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It was a great episode. I’ve seen the last five minutes about seven times now.

I loved her in Silence in the Library but I must admit River’s exit was something of a relief.

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This absurd display of morbid twattery has inspired me to achieve something with my life.

The ‘P.S. I am a twat, obviously’ bit is funny but it’s even funnier if every time you read Nancy’s posts you play Bill Pearson’s “This is absolute shite” comment from the Trojan Dwarfcast.

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I really want to watch this series but I don’t think I can watch Sean Bean die again.

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I’m still a fan of Dirk Maggs and will look out for new things from him. Batman: Knightfall is fantastic but I was less impressed with Dirk Gently, Sexton Blake and his bizarre decision to make such drastic changes to the portrayal of the Vogons in the last series.

As for him making himself feel ‘important’, I don’t know. I think his decision to do the Tertiary Phase as if The Secondary Phase happened only in Zaphod’s head showed he was totally subservient to Adam’s work and was very reluctant to muck about with it in any way even if it would lead some difficult plot problems later on. Or maybe he just couldn’t figure out how to do it, it is tough. But anyway, I’ve always felt he’s been very respectful to DA. I’m sure he’s said somewhere that he read a review of The Tertiary Phase and someone said ‘Dirk Maggs is no Douglas Adams’ and his response was along the lines of ‘Duh’.

Also, for a man who has chosen to spend his life in the medium of radio, I can’t blame him if he jumps at one of the rare occasions to do ‘event radio’. So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt as to his motives for doing this.

Saying that, I’ll wait for more info about the material they’ll be performing before I book my tickets.

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How amazing was that? And then the ending as well… I haven’t been that excited about the new series but I am now. 5/5.

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I was disappointed.

I found a lot of the interaction between the characters was tired and Alex Kingston’s hamming it up annoying. And the Doctor really pissed me off in this episode. Whether it’s constantly telling us how great he is or overly enthusiastic hugging while saying patronising things like ‘And RORY the ROMAN!’, he really got on my nerves.

I found his approach to time travel and crisis situations just too careless and unreal. Landing in the Oval Office, appearing in films, treating an attempt to escape from prison with a friend like a game… the guy is out of control in this episode. This guy is Time Lord Cocky Idiot, recklessly blundering in ensuring things happen in the most madcap way while his followers say how much they love him in the corner of the room. It was almost Doctor Who self-parody at times with the hat-associated eccentricities (I’m really sick of the Fez), little history jokes, ridiculously powerful intuition and that gag about who has to explain the Tardis is bigger on the inside. I hope that’s the last time we see that one. I know it makes sense but I think it’s dangerous to make fun of the conventions of the show like that. Of course when the episode got out of the Oval Office things got a lot more interesting and the second episode will give The Doctor a chance to be more serious but for the first half-hour I was really worried.

Also, did Moffat forget Nixon was in the scene? It was bizarre watching Everett take charge of the scene, while the President said almost nothing. I think also that Everett III bloke really needed a character moment before he got taken by the guys at the bar, he’s just a nothing character walking around aimlessly.

3/5 for me because by the end of the episode I was very excited about how it all would come together.

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The trailer looks like more of the same for me. Note to Steven Moffat – Series 7 should not include any vague prophecies about the Doctor.

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Christmassy Ted is brilliant. In my opinion, the worst episode of Ted is the very first one.

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Listen to it. It was a nice interview with not too much new. Couple of interesting things about writing with Doug such as their going to the same university simply being a ‘miracle of clearing’ rather than something they intended. Also, he talked about the amount of extra work they had to as producers of RD which is interesting because it makes it seem that they were not as present during the production process Series 1-2 as we might think. Rob also responds a lot better than usual to the ‘Why did you split up?’ question.

Didn’t go into their exact role in ‘Spitting Image’ which is a bit disappointing after the interesting conversation in the Bodysnatcher Easter Egg. Also it would have been confusing to casual listeners because seconds before they find out Rob wrote for Spitting Image he says he dislikes satire and regards most of it as ‘mickey-taking’.

And he seems to suggest he has gone into stand-up because he has found writing novels to be a ‘lonely’ experience.

Anyway, generally worth a listen.

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Not sure about casting. As soon as I heard Richard Armitage I thought ‘He’ll be Bard’. But Thorin… in the programmes I’ve seen him in he hasn’t shown anything of the volume and power of delivery I expect from Thorin. Though obviously I’ve only seen as a shady character in Spooks and a loser who wants to marry an overweight vicar fifteen years his senior in that disappointing Vicar of Dibley finale. Plus, I’m very confident that the filmmakers will get this right, so I’m not worried.

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Not sure about Krytie TV and Pete but we should probably watch Meltdown first in Series IV because it makes more sense to have an episode where Kryten has to obey humans to an episode, Camille, where he refuses to go through with Rimmer’s orders. Not that continuity matters in RD really but it does go against the character development for Kryten in Series IV if it comes at the end.

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http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2889&p=.htm

I’m afraid the American Box Office for Scott Pilgrim was a bit shit.

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New Manics album time again…

ANNA FRIEL and MICHAEL SHEEN in the new video. That is pretty impressive, Sony must be pretty excited by the new album.

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How do we view Graham Linehan’s writing?

We all deeply respect him and The IT Crowd certainly has a lot of great comic moments but a lot of episodes don’t pay off the way they should or have some structural problems. Is that something we just accept as part of his writing that is cancelled out completely by the good parts or is there is a certain messiness to his writing that is The Graham Linehan style?

Example: Series 2 Episode 2
Douglas appears almost completely out of the blue, plot with Roy just ends, GL admits on commentary ‘it’s a bit of a deus ex machina’.

Now I was really annoyed when that happened but I know people on here thought it was a really good episode. Having watched it since on DVD I now love that scene especially the wink to Jen after he promises no more sexual harassment cases.

This week’s episode had a really dodgy suplot with Jen that just ended with no real resolution but because GL so readily admits to problems with the episodes, the ‘Douglas forgot to fire Jen and that whole thing went nowhere’ (or whatever it actually was) line looks like an in-joke to his problems writing episodes.

My problem is when I watch ‘The Work Outing’ which I think is a classic sitcom episode I think he can do so much better. But then maybe ‘The Work Outing’ was just one of the standout moments you get in a series. For as we all know Thanks for the Memory > Parallel Universe.

What do you guys think?

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Yes. Shame it’s only three episodes but quality over quantity every time.

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I really have to stand by my comment above. I really don’t think there has been a 5/5 fantastically brilliant episode in Series 5. Certainly no Blink or Human Nature/Family of Blood.

And the series has been a lightweight. The series finale had no bad guy. Most of the series had no bad guy. The Dream Lord or whatever Toby Jones’ character was called was a Stone of Hallucination +4, Van Gogh was battling a very unimpressive invisible bird that couldn’t see. I suppose the Silurian episode had a good villain because Welsh people having tedious dilemnas with lizard things gave me a horrible flashback to Series 1 of Torchwood. The Hungry Earth had some spaceship that had a misunderstanding or something. God knows. The Weeping Angels? The Weeping Idiots more like. Her eyes are closed, do what you always do when their eyes are closed. Send them back in time! What? Snap their necks? Oh okay. And the finale was just the Doctor in a museum for an hour while a Stone Dalek showed up and shot him but didn’t kill him for no clear reason and then River Soong killed it with a Gun of Plot Convenience after telling the Dalek her name.

This series has never made any sense. The bomb in Doctor Bracewell, torturing the Star Whale for no possible reason, Amy remembering the Doctor makes him magically cross whatever impenetrable thing he couldn’t cross. In fact everything in the Series Finale didn’t make any sense. Rather than being a crack in the universe I think there’s been a crack in Moffat’s logical thinking. And something. And stuff.

Though I have to admit even though I don’t think there was a truly great episode, it has been always very good (apart from the Star Whale episode) and is the most consistent series of New Who to date. and Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are wonderful. But with the loss of the Time War mythos and the low number of decent adversaries this series did feel lightweight to me.

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More garbled than Journey’s End and nowhere near as fun. I think we’ve all become used to RTD making us worry about every character in his season finales and all we had was a stone Dalek before the inevitable, impossible reboot bit. Disappointing stuff. This series really has been a bit of a lightweight and in my opinion the first series of the new run not to have a great episode. A lot of very good ones but nothing really special.

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It was pretty good though a number of poor moments.

The first ten minutes with the mystery of what was happening with these Daleks was more interesting than the rest of the episode. After that we enter historical romp mode and after the admittedly fun battle with the spitfires in space, it seemed that this would have been a better episode if it was constrained by a smaller budget. Given the miracles they work with money on the show, this isn’t really a fair point but there may have been a better episode in a different version of the story.

Also, even though it totally contradicts my previous point about budget, I’m disappointed we didn’t have a WW2 Dalek version of Dr Manhattan vs The Viet Cong.

Getting sick of The Doctor’s self-mythologising – “You Know What Davros Called Me – Iron Balls the Badaass” etc etc.

The final scene with the Android was unsatisfying. He’s an immortal with a bunch of fake memories (Am I right? I may have not heard some dialogue). Quite what he’s going to do in 1940 I don’t know. May as well have gone with the Doctor. There was a lot more that could have been done with the character rather than run after a non-existent woman (Am I right? Someone tell me).

Despite these concerns, it was enjoyable enough to merit four stars for me.

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Agree with Pete. I assumed when the episode ended the way it did that I hadn’t understood something but no, the episode doesn’t make that sense. Matt Smith’s great though so it’s probably a 3/5 for me. I’ll never watch it again though.

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As well as the Front Row interview, there was a programme on Good Friday about Douglas Adams’ time as script editor, ‘The Doctor and Douglas’. I’m not sure about it. The justification for the programme’s assertion that Douglas Adams ‘changed Doctor Who forever’ is based on the fact that when RTD gave Julie Gardener some Doctor Who vids to watch she really enjoyed ‘City of Death’ and it is fast and funny like the new Who. Not that much new and probably not strong enough for a national radio slot but some of you might enjoy it – hurry, in 12 hours it’s gone.

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4/5. It wasn’t as good as Smith and Jones but still pretty enjoyable. Did start to drag in the middle and the solution wasn’t as clever as they thought it was. Matt Smith was great.

Not sure about Amy Pond just yet. I knew she was going to be leaving something because of a spoilerific entry in a TV guide so I was a bit underwhelmed when I found it wasn’t a baby. Plus, I wasn’t a big fan of the last Runaway Bride we had on this show.

Oh and the new theme tune was really bad. And the Tardis appeared to be flying through a Fire and Smoke visualisation on Windows Media Player.

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Saw Kick-Ass tonight. Great film. Definitely go to see it.

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That does look great. Like Kick-Ass I haven’t been paying much attention to it and I’m now excited to both close to release date. Makes a nice change from 2009 after all that time waiting for Avatar and Watchmen.

Speaking of Kick-Ass, I’m impressed by your page on Rotten Tomatoes Seb.

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Yeah, she’s poor but it’s one of my favourite moments on the commentaries.

Danny: Oh dear, oh dear…
Chris: We’re stunned into silence.

That and the bit where Chris asks why Hollister’s pile of dust is the same as Rimmer’s in ‘The End’.

Danny: Yeah, his should have been a bucketload!

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Sorry guys, I assumed you knew. We got three episodes of Son of Cliche but probably only one Dave Hollins sketch. Quite good timing actually considering Rob Grant talking about the 25th Anniverary Son of Cliche lunch on Carpool.

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Yay! Trailer!

At the end of Doctor Who Confidential.

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Cut out Beyond a Joke and Duct Soup and it would make a very good series of Old Dwarf. Would love to have seen Craig Charles do the Caroline Carmen part in front of a studio audience.

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I prefer the radio series to the novels anyway. ‘Let’s go the restaurant at the end of the universe’ is a rubbish ending to the first novel. Yeah I know it ends where it does because DNA was in the bath most of the day but the first part of Hitchhikers should start before the Earth gets blown up and end with Ford and Arthur on prehistoric Earth. One of the problems of the film was its attempts to turn the first novel into a complete story giving us that Humma Kavula subplot which only slowed things down.

I really wish the film had been more successful because Zaphod on Ursa Minor Beta and the Total Perspective Vortex are my favourite parts of the series.

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It’s Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime at 10:45 for the next two weeks.

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I went to see the 15 minute preview. It’s a James Cameron science-fiction film so I was expecting something truly great. But… I am a bit disappointed. It does seem to be telling a conventional story of man finds a new life in different society then fights against his own people to protect it by utilising extraordinary special effects.

After seeing the preview I have to say I don’t agree with this 3D = greater immersion idea. If anything it was just distracting. When the general addresses the troops in the scene he just stands out unrealistically from everyone else. It was like watching a film while something waves an Action Man in front of your face. And the action scene with Sam Worthington being chased through a forest by a beastie was actually blurry in comparison with what I saw in the trailer.

However, it looks like a very well-worn story but you could probably say that about most of Cameron’s films to an extent. Also, Cameron has amazing form when creating believable worlds. I don’t think there’s a shot out of place in the incredible Aliens. So I’m still definitely going to see it when it comes out.

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Looking forward to this. Only ever got to play Grim Fandango and Full Throttle.

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Yeah, full marks for this first impression.

Not sure how the BBC thinks Lizo from Newsround is an ‘insider’. He hasn’t learned how to speak to adults yet.

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Rimmer was too good as Ace Rimmer because his weasel cunning was so extraordinary he would just stab the bad guy’s in the back instead of doing something stupidly heroic like attacking the Nazis from a parachute. He was summoned before some Heavenly Ace Council who ordered him to give up being Ace Rimmer for the sake of a little excitement in the universe. He went back to Red Dwarf, saved the day, swapped places with New Rimmer and realised he enjoyed being a goit. The End.

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‘I thought Lee Evans was channelling Colin off Brittas’.

Totally agree! Anyway, this episode was good fun. It wasn’t great but I don’t mind a couple more fluffy episodes of Who before The Doctor dies. Especially now that The Waters of Mars looks great in a Impossible Planet/Satan Pit way.

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Great interview. Will probably be the Daily Mayo podcast, I don’t think there was anything else.

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>Was it supposed to be? It?s BBC Breakfast, not Jonathan Ross.

Yeah I know, this is a thread about how little Norm is right about. Given the rest of what Norm said I thought that was a good line.

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Well to be fair to him the Breakfast interview wasn’t that funny.

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FICTIONAL NAYLOR: ‘We remastered the show a few years ago but we were given a budget that would have been tiny if remastering in the 14th century. Heh. Heh. Heh.’

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Yeah, Colin Murray says on the podcast the Red Dwarf interview is on Friday.

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Colin Murray is covering for Simon Mayo for this week and he did interview them. It doesn’t seem to be on today but he mentioned it about 5 mins+ into in his David Tennant interview podcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/mayo/

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They were on Entertainment 24 and there was a pretty good interview, at about 6:40. Entertainment 24 is on again at 9:30, though with terror raids and dodgy policing there might not be much of it.

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The BB6 interview is by far the best one so far today. Worth a listen. No spoilers but very fun.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7989385.stm

Yeah, that was pretty poor. Now on to Kent.

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Cheers man.

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Series Nine in the new Radiotimes today as well.

When do we think Series 5 of Doctor Who will start shooting?

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Don’t like what I’ve seen of the BBC Breakfast interviews – a lot of the time they don’t do enough research. They didn’t know anything about Libby off Neighbours this morning. And when they interviewed someone off Mistresses a couple of weeks ago all they could manage was bland nothingness – ‘In the show, the women are really in control aren’t they?’ and the actress was like ‘Eh?’ It could well be painful. Bobby coped well with Richard and Judy so hopefully it’ll be him.

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According to the website they’re not on tomorrow. And on Wednesday all it tells us they’ve got Whoopi.

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And here’s the Sunday Herald ones:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2816/sundayherald1shack.jpg
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2350/sundayherald2shack.jpg

I’ll probably redo them later.

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Here we go. My scanner is a bit dirty.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8929/dc2d.jpg

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Red Dwarf is on the front of the TV section of the Sunday Times Culture magazine – it’s a huge picture. It gets the same treatment in the Sunday Herald (Scotland).

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