Lalla team at the height of their powers and then...John Cleese and the TARDIS as art object. Michael Hayes does a wonderful job of directing this, managing to contain the flippant indulgences and add in his own visual flourishes (the shot through the post card rack is pure French thriller) to serve the script well. Also throw in a delightful side-trip to Leonardo Da Vinci's studio and the BBC's usual high standards for period detail.

Talking of art, one of the major themes of the story is about how much art is worth financially as opposed to its aesthetic value. The debate is between Scarlioni, who pretty much embraces the view that the production of art is simply a mechanistic way to achieve wealth, and the Doctor, who by knowing Da Vinci and understanding the creative process, knows the true value of the work. This taps into the theories of Walter Benjamin and John Berger. Benjamin suggests being able to reproduce the image of the Mona Lisa again and again via means of technology has had the effect of that artwork losing its traditional ritual significance. Through Scarlioni's desire to reproduce the Mona Lisa the art of Da Vinci has slowly come to lose its very meaning as the importance of authenticity has become a far less integral component in investing meaning to the product itself. The writers and producers of the serial would also have been familiar with the contemporary, for 1979 at least, theories of John Berger - he takes the perspective that even if one is familiar with the culture in which, for instance, Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, one would still react toward seeing the painting based upon having seen it reproduced and placed in the context of modern culture. If one arrives to see the Mona Lisa with no knowledge of the Renaissance culture or only limited knowledge, it becomes impossible to assess the painting based upon its original aura and mystery.

....breaking a Ming vase over Catherine Schell's head

In the middle of this debate is Duggan, memorably played by Tom Chadbon, who is basically the audience identification figure here as the season continues to equalise the Doctor and Romana's relationship. He is also the antithesis to the Doctor's non violent status and could also perhaps be seen as an anti-aesthete as he is not only the object of the Doctor's objections to violence but also his criticisms for mishandling a Louis XIV chair and breaking a Ming vase over Catherine Schell's head. The irony is, of course, that his punch directed at Scaroth saves the world in true Bulldog Drummond style. This is also interesting from a political point of view in that Scarlioni is positioned almost as a Thatcherite monetarist prototype, playing with market forces to accrue wealth in order to re-establish an empire. The Doctor and Romana are a romanticised, freewheeling socialism quipping their way through crisis after crisis, not overtly concerned about the ambitions of any of their opponents. Ironic in that in 1979, it was Labour who were blindly optimistic and the Conservatives who were deeply pessimistic about their chances in the election. Following that election, Scarlioni should have been a shoe-in for universal domination. I also suspect there's a subtext in there about the Common Market too.



There are some problems with the serial. The acting is decidedly tongue in cheek and if you're a fan demanding serious commitment from actors then you might find the whole 'nudge, nudge, wink wink' attitude of the production hard to take. Many of the performances do go over the top but it suits the style of the story, which comes across as Riffifi meets Inspector Clouseau complete with cod-Frenchies in stripey jumpers and berets. The effects for the Jagaroth head sported by Glover are an immediate let down and are incapable of conviction. But it doesn't matter because Glover is so attuned to the script that, as in a lot of good stories with risible effects, you're happy to ignore it. The location filming does tend to outstay its welcome with a rather overlong tour of Paris landmarks in episodes one and two where obviously the team where trying to get their money's worth out of a few days shooting. Again, the ambience created is worth having and indulgences like this can be forgiven.

This is glorious fun.

City Of Death (the title surely a play on words; Paris is often known as the "City of Love" (Cité de l'amour). "City of Death" translates into French as Cité de la mort) is Williams' crowning achievement for the show and demonstrates, even if the scripts were put together at the last minute, what he and Adams could achieve with the combination of satirical, often surreal, humour, a leading man who was demanding his self-indulgence and good production values. The supporting cast are excellent, particularly Glover and Schell as the Count and Countess, an enthusiastic David Graham sports a mittel-European accent for the batty Kerensky, the direction is suitably ornate and the story is interesting and has a well-rounded, motivated villain. The time paradox doesn't quite work if you look at to too closely but it doesn't matter. This is glorious fun.

The two-disc DVD has all the episodes beautifully restored and includes;

• a wonderfully enthusiastic commentary from actors Julian Glover and Tom Chadbon and director Michael Hayes.
  
• "Springtime in Paris," a witty documentary looks at the making of "City of Death" and offers wealth of interviews with Adams and Hayes.
• "Paris, W12" provides newly unearthed, time-coded production footage from the BBC's archives.
  
• a collection of unused landscape and spacecraft shots and excerpts of how the filmmakers captured the chicken sequence.
  
• Plus a PDF of the 1980 Doctor Who Annual.

Essential.

CITY OF DEATH (BBCDVD1664 Region 2 DVD Cert 12)

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Michelle Ryan with David Tennant from this week's filming. Thanks BBC and WENN.com.





According to spoiler-hound 'Scooty' the filming in Cardiff tonight was "a complete guerrilla type shoot...90 mins in an alleyway in town, then straight down the Bay to Lloyd George Avenue to film David Tennant and Michelle Ryan sitting on the bus to Victoria. The bus drove up and down the road around 5 or 6 times. The alleyway stuff in town, was Michelle Ryan, dressed seductively in a cat suit, bursting forth from a door and running into a packed city street. Also armed police were seen to be arresting a businessman with a pink shirt. "

Meanwhile, an official announcement from BBC....



From the official BBC Doctor Who site:

"The BBC has confirmed that Michelle Ryan and Lee Evans will guest star in the forthcoming Doctor Who Easter Special which began filming this week in Wales.

Michelle, best known for her roles as Zoe Slater in EastEnders, and Jaime Sommers in the recent remake of Bionic Woman, will play the mysterious Lady Christina de Souza in the special episode entitled Planet of the Dead. Christina joins the Doctor on a bus-trip which takes a very unexpected detour into danger.

"I'm a huge fan of Doctor Who and very excited to be joining David Tennant and the Doctor Who team," said Michelle. "It is such a fantastic show and I can't wait to get started!"

One of Britain's best loved and biggest comedy stars, Lee Evans, will also be joining the cast playing a character called Malcolm, whose life becomes connected to the Doctor's under extraordinary circumstances.

Planet of the Dead is the first of four Doctor Who Specials which will air in 2009. Michelle joins David Tennant as he continues his role as The Doctor, and Noma Dumezweni who returns as Captain Erisa Magambo - last seen helping Rose and Donna save the world in Turn Left.

"Michelle is one of the most sought after young actors in the country and we are delighted to announce that she will be joining the team," said Executive Producer and writer Russell T Davies. "As always the script is being kept strictly under wraps - however we can reveal that Lady Christina is a woman with a mysterious past who's going to have a huge impact on the Doctor!"

Planet of the Dead, written by Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts, is currently in production and will be screened on BBC One in Spring 2009."

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S P O I L E R S

A H E A D

23/01/09

Filming did continue last night on Planet Of The Dead, despite the horrible weather. The crew were filming on the other side on the Bute tunnel, by the slip road up to Techniquest at around 12.30am. According to 'mugim0e' over on the DWF "it basically involved the red double decker bus and 3 police cars. David Tennant and Michelle Ryan were on set, and they were riding on the lower deck of the bus and sat next to each other. David Tennant had something in his hand that had a bright blue light shining. The scene was the bus coming over the bridge from ikea/morrisons direction and going through the tunnel with the 3 police cars following it with their lights on."

Mugim0e also managed to get some snaps featuring David Tennant and Michelle Ryan on the bus. Thanks for your brilliant work mugim0e.

The latest news is that Michelle Ryan is playing a character called Lady Christina de Souza and she will be joined by comedian Lee Evans, playing Malcolm.





19/01/09 to 22/01/09

At last, shooting has commenced on the next Doctor Who special, Planet Of The Dead. On the late evening/early morning of 19th January a BBC Wales crew filmed a number of scenes inside the National Museum Cardiff. The museum appeared to be doubling for the International Gallery described as "having a display of Incan/Roman and Egyptian artefacts".





Director James Strong appeared to be covering scenes inside the building involving a cat-suited blonde woman on "a series of ropes, pulleys and ballasts being used to swing (her) around". New producer Tracie Simpson was also on set, as was an old red Routemaster bus (the number 200 to Braintree which figures in later filming) and the charred skeletal remains of some poor victim which were seen being removed from the Museum. Rumours also have been doing the rounds that Michelle Ryan was filming in the role of Kristina/Christine.





On the 20th and 21st January the Butetown tunnel was closed off to traffic as the BBC crew moved in and set up for a further two nights of filming. Lots of extras dressed as UNIT troops in red berets and black uniforms were spotted at the filming base. There are also a few military-looking vehicles, police vehicles, and the reappearance of the mysterious bus. Filming took place inside the tunnel overnight, involving bright flashes, lots of 1970s era vintage cars, a bus full of extras and a smoking skeletal corpse prompting actor Glenn Doherty to exclaim "Get me UNIT. Emergency code one!"





And lo and behold! Lots of UNIT troops swamp the area.







Filming for the 21st/22nd is being hampered by the terrible weather and most of the filming unit has moved across to the opposite side of the tunnel but not a great deal of work is being done due to the heavy rain.

All this intrepid reporting and photography is from the ever reliable DWF gang of Scooty, Brian Damage, Alun Vega and Brigade Leader. Cheers, guys. You are 10/10 Awesome.

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SCI-FI HD - 16th January 2009 - 10.00pm

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR UK VIEWERS

Depressed yet? Much as we all love BSG for its gritty honesty, the latest episode, picking up from last year's mid-season finale, is perhaps the most depressing yet. Four years to get to Earth only to find it an irradiated landscape of hopelessness is a bit of a bummer but the next 45 minutes or so offers little further comfort, more jaw-dropping revelations and a very sad exit for one of the characters.

Starbuck is deeply troubled about what or who she is.

How this affects the family of characters is pretty much what writers Weddle and Thompson are interested in and the journey we go on is rather bleak indeed. As bodies are unearthed and examined we get a tantalising hint that the thirteenth tribe not only created their own Cylon centurions but they were Cylon hybrids too, wiped out 2000 years ago on Earth. Whilst there isn't much time spent examining the reactions from D'Anna, Leoben or Tory, the writers go hell for leather with further revelations. Starbuck and Leoben track the signal the fleet has followed and make a rather shocking discovery. The remains of Starbuck's Viper is scattered across the surface and after further searching they both find the charred remains of Starbuck. What this means is anyone's guess. Leoben is, for once, utterly terrified and Starbuck herself is deeply troubled about what or who she is. It's a hair-raising scene, adding more fuel to the argument that Starbuck is the figure of death one of the Hybrids told her she was.

...burning the book of prophecies

But really the writers were more interested in Dualla. They picked her to demonstrate what happens to an individal in the fleet reacting to and trying to process the fact that their long, bloody journey has brought them to a radioactive cinder. Dee is there right at the top of the episode, devasted and struggling to come to terms with it all. I suspect that most viewers were quite puzzled as to why the writers followed her, then showed her rekindling her relationship with Lee (something I think we all were rooting for as a symbol that life would carry on) and seemingly overcoming her turmoil. Perhaps it was an attempt to hoodwink you into believing she was the final Cylon. She then simply shoots herself in the head after leaving Lee. It's upsetting (Dee's been there since the pilot episode) and seems pointless. But it isn't. It is an honest reaction from someone who sees all hope crushed into pieces. Her last moments with Lee were simply something for her to cherish before pulling the trigger. Her suicide is the central act around which all the other characters spiral into hopelessness. Adama confronts Tigh and attempts to get the recently revealed Cylon to shoot him (a quite stunning scene between Eddie Olmos and Michael Hogan) and Roslin, the ever excellent Mary McDonnell with nylon wig still in place, retreats into a child like denial, shrinking with fear and burning the book of prophecies.

"It's okay. It's okay. Everything's in place. We'll be reborn -- again. Together."

More intrigue follows with Tyrol, Anders, Tory and, finally, Tigh all remembering former lives on the Earth. Tyrol indulges in a flashback/flashforward to a market square just as it gets nuked, Anders recalls a musical instrument he played (Bear McCreary using those wonderful musical motifs that woke the Final Five in the first place) and Tigh, walking waist high into the sea has a glimpse of his wife Ellen crushed beneath a building and revealing to him that they'd both be re-born eventually. This prompts Tigh to point the finger and claim Ellen as the last Cylon to be revealed. Unfortunately, if that is the reveal, well...it's excruciatingly disappointing. You're not telling me, after whipping us all up into a frenzy that probably would have generated enough electricity to provide the energy needs of a small country, that the producers seriously thought Ellen would be the right name to pull out of the hat just now? I don't buy it. It throws away all that careful plotting and build up over the last four years. And it caps a seriously good episode with a silly anti-climax. If true, then the writers and producers are very brave men and women to allow the build up to collapse into nothing. I still don't buy it. It's bonkers.



Despite that rather non-plussed ending, the episode demonstrates why BSG is so highly regarded. Full of great character moments, intriguing revelations about the overall plot arc and amazing performances that remind you why you watch the series. The excellent cast are in top form here, the aforementioned Eddie Olmos, Michael Hogan and also Katie Sackhoff in a particularly intense scene as she is silhouetted against the sky and builds a funeral pyre for the dead Starbuck, disposing of the evidence. A visually striking moment in an episode that weighs down the audience as well as the characters. Let's hope they find their way out of this eloquent sadness.

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