Blackadder Goes Forth marked a fitting climax to a brilliant comedy series. Wonderful casting. Clever writing. Superb performances. Two-bit sets. British comedy at its intelligent best, really.
Reviews
6 Reviews
The Last Man on Earth
(2015–2018)
Great fun built on a spookily prescient premise.
21 August 2021
Probably the most realistic post-apocalypse series you will ever see! A virus has wiped out the population of the world in the Year 2020 (yes really), apparently leaving just one lone survivor.
But the survivor is no skilled survivalist - he's just a typical, slightly oikish American male. What would you do in that situation? Go to the White House and steal the rug of course.
Amid the slapstick and tomfoolery, there's very smart writing behind this story that places an ordinary border-line loser into a complex web of moral conundrums.
Should the last man on Earth marry the last woman on Earth to ensure the perpetuation of the species? What if she's a complete goofball? In the end a small band of representative characters must decide how to recreate society from the ashes of the old. Brilliant acting, clever stories, and lots of laughs.
This is a truly great comedy series that starts with a spookily prescient premise.
But the survivor is no skilled survivalist - he's just a typical, slightly oikish American male. What would you do in that situation? Go to the White House and steal the rug of course.
Amid the slapstick and tomfoolery, there's very smart writing behind this story that places an ordinary border-line loser into a complex web of moral conundrums.
Should the last man on Earth marry the last woman on Earth to ensure the perpetuation of the species? What if she's a complete goofball? In the end a small band of representative characters must decide how to recreate society from the ashes of the old. Brilliant acting, clever stories, and lots of laughs.
This is a truly great comedy series that starts with a spookily prescient premise.
Two Doctors Too Many
20 August 2021
The first point to make to a viewer contemplating diving in to watch "The Two Doctors" hoping to relive some of the whimsy of the black and white Patrick Troughton years of Doctor Who... is to say that this is not a family story.
Almost none of the essence of Troughton's Doctor is permitted to shine through the dirge and nastiness that afflicted the program through too much of the 1980s.
Momentary glimpses of Troughton and companion Jamie's true worth do peek through between dark themes of cannibalism, knife fights, and Colin Baker's bullying and erratic performance of The Sixth Doctor.
Inexplicably, the Sontarans also appear. Don't ask me why. Their connection to the story is tenuous at best. As is the setting in Spain.
In place of witty repartee, Troughton's Doctor (tied down for much of the story) engages in a series of shouting matches with one-dimensional villains.
And the only moral of this story? Apparently we should all be vegetarians.
For the un-initiated, it should be explained that all these things were not what the Classic Series had been built on through its long heyday in the 60s and 70s (and brief renaissance in the late 1980s with Sylvester McCoy's first stories).
After putting the plane together whilst flying it through the First Doctor's wobbly-setted reign, the strength of witty scripts, good stories, and strong character-acting always overwhelmed the weakness of wobbly sets, outlandish costumes, and frequently implausible plots for most of its first two decades. Within the implausible plots, the characters behaved - for the most part - plausibly.
But by the Colin Baker era, the show was overly-lit in set design, and overly-dark in story theme. The costumes were garish, the violence too graphic for children, and the central casting pretty woeful. And in this story from 1985, we have Patrick Troughton and Jamie McCrimmon - two of the great characters of the program's Heroic Age - returning for a mostly unworthy swansong.
Ah well. What can a fan do except... watch.
As for the rest of you... I doubt any of it will make much sense.
Almost none of the essence of Troughton's Doctor is permitted to shine through the dirge and nastiness that afflicted the program through too much of the 1980s.
Momentary glimpses of Troughton and companion Jamie's true worth do peek through between dark themes of cannibalism, knife fights, and Colin Baker's bullying and erratic performance of The Sixth Doctor.
Inexplicably, the Sontarans also appear. Don't ask me why. Their connection to the story is tenuous at best. As is the setting in Spain.
In place of witty repartee, Troughton's Doctor (tied down for much of the story) engages in a series of shouting matches with one-dimensional villains.
And the only moral of this story? Apparently we should all be vegetarians.
For the un-initiated, it should be explained that all these things were not what the Classic Series had been built on through its long heyday in the 60s and 70s (and brief renaissance in the late 1980s with Sylvester McCoy's first stories).
After putting the plane together whilst flying it through the First Doctor's wobbly-setted reign, the strength of witty scripts, good stories, and strong character-acting always overwhelmed the weakness of wobbly sets, outlandish costumes, and frequently implausible plots for most of its first two decades. Within the implausible plots, the characters behaved - for the most part - plausibly.
But by the Colin Baker era, the show was overly-lit in set design, and overly-dark in story theme. The costumes were garish, the violence too graphic for children, and the central casting pretty woeful. And in this story from 1985, we have Patrick Troughton and Jamie McCrimmon - two of the great characters of the program's Heroic Age - returning for a mostly unworthy swansong.
Ah well. What can a fan do except... watch.
As for the rest of you... I doubt any of it will make much sense.
Wheels Come Off in Space
18 August 2021
By the Colin Baker years, the wheels had well and truly come off this once great television series and it is difficult to find much to enjoy in this two part stinker, entitled "Attack of the Cybermen". The Producer had lost all sense of how to make a program that could appeal to the child in the adult, and this is not a Doctor Who story to sit down and watch with the kids. The characters are nasty, the violence at times graphic. There is some mild intrigue in the first episode, but it drags in a 45 minute format. Wit is absent, and humour almost so - save for some self-referential nods to programs long passed, including The Doctor's attempt to fix the Tardis chameleon circuit. There is also an under-realised cockney-crook sub plot that never reaches its comic potential.
Fans may enjoy "spotting the references" to previous Doctor Who stories across the multiple sub-plots in "Attack of the Cybermen", nevertheless the writers have missed some fundamental points of character continuity. Colin Baker never seemed to appreciate the essence of the character of the Doctor. His arrogant portrayal is altogether unlikable and unconvincing. In this particular story, he totes guns and talks about wanting to see his enemies dead, as if the writers had never even seen an episode of the series before, and misunderstood the soul of the program. Sangfroid quips and high body counts work for stories about British Agents "licensed to kill" like James Bond, but they fall flat from the mouth of a Galifreyan supposedly possessed of two hearts.
Similarly, the Cybermen in this story are no longer the almost invulnerable super-robots of every other Cyber-tale. In "Attack of the Cybermen", they succumb to everything from bullets to metal bars - even a stiff breeze would seem to threaten them.
The supporting cast is reasonably strong, but can't make up for Producer John Nathan Turner's mistaken casting in the recurring lead roles of Doctor and Companion. The Doctor's companion in this story is Peri Brown, who was by no means the low point of his selections. She looks gorgeous, but her character's potential was suffocated by awful dialogue and an unconvincing (and unnecessary) American accent.
In so far as the plot is coherent at all, "Attack of the Cybermen" is loosely another sci-fi iteration of the "Terminator" story. The villains are seeking to scoot back in time and alter history to save their future, and that sort of thing. The tried and tested template was executed far more successfully in the Jon Pertwee story "The Day of the Daleks" in Series 9 of the program. The formula might have worked here too with a better script and any Doctor bar Colin Baker. Tying it all in with the approach of Halley's Comet to earth in 1986 was no doubt a nice touch when it went to air in 1985.
In short, the Colin Baker years were a salutary lesson in where not to take Doctor Who. This may provide the only motivation for true fans to watch these episodes at all - a sort of morbid curiosity. For a broader and un-initiated audience starting out their Doctor Who viewing journey, I'd leave the Colin Baker years for last.
Fans may enjoy "spotting the references" to previous Doctor Who stories across the multiple sub-plots in "Attack of the Cybermen", nevertheless the writers have missed some fundamental points of character continuity. Colin Baker never seemed to appreciate the essence of the character of the Doctor. His arrogant portrayal is altogether unlikable and unconvincing. In this particular story, he totes guns and talks about wanting to see his enemies dead, as if the writers had never even seen an episode of the series before, and misunderstood the soul of the program. Sangfroid quips and high body counts work for stories about British Agents "licensed to kill" like James Bond, but they fall flat from the mouth of a Galifreyan supposedly possessed of two hearts.
Similarly, the Cybermen in this story are no longer the almost invulnerable super-robots of every other Cyber-tale. In "Attack of the Cybermen", they succumb to everything from bullets to metal bars - even a stiff breeze would seem to threaten them.
The supporting cast is reasonably strong, but can't make up for Producer John Nathan Turner's mistaken casting in the recurring lead roles of Doctor and Companion. The Doctor's companion in this story is Peri Brown, who was by no means the low point of his selections. She looks gorgeous, but her character's potential was suffocated by awful dialogue and an unconvincing (and unnecessary) American accent.
In so far as the plot is coherent at all, "Attack of the Cybermen" is loosely another sci-fi iteration of the "Terminator" story. The villains are seeking to scoot back in time and alter history to save their future, and that sort of thing. The tried and tested template was executed far more successfully in the Jon Pertwee story "The Day of the Daleks" in Series 9 of the program. The formula might have worked here too with a better script and any Doctor bar Colin Baker. Tying it all in with the approach of Halley's Comet to earth in 1986 was no doubt a nice touch when it went to air in 1985.
In short, the Colin Baker years were a salutary lesson in where not to take Doctor Who. This may provide the only motivation for true fans to watch these episodes at all - a sort of morbid curiosity. For a broader and un-initiated audience starting out their Doctor Who viewing journey, I'd leave the Colin Baker years for last.
Bitter Springs
(1950)
Flashes of insight and tension
5 March 2021
This Wallaby Western is an intriguing slice of Anglo-Australian cinematic history, with moments of real insight and drama. Despite various anachronisms, the film sits within an Australian cinematic tradition that is essentially empathetic to the Aboriginal experience of colonisation.
In a sequence voiced by "The Trooper" (Michael Pate) we hear: "They call the natives that live there Karagany. The spring has been their tribal home for a thousand years. Two perhaps. Since the time we were savages anyway. A thousand years. One day, a bloke walks into the government office in Adelaide 800 miles away, bangs down eighty quid, they hand him a bit of stamped paper and Karagany haven't got a tribal home anymore [...] I'll tell you this. They do know that waterhole is their tribal ground and no bit of paper is going to convince them otherwise."
The film belongs to the period when the British Empire was rapidly dissipating, and the quintessentially British Ealing Studios was making a series of films on Australian themes. Fans of classic Australian cinema will enjoy the presence of Chips Rafferty and Bud Tingwell, but the The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed at the time, it's 130 South Australian Aboriginal cast member who steal the show with their "fine natural acting, graceful body movements, dramatic expressions of emotion and their joyous laughter".
The director seems to have been unresolved in his mind if he was to make a comedy or tragedy, and ultimately chickens out of both. And yet there is something here that seven decades later still shows insight and empathy to the early struggles, battles, injustices and hopes that moulded Australia.
In a sequence voiced by "The Trooper" (Michael Pate) we hear: "They call the natives that live there Karagany. The spring has been their tribal home for a thousand years. Two perhaps. Since the time we were savages anyway. A thousand years. One day, a bloke walks into the government office in Adelaide 800 miles away, bangs down eighty quid, they hand him a bit of stamped paper and Karagany haven't got a tribal home anymore [...] I'll tell you this. They do know that waterhole is their tribal ground and no bit of paper is going to convince them otherwise."
The film belongs to the period when the British Empire was rapidly dissipating, and the quintessentially British Ealing Studios was making a series of films on Australian themes. Fans of classic Australian cinema will enjoy the presence of Chips Rafferty and Bud Tingwell, but the The Sydney Morning Herald proclaimed at the time, it's 130 South Australian Aboriginal cast member who steal the show with their "fine natural acting, graceful body movements, dramatic expressions of emotion and their joyous laughter".
The director seems to have been unresolved in his mind if he was to make a comedy or tragedy, and ultimately chickens out of both. And yet there is something here that seven decades later still shows insight and empathy to the early struggles, battles, injustices and hopes that moulded Australia.
The Reagans
(2020)
Disappointingly one sided
16 December 2020
This attempt to dismantle the Reagan legacy is not without occasional insight, but ultimately fails to rise much above a one-sided propaganda. Even positive initiatives like the "Just Say No" campaign are presented as disastrous. Historic and remarkable achievements like the detente with the Soviet Union are devalued or breezed over (none of the enlightening quotes from Gorbachev's own positive assessment of Reagan are permitted to be aired here). The conservative voices that do appear are usually just props granted a brief sentence to drive forward the plot and open the field for a series of left-wing denunciations (usually peppered with variations of the phrase "he was just an actor"). Whatever else Reagan's son may bring to the narrative, "filial piety" is not in the mix - he relentlessly pillories his parents' legacy (it may be the editing that achieves this effect).
So it's not so much "warts and all", as nearly all warts. In short - a disappointment. That said, it is skilfully done as far as it goes, and the archival footage is genuinely interesting and revealing of how society has changed. Provided you do not seek to "learn it all" from this account of the Reagan years, you will find it hard not to learn something.
So it's not so much "warts and all", as nearly all warts. In short - a disappointment. That said, it is skilfully done as far as it goes, and the archival footage is genuinely interesting and revealing of how society has changed. Provided you do not seek to "learn it all" from this account of the Reagan years, you will find it hard not to learn something.
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