So Say We All

Here’s another show that I should have been blogging about a bit more often. Caprica is the much talked about prequel to Battlestar Galctica and it is quite brilliant. If you like your sci-fi as cold, hard-edged, futuristic “noir” then this is indeed the show for you. Looking glorious in high-definition on Sky, it tells the tale of the birth of the Cylons through the eyes of two significant but troubled familes. Mixing contemporary themes of terrorism, virtual reality, religeous extremism, and corporate corruption, the show weaves a tale of wonderful complexity and intrigue with good thriller writing. The fact we know the outcome of events (on the wider scale at any rate) actually works as a benefit to the viewer despite the logical conclusion being that knowing the outcome is in someway detrimental. I heartily recommend that you catch up with this if at all possible.

Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, HD, Sky

Any Guesses?

When Keeley Hawes announced at the start of Ashes to Ashes on Friday night with the words “My name is Alex Drake. And quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine”, I couldn’t have agreed with her more. This show, although less so its predecessor, Life On Mars, has always been about what’s happening on the fringes of the story rather than the story itself. In all the furore about Doctor Who at the weekend, I failed to blog about this installment but it does throw up an interesting comparrison. Doctor Who (since 2005) has, on the majority of occasions, been about telling an amazing adventure story set within a little bit of continuity, or “arcs” as we fans like to call them, thrown in to tease the observant. LoM and AtA

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Tags: Alex Drake, Ashes-To-Ashes, Gene-Hunt, Keeley Hawes, Life-On-Mars, Philip-Glenister, Sam-Tyler, Series 3

New Everything, That’s Weird

Do you remember that other fellow who used to play the Doctor: David, erm, something-or-other? No?! Me neither. Matt Smith was electric last night. It will be interesting to see how he develops into the role but the post-regenerative debut that he gave in the “Eleventh Hour” was fascinating. At first, he was a melee of arms and legs, struggling to come to terms with his new body. The eating scene raised a smirk, which is quite an effort on my part because I usually find that kind of base comedy a little off-putting: my inner snob gets released for a moment. But as he settled down, especially after the face-to-eye encounter with the Atraxi on the rooftop, I think we got to see a little bit more of how our new, favourite

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Tags: Adam Smith, Atraxi, David Tennant, eleventh hour, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, Murray Gold, Steven-Moffat, TARDIS, Theme

Matt and Karen are Everywhere

So Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are in publicity overdrive for series 1/5/31/Fnarg. Adverts are truning up all over the Beeb on TV and Radio with some nice special recordings made by the two stars as the TARDIS cleverly turning up in various studios. There are magazine covers galore with all the usuals like DWM (obviously, although there are two variants out tomorrow) and the Radio Times (who got the scoop on the new TARDIS interior) and other listing mags but also GT (never bought Gay Times before), a cover picture on the Times last Saturday and even some strange places like a technology mag I saw in Tesco earlier this week. Plenty of news reports are being made too, on local programmes and places like BBC Breakfast and Newsround, all now being spurred on by a bus going on tour round the country. All good stuff. It has led to the inevitable flurry of clips and a fair few spoilers for those who have got to see the episode early, so I imagine that there are a fair few spoiler-phobes hiding under their beds between now and Saturday night. So, how excited are you getting now? To help you on your way, here are some links from friends and Gallifrey Base users who’ll be tracking the new series…..

• Leadworth Green (by Gareth Bundy)
• Doctoreleven (Sarah’s LiveJournal)
• TV Lover (by Shawn Lunn)
• CathodeRayTube (by Frank Collins)
• Millenium Elephant
• The Medium Is Not Enough (by Rob Buckley)
• Nebula One
• Blogtor Who (brilliant for up-to-the-minute news and reviews)
• Behind The Sofa (many, varied, fun, and excellent contributions)

Tags: BBC Breakfast, bus, Gay Times, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, Newsround, Radio-Times, TARDIS

Have You Seen This Man?

Apologies for the corny title, but I was too excited to think straight after seeing Matt Smith on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross. A thoroughly likeable chap who I have no doubt charmed absolutely everyone watching in the studio and on the TV for that matter. Also featured was a new trailer and a quite brilliant clip of episode 6 “Vampires in Venice”. Next Saturday cannot come soon enough. I’ll leave the over-analysis to others while I just sit here in the comfortable satisfaction of knowing that I am going to love the new Doctor. Good to see that Wossy also followed the great tradition of always asking the new actor playing the Doctor when he was going to be leaving though.

Tags: clip, eleventh hour, Jonathan-Ross, Matt Smith, Preview

31,633,091 Reasons To Be Cheerful

I sat down to watch some of the Sport Relief telethon on Friday night. I say “some” because clearly the Other Viewer and I had to turn over at 9pm to watch the latest installment of Lost. The BBC telethon is an established TV event with the format becoming largely predictable: guest hosts, a few famous folk doing skits, some pop acts on to publicise their latest single, some heartbreaking reports of people so very much more worse off that you or I can imagine being, and Annie Lennox inevitably popping up at some point. It still surprises me though, that the Comic Relief nights (and its little sporty cousin) always seem to be more slickly produced affairs than the BBC’s own Children In Need charity. I blame the CiN cutaways to local TV,

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Tags: Annie Lennox, Children in Need, David-Beckham, James Cordon, Sport-Relief