Darren's Thoughts From The Couch

Bloody pepperpots...

2010-04-20T00:01:00.002+01:00

I’ve been ranting enough about this on my Facebook page, and doubtless boring the arse off people by banging on about it so thought I’d condense my vitriol and pure unfettered disappointment here.

I. Hate. The. New. Daleks.

And here’s why.

1) They’re completely out of proportion. Simply put, they look bloody ridiculous. The base rims are rounded and far too high; the bulk of the base itself compared to the upper half is far too tall; the mid-section sticks out like the damn thing’s wearing an inflatable ring with a plunger on it, and the gun is now far too long; the head itself isn’t too bad, but the eye stalk is needlessly overdesigned.

2) That fucking hunchback. Front on, they don’t look too bad, you could almost forgive them that. But turn them more than 30 degrees to the side and all of a sudden it’s Quasimodo himself. The head section sits there on top of it like an upended garden bin (or as a friend put it, like a press-down sauce dispenser), looking like it’s been shunted forward. The symmetry (such as it was) is gone. And instead of a straight line running down the back from grille to base, now there’s a bump where it joins. Cover up the hunchback and it’s not so bad, but with it added… almost looks like they forgot to plane off the last bit of the design model and the error carried on to the final design.

3) Too tall, and too fat. How on earth these Daleks manage to fit through the doorways and spaces of that ship (originally full of the other, smaller, scarier and frankly better Daleks) without banging their heads or simply getting stuck escapes me. And now the gun and plunger have to be angled downwards rather than up as before, which sounds petty but take a look – in comparison, which looks better?

4) The colours. No. In the past we had a small number of moderately tasteful and acceptable colours – white, grey, silver, with the higher ranks of black and gold and the red Supreme. They weren’t an orgasm of garishly bright primary colours. Come on guys, less is definitely more. I was extremely impressed by the khaki WW2 Daleks in their British webbing, and yes I’d buy a toy of that in a second but this? What is this, a Japanese cartoon? (thanks Lee). I smell a horribly transparent excuse to sell a shitload of toys to 5 year olds, and it stinks.

5) They look cheap, childish and completely unthreatening. 2005 brought a solid, tank-like look to the Daleks. These things finally looked like they were unstoppable – the bronzed steel look was spot on. Taking the Cushing movie design as a template with the larger base rim and the larger lights, then making them ultra-hard bastards from that was EXACTLY what they needed. Turning them into flimsy looking, plastic bubble bath bottles is not an improvement.

You know what? For the first time since the show came back in 2005 I really am concerned. Not because of Matt Smith (superb) and Karen Gillan (fun), not because of the new TARDIS (gorgeous), and not because of the titles and theme tune (jury still out on that one).

It’s because Stephen Moffat has always come across as being exactly what the series needed in a showrunner after Russell T Davies left. His episodes without fail have been scary, intelligent, interesting and fun. They’ve been what Doctor Who should be all about.

Look, I’m all for someone wanting to stamp their mark on the show. But this is a huge misjudgement and one we’re now stuck with. They made such a big deal out of these being the ‘real’ Daleks (oh do fuck off) and the scene of their obliterating the Russell T Davies versions couldn’t have been more symbolically sledgehammered if they’d tried. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll be sat there praying for some belated April Fool’s Day joke to be revealed, or for it to turn out that this is all some bizarre, horrifying alternate universe and that within a few months all will return to normal. But I don’t think it’ll happen. These are the new Daleks, and they’re here to stay. Christ on a bike (would fit inside one).

The fact that not only did someone design these and think “Yeah, that’ll work” (having seen the concept art, it looked just as shit on the drawing board) but Moffat and the other execs came along and then signed off on them makes me more than a little wary of what else he’s got in store. Change for the sake of change (and the sake of selling toys to kids)? No. Just no.

Yes, Doctor Who should be scary, but not like this.

I'm sure it seemed a good idea at the time, Paul...

2010-01-17T00:03:00.005Z

I've seen some bad films in my time, most of which I enjoyed more than I should have - it's a guilty pleasure of a hobby really, in many cases there's a quaintness to them that raises a chuckle.

Many of them I saw when when I was younger and as such didn't notice their faults so much - viewing them now can be cringe inducing, showing that it really is best to leave some things in the past. Take this evening: At The Earth's Core went in the player as I hadn't seen it for years. An entertaining mid-70s fantasy romp, with Doug McClure, Peter Cushing, the beautiful Caroline Munro AND men in dinosaur costumes on dodgy back projection, what a fun way to pass an hour and a half - or so I thought. The memory really does cheat sadly, it was awful.

But in comparison to Give My Regards To Broad Street, the 1984 vanity project written by and starring Paul McCartney, that film was absolute gold...

A famous musician called Paul has just recorded his new album, but the mastertape has gone missing. Leaving it in the hands of a former con (to whom Paul has given a second chance) to drop off may have been a mistake, as he's gone missing too. Oh no! But Paul doesn't believe he's nicked it because the guy told him he'd gone straight.
But wait, it gets worse! Unless he gets it back, he'll lose ownership of his entire company - it's a little hazy as to why, something to do with his business manager making a deal with a shadowy sinister guy the year before (why he never told Paul is a worry, that's some great management). So the race is on to find the tapes!
Well, it should be. What actually happens is that Paul seems only mildly put out. He records a couple of songs in the studio (with Ringo and George Martin), shoots a couple of videos (some pretty grand ones at that), does a rehearsal in a docklands warehouse and speaks to a dodgy bootlegger played by Giant Haystacks, records an interview and plays a couple of songs at the BBC, then drives around a bit. While this is going on, some lawyers and the sinister guy follow his every more and the police don't seem to do anything at all, just talk amongst themselves a bit.
Oh yes, and while this is going on Paul has daydreams of what could have happened (the con being chased by the police with sniffer dogs over moors; selling the mastertape to Giant Haystacks) before the kicker: a lengthy, bizarre daydream where he, Linda, Ringo and Ringo's wife are in Victorian times, go for a picnic, the others are killed and he then wanders round Victorian London following the trail of the stolen tape. For some reason.
Back to reality, he stops for a few minutes at the pub where the former con was last seen, speaks to an old guy with a monkey about nothing in particular, then drives around some more before passing Broad Street railway station and remembering a throwaway comment made the night before. With mere minutes to go before the midnight deadline he walks along the deserted platform and finds the mastertape on a bench. Where obviously it's been for the entire time and no-one has noticed it (let alone taken it). Mere feet away in a shed he finds the former con, who managed to lock himself in the night before thinking it was the toilet. They laugh, phone the office with seconds to spare, sinister guy goes empty-handed and then... Paul wakes up in the back of his car. The whole thing was a dream.

It really is as bad as it sounds. The fantasy sequences are an absolute masterpiece of self-indulgence (not quite as bad as Led Zeppelin's ones in The Song Remains The Same, though at one point Linda on horseback, with flowing white robes and a mane of fair hair does look like Robert Plant's twin), Paul's acting is... well, it's generous to call it acting really, and he seems heavily sedated the whole time - you'd think being on the verge of losing your company would get you a bit frustrated at least but he shows no emotion whatsoever. Ringo's almost as bad with what little stuff he has to do (pulling a journalist played by his wife with all the sledgehammer charm of a dodgy sex-pest), and in terms of real acting it leaves Bryan Brown to look a bit frustrated, Tracey Ullman to do a bit of crying and Ralph Richardson to be a bit enigmatic.

To be fair, I wasn't expecting much. Broad Street has a reputation for being less-than-stellar, and I'm happy to report it really is well-deserved... The sole redeeming feature is the music. No More Lonely Nights is a cracker, the big musical numbers are good fun and McCartney's re-recordings of Beatles songs are worth a listen (Eleanor Rigby / Eleanor's Dream, which plays over the Victorian daydream is very enjoyable).

Ahh, but my god it's craptacular.

Ladies and gentlemen... Lee Manton.

2009-11-19T13:44:00.002Z

It won't appeal to all, but I found this random email from the above gentleman (he runs like a Welshman, don't you know) downright hilarious. A wonderful line in fairly bizarre Eddie Izzard / Pete & Dud / out there humour and I want to acknowledge his genius...

(to be read in the voice of an east-end London black cab driver)

Bleedin' superior races with their ability to travel through time and space! I was in the cab the other day, and I'm just stopped at the Garbouldasham Road lights - you know, the new ones with the keep left filter - and a bleedin' Cyberman jumps in the back and wants to go to the Goose & Whistle in Wantage!

Well I was confused to say the least! So I'm a bit suspicious of this and I says to him "Ere, you got any money for fare in that polymer, all terrain Cyber-wotsit? And he says "Negative. Take me to the designated co-ordinates or be deleted". Well I was flabbergasted!

Turns out, the Cyber Controller was waitin' for him at the pub and paid his fare - with a generous tip I might add! I guess the old saying never judge a book by its cover really rings true...

Lee Manton will not be appearing at next year's Edinburgh Festival. Unless we really get behind him.

A small update while the next blog is worked on...

2009-11-12T22:36:00.002Z

As we slowly, then steadily and before we know it speedily age, surely we all wonder about the more bizarre and seemingly useless things that happen to our bodies. Take nasal hair for instance (please, take it).

Now, can anyone explain to me what the hell this stuff is for? Seriously, it makes no sense to me. It suddenly appeared (surely no coincidence) just before I hit 30 and now seems to have taken root. Not only that, but it's also accelerating at an alarming rate. And the worst of it is that it tickles the inside of my nose All The Time.

It replenishes itself no matter how often I get the tweezers in there and yank it out, it's like a frustratingly virulent weed and during one desperate attack on it I even stood there with a match and wondered if could be burned down without too much pain to myself. Not only that, some of these things are over half an inch long for Christ's sake. Looking in the mirror while brushing my teeth the other morning I genuinely saw one poking out and curling up over the rim of my nostril. That was alarming.

Presumably there's some incredibly important reason for it (ditto the fascinating ear hair that plagues elderly gentlemen - I saw an amazing example on the bus yesterday), perhaps as we age we become particularly prone to airborne illnesses and this is the way the body tackles it. Perhaps it's a form of ironic design, and the more nostril hair we have the less we have atop our heads. If I leave it be and let it do what it will, does it stop at a certain length like pubic hair or does it keep going like scalp hair?

Whatever the answers to these questions, I'm starting to get a little self-conscious when I go to give the nose a quick rub and end up tugging a particularly stoic strand out of there (and by god, that is a special type of pain all to itself - the inevitable tears, sneeze and runny nose that follow are testament to that and a dead giveaway to anyone in the vicinity).

Now I worry that I'll end up writing more of these Meldrewesque rants as time goes on. Still to come: When Pubes Go Grey and Yes, That's My Hernia.

(and if anyone gets me one of those nostril trimmers for Christmas, I will not be amused...)

The legendary Richard Harris

2009-11-03T22:06:00.002Z

I was tickled recently to hear a tale of the late, great Irish actor Richard Harris, the original Dumbledore and one of the world's greatest hellraisers.

Shortly before he died, he was stretchered out of the Savoy (where he kept a suite) into a waiting ambulance. As he passing a group of people heading in he sat up and cried out "It was the food!"...

Question Time and the BNP

2009-11-03T21:30:00.003Z

Ahh, fascists. What a source of amusement, entertainment and of course irritation.

So I finally watched the controversial appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time the other night - interesting stuff for a number of reasons. What we had was an obviously very, very uncomfortable man sat there and rightly so, since pretty much everything aimed at him and his party was pure vitriol. It was insane, at times the audience like a baying mob - but this was to be expected and was in no small way down to his own comments, for example being pulled up on once having shared a platform with a member of the KKK and attempting to play this down by saying he was from one of the "least violent" chapters.

Also notable for me were Griffin's futile efforts to show nonchalance by firing out a dismissive laugh that sounded anything but. It was just a little too enthusiastic to come across as genuine and ended up working entirely against him. Not only did it clearly anger the audience but tellingly it showed that he was rattled and nervous.

What frustrated me about Griffin's appearance on the programme though was that since everyone (Dimbleby and the panel included) was having a go at him and his party, he just didn't get enough of a chance to give much in the way of lengthy answers. I'd have paid money (not to him or the BNP mind) to hear him say more, since every time he did open his mouth he succeeded in showing himself up as a complete and total arse. Vaguely referring to polls and figures but not being able to say which ones or in which publications was a start, but when he started denying things that he'd been filmed saying I sat there literally shaking my head in disbelief. I mean, had he been given more of a chance to speak he could have done a damn sight more damage to the BNP than any amount of protesting outside (more on that in a minute). Some of what he was saying was priceless - "Race isn't an issue" was a blinder, only eclipsed by "I've never had a conviction for Holocaust denial" when asked for a yes / no answer as to whether he'd ever denied it. Nice to see a Michael Howard moment there. Talk about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves.

Oh yeah, the protestors. Now I know I'm no great shakes on politics, the very word has always conjured up a dry, grey world to me. But there were a couple of things that occurred to me during the news reports of protestors clamouring at the gates of the BBC before the show, trying to storm the place and disrupt the recording:
1) by protesting the BNP being allowed on Question Time in the first place, were these people not indirectly protesting against the idea of freedom of speech and democracy? After all, the BNP were voted in fairly and legally so therefore have the same rights and platforms as any other party to put their points across. People might not like it but that's tough luck, it's how democracy works. Why not look at how the BNP got there in the first place instead of arguing the toss now they're there (stable doors and so on). You can't have it both ways, arguing for free speech one minute then complaining when someone you don't like gets their chance to say something the next.
2) leading on from that, and to echo Richard Herring's comments in his excellent Hitler Moustache show, if you don't like that they got in and you didn't vote then you really only have yourself to blame. Even if the thought of politics sends you to sleep, the shock of the BNP getting European seats should wake you up to the value of actually using your vote. Turnouts were low, apathy was high - and I'll confess, I was one of the apathetic - and they managed to get a foothold as a result (note to the other parties: maybe you should get back on the streets, do some grassroots campaigning, knocking on doors since it worked for them). Voting for someone, for anyone else could have changed things. I'd rather have seen the Greens get 2 seats than the fascists, put it like that.

Jut to clarify by the way, in case anyone assumes that I hold any love for the BNP - I don't. I think they're abhorrent and find what they stand for disgusting. But in the words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall (not Voltaire as is widely believed)...

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Maybe politics isn't quite as boring as I used to think?

One final thought: does anyone else want to see Nick Griffin feature on Who Do You Think You Are?

Diddly-dum, diddly-dum, diddly-dum...

2009-10-28T00:05:00.002Z

I think pretty much anyone who knows me even slightly knows that…

*deep breath*

I am a geek when it comes to TV (and films, but that’s another story).

As if that wasn’t enough, my own particular brand of geekery doesn’t normally match what’s “in”, which for some reason almost always seems to be American, brought over here with huge fanfare and plenty of word of mouth. They just don’t really appeal to me. Maybe it's because I'm not American, I don't know. Not for me the BSGs, the Losts (I tried, I really did), the True Bloods or whatever else is popular this week. It’s similar but not the same with big Hollywood blockbuster films. With few exceptions I’ll watch and mostly enjoy them but they’re mere one night stands, normally forgotten straight after and rarely spoken of again.

Oh, there are exceptions – Smallville (the Superman legend retold completely anew fascinates me), Curb Your Enthusiasm (still the funniest show on TV, go watch it now), Family Guy (nothing to be said there) and a baffling, ever-failing yet ongoing attempt to like the original Star Trek (I adore the classic films but can’t stand the series, go figure) but my own particular fondness - nay, adoration! - is for a classic cult TV series that is wholeheartedly and unashamedly British.

I gained a thin sliver of credibility when the revived version of the up until then much maligned and unloved Doctor Who exploded into mainstream popularity like a hydrogen bomb in 2005. Having been a fan since the unpopular days of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, through the wilderness years of 1989 – 2004 (with a brief Paul McGann-shaped blip in 1996) it was a bizarre experience to say the least. All of a sudden a bit of extra knowledge came in very handy when talking to new fans (who were otherwise normal people – this was unheard of!), filling them in with background on various aspects of the show – the Doctor’s history, past encounters with Cybermen, the Daleks, the story of the Master and so on – and of course the irresistible joy of making stuff up and seeing the more gullible lap it up… It’s infuriating of course when people ask questions I simply don’t have answers for because certain events happen off-screen. There’s a hefty gap between the Eighth Doctor leaving our screens in 1996 with a cuppa, and the Ninth Doctor turning up in a department store basement in 2005. Only one man knows what happened during the Time War and it isn’t me, it’s a tall gay bespectacled Welshman (I only fit one of those four criteria, and even then it’s borderline).

But I digress. My favourite series going from being laughed at to loved was, as I said rather bizarre. All of a sudden seemingly everyone liked it, and as an old-school fan (let’s call them Whovians, since that’s what we are) it almost took away some of the fun. Fans can be an odd bunch (the word ‘fan’ derives from “fanatic” after all), you only have to enter the scary realms of internet forums to find that out. To say that a lot of Whovians tend to feel somewhat proprietarily about the show would be an overwhelming understatement. To some degree – quite an alarming degree for the more vocal individuals - there’s a belief that we in some way own the series or have more right to it than anyone else. It’s for us, not the ‘not-we’ (or NuWho fans). I hasten to add that I don’t actually subscribe to that school of thought – good grief, if that was the main thought then the programme would never have come back in the first place (and some would say that was a good thing). Undoubtedly the best thing that Russell T Davies did when bringing the show back was to ensure it was first and foremost a family entertainment series, and not simply aimed at the fans. A tricky balance to get right, but he did it. There’s a marvellous interview quote somewhere when he was asked how he dealt with hardcore fans suggesting how it should be done, and his simple answer was to say that he just ignored them.

OK, OK, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there was a tiny part of me that feels a pang of loss now that it’s popular again. It’s not the secret little club that it used to be for the few who can seemingly spend days debating whether Pertwee was better than Hartnell, where the events of The Two Doctors fit into established chronology or how the DVDs should be displayed on one’s shelf - I kid you not, there’s talk of changing the design of the covers and you can hear the howls of anguish from here (double sided covers would appear to be the solution by the way).

But there’s room for everyone. What we have here are two very different beasts that are in fact the same. The difference is that one of them is the massively popular and fun uncle who’s great to spend time with, and the other is his slightly dotty twin who gets hidden away most of the time because he’s a bit of an embarrassment.

Some NuWho fans have discovered the older series and enjoy the fact that it’s Doctor Who despite the not-so-special effects, the amusing acting and the overall feeling of cheapness. Some will be aware of the show’s history but watch the new series only, and that’s fine.

Some Whovians will refuse point blank to watch the new series and enjoy their battered Target paperback of The Auton Invasion, or watch Pyramids Of Mars on DVD for the nth time, and that’s fine too. Some of them may even give the new series a go out of curiosity and find that they like it after all.

And some of us will straddle both camps, enjoying the old and the new in different ways – the old with fondness and familiarity, the new because, well, it’s new. But it’s still Doctor Who.

And we’ll enjoy a warm rosy glow when someone comes along and says “So what’s the deal with the Macra then?” and we can tell them without feeling like a bit of a twat.

I tell you something though; nostalgia isn’t what it used to be...