This Matthew Graham episode of Doctor Who set in a grimy industrial future is classy, stylish and nicely unsettlingThis article titled “Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh – Series 32, episode 5″ was written by Dan Martin, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 21st May 2011 18.30 UTCSPOILER ALERT: This weekly blog is for those who have been watching the new series of Doctor Who. Don’t read ahead if you haven’t seen episode five – The Doctor’s WifeDan Martin’s episode four blogNeil Gaiman live Q&A “You poured in your personalities; emotions, traits, memories, secrets, everything. You gave them your lives. Human lives are amazing. Are you surprised they walked off with them?”It’s that time of year again. We’ve been to Planet America, we’ve been on a dodgy pirate ship, we’ve been through the plughole at the bottom of the universe. And now, to complete Doctor Who’s checklist of formats, it’s time for the one in the grimy industrial future. So yes, this is familiar ground in many ways, but whether it is Matthew Graham’s writing, or simply the swagger with which this series has been carrying itself, it is particularly satisfying. This is what last year’s disappointing Silurian story should have been.True, with so much buildup and exposition, it ends up feeling like not very much actually happens by the time groundwork is laid. There’s also a debate to be had as to whether, since it doesn’t feature any aliens, it qualifies as a proper Doctor Who at all. But on the parameters it sets itself, this is classy, stylish and nicely unsettling.Graham creates a believable world and workplace in that converted monastery, which you buy into from the opening credits. Raquel Cassidy’s deliciously brittle Cleaves, Marshall Lancaster’s Manc everydude Buzzer, and Sarah Smart’s mouse-that-roared Jennifer are well-drawn. And most promisingly of all, while second parts tend to look limp compared to first episodes, here’s a story where it’s the other way round. “I’ve got to get to that cockerel before all hell breaks loose! I never thought I’d have to say that again.”The episode opens with an extended clip of Supermassive Black Hole by Muse, and as Matt Bellamy and co’s sex-funk-rock-jam swaggers in, we’re straight back into Tardis housekeeping. These extended soapy sequences could have turned out, well, soapy – but seeing them play darts, listening to prog rock as the Doctor continues to surreptitiously scan Amy’s uterus just serves to lend credibility to what on paper is a ridiculous scenario. They may be having a laugh, but we also get a sense that the arc is really starting to go somewhere. Fear FactorThe Gangers are, at heart, a more psychologically disturbing creation, and The Rebel Flesh’s questions of identity and spirit and “who is the real monster?” are bound to invite comparisons with Battlestar Galactica and the Cylons. But when they do bring out the sparing CGI, it reaffirms the renewed horror quotient we’re getting this year. Mysteries and QuestionsThe obvious assumption here is that with a Ganger Doctor now running round, we have an easy and obvious get-out for the Doctor’s death. But wouldn’t that be too easy and obvious? And of course it assumes that both Doctors are going to survive next week’s episode. Elsewhere The Doctor refers to The Flesh as “primitive technology.” So what else does he know about it and what will it be turning into?Meanwhile, something intriguing has come to our attention. Deep within the bowels of the BBC website you’ll find this video of the Doctor in some distress. Its title, Analysis Lessons, is an anagram of Lonely Assassins. And Lonely Assassins was of course a name for … the Weeping Angels. Could they be this year’s real Big Bad? Time-space Debris• The Doctor chastises Amy for the suggestion they have arrived by accident. Is that a reference to last week and the Tardis taking him “where he needs to go,” or is he up to something.• Rory: “My Mum’s a huge fan of Dusty Springfield.”Doctor: “Who isn’t?”Actually, I’m not sure that I have ever met anyone who doesn’t like Dusty Springfield either.• Eyepatch Lady is back after her week off. Are we all agreed she’s the midwife?• Are we to assume that Jennifer is going to lead Rory down the path of temptation? He wouldn’t, would he?• I’m not sure how I feel about The Doctor’s “northern” jibes. Was I the only one who felt a little offended?• Matthew Graham’s only other contribution to Doctor Who is the best-forgotten Fear Her from 2006. Legend has it – although we don’t know whether it is true or not – that when Stephen Fry’s script finally proved unworkable, Russell T Davies asked Graham to come up with something in two weeks and with buttons for a budget. Next week!Something rather major happens. That’s all you’re getting. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogDoctor Who: The Rebel Flesh – Series 32, episode 5Related posts:Douglas Adams’s Doctor Who story to be novelised
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Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh – Series 32, episode 5
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May 21 2011, 4:56pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
MasterChef: have things gone stale?
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/14/masterchef-have-things-gone-stale
Masterchef is no longer very interesting at all and there are also far too many cooking programmed and celebrity chefs on tv at present. Jamie Oliver’s dream school wasn’t exactly a success so I expect he’ll be back in the kitchen soon as well. Then there are all of the hybrid programmed that try to combine the most audience engaging aspects from across several genres. They never work very well either. Relocation cookery, gardening talent, animal casting and so on.
This article titled “MasterChef: have things gone stale?” was written by Vicky Frost, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 14th April 2011 10.44 UTC Sometimes I wonder if I’m stuck in a kind of MasterChef vortex. First there was Loyd Grossman. Then there was John and Gregg bellowing and sucking their forks on BBC2. Next came the celebrities, the professionals and the juniors. Followed by the Australians, and their version of the UK show. And now? Now we’re apparently watching the UK version of the Australian version of the UK update of the Loyd Grossman original, on primetime BBC1. Who knows where it will all end? Or indeed who will still be watching? Because while previous incarnations of MasterChef might have been stuffed with ridiculous declarations, surplus rounds that appeared to have no bearing on the result, and more passion and determination than even Lord Sugar might think totally necessary, the show was rarely boring. This series, however, I’m finding it hard to summon up the energy to last a whole episode. The problems started with the auditions. John cried in one of them. Nobody cooked a playdafoo that looked like a child had made it unsupervised, wearing a blindfold, while having a tantrum. John and Gregg didn’t patrol the aisles rolling their eyes wildly and grimacing at anyone daring to experiment like they were actually going to be poisoned. Cocky competitors weren’t totally shamed in front of each other. Things haven’t really improved since. The set seems to have quadrupled in size so that the competitors could feasibly source entirely different sets of local ingredients, and the invention test box has morphed into a whole deli. Worse are the challenges. Fair dos to Gregg for trying to ramp up the tension of cooking for a circus on Peckham Rye – PECKHAM RYE! — or making a buffet for the cast of Merlin – THE CAST OF MERLIN! – or just some students – ERM STUDENTS! – but why aren’t the contestants doing more cooking in actual restaurants with actual chefs? That used to be most of the show, now it seems to be all field kitchens and mass catering. Things got a little better on last night’s show with the arrival of Michel Roux’s croque-en-bouche and a trolleyload of cakes – although it possibly wasn’t entirely wise to draw parallels between flying for the RAF and making some sodding sandwiches, Gregg – but I still feel that I’m seeing the series out to the bitter end, rather than actively enjoying it. Even old Toorude and Gregg the Egg appear to have changed their ways. I have heard not one metallic basil; merely a sprinkle of deep, velvety, iron-rich descriptions; absolutely no threats to de-robe and dive into a pudding. Only one proper, ridiculous moment has lodged in my brain: John doing some kind of uber-camp panto hiss of “Don’t bite off more than you can chew!” at Miss Swansea. Now that’s why I watch MasterChef. Instead we’ve had a few guest chefs to liven things up. But largely we’ve been meant to be caring about the contestants and their journeys and the challenges they’ve overcome. Sadly I haven’t, and I don’t. This year’s contestants are largely oddly unappealing – perhaps because they were whittled down to a final bunch astonishingly quickly. All I’m really interested in is their best two courses, which we get to see surprisingly infrequently. It seems strange, really, that MasterChef Australia, from which the new UK show borrows heavily, can combine many of the same elements and come up trumps. But then it also does everything the British show does, just 50 times bigger. So the judges are more flamboyant, more ridiculous; the contestants live in a house together and vote each other off; they have cook-offs against real chefs; they cater amazing weddings on boats. Against that background, setting the whole thing in a vast, sunlit warehouse feels vaguely reasonable. On BBC1, it doesn’t. So: how are you getting on? Are you looking forward to the final couple of weeks in a state of slight outrage after this blog? Or have you lost interest already? And can anyone explain why, when MasterChef was on seemingly every night for increasingly idiosyncratic lengths of time, we all moaned it was too much, but now we have it once a week for an hour, it seems it’s too little – even though it’s also completely boring? A quandry no?
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April 14 2011, 6:02am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
The Only Way Is Essex: beyond trash TV
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/21/the-only-way-is-essex-beyond-trash-tv
It’s like watching an old Open University programme on Advanced Pointlessness.
This article titled “The Only Way Is Essex: beyond trash TV” was written by Stuart Heritage, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 21st March 2011 12.05 UTC Some of you may have been looking forward to the return of The Only Way is Essex last night. You may have greeted the cast like old friends, cheering at the likes of Amy and Mark with joy and wild abandon. You may have even bought the official The Only Way Is Essex single and played it on a loop all weekend, bobbing up and down and intermittently chortling at the word “vajazzle”. Because, make no mistake, The Only Way Is Essex is a phenomenon. The stars have become tabloid staples. The official The Only Way Is Essex Facebook page has close to 200,000 fans – almost 50 times the number that Question Time has. Last night’s episode was so highly anticipated that ITV2 prefaced it with an hour of highlights and a shriekingly awful music video. People seem to genuinely love The Only Way Is Essex. But here’s a confession: I’m not one of those people. It’s not that I object to the trashiness of The Only Way Is Essex. I love trash. I devour it to the extent that I’ve got My Dog Ate What? – a show about dogs that eat unusual things – on series link. It’s more that I just don’t understand it. Put me in front of The Only Way Is Essex and I turn into your gran trying to programme a VCR. It’s embarrassing. Perhaps the most off-putting aspect of the show is its staginess. Not so much its much-discussed lack of fly-on-the-wall realism, but everyone’s uncomfortably stilted delivery. All the conversations on The Only Way Is Essex are full of weird little pauses, as if they’re all communicating via a faulty 1970s satellite link-up. It’s like watching an old Open University programme on Advanced Pointlessness. I’m also slightly hamstrung by the fact that I don’t understand anything that anyone says. Maybe there’s an inexplicably heavy tax on hard consonants in Essex and that’s the reason people say “arrrra?” instead of “hello” and “shaaaaaap” instead of “be quiet”. At one point last series a character said “naaaloooor” and it took me about five minutes to work out that they meant “nightclub.” Between this and the pauses, The Only Way Is Essex comes off like a nightmarish Teletubbies update starring several flourescent Bratz dolls (vajazzled, of course). Last night’s episode didn’t help matters. Narratively speaking it had a structure that was somewhere between scattershot and nonexistent. A couple got lost in the woods, an old lady went swimming, a Playboy model got a spray tan, a boy legitimately decided that he wanted to be known as Joey Essex, a woman asked where south London was and a pig urinated on the floor and then started drinking it. In fact I’ve made it sound much more exciting than it actually was. Nothing was captivating enough to make you want to tune in for a second 45 minutes, unless you harbour an inexplicable fascination with incontinent pigs. If things keep up at this rate, I’ll be no closer to understanding the show than I was during the first series. So if you watched and enjoyed The Only Way Is Essex last night, then please explain it to me. Am I supposed to be rooting for these people? Or does the pleasure come from judging them? Is it supposed to be good, or do people watch it because it’s terrible? And, if so, is it terrible by accident or design? Honestly, I’m so confused.
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March 21 2011, 10:11am | Comments »
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