Fazzinchi

General Grievous?

• The England cricket team: Why do they bother? Grievous Bodily Harmison needs a new nickname… something related to puppy dogs I should think. Just when it looked like Sidebottom could salvage something from the wreckage of the first test of the New Zealand tour at Hamilton, we conspire to collpase spectacularly (again). I’m just happy, like the England team apparently, to have been asleep through most of it. (more…)

Meet The Gang Cos The Girls Are Here

We’re 8 episodes into the new Torchwood series, at least, we are if you watch on BBC3/HD rather than the BBC2 version and I’ve written approximately… no reviews. Sorry. However, while everyone waits for my in-depth thoughts, what are my feelings on the story so far (I know you’re dying to know)?

• All in all, better than Series 1 (more…)

• Does Primeval have a future?  Well, yes clearly it does as the widely reported renewal for a third series shows but is it a future with me watching it?  It’s kind of fun, looks quite good and Paul Cornell’s episode on Saturday showed that it’s capable of good things but there’s something in there that bugs me.  Interesting that there is a viewer’s competition to design a monster for next series… will they get another Absorbaloff?
• Why has it all gone wrong for Rafa Benitez at Liverpool since he grew his beard?  Popular opinion seems (more…)

Where Did It All Go Right?

Much overdue but here, at last, are my considered thoughts on “Last of the Time Lords”, the final instalment of series three of Doctor Who. Even though it was loved and loathed in apparent equal measure within the picky world of fandom, the broadcast secured some very positive viewing figures that we all now seem to take for granted from these finales and fairly widespread acclaim.  Even the BBC invested a little extra in this televisual treat by commissioning an extra 8 minutes (more…)

24 meets Alien meets Red Dwarf meets….

It seemed to me that Torchwoood’s head honcho and first time Doctor Who writer, Chris Chibnall’s introduction to the bigger stage of the Whoniverse was a somewhat derivative storyline. Any genre fan worth his salt (never understood that phrase… answers on a postcard) would be able to spot at least a dozen similarities between this story and many other movies and programmes of a similar ilk. However, if you flip between either using the phrase “rip-off” or the phrase (more…)

Doctor Who Retrospective #9 of 10 “Boom Town” 

Boom Town got mixed reviews on first showing and in hindsight this may have been because it was shown following after The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances double bill, which will undoubtedly become one of the classic stories of the 43 years of this show’s history. It is certainly a filler episode, set in contemporary Cardiff (i.e. on the doorstep of the production team’s home) and features a re-use of the Slitheen (thankfully fart-free) so soon after their debut, so from a production (more…)