Tiers of a Clown

So, in one of the many houses of reputable conversion I frequent, there came the discussion of films, and our personal 'best' canon. This led to me telling an interested participant that I would blog about my 'Top Ten' movies. But I don't have ten, so let's call it my 'Top Tier' movies instead. One thing that became apparent as I was running through titles in my mind is that there are a whole swathe of fantastic movies that sit JUST outside the boundary. I may only have 8 or so classics, but there's probably about 25 near-classics. On with the list!

Primer



This is a movie that will make you think. Like a cleverly structured puzzle box, it has many interlocking pieces that need turning over in your mind, sliding aside to free others. Shane Carruth pretty much came out of nowhere with his idea for a story about discovery and invention, and the people unprepared for it. He takes no prisoners, with extremely colloquial, naturalistic, elliptical dialogue, even when key plot information is disclosed. Nobody here is talking for the audience's benefit. And when combined with phenomenally natural performances - from guys who have never acted before - the effect is incredible. It is real in a way no other film captures. But it's challenging to keep up.

Add to that a plot where great swathes of cause and effect have ceased to exist, are never shown on screen, and have to be grasped through extrapolation, and you have a challenge. You cannot relax with Primer. You could not watch films of this kind all the time, without being a savant. But when you want something that will occupy every strand of your mind for hours longer than its running time, Primer is the film. As my brother said, it's a 4 hour film in 70 minutes.

It's not a cold, cerebral affair, though. Carruth came into the project to make a film about two guys, and their relationship. Their trust and friendship, and how it is affected by a paradigm shift in their reality. Again, no concessions are made to the audience. There's no soliloquys, no impassioned speeches writ large, no swelling orchestral score. But for all that, the subtle, understated emotion is truer, and more affecting.

It's also beautifully shot and produced, all by Carruth, who is apparently Leonardo Da Vinci reincarnate. I give it the highest recommendation, but only if you want a film you have to put effort into to get enjoyment back. And don't seek out plot information before you watch - It's not a twist ending film or anything of that kind, but it's about growing discovery and dawning realisation, and this atmosphere is perhaps hurt even more by spoilers than any shock twist would be.

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Chinatown


Chinatown is pretty much a perfectly constructed movie. It's a plot movie, all about the story, but it perfectly crafts every aspect - visuals, sound, pace, performance - to tell that story in the most compelling way possible.

That story is a great one. A truly cinematic story, that gives itself over to powerhouse performances of its characters and striking visualisations of its bleak landscapes. It's a story about the brutality of those with power to those they hold power over - brutality more subtle and more destructive than physical violence - and an unanswered question about those who turn a blind eye, all symbolised by Gittes' old Chinatown beat that gives the film its name.

It is not, however, a relentless film. It's a film that finds warmth where it can in a cold and cruel world, and seizes it - and the warmth between Gittes and Mulwray triumphs over its context in a truly, ah, warming way. It has humour too, particularly in the wry observations and actions of Gittes himself.

Nicholson lives up to his reputation in the role of the PI who knows he should look the other way for his own sake, but can't beat his own good nature. I have seen neither the Shining or Cuckoo's Nest, but this, at least is a performance worthy of remembrance.

Faye Dunaway gives as good as she gets as Mulwray, and there is genuine energy in the scenes between her and Gittes. Their relationship goes through a vast sequence of twists and turns, and at every point the progression feels true and the place they are at resonates.

John Huston appears fleetingly, like Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, and also like that performance, he is vividly memorable and a dominant performance in just brief appearances. A compelling moral study, he is abhorrent, perhaps a monster, but one understands that he simply does not see the world the same way as we do. He is no monster in his own eyes. Huston provides a window onto understanding of that morality, and is intriguing for it.

I won't enumerate more cast members. There really is no dropped ball. The cast is as universally strong as the production. It's all about the story, and the story is superb, but the immense strength of every element behind it is what gives it such impact.

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I have more movies to discuss, but I realised how long this was getting, so I'll do it in several installments. Be on the lookout for the next thrilling edition!

Supernatural Selection

After a friend shoved the discs into my hand with an injunction to watch them, and the reassurances of another that it was worth my time, I finally decided to overcome my skittish wussiness and watch Supernatural. It was good.

That's where my write up would end if Season One was all that existed. It's good. It blends folklore, classic rock and pop humour. But it's not exactly stratospheric. The cast all seem to be in their early twenties and it comes off a bit 'teen'. But, seeing as I had the DVDs in hand, and not much else to do, I went on to Season Two. It was better.

By the end of S2 the 'teen' feeling is gone, with a much wider, more interesting range of characters. The true plot has kicked in and events are clipping along with much more interest. Individual episodes have clever hooks, the humour is funnier, the music rockier, it's all notched up. Except the folklore, which takes a backseat to recurring demons and shapeshifters. That's the only disappointment. I went on to Season Three. It was excellent.

Somewhere around the beginning of S3 the show recieved an infusion of intense creativity. If an episode isn't advancing the central mysteries of the season, it's taking time out to explore superb, often hilarious concepts - many inspired by digging once again into the richness of foklore. The special 'A Very Supernatural Christmas', for example, sees the boys on the trail of what they suspect to be the Krampus, only to find out they've actually been tracking the Pagan Gods of Winter Solstice. The end of S3 was too good to break, and I immediately started S4. It was EVEN BETTER. The long game plot starts to come into focus, and it is good. The concept episodes are even more imaginative. The supporting cast is excellent. I finished it in three days. Now for season 5...

Natural Selection

Torment must surely now give Bioshock, the Void and Braid a run for their money as the best game I played this year. This is what computer roleplaying games should always have been, and yet what they never have. It stands alone as a true roleplaying experience. You control who you are, and who you are really matters, because Torment is also packing a hell of a story. A richly thematic story about identity.

You wake up with no memory, and a few scant clues to your past life, and you strike out to learn who you were, and how you came back from the dead. But your search for your past presents dilemmas, and how you solve them says much about you, and a new question starts to become apparent. Who you were matters, but perhaps what matters more is who you are now. And if those two people aren't the same, well, doesn't that beg another question?

Opportunities to carve out your identity present themselves at every turn; the game is rich with layers and paths you can take, and it's all richly presented. The writing in the game is among the best in the genre - perhaps THE best. Certain dialogue scenes, not even voiced, are a greater thrill than any cutscene in Final Fantasy or Dragon Age. The story plays itself out with a perfectly measured pace, first unwinding mysteries steadily, letting the questions drawing you in one direction, then another, then beginning to drop revelations, twists, and turns - and some of the reveals are truly striking - before you emerge from a pivotal encounter with a goal in sight, and all of your answers - except for one, catalysed to seek out your destiny and show who you truly are once and for all.

The Planescape setting is one of the most vibrant and imaginative presented for D&D, and given license to make a game with it, it is to the boundless credit of Chris Avellone and his team that they sought to match its creativity, rather than carve and staid a traditional path through it. In a world where belief affects reality and creatures from an infinite number of worlds gather in the pub, Avellone and co capitalised fully on the richness of a universe prone to its own identity crises, and told the story of a man, and everything that could mean.

It's a nearly perfect game. It manages to transcend almost every flaw of the classic Infinity Engine system. Even the 1. 2. 3. dialogue boxes seem to fade from view under the strength of writing. It briefly stumbles when you take an excursion from Sigil, the central city, to some of the surrounding planes. In these places some of its fetch-quest, hack-n-slash roots briefly show, albeit still dressed in a phenomenally colourful trimming. This is the one and only time the game ever tired me, and otherwise I remained completely engrossed. I could, even now, go back and play through it again, and despite knowing its secrets from the start, despite having only just completed it, the opportunity to seek new answers to its questions would hold interest. I'll be sure that I do play it again a couple of years down the line, when memory has dimmed a little, and I'm sure I'll be transfixed a game.

This is what RPGs should be. This is what they never have been. A nearly perfect game. 9/10

Only one question remains...

What can change the nature of a man?

If You Believe There's Nothing Up My Sleeve

Moon slipped by the popular consciousness rather quietly; I'm not even sure what it was released against, but it didn't make any big news. It got a few mumbles because director Duncan Jones is David Bowie's son, but these were mostly years ago, when it was first gathering momentum. As such it joins a pantheon of low-budget, high-concept, under-the-radar sci-fi movies that are really, really good.

Whilst not quite a one man show, Sam Rockwell is at the center of events, and the film's success rests on his shoulders. It must have been a treat of a part to get, providing some unique challenges, and Rockwell rises to them admirably, allowing one to become entirely embroiled in the conceit of the story. It's not always the most subtle of performances, but it's real and slightly, surprisingly, heroic. By the end Sam has not only our sympathy, but our cheers.

None of which is to dismiss Kevin Spacey, whose contribution is more understated, but wholly neccesary and pitch-perfect. In a manner which will remind the majority of HAL 9000, he imbues the robotic Gerty with just a hint of constrained emotion.

Gerty itself is a total coup on Jones' part. Whilst most will focus on Rockwell's character, there's is a great depth of interest in his mechanical companion. The design is ingenious: A chunky boom arm suspended from ceiling rails, with effector arms on seperate units, there is no semblance of humanoid silhouette at all. A tiny little LCD screen is the token attempt to create a human bond, displaying a smiling emoticon which briefly flashes other symbols when it wishes to express something. Whether Gerty is nothing more than a machine with a contrived display of humanity, or whether the strained companionship represents something human which is constrained by its medium, is an intriguing question.

Still, fascinating as it is, the question is essentially a sideshow, whilst the plot proper is concerned with Sam. There's not a great deal of story - it could be summed up in a paragraph - instead Jones is content simply to set up his concept and follow it as it unfolds, with events only falling into a more paced narrative toward the end. It's exploration and character examination, not SF thriller.

It's also pleasingly, if mildly, subversive. Halfway in, the film has a very familiar feel to it; it might almost seem like a pleasing blend of derivations, a variation on an old theme. But then threads go in unexpected directions. Not shockingly so - This isn't a Christopher Nolan flick - but enough to be refreshing.

Indeed, that is the ultimate feel of Moon - Not shocking or extreme, never coming on strong, but content to be subtle, and to subtly wander into interesting areas. Refreshing is a good description. This tonality is carried through into direction and production. The film is beautiful and serene. This is a good niche for Jones to be carving, and I await his next eagerly.

9/10

Living Beyond Means

It's a great success of the Conservatives' rhetoric that they have convinced a lot of this country that 'Living beyond one's means' is the crime of the benefits claimants. This has been accomplished simply by the old staple technique of twisting definitions.

At the heart of the misconception, there is a conflation of this nebulous idea of 'means' and income. This is a misconception only on the part of the public who have bought into the idea. The Conservatives who have spun the story should not be seen as a piece with the accepting public. The public are mistaken - fooled - but the Tories are wilfully misdirectional.

The Conservatives have spun the story - sadly accepted in many quarters - that to live beyond your income is the great sin that has triggered the depression. They are able to gain credibility from pundits across the spectrum citing 'living beyond means' as the trigger for the depression. But note the distinction: Means, not income. To equate the two is the Conservative falsehood. Those without income are living beyond their means if they live at all, and those with absurdly overinflated incomes would struggle greatly to live a lifestyle that actually exceeded them.

The truth is that those 'living beyond their means' are comitting the excess at the point of income - their income is wildly beyond a reasonable level. And likewise, viewed in this light - the true light - we see that it is preposterous to accuse the benefits claimants of living beyond their means. If they have an income of zero, how can they possibly be living in excess of anything?

Of course a lie like this is insidious. Nobody explicitly draws the connection underpinning it - indeed, to do so is to expose the strings. Instead it is simply made a tacit assumption, an unspoken underlying definition. That way there will be many - those who are not already scrutinous but who assume veracity - who do not even notice an assumption is being made. And the best way to reinforce the false equivalency is simply to take it for granted, as if there is nothing even to dispute. But there is, and not just in this case. And those who assume veracity on the part of those in power are going to find themselves deeply confused down the line as to how things have gone so bad.

More to the point, they'll be responsible.

Apotheosis to the Death of Personality, and Everything in Between

"As a man, I could never have contained such forbidden truths. But each of us is so much more than we once were. Gazing out across the plains of possibility, do you not feel with all your soul how we have become like gods? And as such, are we not indivisible? As long as a single one of us stands, we are legion!"

"In the end what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No; a man chooses, and a slave obeys! You think you have memories. A farm. A family. An airplane. A crash. And then this place. Was there really a family? Did that airplane crash, or was it hijacked? Forced down, forced down by something less than a man, something bred to sleepwalk through life unless activated by a simple phrase, spoken by their kindly master. Come in."

The same theme, attacked from two opposite ends of the spectrum, from two of my favourite games. So a game that sits atop that spectrum and straddles the whole question, you'd expect that to go down well, would you not?

Why yes, I am enjoying Torment, now that you ask.

(One day soon I need to make an actual blog post. And also a LoK retrospective. Vae victis!)

And It Was Good

Oh fuck yes Trine 2.

Now You're a Hero

This week, I have been mostly playing Hero Core. Another freebie indie game that's compulsively addictive. It merges the exploration of Metroidvania with shmuppy gameplay. I'm not generally a shmup fan, but Core is far more about interesting rooms and enemies that absurd difficulty ramps. In fact the smoothly challenging curve is one of the games best features. Also has loads of replay value among its many modes. Retro art style is kinda neat, and the amusing Engrish language option is cute.


Also got hooked hard on Fringe, which seems to have a more protracted, defined arc than Abrams' Lost, which I could never get into. I hope this is the case; if things start to seem more in a general 'mysterious stuff that's never resolved' vibe it'll lose a lot of its value. Not sure I'd have gotten into the show if not for John Noble (Denethor) who is pretty much show stealing/defining as the disturbed genius Walter Bishop. Plot has some uncanny parallels with Half-Life, but it's probably just coincidence. The cases are frequently preposterous, which seems somewhat at odds with the vision of the show (or my perception of it) which seeks to try and rationalise or credibilise them. Also, one of the recurring characters is a cow.

Shutter Your Face

I saw Shutter Island at last on Thursday night, through a funk of sickness. It is a good movie - good, but not great. Where it succeeds is in its visuals, texture, and performances. I have not seen Scorsese and DiCaprio's other projects, but on the basis of this they seem like a strong pair, and I'm now inclined to check out both Gangs of New York and the Departed.

DiCaprio makes the film, and, I think it is fair to say, in places he carries it. It's been a good year for him, and though Island is nothing like as good a film as Inception, DiCaprio's performance is actually better. Nolan's film did not offer him the time to decompress the character as he does here. Indeed, to an extent Teddy's character may be the point of the film.

It's odd the DiCaprio would choose to make this movie back to back with Inception, so similar are the roles. I am given to assume that he has a particular penchant for these characters who are in some way disconnected from reality, as was also a facet of Abagnale and Hughes. To be sure, he's good at playing them.

Ben Kingsley is also superb as the doctor who does not judge his criminally insane patients, and whose caring is shown through a very firm hand. At times he has to be the villain, at times to suggest a sinister edge, but at other times he needs to show a genuine caring. A tricky line, but one he walks well.

Mark Ruffalo adds the final element as DiCaprio's partner, Chuck. It's the sort of performance that will probably be overlooked, as it never steals any scenes from the other two, but it's a strong and credible showing which provides a solid third column for the piece.

It's the plot that prevents greatness being achieved. I can imagine that in novel form it may have been a stronger affair, but as presented on the screen, it's flawed. For one thing, the film is immensely predictable. Within the first five minutes, most of the audience will know exactly where the next two hours are going. Yet it maintains a sort of half-hearted pretense of playing with the audience, and at the end of the time you wonder whether you were ever meant to be decieved. The red herring plot threads - clearly evident as such even as they play out - seem to lack a point. In fact, events are so predictable, that I wonder if this was actually Scorsese's destination, or whether his actual goal was not the 'reveal', but that final line shared between Teddy and Chuck. Without that scene, the film would feel rather empty, but with it, it retroactively reinvests the film with some meaning, and a rewatch, treating the film as a study of Teddy, with the outcome in mind, and focussing on the way in which he interacts with and judges the other patients, may disclose some of the obfusticated point of the earlier scenes. If nothing else, it is in that final scene that the performances hit their highest notes.

So, anyway, like I said, good, but not great. Worth seeing once, at least, and maybe twice, particularly for the feel of the thing and for DiCaprio. 8/10

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Also watched Magnolia, which I have had kicking about the place on DVD for years now. It's hard to find a time when I feel like sparing 3.5 hours, you know? Anyway, having settled to watch it the other night, lights off in the settling twilight, I was initially enjoying it a great deal. It certainly has a brilliant opening. Paul Thomas Anderson claims to have structured the film after the Beatles' track A Day in the Life, with its swelling peaks and crescendos which build, then ebb, then build again. I can certainly see the similarity. My problem with it is that it feels like one swell too man. It's being asked to emotionally invest one too many times, so by the end I felt a little bit of apathy. Certainly for the first 1:45 of its running time it keeps things pacy, lively, and changed up enough to be exhilirating. I quote '1:45' because that's the point when the film reached its midpoint crescendo and I was enjoying it so much I checked to make sure it wasn't going to be ending soon. Well, it wasn't, but shortly after this point it descends into its deepest trough - not in terms of quality, but in terms of emotion - and it doesn't quite sustain enough flourishes of pace and style to maintain the entertainment level as it coasts through. It's a pretty bleak film, and it gets a bit bogged down on the way into that final act.

In many respects it's akin to Benjamin Button, being long and sweeping in grandeur, and attempting a meditation on life through a considerable fixation on death, as well as love. But where that film was mawkish and tawdry, Magnolia succeeds, perhaps because it is inherently more vibrant to follow a tapestry of characters for a day than to follow one for a lifetime. But also generally, Magnolia simply creates more compelling, sympathetic characters than Button with its overly idiosyncratic weirdos. In particular Tom Cruise actually bothers to do some acting as a sort of heightened version of himself, and Julianne Moore provides the strongest showing as a messed up woman breaking down as her husband dies. There really isn't a weak link in the cast, though, and it'd be ephemeral of me to name everyone in turn. I'll give one final named credit to Philip Seymour Hoffman, though, who is excellent, like he generally is (also, I recommed seeing Capote).

All that, and it has Supertramp on the soundtrack, so you know it can't be bad (Although at present I have Aimee Mann's opening rendition of One is the Loneliest Number stuck in my head). 8/10, again.

Correction

Inception IS worthy of all of its praise.

MASSIVE SPOILERS: http://tinyurl.com/354ok6k

By Popular Demand

Snatching the Pebble

This is a fantastic book. It touches on an area I'm specifically fond of - gaming - but actually its appeal is far broader than that. Suits sums it up in his opening, when he says:

"It is the attempt to discover and formulate a definition, and to follow the implications of that discovery even when they lead in surprising, and sometimes disconcerting, directions."

-p21

This was the aspect that really fuelled my interest unexpectedly, the definitional side of the argument, dressed often as a refutation of Wittgenstein. I might now have to follow up on this, but I wonder if I'll find other books on the subject that are even half as entertaining a read as this one.

That's the great strength of the book. It's as enjoyable as the best fiction, really, laugh-out-loud funny in places, and even dramatic and characterful at times. Suits chooses to address his points in the form of a socratic dialogue between anthropomorphic insects drawn from Aesop's fable. The inherent humour of the idea is obviously just one joke, and would fast become tired, but Suits infuses the ongoing discourse with so many amusing twists and turns and flourishes, and his mouthpieces become characters in their own right. The triumphant return of the Grasshopper in the final chapters is, absurdly, genuinely thrilling.

And as if that wasn't enough, the conclusion reached in those chapters is really jaw droppingly intriguing. It's stated right at the beginning, but in a deliberately riddled form which gives the meat of the book its pretext for unpicking the meaning of 'games'. When things finally come full circle, the moment of comprehension makes the price of entry worthwhile alone.

If only there were more philosophical texts like this. Fantastic, 10/10 stuff.

(I found an abridged exceprt of one of the best chapters online. Check it out, then buy the book!
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/21/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-i/
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/22/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-ii/ )

Now reading The Book of Unholy Mischief. Only a scant few pages in, but I don't expect much from it. Seems to suffer badly by being an almost identical tale to Locke Lamora, but without the gift for plot, characters or prose possessed by Lynch.

And on that note, sometime soon I really want to get dug into The Republic of Thieves. The Lamora series has been pretty fun so far, and it quietly promises to become something rather notable.

Similarly, I find myself more eager to pick up A Clash of Kings than I expected to be. Though I found a few elements offputting when I read Game, the strengths of the good characters have lingered in my mind beyond the flaws of the weak ones. So I'll probably get on with that at some point.
And in digital news, I got snared again in Desktop Dungeons tonight. What an amazing game. It's got the most finely tuned balance of depth, elegance, ease of learning, challenge and everything else that I've found in a game. It also succeeds admirably in conjuring up the feel of the best parts of roguelikes without any of the barriers to entry. The new update has tarted things up a bit too, and I'm liking the change to dieties. No sooner had I mentioned it to a friend than I had to dive back in and I didn't stop until I'd ran a monk and a paladin through Normal mode. Now I've got designs on a Gnome Warlord for the next. I only hope the guy behind this doesn't leave it a one off.

What else? I'm sure there was something. Oh yes, a project has finally got legs. I may have a new boardgame prototyped by the weekend.

Fun times.

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Bonus Credit Question:

If you could replace your body with a synthetic body which would look and feel indistinguishable from a real body, and would never fall prey to illness, would you do it?

And We'll All Be Lonely Tonight, And Lonely Tomorrow

There's a scene at the top of the first episode of Moffat and Gatiss' new 'Sherlock' in which invalided Watson discusses his blog with the therapist who encouraged him to start one.

'You need to learn how to be a civillian again; keeping a record of everything that happens to you will help,' she tells him. He glances up and gives her an empty smile.

'Nothing happens to me,' he says.

I think this is my problem too. I find it incredibly hard to write anything, compared to everyone else I know. And what I do write is pretty impersonal in contrast with others, too. But then, every one of my days is exactly the same as the last: I wake up at a stupid time, sit in front of a computer, eat some crap food, and go back to bed. So what's to write?


Anyway, another year another Holmes. So what's this one like? Well, it's an improvement over last Christmas' Downey Jr attempt which, whilst entertaining and well directed, was using the Holmes name as little more than a marketing tool. Should have been the start of a new and potentially promising IP, but no dice. Moderate spoilers follow.

This adaptation is Holmes, anyway. It's not pure Holmes - it is, after all, modern day set - but it's Holmes at the heart. So that's good. I'm glad we're not being saturated by empty-but-bankable names. I wasn't really concerned for this respect, though. Moffat and Gatiss have more artistic integrity than that.

The modernisation was a concern, but is actually pretty good. Holmes' technophilia is fitting and interesting. We see how Holmes changes to fit into the new world of forensics and connectivity. This is ultimately what I feared would be missed, but it wasn't. Good!

I run hot and cold on Cumberbatch (he keeps asking me not to). At times he is very good, and very holmely (Sorry). At other times he doesn't quite work for me. He's a bit younger than I expected them to cast, but this seems to be Moffat's way at the moment, and it's working out alright. Cumberbatch does add a slightly disaffected modern-batcherlor-with-cash arrogant layabout undercurrent to the character. It's good and interesting, another nice manifestation of the modern translation, although occaisionally it spills over too far.

I have more trouble with Martin Freeman's Watson. Is this surprising? Nobody seems to be able to get Watson right. At the least, he is not so far gone as to be a New-Watson-Likes-Jam, but he's a bit dull. He's not dim, mostly, but he is the butt of the jokes sometimes, and whilst he retains the moral compass aspect, it surfaces less often and in milder ways. The flaring arguments of the pair are absent. Freeman plays him fine, in fact he's rather good - particularly in Episode 3 where he solves the Bruce Partington Plans mystery for Mycroft. It's just that I don't think he's written particularly interestingly. He's like Watson with the saturation turned down.

The real issue, might fall between them. Discussing with DJS the point came up that this Holmes has no real pain. So he's really not a sociopath - his behaviour is just 'a bit of a dick' (said with a sideways smile). And because he has no real pain, there is no real source of trouble and concern for Watson, and no conflict between them. And this weakens both.

Meanwhile, everybody hates Moriarty. My own reaction was actually less harsh than most, but I think that was largely because I had been braced for him to suck bollocks from the beginning. He's a charicature, and not remotely Moriarty. That said, the core of the character is not terrible of itself, and would have worked as an original villain, except that the panto performance added to it goes far too far over the top. The problem with portrayals of Moriarty, I think, is that he gets about three lines of dialogue in the entirety of the original source material. The Final Problem is so utterly terrifying because Moriarty is all but invisible, a wraith and an assassin, pursuing Holmes but barely glimpsed.

An unexpected highlight for me was Gatiss' Mycroft. Notsomuch in Episode 1, where he's a bit too much of a comic device, but in Episode 3, where he is actually a character in his own right. I fell for the (somewhat contrived) Moriarty misdirection, and I'm glad he wasn't. But then, he would actually have been better than what we got. (It seems obvious to me that it'll be Mycroft who pulls them out of the fire in the cliffhanger resolution.)

Three episodes isn't much, and I still haven't made a settled opinion on the series. Part of the problem is all three scripts have had their flaws, which makes judging the tone and direction harder. But there's enough there to make some fairly solid judgments.

The modern, high-tech aspect is a winner. It's used judiciously, and captures the cerebral mind-workings of Holmes. The floating phone text device is a good one, as long as they keep using it with restraint. And visually it all looks pretty good. The golem scene is a bit bizarre, sort of tripping into expressionism. Quite nice on its own, utterly unlike the rest. Interesting to imagine what the show might be like if it goes further that way.

But the real problem, the generalised issue that really stems into all of the others, is that the tone of the thing is too whimsical. Just like all the modern Holmes stuff. It takes the idiosyncracies of the character and the cases and plays them lighthearted. Now, this worked well in the sly references to canon (The five pips was inspired), but in terms of the actual vibe of the show it was too light. If I ever adapted Holmes it would be a dark, dark thing. Not humourless: There is plenty of humour in Holmes. But dark. This man is, really, a very unhealthy character, whilst Watson is disaffected and has issues of his own. And many of the crimes they handle are borne out of severe depravity and moral bankruptcy. Holmes should be dark.

For me, the radio adaptation remains head-and-shoulders the best. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. I think it's as good as a straight adaptation could be. So for my money, the real merit in any new adaptation is going to be putting another angle on things, finding something different. 'Sherlock' had the potential to do that, and it still does. I really hope it goes for it.

(Ratings, because I love rating stuff:

A Study in Pink - 8/10
The Blind Banker - 7/10
The Great Game - 8/10, by a whisker.)

But Can You Put Your Hands in Your Head?

So, I saw Inception on Wednesday (but there's no spoilers here). So heavily hyped has it been, I was actually quite prepared for a disappointment. Pleasantly surprising, then, to find that it was a film that deserved hype - albeit perhaps notw quite the absurd amount it has recieved.

I suppose it is this decade's Matrix, although less showy and more thoughtful than that film. It has the same high-concept/action thriller blending. It is, perhaps, too busy. I can seperate out two distinct plot threads that could have been decompressed into more elegant movies each. In fact, far more than that earlier series, here is an idea that meritted a trilogy format. Alas, this is not really Nolan's style. But even lacking that, and with the frustrating corollary that some ideas are not taken as far as one would like, it's a damned good film.

There's plenty of discussion- and thinking-fodder on offer there, but that's what everyone is talking and it doesn't need me to chime in (although I do have a personal pet theory, which I may record later). What I wanted specifically to make mention of was the visuals.

There are some jaw-dropping VFX and action sequences in the film. They're inspired both in terms of the ideas on the screen, and the thinking that has gone into their execution (I am sure some of what I saw must have been wire work, but if so it was the best damned wire work I have ever seen). And aside from this, the whole film looks superb. But here's what I really appreciate: None of it was gratuitous, for its own sake. All the action and effects were born of the concepts, and reinforced them and the story. That's really good, that's what completed the package.

It's cinematic in its truest sense - this is what cinema should be. And it may have swayed me in favour of 3D. I saw this on a pretty small screen, but wow, I would have loved to see that on an iMax in 3D.

Strongly recommended, a 9/10. (Narrowly pipped by Memento as my favourite of Nolan's films, though.)

In Living Colour

The Colours. They speak to me.

The Void is...

Like nothing else.

I must go. I will speak more later. For now, I need more colour. And the Brothers are coming.

Review Slew

This week, I 'ave been mostly eating...

Books

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay

Starts well, quite episodic, rich setting. Initially has a lightness of touch. Gets more maudlin as it goes on, finishes badly. Still probably worthwhile for anyone with an interest in the Golden Age of Comics trappings. 7/10

A Little History of the World

An interesting curio, with an odd past. Has merit, but what others herald as a 'grandfatherly' or 'magical' tone I find condescending. But then it was originally inteded for children. 5/10

Swann's Way

First book of Proust's A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. Thought I would give it a try, after hearing magnificent things about Proust. After 70 pages of the author talking about loving his mother, I changed my mind.

Now reading: The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia

Anthromorphic insects from the fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant engage in Socratic dialogues to arrive at a philosophy of games (also Life and Utopia). Brilliant, enlightening.

Audio

Sherlock Holmes

The definitive adaptation. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. Various highlights, a few weak points. Coules' adaptations improve whilst Doyle's interest wanes, raising the bar in places (His Last Bow and Casebook). Further Adventures are fun and pitched ever so slightly in humour, rather than poe-faced duplication.

The Signalman and Other Ghostly Tales

Dickens' ghost stories, read by John Sessions. Not really the right atmosphere for bright midsummer evenings, but ripping stuff all the same. Sessions mostly hits it out of the park, though he falters a bit on the Signalman. Sound design lifts it above commercial audiobook quality, with an original suite of music included as an isolated track at the end of the colection. Still a couple of these left to listen to. Eagerly awaiting the Poe release.

Films

Primer

Amazing. Maybe the best time-travel film ever made. Possibly that comparison isn't even applicable. This isn't really even the same genre as 12 Monkeys or Back to the Future or Time Traveller's wife. More like speculative fiction. A classic, perhaps hampered only by a touch of emotional disaffection in places, but hard to say. Often this adds to the cold feel. 10/10, probably.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Mawkish and morbid. Dreary, dull, sentimental, tiresome. Overlong. Meaningless. Maybe second quarter has a good film lost in it somewhere. 4/10

Gran Torino

Feels like it should have been made in the late 80s. Tone wanders from charicature to humour to gritty drama. A bit weird. Tries to have meaning and garbles it a bit. Also, Clint Eastwood signs about a car over the end credits, which is horrifying. Not too bad, though. Just feels oddly dated. 6/10

Brazil

Aged poorly. A bit too Gilliam for its own good. Still worth a watch, but I had Gilliam-grotesquery fatigue by the end of it. Probably more impact if I had seen this before some of his others. 7/10

TV

Babylon 5

Plot runs out halfway through. Good whilst it lasts. S2 and 3 are excellent. 4 starts excellent and ends not bad, but lags in the middle. Yet to watch 5.

Games

And Yet it Moves

Subjective gravity platformer, with a really cool 'torn paper world' theme. It's high on atmosphere, and there's some really good quality platforming. It has one real flaw, which is that it lacks the feel of smooth control that makes the best platformers so immersive. It's a bit twitchy and finnicky, and you can't help but think it'd be even better if you could pull some mad jumps off. You'll forgive it this after you see the genius of the levels, though. Especially after the snake bite... It has another flaw, external to the game itself - for a game of this length (~4 hours tops, unless you really dig the time trials) its price point is way too high (I got it on offer). 8/10

Jade Empire

Refreshingly different to the usual Bioware RPG mould. All the core elements are there except the combat, but everything is pared down to its essence, and this elegance is carried over to a slick action combat system. It has flaws - some lazy port issues with the controls, a system which sometimes crosses from elegance to oversimplicity, and the plot is not as rich as some of their other titles - but still a game with a much defter touch than, say, Mass Effect.

Mass Effect

Well, now you mention it... I sunk about ten hours into it. Maybe less. At first it felt lovely and cinematic. Then the shitty AI and shitty UI and artifical difficulty and dull writing and bored voice acting cut in. Bleh. 4/10

Shatter

A revelatory update of arcade game Arkanoid (that's the one with the blocks and the paddle). You wouldn't have imagined there was this much scope, but Sidhe have polished it to a mirror shine. Pretty damned compelling. No real negatives to the game itself, only the fact its limited in its breadth. 7/10

Bionic Commando: Rearmed

Not the new one, the update of the arcade/NES game. Sidescrolling platforming centred around grappling hook acrobatics. Very slick, quite a lot of depth, with a range of weapons, enemies and powerups, hidden areas, challenge rooms and some nonlinearity. Difficulty is pretty high, as it was with all games of that era. Way more than a port, the updates to this game are marvellous. Also, it's quite pretty. 8/10

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Temporal puzzle platformer which manages to have surprisingly little in common with Braid. Hampered a little by excessive cut-rate Suess humour and a lame attempt at Britishness. Still manages to be engaging at times. Meanwhile, all other aspects tick along nicely. The silent movie trappings, visual and auditory, are a treat. The gameplay is blended close to perfection, with the platforming element not totally subsumed by the puzzles. Puzzles, meanwhile, range from easy to moderately challenging, and the curve is well paced. Quite a lot of variations on the theme are thrown up, rather than relying too heavily on any one idea. Perhaps this has been taken too far - there is room for more levels with the existing mechanics. It is quite short; the main game is probably sub-three hours if you don't get stuck too much. Still, there's a healthy dollop of extra challenge levels which should add another one or two hours. At £3, that's a steal. 8/10

Puzzle Dimension

A subjective gravity/pathfinding puzzler. It's got a good chunk of levels, a good chunk of ideas, and a good difficulty curve. It doesn't do anything surprising or new, though. Just a good, solid puzzler. 7/10

The Dig

Still playing this one. It's a Lucasarts point and click game made my Spielberg. Not as good as the Indy ones, still good.

Aquaria

Underwater Metroidvania. The usual vocabulary of abilities is rendered irrelevant by movement in all four directions. Instead, a complement of special transformations and abilities is implemented off a pleasing musical system. Another highly polished indie game, and a fine example of the genre, I'm still playing this one.

Alien Swarm

Valve's new freebie is a mash up of Left 4 Dead and Space Hulk. The fun potential is high, and I'm eager to get some friends involved.

Beh

You know, there is a friend of mine who often links to a blog for people with disabilities, where they basically hammer everyone without a disability for being 'ableist'. Thing is, as someone with some of the conditions they talk about, I find them far more offensive than anyone else. I wonder what they'd do if I told them that.

Vote of No Consequence

It's amazing how brainwashed some people have become into believing that their vote gives them meaningful influence over the next five years of politics. If they stopped to think about it, they'd realise what a farce it was - How can writing a cross in a box on a piece of paper carry any significant meaning at all?

Similarly, people don't realise how arbitrary our voting system is. There are people - many people, most of them the same group as above - who will condemn someone who doesn't wish to vote for any of the four parties on the ballot. Yet if the Electoral Commission added a 'Protest' box to the ballot, those same people would be fine with people checking it. But whether it is present on the ballot or not is just the whim of a few people in power. It's ridiculous this notion that a protest vote when there is no official option for one is morally wrong, but that a protest vote if it was officially recognised would be completely OK. The fallacy is immediately apparent.

I am, at least, mildly relieved that people are beginning to realise the gaping flaws in First Past the Post, anyway. It's a start.

God, I hate elections.

All Possible Worlds

I always think of concepts like jars of coloured liquid. Every concept has in it a certain amount of story potential liquid. It might be the case that you have an elegantly crafted story based around a few simple premises which, for all their simplicity, afford you reams of material. Indeed, the really simple ideas are sometimes the richest. But excavating every last corner of the material might undermine the elegance and purity of concept of the story. So you revisit the concept in a later story. Here, then, is a perfectly good idea for writers to bring back good ideas. There's no rehashing, no laziness. Here is a reason predicated on getting as much interesting material into the audience's eye as possible.

Here's one of those ideas, that's really simple, but is a vast ten gallon tank of plot juice: The Holodeck. You know, from Star Trek. Concept: A room in which you can create alternate worlds in full detail. That's simple to explain, immediately grasped. And it is FULL of story concepts. You couldn't hope to cover everything it offers in a single story. There's a richness of ideas there that can only be dug into by many stories, from many angles, in many genres.

So it can't just be left to Star Trek. Here's the issue. It's a common one, I've seen it plenty of times, but here's the specific encounter that has me thinking about it right now. I just listened to the Doctor Who story 'Auld Mortality' (Review here), in which the Doctor is an author using the 'Possibility Generator' to create historical worlds for him to explore, in order to better devise his novels. It's a cracking good story, and most of the reviews have yielded to that view. And yet even the ones that are full of praise for it snark at the 'Possibility Generator' and make silly comments regarding the similarity to the Holodeck. As if it's just a stolen idea parcelled under another name.

What a stupid attitude. Auld Mortality mines a bit of the Holodeck concept plot material that hasn't - and couldn't be - explored in Trek. So such comments are ridiculous. People need to be less precious about ideas, less quick to cry rehash or plagiarism, and start engaging their critical faculties. Because maybe, far from being plagiarism or a rehash, the writer has used this concept because he's seen in it the potential to spin a yarn that's genuinely new. Maintaining that attitude only serves to inhibit the exploration of innovative ideas.

Doctor Who - Blue Forgotten Planet - Review

And so, the end. It's been, on the whole, a succesful season. It created a great deal of anticipation which would probably have been even stronger if I weren't listening after the fact. But I do think it peaked early and slowly weakened. Now I come to the final story, and it has got its flaws.

One of the great things about Patient Zero was the way that all the aspects of the plot had a bearing on each other, and I think this story really needed that coherency, but lacked it. The Blue Forgotten Planet Project strand had very little to do with Charley's departure, either plotwise or thematically. Similarly, Mila's story didn't really feed into the departure in the end. On top of that, some of the interesting aspects set up by the season just disappear. Mila, we are told, has spent so long with the Doctor she's become an ersatz-Charley, rather than the creepy stalker she was in Patient Zero. Far better it would have been to see the transformation, rather than just hear that it happened during off-screen adventures (and indeed, the change does not ring true as presented, her seeming absolution and acceptance at the end feels off as a result). Likewise, Charley's infection has been cleared up by the Viyrans, when more mileage could have been gained from that (why not have THAT be the virus the Viyrans are dealing with on Earth, for instance?).
A prime example of the disparate nature of the plot strands: the Doctor and Mila only run up against Charley and the Viyrans by sheer coincidence, rather than due to any of the various things that link them which could have provided a stronger tie.

There's also a disappointing tendency to set up all sorts of potentially interesting things and then make nothing of them. I already noted that Mila doesn't get much mileage, and there's various other examples in the plot. The humans are suffering from a condition where they regress to a mad savagery if they don't get the drugs they depend of the Viyrans for. But the specifics of the condition aren't really relevant - the degeneration into savages serves to provide a secondary threat for some action sequences, but otherwise doesn't drive the plot at all. It could have been anything really, a wasting disease, a disease that turned you into daleks (Oh, right), a disease that caused incredible pain, and it would have worked pretty much as well in the plot (except for the base siege action sequence, but that was largely ephemeral anyway). Slightly more is made of the dependency of the humans on the Viyrans, but even then it doesn't figure much. There's really rich ground for thematic exploration here; losing your mind is a horrible but morbidly fascinating concept, it could have been a major theme, but instead it's not really discussed. Likewise blind dependency on a higher power. Or the fact that the humans have lost all memory of the planet's past. Plenty of ripe ideas there. Ignoring the human situation, there's Charley and Mila - loads of questions about the nature of identity spring up, but the plot isn't concerned. Perhaps the one that bothered me the most was Charley's relationship to the Viyrans. She's been doing errands for them in between centures in cryofreeze, popped out to do their dirty work then returned to oblivion. And the Viyran's mission is not exactly palatable. Charley is complicit in five genocides. Why doesn't the story explore that at all? It's rushed past, as, similarly, is the Doctor's breaking the web of time at the end of the story. There's a hint that the Doctor is actually repairing the web from damage somehow related to Charley's time-twisting in the first place, but it's gone before you know it. There a big consequences here, with great dramatic potential, but the play does not acknowledge them.

It seems Nick Briggs didn't want to do a story that did 'issues' though, but more of an action romp. Fair play, that worked great guns in Patient Zero, and for the first half of BFP it does here, too. Unfortunately, the second half seems to require a bit too much technobabble and coincidence to dig itself out of it. (Most clonkingly, the fact that time travel just so happens to be the cure for the disease they've stumbled upon. I mean, really, couldn't it have been worked in any better at all?)

I'll quickly mention one last weakness, then I'll get on to the good stuff. The guest cast are pretty good for the most part, but the characters they're playing are not particularly interesting. They're distinct enough people - sometimes I've found supporting casts in stories like this blur together - but largely uncompelling. Part of the problem is that they're just bland. They could be anyone. This is a group of people who've lived every day with only a weak lifeline linking them to their sanity, and surrounded by exemplars of what they could so easily become. But none of this really seems to have shaped them, they're generic 'crisis survivor' types - the specifics of their situation don't come through in their actions and thoughts. They start out promisingly, though, and get some decent interplay early on which gives them a realism, but as the story progresses the disparity between their situation and their flat behaviour grows. In the second half they're mostly relegated to giving one sentence reactions to each plot point as it passes. Even a fairly significant death doesn't register much.

Still, as I said, this is mostly down to writing and direction, not performance. The acting in the play is pretty tight; nobody is letting the side down, and there are a fair few strong moments from multiple characters. What it really lacks, though, is interplay between Colin and India. As they're seperated for much of the story we don't really get to see them sparking off each other, and it feels missing. Their parting is imminent, so it feels like they should be playing off each other, but they're not, and the absence is noticeable. Colin and India are both on good form, but there is a feeling when, say, the Doctor is talking to Ellen and Ed that, no matter how good Colin is being, he'd be even better if it was a scene with Charley.

That said, I felt India was very good here. She plays Charley more muted than we are used to, somewhat less ebullient due to her new existence as a worker for the Viyrans. She comes off as knowing, a bit jaded, but still Charley - not cynical and depressed. And she contrasts it well against Mila, who's still bouncy and happy as ever. The only time it goes out the window is when the pair meet, and again this might be more down to the writing and direction. Unfortunately all the potential of the Charley-Mila scenes is reduced to the tedious 'No, *I'm* the real one' type bickering that's become very much the cliché in such stories.

A nod should also be made to Michael Maloney. The Viyrans are still misappropriating poor Fratalin's voice, so Maloney is back to play them, and he's very good. He makes them sound almost melancholic - they don't want to make any enemies, but they really do need to blow up this planet, and they're faintly sad about it.

Backing up the performances is some great sound design. It's a very rich soundscape that prevents the story ever becoming stagey. The music is superb, although sometimes it seems to swell up during moments when the drama is not similarly coming to a head. The voice modulation on the Viyrans adds to Maloney's already fantastic performance and complements it perfectly.

Ah, the Viyrans! The other real success of the story. They've lost a slight layer of mystery and creepiness in coming to the forefront, but in exchange they've gained the tinge of melancholy mentioned above. Their motivations, now we have a decent grasp of them, are very much alien and interesting to think about. This is one area of the play where the concepts are finally given some examination. They've maintained their intimidating qualities well. Perhaps because they don't gloat or show it off, it's very easy to believe the Viyrans really do possess some pretty phenomenal power. You can totally buy that they would, and do, scan every face of a planets population to locate a disease. Wisely, Briggs has still kept them a step removed from things though - they never have a feel of immediacy - so they still have plenty of mystique to trade on in a potential (and hopefully likely) return.

Finally, the send off itself. First of all: Charley tells the Doctor the truth, at last, and... We get NO reaction at all? The Doctor says nothing as she explains, and then the scene is interrupted by Ed and Ellen. This felt like a resoundingly missed moment. As for the actual departure, I don't know quite what I think of it. I suspect I'll need a relisten to really decide. I do think the understated ending was the way to go, though. It would have been easy to do something really big, but that has all the more chance to fall flat. When I saw the chapter title R101 I wondered if she was ultimately going to die on the airship after all! That would have been quite the twist, but it, or a similar grand exit, could easily have come off feeling overblown. I also like the way it's kept possible that it's actually Mila that has survived, which casts things in a much darker slant. I was hoping that the solution to the tangled timelines would be something clever than a memroy wipe, though, because that was always the obvious and rather predictable way out. My other issue is with the final words between them - I feel they should have been something more personal. As it was, they're something about Mila, who has only just recently become part of the arc, and I would have liked last words which felt like they addressed all of the pair's history. I don't know WHAT I think of the open endedness... It is left very loose.

Ultimately it's a story that feels like too many missed opportunities. It rides on a very strong and exciting build-up, and so it really needs to tie the various strands together satisfactorily, but it doesn't. Instead it adds new and unnecesary aspects which then pull the story apart and leave it feeling under explored. But it's well performed, it sounds great, the Viyrans are undeniably brilliant, and the first two parts are pretty exciting, so it's not a total wash. Provisionally I'd give it around a high 6 or low 7, but I haven't really made my mind up yet.

Doctor Who - Paper Cuts - Review

This is an enjoyable story, but a lightweight one. The sort of thing I can give a lazy replay to when going to bed, quite happily, but not one that's overly gripping or challenging. As has been noted, in really suffers for its placement; it fails to capitalise at all on the arc connecting the previous and the succeeding story. This seems like a huge mistake. Whilst I'm getting that BF wanted to make a distinct, standalone story to prevent the season feeling like one huge plot, they could have developed one with greater thematic links to what was going on. As it is we get a few interesting moments between Mila and Not-Gomori and little else. In addition, the get-out from the previous cliffhanger is fairly underwhelming, and the time explosion seems to have no greater significance beyond spreading the viruses as we already knew.

Still, let's take it on its own terms. First things first: It is a play of beautiful imagery. Paper warriors, walls that echo memories, tombs in space, chess games. There is an almost poetic quality to the setting here. The visuals in my head were as rich as any I've had with a Big Finish play. Better known for clever plotting than sensual flourishes, this was an unexpected pleasure coming from Platt.

On the other hand, the story isn't quite as thoughtful and smart as Platt is known for. It's a fairly ordinary court intrigue story for the most part, with a few unexpected turns mostly in the final part. I felt that the revelations towards the end were a little underexplained, not fully set up or resolved. It didn't really detract from the story, but there was a slight non-sequitur feel. There was a hint of a 'chess game' structure in the final part, with the Sazou figures freezing when it wasn't there turn and such. This could have been developed further. I've always been a sucker for the battle of wits in stories, and would have enjoyed it more if the Sazou game had been ongoing from part three onwards as a backdrop to events. On the whole it's an amiable, unassuming tale. Enjoyable without being standout.

As others have noted, there is a bit of overacting in the performances, most notably that of Sara Crowe, who is probably the weakest link in the story. The other performances are alright, though there is a distinct lack of subtlety. The Captain, played by John Banks, is perhaps the only one exempt from this, and he makes a fairly simple character feel quite real - the Captain is the best of the Draconian lot. The Prince is a bit shouty and loud most of the time, and also has an odd habit of beginning his scenes calmly, even if he was raging last we saw him. India Fisher is a bit underwhelming here. She puts in an OK showing, but doesn't bring anything of anything much to the script than what's already there, and does nothing with the interesting Mila-Charley set up. (Admittedly, based on the interviews, it seems like Briggs might have specifically told her to act exactly like Charley, which would probably left her feeling a bit stifled, one would imagine.) As with Patient Zero, Colin puts in a good showing, but doesn't hit his A game. He does have a few more sparkling lines than the previous tale, though.

Lastly, a good word for the sound design. Whilst it's very spartan, it is quite effectively so. The rustling of paper is the key sound effect of the play, and everything else is neccesarily muted to suit it. It works well, and the smattering of musical accompaniment is quite pleasant too.

My overall impression is that things might have worked better as a three part story. As it is the pace is very slow - an intentional choice, rather than a poorly structured story, but things may have felt tighter in three parts. This would have also opened up a one-part story in order to explore Mila-Charley a little more, perhaps having Gomori accepting his ride home to Mila's chagrin, setting up a little three-hander in which Mila shows a bit more of herself when she's alone with Gomori and not happy.

As such fancies might indicate, I am a little disappointed with what was actually delivered, but as noted, it isn't so much an inherent problem with the story that prompts such, but rather its unfortunate positioning. Taken alone it's a lighthearted bit of fluff, enjoyable and very much listenable, but largely unremarkable save for some striking visual imagery. 6/10

Doctor Who - Patient Zero - Review

So, the Doctor is finally confronting Charley about her secrets. There's no way out now! Unless, of course, she suddenly collapses from a mysterious virus. Thus begins the end for Charlotte Pollard, as the Doctor heads to the mysterious Amethyst Station to try and find a cure...

And it's really rather exciting! It definitely has a bit of a 'series finale' grandeur feel to it. It's not a wholly self-contained story, either, but part one of a mini season that looks as if it will all be one long story, in essence. Everything's scaled up, the stakes feel really high. There's a lot of edge of your seat moments.

The appearance of the daleks isn't one of them. Why, oh why, must Big Finish put them on the front cover of every release they're in? It utterly undermines the work the writer puts into their reveal if BF are going to broadcast them in advance. OK, so they sell discs. But the stories WITHOUT daleks sell well enough that surely you could avoid slapping one on the cover just for once?
The other problem with the daleks is simply that... Well... They're daleks. Again. It's only two stories since the last lot. And that one wasn't very good. Big Finish are seriously grindind them into the ground... And there's more next season, too. Dalek fatigue is setting in.
Partially because of that, it was surprising just how good the daleks are here. They're well integrated into the plot, and their story ties into Charley's departure arc. Plus they're not the lacklustre cut-out daleks that populated Enemy the other month. These are real daleks. They're ruthless, terrifying characters. A scene in which the dalek commander blackmails the Doctor is devastatingly effective.
As well as this, we have actual characters among the daleks now. The dalek commander is the epitomal dalek. Utterly relentless, single minded and destructive. The Time Controller on the other hand reinforces the idea that the daleks are actually phenomenally intelligent creatures. A calm, intellectual dalek, he monitors the web of time to maximise the daleks' devastating potential across the continuum. The story is very succesful in portraying the Time Controller as conscientious, intelligent, unwilling to kill the Doctor whilst blind to the consequences, without making him any less of a dalek. He is just as threatening, just as malevolent, but in a more sinister, more thoughtful way that contrasts the Commander.

The other hook is those mysterious Viyrans. We've known about them for a while now, and yet we really don't know anything about them at all. And we still don't! This isn't really a Viyran story, their part is fairly small and late in the game (although their presence is felt throughout). One gets the feeling that Blue Forgotten Planet will be their story. This is just a reminder, to reinforce their existence, hanging over proceedings. To remind us that something is up, and they will be along to fix it one day. And it won't be pleasant.
They're not quite so creepy here as they were in Mission of the Viyrans, but then that story was a horror, whereas this is more action orientated. They're still pretty unusual though, and they definitely come off as being intimidating foes. Quite the enigma, and still rather unsettling - The notion of having them speak only with other characters' voices is a coup. I'll be looking forward to hearing more of them.

Moving down the scale of alien-ness we have Fratalin. A memorable and well realised character from BF, he's made up of 800-odd seperate little selves which can fuse into larger ones. All of them share his voice and personality, but they're not a hive mind, so they can talk amongst themselves.
Fratalin himself(s) is on the surface quite a nice fellow. He's very calm, pleasant in demeanour, and very patient with people. He's also utterly, unshakably dedicated to his cause, which leads him to put the Doctor in some rather unpleasant situations.
Maloney plays him well, there's a real sense of rock-and-a-hard place when he's forced to do some difficult things in service to his conviction. He seems genuinely saddened and apologetic when he is forced to place Charley's wellbeing below the sanctity of his duty. He also inflects the generally calm and reserved character with a strong sense of desperation during the growing tension of part two, as the Doctor desperately tries to force him to abandon his calling. His reaction to losing some of his 'familiars' similarly does well at fleshing out another emotional side of him. It's not a masterpiece performance of great range, by any means, but a solid showing that backs up a good character concept.

The other non-regular character is Mila, and she's an odd one. As a character there's a lot of potential here: She's deranged by two very different ordeals. Sociopathic yet seemingly quite innocent. Possessed of quite phenomenal power to exact vengeance, but apparently not particularly vengeful. And later on, she begins to slide into a different personality altogether.
Jess Robinson is far from bad in the role, but I felt there was potential for more. There could have been some real depth to the character, the suggestion of counterpoint emotions underlying her surface facade. Instead we get what I am sort of inclined to call the 'easy' option. The chipper-psychopath angle isn't new, and its effectiveness is not guaranteed. Here it works alright - moreso early on, when we are less certain who Mila is - but it's not spectacular. Ultimately, Robinson overplays the cheerfulness a little too much for my taste. I thought there was some potential there to have a little bit of acid underneath the sweetness, and a coldness behind the fake warmth.

As to the regulars, they're pretty good. Have Colin and India ever been anything other than pretty good together? No, I don't think so. That said, they're not at their absolute top showing. Colin is a bit more shouty and blunt than usual, and he doesn't get any really resoundingly memorable moments. The first-part cliffhanger is great, but I thought it could have been even better if Colin had been at the very top of his game.

India's a bit of a mixed bag here. Her anxiety regarding her secret seems to have tapered off somewhat since Raincloud Man. Given that we have reached crunch time, she seems to have become a little more relaxed since the last outing, which isn't exactly fitting. She's also not so good at portraying someone suffering terribly from an illness. 'I feel terrible' she says, but she doesn't sound like she does. She groans and mumbles a bit, but it's not the voice of someone who feels like death warmed up. She just sounds like she has a headache, not some monstrous space lurgy.
She's better later, though. Given reign to act a sort of alternate take on Charley she really takes off, much as she did in the Doomwood Curse. She's quite convincing as being New-Charley rather than normal old Charley. On the other hand, when she has to flick back to being normal old Charley, she seems lacking once again. The situation she's in is pretty dire, but there's no great urgency in her performance. Certainly she has sounded more worried in other stories.

As for the plot itself, it's certainly not high minded, conceptual stuff. It's big bangs and daleks and explosions in corridors. It is very fun, though. Probably the best thing Briggs has done since Creatures of Beauty (which was high concept). Everything ties up quite nicely, which is maybe the main thing. With Charley's departure, her secret revealing, daleks and viyrans in the pot it could be quite a mess. Thankfully all the elements are very much related to one another, so there's a great feeling of coherency. And for a story which is actually mostly shouting in corridors, as someone else described it, it feels quite pacy and action packed. It certainly kicks off in the latter half, and the Viyran-Dalek battles are quite exciting.

The sound design is effective, making it easy to picture what's going on without ever throwing up the confusing wall of sound that occaisionally plagues the more action packed stories. It is perhaps a little sparse, though. Sometimes that's inkeeping - it works to set the scene of this enormous, sparse, desolate clinical facility - but it could have maybe used a bit more of an interesting soundscape. Thinking back now I can't recall anything of the incidental music work. Now, I'd rather have something unobtrusive than something jarring, of course, but the really good audios usually have a few strong, memorable cues that reinforce the action.

So, that's Patient Zero. It's a very entertaining beginning to a compelling arc, that leaves me excited to hear what's next, and indeed a little intrepid. Whilst I never found myself hugely invested in her with the Eighth Doctor, she's really grown on me with the Sixth, and her departure will probably pull a few strings.
It's also a refreshingly good dalek romp, thankfully after the so-recent Enemy, and with Plague just around the corner. An 8/10. Onwards to Paper Cuts.

Doctor Who - The Beast Below - Thoughts

Not quite as out and out fun as last week's, but then, it wasn't really a 'fun' episode.

Pacing seemed off, as if it had been heavily editted, especially at the start. Perhaps the episode originally overran quite a bit?

Ending belaboured its point rather too excessively, and there was a bit of anticlimax after Amy forced the queen to press the button.

Mostly another fine episode, though, if not super-memorable.

Liz Ten (I am amazed this wasn't a pun) wasn't the *greatest* performance we've ever had, and Moffat runs the risk of making all his female characters these spunky amazonwarrior types.

Not sold on Gillan yet. She seemed to be overdoing it and pantomiming quite a bit. Actually moreso than last episode.

Smith's performance is a really odd kettle of fish. He varies between genuine and intentional self-parody, occaisionally lapsing into this sort of massively emphasised enunciation, like the language is unfamiliar to him. He needs to watch this - push it too far and the performance will seem like Smith is contriving it. BUT, if he's careful with it, I think it works well. It's like the Doctor's words feel sort of unfamiliar to him even as he says them, and he's conscious that there's a gap between his language and his self. Plus it's counterpointed by quieter, more 'normal' moments. I've noticed that in between the 'weird' dialogue, Smith's Doctor actually has the most urbane. He uses colloquialisms and talks like any normal guy, as if he's not the Doctor at all. It's the exact opposite of the overstated weirdy performance. I think in this episode he sided a bit too much on the weirdly and could have done with a bit more of the super-normal talk. (I like this weird contradiction. It is odd because it is banal.)

Based on last week's episode, and on those threads I picked from this weeks, it's still too early days to judge this performance, because none of that stuff is heavily dramatic/emotional. Seeing how he adapts to performance to the extremes will ultimately decide how good he is. (It wasn't until we saw Tennant try to handle moments of real anger that it became evident there was a big weakness.)

But then there was (quite unexpectedly) the moment in the dungeon. The Doctor, coldly telling Amy she doesn't get to make choices with him, telling her she's going home, then losing his cool and yelling that nobody human has anything to say to him. And then the follow on, in which he says he'll have to get a new name (this moment, this line, really resounded with me - divesting himself of his name, AGAIN, he is truly disgusted with himself). For me this was a moment of more powerful pain and anger than Tennant ever managed. Now I am really hopeful for Smith's Doctor, and it won't take much more for me to be sold.

The story as a whole was patchy, with odd pacing, but quite good. Maybe a 7/10 or just short thereof. Smith's performance rates higher.

A couple of sidenotes: The design work on this series seems to have been stepped up a notch even as the CGI has stepped down. Also, I like the return to the early Hartnell style of having each story end by beginning the next.

Further thoughts: The Smilers pretty much extraneous. Just there to add a creepy visual monster to proceedings. Never really serve a purpose or gain any explanation. Probably would have worked *better* without the half-smilers. Prior to that they are just creepy-humourous alternative to the hackneyed CCTV police state imagery, with the little trick up their sleeve that they're also the enforcement. Adding the half-smiler line suddenly makes more of them than their presentation can live up to.

Also, why the 'You look Time Lord' retread? This was jarringly unneccesary. Smith seemed to have trouble making it fit in, too.

Appreciated the tying into the Ark in Space timeline.

Did I imagine it, or did they boost the bass in the themetune this week?

Shock and Awe

Recent(ish) entertainments:

Bioshock - Nothing I have to say hasn't been said. Bioshock has been discussed to death. I agree with the prevailing opinion. This is the best piece of game storytelling I have ever seen. The vision is utterly coherent and manifests in every aspect of the game. The theme is intriguing; the dichotomy of moral and amoral self-interest is a refreshingly new backdrop. The characters are some of the best realised in gaming. Andrew Ryan is one of the best characters in anything. Fascinatingly nuanced, you could discuss him for hours. He passes through idealistic nutjob to moustache-twilring villain to something tragic and almost heroic. The gameplay is rich, too, and shouldn't go unmentioned, letting you tailor your own style quite pleasingly. The only off-note is that silly hacking game.

Lord of War - Odd film. Speaks of executive meddling, I think. It seems to be a mish-mash of different styles, never sure what it wants to be. Ultimately it's a sort of sardonic parody of the arms trade, but it wavers between wanting to play things straight, or amping up the ridiculous elements. The early film is the best, with 80s tunes and snappy pacing, the later parts are never quite so entertaining. There's something moderately enjoyable here, but it's a strange beast. As with Truman and Gattaca, Niccol has at least produced a polished looking piece. Also, it's a Nick Cage film, so you can probably decide whether you'll enjoy it or not based purely on that.

Carter Beats the Devil - Reading this, I was put in mind of Chinatown and the Illusionist. That's no bad thing for what is essentially a noir story about magicians. Despite the touchpoints, it largely feels like its own thing, though, with a distinct atmosphere maintained throughout.
The historical backdrop is very well researched, and you can see this has informed the setting throughout; the San Francisco of the story was very clearly defined in my head by the time I was done. Perhaps even better realised is the world of the stage magicians, and it was a wise choice on Gold's part to play them straight. Rather than try and mystify the nature of the magic shows, he lays out plainly the reality going on backstage. It sets the story apart from the other little clump of stage magic stories from the past few years, which all sought to embellish and fancify the art. In fact, learning what really went into the tricks, you get a far more genuine respect for the guys that did this stuff. Plus, I'm a sucker for historical factual content in my fiction.
Gold has a pretty good mind for characters, and the novel is well populated, but it's true that all the characters are fairly similar in their lifestyles and philosophies. When Gold branches out from the circle of people around Carter, his characters are a bit more charicature, as with the Treasury agents.
It's a good story, anyway. It has a slightly melancholy atmosphere, but punctuated with more upbeat moments that prevent it growing dreary. It does sort of meander, with an odd pacing, and soemtimes it's not entirely clear what things are moving towards. This is, I think, at least partially intentional. The structure of the story evokes a magic trick.
Therein lies the main flaw of the story, though. The story stumbles at the climax. I found myself expecting a grand revelation, but in fact the threads are untangled and stitched up at quite a leisurely pace. The ending also feels a bit sprawling, and in need of tightening up, so ultimately the last few chapters are a mite underwhelming. It's undermined through no fault of its own by skewing in very similar directions as the Illusionist in the last few chapters, too, which is unfortunate. Nonetheless, it's a good book with a great setting and a distinctive feel.
(Sidenote: It's also a book that's been rather heavily hyped, and I don't think this is to its benefit. Much like Carter himself, it is a book which wants its audience to expect little from it.)

Anathem - Wow. This is an amazing book. Speculative fiction at its most speculative. Not just predicated on a single 'What if?', the book keeps asking questions, preparing you for the next one along. It weaves together myriad theories from philosophy and the sciences, throwing in commentaries on a vast array of subjects, a whole fictional world system and clever linguistical flourishes. The depth of material here is astounding; it's a cornucopia of fascinating ideas and concepts, both real-world and fictional.
Astoundingly, Stephenson manages to deliver these ideas with great accessibility. Expecting a heavy read I was surprised just how deftly the themes and concepts are spun out. Stephenson, I suspect, has great clarity of mind, and this comes out in his writing.
The danger with high-spec fiction is that it becomes a series of ideas with no real narrative. Here, though, there is a hugely compelling story. A strong plot gives a solid through line driven by a series of intriguing mysteries, whilst a myriad smaller character arcs and sub stories spin out from it. It's an incredibly detailed word, and Stephenson mines it for compelling story material.
The other danger of such stories is that they will be dry. More than anything that was my expectation for this story. I'm fine with that, though. Brilliant concepts can hold my interest alone. What I didn't expect was the great emotional heart of the novel. Not only is it one of the most cerebrally stimulating books I've read, I was blindsided by just how much feeling there is in it. Certain moments in particular evoked more of a reaction than I am used to getting from a book. The characters are beautifully realised, and even whilst balancing his grand conceptual narrative, Stephenson never fails to devote just as much importance to their loves and hopes and dreams. A great deal of very real humour, pathos, tragedy and fear comes from the strength of the characters.
Perhaps the greatest feat is the way Stephenson has used every element to reinforce every other. An example: The protagonist worries a lot about the future. His teacher seeks to comfort him, but also to educate him. He engages him in a discussion about the future, and his worries, and begins asking why he should worry about some things, and not others. As the discussion goes on it evolves into a theoretical conversation about the ability of the human mind to assess potential futures. Instead of the character beats and the theoretical content treading on each others toes, they're feeding back and forth in a way that flows gloriously.
Along with If On a Winter's Night a Traveller... and The End of Mr Y, this is one of three books I consider to be on a tier above all other books I've read.

I Don't Do Patronising Bullshit

I was reminded today of a video that aired in the run up to the last election, designed at combatting the drastically low voter turnouts of recent times. Here it is.



I confess, I am pre-empting the government and the media somewhat on this one, but I'd be stunned if we don't hear the same old discussion about voter numbers and non-voters this time out.

But they've missed the point. Not only have they missed the point, they've been arrogant and offensive about it. Faced with a country in which a mere 61.3% of the population turned out to vote at the last general election, the assumption is drawn by the people of power that the non-voters are ignorant, thick-headed plebs who're too thick and too lazy to embrace the wonderous workings of democracy. And what's their answer? To produce a ridiculous television spot which patronises and humiliates the nonvoters, to try and ridicule them into conformity.

Fuck them, because I won't be voting. When the powerholders are sneering and the thickheaded proles who don't know what's good for them, they'll be sneering at me. And I'll bet it's a rare and tiny fragment of them who'll entertain the notion that perhaps I didn't vote because I am *very much* concerned and involved in the political state of the people. Perhaps I didn't vote because I don't wish to give my endorsement in any way to a system of depoliticisation and gross overlegislation. A system where the masses are excluded from the spaces of freedom whilst the powerholders are excluded from spaces of law.
This is what the powerholders need to realise, and what there is scant chance they ever will - That when less than to thirds of the voting populace doesn't turn out, there's not something wrong with them, there's something wrong with you.




And there is another point, which I have split off for sake of clarity, but which is just as important and raises my hackles even more. That ridiculous TV spot, drenched as it is in the arrogance of the powerholders, suggests that those who don't vote, those who don't conform to the system, deserve to be depoliticised. Of course, this arrogance, this view, and in general the whole belief that, in all its forms, power belongs to the power holders is nothing new. It is the heart of the whole digusting mess. This video is just another example, another point where it breaks the surface. But it's enraging, all the same.

And you know who whose attitudes those preposterous charicatures in the video call to mind the most? Politicians.

The Company of Friends - Review

Oh. Dear. To say I didn't have high hopes for this anyway, it managed to disappoint me impressively. A collection of one part stories featuring companions of the Eighth Doctor from various other spin-off ranges. Having not read the books or comics, I had no idea who Izzy or Fitz were, and whilst I'd previously heard some of Benny on audio, my impression of her was less than favourable. I didn't really know what to expect, but I didn't anticipate anything quite this poor.

Benny's Story - I can't stand Bernice Summerfield. The world-weary 'I have an ex-husband, I drink a lot, I flirt with all men, I have a sarcastic answer for everything' characterisation just makes me wince. I don't find the humour in her stories funny. Not remotely. That said, I know she's massively popular, so I can't really fault BF for including her. I remain baffled at her fandom, though.

Aside from Benny, the story isn't *too* bad, at first. Benny being hired to find a TARDIS key is an intriguing hook, as are Venhella's motivations. Nothing really develops though, and the story becomes more of a jumbled mess as it goes on. 4/10

Fitz's story - Not so bad. Matt diAngelo didn't really get enough time to show much of his interpretation of Fitz, but he was ok and I got the impression he might be quite good in a longer story. The plot is basically one joke stretched out, but the gag is a funny one - The Doctor is the new figurehead of a company's infomercials, but they're using his likeness illlegally. Adding a little more interest to what could have been pure comedy, there's a suggestion the company might be up to nefarious deeds. It's a decent set up, but then the plot seems to run out of material, and fills the gaps with some less well-judged humour. The cleaner, in particular, is poor. Mostly a harmless piece of fluff, with a good start if a rather empty finish. 5/10

Izzy's Story - This is the real dealbreaker for me. This is the story that made me regret a purchase for the first time pretty much ever. The plot, such as it is, is the most cliche, worn out, stereotypical parody of comic book fandom you can imagine. The kid's show 'Arthur' did this story some time in the late 90s (and they did it better). In a couple of places it even becomes, if not offensive, then mildly sigh-inducing. The 'geek' character with thick glasses and bad skin is an image most people have moved on from in the last decade (the fact it's not being played straight doesn't make it any less groan-worthy), and, worse, Izzy asserts that the Courtmaster can't be female because s/he has a female lover - and the Doctor explains that Eugenia is a man's name on the writer's planet, seemingly accepting completely the truth of Izzy's assertion. I thought this was going to be a jab at Izzy's childish naivety, but no, apparently girls can't have relationships with other girls. I mean, I'm not going to be writing to the Daily Mail about this any time soon, but it did have me arching my brow for a moment.
Unfortunately, the story isn't helped by Jemima Rooper's performance. Perhaps simply playing to script, she plays Izzy as a 7 year old. In fact, not even that. She plays a character who is loud, excitable and childish in a way NO real person ever has been. Once more, I'm baffled by the love for this character and this performance. I can see what aspects about Benny people go for, even as they put me off. I can't imagine what people see in Izzy here. On the other hand, I could believe that both the character and the actress are being dragged down by the other elements of the production, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt as regards their merits in other work.
For my money, the joint worst story in the audio range, along with 100 Days of the Doctor. 2/10

Mary's Story - The only really redeeming tale on the disc. The idea that the Eighth Doctor travelled with Mary Shelley is quite intriguing; they seem like they'd make quite a pair. Indeed, the Eighth Doctor seems like he'd spend a lot of time hanging around with people from this era generally. The story finally throws off the air of silliness that pervaded the rest of the collection, and has quite a harsh, stressful atmosphere. This works well. In general it's quite a nice character piece, and does a lot with a few allusions dressed on a single point in a much larger plot. There's a couple of weaknesses, but they're not too bad. The lightning ressurection is pretty macguffiny, but with these shorter stories there's not much scope for anything more. Also, the historical characters end up rather undermined (excepting Mary herself). There's so many of them, each only gets a couple of lines, which, coupled with the slightly preposterous actions they take, leaves them seeming a bit hard to credit, which is a shame. Still, quite an enjoyable little tale. 7/10

Unfortunately, it's not enough to save the collection overall. The whole set I'd rate at about a 4/10. The worst of the anthologies.