Night Terrors, a refreshing diversion from the norm.

Well It's Friday night Saturday morning and the next Doctor Who will be on in a few short hours. Much as I am excited and anxious to be sat in the armchair an hour before the devil knows I've tuned into BBC1, I am just now coming to terms with last weeks ep. Night Terrors, a story of a little boy and all that scares him.

Those of us old enough to remember the 60's, even found George's room familiar. From the toys to the wallpaper to the pyjamas. I won't say Terrors was a light hearted trip down memory lane. Nobody wants to recall a time when everything scared the living daylights out of you. Every creak, groan and shadow magnified a thousand times into witches, demons and many armed creatures with flashing teeth that lived under one's bed or in the closet, and then there were the clowns and the creepy dolls, mad Alices they were.  As a boy all of those and much more lost many a night's sleep, I was even partial to the compulsive switch clicking in a certain rhythm, specific number of times, 6 in my case.  Thank you for asking , but I turned out ok after all, the only thing left over is a deep and unrelenting mistrust of clowns. As an aside The Sylvester McCoy story "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", for obvious reasons is one of the most disturbing I've ever seen. What's that you say? Thee are no clowns but the one slumped on the floor in Night Terrors? Yes, was just saying, since it came up in the story, I don't like clowns. Cirque du Soleil besides being deeply pretentious and boring, can at time induce the heebee jeebies in me if one of the  overly artsy clowns shows up, they are like massive stalking spiders, ready to strike and eat you. I also am not fond of arachnids, but as long as they don't bother me I won't bother them.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, Night Terrors, a story that did something that a Who story hasn't done in a long time...that is NOT serve as a platform or filler to move the River/Amy arc along to it's final conclusion, which of course is the death of the Doctor in Utah. What a refreshing thing to see, a script that just told a story. So what it wasn't all original concepts, so what most of my Who mates can point out half a dozen older storied from which it liberally draws on. Truth be told, there hasn't been an original story since Homer took pen to scroll. Here was a 45 minute story that from beginning to end, kept us on the edge of our seats even when we though t we knew what was happening. Much of the credit belongs to Mark Gatiss who, bless his creepy little stories, knows how to  press the buttons that will get even the bravest person under a blanket and peeking out in fright.  It's a pity Hammer studios isn't what it used to be, Gatiss would have been a star there.  The best part of the tale is that it was River free and very nearly, Amy free. I've grown tired of the long drawn out  multi part striptease of the River Song  saga that seems to have started the same day we met wee Amelia Pond. Even Key  to Time had a clear conclusion, this thing seems to have more false stops than the last Lord of the Rings film did. Not complaining per se, just saying that I miss the off world, on world evil nasties that stand on their own and in which the companions are NOT the centre of the Universe.I look forward to the eventual return to normal service where we can depend on the Time Lords, The Tardis, and the Doctor to get into trouble without the help of some central nexus fixed point bollocks . Please The Lord Thy God Steve Moffat, can we have some good old fashioned stories with plastic monsters and doppelgänger principal players who much in the way Brian Blessed put his mark on the role of the future Mr Perri Brown. just made us wonder " what happens next" without having to check our watches on the 12 th ep since a certain story arc has started.

Ahh Gingerism

There, got that off my chest, and for the record, I still love Moffat's Doctor, he's giving us the Time Lords back in the fullness of time, never a bad thing,  expanded the inside of the Tardis and given Rory some respect. Best Rory bit this time was when he said "We're dead ...Again" the doctor's probably in some time slippy thing in EastEnders land . At least he (Moffat), hasn't lost his sense of humour. I particularly liked the amusing call back to stories past when he reminisced about great fairy tales like " Snow White and the 7 keys to Doomsday". The opening of the ep is at it's heart a recognition of the power of whatever it is that makes the universe tick.  A small boy prays "Please save me from the Monsters."  and lo there was a text message. Never forget that the Black and White Guardians never went away, they just faded to the backs of our minds where they always were. Call them God, call them higher beings, at least the PC brigade hasn't swept Sci fi clear of the transcendental. Without it, much of the suspension of disbelief, the fortuitous and the outright incredible would simply be impossible to include in an adventure serial type story like Doctor Who. Besides, I like the idea that there is a being who occasionally pays attention to what you want, especially when you're a scared little boy.

Aside from all else, Night Terrors dealt with the very real problems parents have in what could only be described as  Thatcher Redux. A father out of work, a mam who is never there, how does George's dad cope? Very poorly is how, and George feels he's alone with barely a father and no mother. In fact without giving the game away  for those few who haven't watched it, it is the crux of the matter. George feels unloved and unwanted, and the fact that his mam walks in to the story at the end with it all sorted , none the wiser of the trouble that passed in the last few hours, is telling. Gatiss is not alone among writers and other creative people at the Beeb to take on this feminist Holy Grail by the horns. A recent ep of Outnumbered had the daughter outright say she wished her mother  was less worried about her career and more concerned with her.. I'd say that was brave, but the only people who seem to be afraid to say things like this are the politicians who still sing from the Hymn book last updated in the 80's.. Even Shameless has been tearing the indifferent self obsessed full time working mum , the single teen mum, and the mythical super mum who loves with money and short sharp jabs of gifts,  a new one. What with all these people miles from home most of the day ( male or female) children are growing up alone ( I would have, had it not been for my Gran). This added to the me myself and I attitude of people in general through the 70's 80's and 90's, has produced two or three generations each less able to deal with anybody older than themselves, people in general,  or show respect for anything and anyone, a sort of angry, timid, socially inept, person who doesn't trust others and has a hard time bonding with others.  At the end of the day, hell all day long, a child needs guidance and protection, assuming that George will cope somehow is to abdicate ones role in order to achieve some kind of idealism formed in the haze of the 60's and 70's. Like free love, the absent mother and the father who never says no, have proved not to work.  .

The other hallmark of the ep is of course the creepy aspect of the story. Throughout, Gatiss fills the screen with every scary psyche scarring plot device he can find without laying on the mustard too much. The shrunken doll house inhabited by mad Alice dolls, a lift that eats people, the carpet right out of Freddie Kruger eating the land lord. Being turned into a Mad Alice doll, shadows, wind , the mutterings of slightly smelly slightly sad old woman who isn't even aware she's making our inner child  quake in fear. Even taking the rubbish out in a high rise estate becomes an exercise in survival worthy of Paradise Towers. I'm sorry, did I say Paradise Towers? And here you'd made such an effort to forget you ever saw it, my apologies again. 

So what do we learn from Night Terrors? Hug the person you love once in a while, you may think they know you want them around, but they need telling and there's never anything on telly even if you get the super duper Sky box with all the channels.

While I got you, I also watched BBC's  Digging for Britain. It's no Time Team and they kept making sweeping statements that academic work, archaeology and recent finds in the last ten years have put pay to. Rome invaded Britain? Not really, they were invited in and were culturally present for at least 50 years beforehand through trade and culture. The Romans then left in 410 AD. Well yes and no, first of all as stated in the programme, many stayed, but many had no where else to go as they were natives and had just been Romanized. The post Roman Dark age? What dark age? Trade flourished, the basic pillars of the classic education were established in a English University long before the 9th century, the Church continued for centuries and didn't need to be re-established by later day missionaries. The interregnum between the end of the Roman Empire in the UK and the return of Rome through the Church saw in fact a continuous mixed Romano Christian Celtic culture that traded with the rest of the known world. Hardly the mud pit of ignorant toothless peasants scratching a life from dead rocky soil. If you enjoy digs and need a hit between new Time Team eps, Digging for Britain is just enough to catch up on the goings on in the world of metal detecting, and official digs in the UK. Watch by all means, but ignore anything coming out of the mouth of presenter Dr Alice Roberts who seems content to spout out of date history dogma that was set down as recently as 1920. You want an archaeologist that knows what she's talking about, there's always Dr. Helen Geake off Time Team.

That's all for now, see you all after the next Doctor Who, more angry robots and creepy dolls mixed with imminent jeopardy for Rory and Amy.  Can't wait.  

Happy Birthday Doctor Who

In the same way Marvin the Paranoid Android is in fact older than time itself, Doctor Who in relative time  is about a 1000 years old, give or take a chronic historisis. But on this day in 1963, to be exact at 17:15 Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television 47 years ago and changed the way millions of people view life. Much as Star Trek has marked the world, Doctor Who did it first and is still going strong. Notwithstanding certain Doctor Who fans who think nothing happened prior to Russel T Davies, we the fans who learned to cower behind our setees so long ago, were the first to fear Daleks, hide from Cybermen and laugh at Silurians.

Watch Doctor Who live as it goes out in the UK or watch it on the iPlayer.

We are also the fans who lived through the great desert when the evil the horrid the nasty, Michael Grade did all he could to destroy our Doctor. He of course eventually succeeded in 1989. I still recall the withdrawal pains and the anguish of not being sure the Doctor was coming back. I assumed it would be a bit , but not 16 years.  This of course never stopped me from watching the eps I hadn't seen before or re watching for the umpteenth time the all time best Doctor ever for me, Tom Baker. In later years I would form new attachments to new Doctors and would add several new companions with whom I was in lust.  In no particular order, Romana 2, Peri Brown, Tegan, Nysa , Rose, Martha Jones. Peter Davison became my 2nd favourite Doctor before the new batch came along. But if I'm honest, I loved them all. Each one had his idiosyncrasies, cool gadgets and accessories  and of course there was the Master....both of them, Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley...deliciously evil in a perils of Pauline sort of way, always got away just in time to fail in their  plot to kill the Doctor but live to try again.  The cheap sets, the sometimes very silly costumes seemed to work because the writing then as now rises above the props.

Then of course in the entire history of Sci fi there has never been a more brilliant bit of kit as the TARDIS. Bigger on the inside than outside and with a personality of it's own. How often has it been that the TARDIS has gone to the beginning of time and not been destroyed? During the 70's when I first started watching, the interior of the TARDIS was far more important than it is now. Entire stories unfolded inside, running in endless corridors, entering a bewildering amount of rooms and of course the girls had lovely beds complete with dressers and large mirrors. But my favourite rooms had to be the multiplicity of control rooms and the doctor's closet, only ever visited when he had put on a new skin. Nowadays, RTD and the Lord Thy God Steven Moffat have limited the imagination to a few doors and ramps but not gone any further.

But the most marked impression The Doctor Who Cannon has had most on me is two fold, I cannot without a lot of self control, help including ,what to other people are pointless "facts" about actors , actresses,  aliens and objects important to Gallifreyans, into most conversations and until the advent of the Borg on Star Trek, thought there was nothing more terrifying in time and space than a Dalek... I've since added zombies and  weeping angels.  Still One of my favourite sports is spot the Who cast member in I Claudius, Triffids or some other television show. Even now when I write reviews for cookery, history or dance programmes, I  include the Who references as naturally as I do  footie ones. I can do that because there are millions of us to whom saying "Tardis like" is as normal as saying premiership good.

What started today 47 years ago is worth celebrating and praising. I am not alone in teaching my computer's dictionary words like Davros or  Dalek, Don't be shy, today let people know about your TARDIS usb port, Don't hide you seal of Rasilon T shirt  and for good measure make sure you take your K-9 out for a stroll before you accost your cats with the remote control Dalek, and by all means don't forget to wear your Tom Baker scarf before when you go out. Make Doctor Who Day special, for today is the birthday of Doctor Who, the greatest hero time and space ever knew.

As a treat for the day I've mined youtube for a collection of gems, Music clips you may have forgotten about and some great satire .

I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek  Sung by the Newcastle based group the GoGo's

Who's Doctor Who sung by Frazier Hines

Time Traveller  More Fazier Hines

Who's Who sung by Roberta Tovey

Not so Old   Roberta Tovey sings of love for an older man

John Pertwee sings I am The Doctor

John Pertwee Pure Mystery

Doctorin the TARDIS The KLF

I am a Dalek  The Artattacks

Landing of the Daleks The Earthlings

Tardis sounds effects

Almost every Doctor Who Theme ever

COMEDY

Doctor Who with Rowan Atkinson 

Lenny Henry Spoof 1985....a vision of 2010

CLASSIC MOMENTS

Three doctors and the Master


Children in need 1985

Doctor Who 10th anniversary on Blue Peter part 1 and part 2  

20th anniversary on Blue Peter , includes in studio Daleks and Cybermen 

I will be watching An Unearthly Child with my wife today, however you celebrate, raise a glass to every writer, actor, actress, prop man and costume matron who ever worked on the programme. I personally want to thank my now long passed on mate Colin Semel who had the opportunity to play a Dalek in the 1970's .
Thank you Verity Lambert, Sydney Newman, William Hartnell, Delia Derbyshire, Ron Grainer and countless others

ENJOY DOCTOR WHO'S BIRTHDAY ALL! Happy Whomas one and all.

BBC Peasants' revolts v Time Team's Real Vikings

In a head to head battle between history programmes on essentially at the same time and purporting to appeal to the same viewership, it is fair to compare the two episodes I had to watch this week. Keeping in  mind I had just watched 24 hours straight of Chilean miners being rescued in a TARDIS like pill. BBC coverage of which I wrote about here, and in which I praise the trio of BBC reporters who for all intents purposes  won the world cup of special coverage. It's important to note that they did it by making the miners real and constructing a well connected narrative you could follow and care about. Remember this when I compare the two programmes, it's mightily important.

First out of the block was the BBC Michael Wood's Story of England. In case you've missed this so far, the acclaimed Michael Wood proposes to tell the story of England entirely from the perspective of one town. The Village of Kibworth in Leicester.  In this week's instalment, Peasants' Revolt to Tudors
, he takes us from post plague peasant revolt ( say that ten times fast) to Tudor stability. Yet again he guides us through  a series of important document with the occasional scattered mention of prominent local families. The story is of Poll taxes which apparently have never gone down well, that lead to revolt and peasant reform. It's the less discussed rise of education through the increasingly self taught lower classes. By self taught, I of course mean they were given lessons by locals who gave of their time and made sure they created a large pool of educated, literate potential merchant class citizens of the future. I'll admit the information about the Lollard rebellion that prepared the way for the reformation was important and well presented.

Unfortunatly, the episode could not hold my attention. Of course I was knackered beyond words, even after a full day of rest from watching miners, but that's the point. A good programme would have held my interest. Most of the information and locations were nothing new. The perspectives were mere touches of information where less timid historians would have plunged into fearlessly. So many opportunities  to delve into specifics in a structured, less haphazard manner were missed. For example, when they visited the Brown house, they took a core sample that estimated the approximate age of various parts of the house. But they didn't give us a proper tour, section by section. Even the tantalizing view of the methods used to join the beams was rushed and sloppy. Yet again we are shown a series of maps telling of the changes in land ownership and land usage, but it's so fast and poorly explained, the assumption is that we are too stupid to understand or to care. In the previous week, we at least got to meet a jury and saw it at work. This week,  nothing really. Yet again, we're shown a field trip that concludes little and archaeology that turns up nothing of any real value as far as moving the story along. Despite  the Lollard uprising motto, "The fair society" ( which he  failed to mention) echoing through human history and British history,  little attempt is made to connect the dots.

If I have a major criticism of this entire series, it is this. If you are doing a ground up history from the more proletarian perspective, you need to establish a few threads that connect the entire narrative.  In a special about a merchant woman from the 1400's or 1500's , Professor Wood weaves a tale going as far back as her grand father and how he got the land and the market stalls she eventually fought to keep in the court of law. This programme worked because we had a solid connected story from grand dad to father to daughter to her children and her two husbands. In History of England, he should of selected three of the oldest families in Kibworth, a Roman one, A Saxon one, a Vikinger one and lastly a Norman one. By  tracing the stories of theses families from Roman occupation to the present, as best he could, we would have had a real sense of history attached to people. High borne people , lowly peasants and aspirational merchants. would have taken shape through the stories of those 3 to 5 families. Sometimes overlapping, sometimes eclipsing the other in influence. What is it to be a Villain, what does it mean to be a serf? What happened to the old Saxon nobility? They didn't just disappear. All of them continued in some form or another.  Sadly, we never get a clear picture of any of the families, if anything it resembles the sort of outline you present your professor when you propose a research paper. This has the feel of scattered un structured, un analysed data. I'm not opposed to old information being presented again, but I do demand that there be some point and logical conclusion that connects the data presented, and that it be done in a compelling way. If you've never studied the breadth of English history, this will be an eye opener, history 101.  But for the veteran history enthusiast, it's all a bit scattered and pointless with the occasional fresh bit of information.

As tired, sleepy and bored Michael Wood left me, the next programme woke me up like a cappuccino and biscotti served by a sexy waitress wanting my number.

C4's, The Real Vikings, a Time Team special.  presents us with a big question. Tony Robinson asks who were the real Vikings. Were they the cruel blood thirsty rapists or some kind of misunderstood farmers? Then they do a radical thing, they take the collected wisdom of recent digs and research and construct a new better more realistic picture of the real Vikings. Bereft of nobles and kings, this new version of history paints a picture of a mercantile people with far reaching commercial links as far as Russia,Afghanistan, Egypt  and as close as Ireland. From the brutal and tragic attack on Lindisfarne in 793 to the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. The Vikings ran the Danelaw bringing in thousands of settlers, farmers, craftsmen and metallurgists. Tony and company , via a new dig in the Hungate area of York, show us the mercantile side of the Vikings. Through it, we find a well organized group that urban plan a residential district and a warehouse district that separates the production, storage and merchandising of posh advanced goods as well as ivory and furs. Property and ownership are not alien notions. They do however prefer arcs over the Roman grid system in new developments.   Just how good at trade were they? A chalice from France filled with coins from around the known world of the day, shows they were masters of the sea long before Nelson and his mates built an Empire.

Were York's Vikings pigs? apparently not. They had an  area of cesspools well away from the rest of the work areas. This of course does not mean they were immune from the risks that even a well put together well chilled larder could not combat. In the cesspools, we find Viking Poo, yes 1000 year old faecal matter that sheds light on diet and health as well as variety of foods eaten. Though they may have had worms, these were not poor savages, but prideful wealthy people concerned with primping and appearance complete with bling knives made by metallurgists who would not be surpassed in skill until the industrial revolution.10th century Viking York, according to contemporary accounts, was crowded but organized, it had a population of at least 30,000 at a time when such a City would have been seen as a major world  centre of trade.  Representatives from every corner could be found there and they were clearly not suffering or poor.

Were at least some Vikings capable of great savagery? Yes, we visit a site in Northern Wales that shows the massacre of a family. Bound and then brutally executed.  You could conclude that this was all the proof you needed the Vikings were unparalleled bastards of the first degree. But you'd be wrong. Further south, in the Saxon borderlands, a pit containing the bodies of 51 men. Tied, necks cut clean through and jaws broken, these men were not just killed, they were mutilated. And they were all Vikings. So please, lets be clear on one thing. Saxons,  Romans and  Normans were all cut from the same cloth, capable of the same savagery when the mood struck them. The rules or values of one group were not their evil to our good. Again using sources outside of the Saxon chronicles and Viking Chronicles, we learn the Arabs knew them to be good traders and honest if you did not harm them first.


The culture that Vikings brought to England was poetic and epic, in the sort of prideful way all warrior cultures do but hardly Vogon bad, They bring us at least 2000 words we still use today and they did in short order accept Christianity. Going from burning Churches to  building them and attending older ones they had left standing. According to the Domesday book, in parts of the North of England, 9 out of 10 people still living there were of Scandinavian origin.

There is a lovely bit when one of the regular loonies from Time Time, visits the Orkneys to show us a selection of manky Viking graffiti.  " so and so was here with a maiden and showed her a good time " But not in those words. These were normal people like you and me, except that some of them were fierce warriors, but back then who wasn't? I can watch stuff like this all day long. And before I forget, they didn't wear those silly horned hats.

Last bit you'll not want to miss before C4 takes it off the player, 1066, The Battle for Middle Earth.   A dramatisation in not quite ye olde English of the three major battles that changed the face of English history. A fresh view told in the words and traditions of the people of the time. You  will gain a deeper understanding of the time and you'll never again read Lord of the Rings in the same way ever again. It's one thing to be aware of the inspirations of Tolkien, but to live them like this is a perspective changer. Must watch telly.

In case you're interested, mate of mine Mr Keith Topping has done a canny interview with Tony Robinson.

We came DEAD last in EUROVISION and other news from the glowing box

We came in dead last, 10 points, I nearly died laughing with the final indignation of being pushed into absolute bottom of the table by of all countries, Belarus. My mate Stu and my wife were incoherent with laughter. Apart from the shame of finishing behind the worse song in the final, we deserved what we got. My wife used to do stand up comedy, I mention this only as she has had to come on after a stonking  great act that killed. Short of self immolation, there is nothing you can do to look good after some guy has stripped off and shot fire from his arse. Poor Josh had to perform right after the highest octane party piece of the night. Greece OPAe'd the crowd into a dance frenzy only to be equalled later by the French song, he didn't stand a chance.  I feel bad for Josh, he'll have to give back the economy pack of M&S underwear the BBC bought him. Maybe now a guest spot on the washed out Eurovision acts edition of Come Dine with me? He's so old news, even Jordan , real name Katie Price, won't pretend to have an affair with him. 

The reason we did come in last was a vestige of block voting. Belarus, the country who sported butterfly wings and bad phonetically sung English  ( I told you I would remember) had a neighbour give them their douze points, bless em. Arguably the worst act of the night, they ranked below Britain and Ukraine in poor song choice poor singer choice poor costume choice and the resulting mess of previously mentioned choices. And yet they still managed to get more points than Britain. That said, block voting seems to be well and truly dead. Some countries did not get the memo and triggered sporadic booing by giving  the Russian entry that had suicide help lines on red alert, 90 points.  Ireland however preferred voting for good songs and only gave Britain 4 points, seems Eurovision has turned the corner on at least this one big issue. The winner even came from one of the four sponsoring nations, things are looking up.

How did my countries to follow fare?

Greece 8th 140 points
France 12th 82 points
Serbia 13th 72 points
Germany 1st 246 points
Turkey 2nd 170 points
Albania 16th 62 points

Full final results here  Britain voted 8 points for Romania, 10 points for Turkey, and 12 points for Greece.


Some final thoughts on Eurovision before I file it away for another  year. Apologies to Albania, I completely forgot to praise a song that was genuinely good, catchy and worthy of any mainstream radio. Saved the big kvetching for the lowlight reel, the few incidents along the way  that caused us pain or giggles. While not a bumber crop, there were a few moments.  Russia made us want to leave the room and floss our teeth or worse, when he dropped the photo , my only thought was , were they trying to lose? Spain had a mildly amusing pitch invasion. If I'm honest, Daniel Diges managed to carry on as if it was part of the act never missing a beat. Ukraine had a tone deaf girl dressed in Yoda's cowl, who were she not dead fit, was only saved by the ubiquitous wind machine. I couldn't say much about her signing as I had the telly on mute during most of her performance.  Bjork  sang without her trade mark swan dress. Having packed on that much weight and changed her singing style..It does explain why she hasn't been invited to a Brit Awards in a while. Barefoot Georgia was a bit awkward to watch. I still don't understand why she needed help walking from her back up dancers? Maybe if they had worn orthopaedic shoes she could have at least moved around a bit. Graham Norton during the entire proceedings was his usual sarcastic self. At times you almost believed him when he ever so faintly praised Josh Dubovie or was effusive about the butterfly dresses. His best wit  was reserved for some of the jackets "even he wouldn't wear" or the times he took the mickey out of himself for being vapid during an interview with some Eurovision hostess. I missed a lot once the scores came in as myself and Stu were making inappropriate remarks about the ladies  reporting votes from various capitals. Aim for the gutter and you about got it right. You know I'm almost looking forward to next year now.

Graham Norton back at his day job, was up to his old tricks. Last Monday was yet another mostly decent ep, save for the presence of the stunned , dull  disoriented and confused Janet Jackson and her puppet master Tyler Perry. Comedian Marcus Brigstocke and Norton kept the show moving till Python Legend Eric Idle was released from the green room to thunderous applause. He of course should have been there from the beginning as he is in the grand scheme of things, bigger than Janet Jackson. You felt the programme come  to life the moment he stepped onto the altar of chat and took over. Poor Janet looked like she had just been run over by a fast moving train. I know you need the odd American guest, but they should be first made to watch an ep or two before coming on. As for Janet Jackson, the only person more out of it when they were on was Katie Price.

Speaking of mistakes, Last Monday I might have been a tad harsh on J.J. Abrahms. I basically said he needed to have some balls and tell  ABC where to go when they demanded MORE eps than three years worth. I stand corrected. Source of all that is knowable in such things, Kieth "Telly" Topping ( Telly  not his real middle name) informs me of the following.."Basically, the creators sold the show to ABC as a recurring series which had an end to it. Now, writers in that position are onto something of a hiding because, if nobody watches the early episodes, you might have to wrap the whole thing up with very little notice around episode eight! But, on the contrary, if it takes off then the network is likely to want five, six, seven, eight, ten, however many years of miling it. Simple economics of TV, that. Don't kill the oglden goose. What happened with Lost was that sometime around about the middle of season three, Casee and Lindelof realised that every time they wanted to take a step forward in terms of the overall plot, they then had to take a couple sideways (that entire episodes which existed purely to explain where Jack got his exotic tattoo from, is the example they usually cite). So, they approached ABC and said, to the effect, 'we need about fifty episodes from here to finish this so, how about we do two seasons of twenty four episodes and then end it.' ABC reluctantly agreed (since the show still had a pretty big audience) but suggested instead a compromise, three series of sixteen instead of two of twenty four. (In the end, due to a number of exterior factors we got three seasons of fifteen-seventeen-and-eighteen!)".  As I explained somewhere else, I was writing on the basis of media reports at the time of the initial announcement . This bit of news of course makes absolute sense and I thank Keith for the clarification. I stand by my opinion though that it was stretched out too long and would have made more sense without so much filler.

On to more pressing things ..... If you haven't seen Doctor Who this week, please avert your eyes for the following segment.  Part 2 of the Silurian resurrection  was everything I said it would be. Laughter, pain , grief anguish and sarcasm, and that was just the pre Eurovision debate we had before DW came on. Ok I've warned you , from here in  I'm in spoiler land...

The best and the worst of humanity is on display, warriors posture, maternal instincts lead to poor choices, love blossoms, and some memories fade for ever. DW bosses have set up a tasty sequel to take place 1000 years from now. Will humanity be any more inviting to the Silurians than they were this time? will the Silurian's military be just as trigger happy and more interested in "Living space" than sharing the planet with apes? Only the writers know for sure , but I know one thing, it will be classic stuff. I particularly liked the way the way so much sacrifice seems to be for the good, deeply flawed mother becomes teacher of peace and cooperation , lover becomes a bridge between the races. Lastly....... Amy looses Rory for good, not only is he killed, but he is lost to the rift in time. Amy strugles to remember him , but it's pretty clear for now that he's gone. Last time a companion death made me feel that bad, Adric was taken from us. Unlike Mickey, remember Mickey? Rose's ex? ... the gormless one ? No nothing?  Mickey gets shipped off to Torchwood where he marries Martha and fights aliens. Not the glorious death that will be stuff of legend and song is it? Rory will be missed by many , but not by the writers who had to figure a way to dodge the bullet of the wedding the next day before Amy signed on board the Tardis. I have saved the best for last though. The famous rift in time, the one that keeps swallowing up whole people and otherwise indestructible monsters, just got more complicated and tragic. As a fan I cannot help but think that there will be an end time for something. Perhaps the Doctor himself or the Tardis, which of course is far worse. We are used to the idea of new faces, new costumes, but the notion of our beloved knackered old type 40 Tardis one day being junked in a tragic act of supreme sacrifice to save the universe, is too much to bear. I predict a Facebook save the Tardis campaign, many letters to Ofcom and a silly editorial in the Guardian wondering what the fuss is all about.

In the perhaps it's too early to laugh department, I heard this gem from a fellow poster at Gallifrey Base.

Quote Arn....I can't see what anyone could get upset about with tonight's Who. After all a stiff Rory's been up Amy's crack plenty of times before.

Where do you go from that bit of crassness?  Why Britain's got talent of course. This programme makes Eurovision look like Royal Shakespeare. Best bits from Saturday  had to be the strange Ali Baba who did some spectacular Slavic and Turkish dancing. Pity Big Top Amanda only seems to know street dance and Michael Jackson impersonation. One hopes she doesn't get asked to judge on Strictly. Ali Baba stormed off in a huff of Mediterranean passion leaving his "friend" he met on hols in the lurch. Strange man , strange relationship. The other strange bit of casting was putting through the Michael Jackson miming pig as well as the truly awful Madonna drag queen. Truth be told, the pig was better.  Mercifully, the top 40 selection has trimmed away the vast majority of street dance troupes and left a decent amount of drag acts , freaks, singers acrobats and  assorted "other ones" .  Now it's BGT and Corrie giving us a full week of drama , pathos and utter shite, still not sure who will deliver what .

My father being a veteran who travelled with the British 8th corps ( in the polish Karpacka Brygada) has told me many stories about the miracle of Dunkirk. You need to watch Dunkirk :The story behind the legend BBC. An eye opening investigation in perhaps the most important action in World War 2 in the spring of 1940.  If you will allow me this one moment of sentimentality. Take the time to get to know your parents and grandparents. Learn the story of their sacrifices while they can still tell you. Our way of life for better or ill , is what it is because of them. If you've lost yours, make friends with somebody else's grandparents.

Now if you like Time Team or the Story of Science, you might think History Cold Case on BBC2 was worth catching. Don't bother. Where Time Team would have come to some  fairly accurate conclusion in about 6 minutes , Cold Case is still hemming and hawing 45 minutes in. It's Science for dummies dressed in a lot of pretty gimmicks. Don't wast your time. Another waste of time had to be Question Time. Alistair Campbell was told to piss off or the new ConDemn coalition was going to boycott. How very democratic, on second thought here is the link . BTW Paul saw you in Tower blocks and Togas, have you still got that leather jacket?

A few quick links Child of our time personality test  is compelling and is far from over, take the test.  Jonathan Dimbleby started an absorbing voyage across Africa . Looking through the various Players, I've found this to pass the time if there aren't any compelling programmes this week. Blackadder rides again, and Trafalgar: Battle surgeon  It's the only programme on the subject that ever mentioned that there were women on board the Victory. If all else fails, rent Life on Mars or dig out your Sweeney tapes.

On a different note, I'd like to suggest you have fun with a hand whisk this week, unplug the magimix , and make a pavlova or meringue. Takes me the same amount of time and I have more control than any magimix ever gave me.   Or get yourself a pastry cutter, canny for blending butter and other things in a pie dough ,again ditch the magimix, the moment the dough happens is special. Jamie does the Pyrennes had  a great recipe for a warm summer salad. We had it today and will keep it as a regular on the menu now.

Blog brought to you by Nick Robert's Beat Surrender on listen again,  this week's a great alternative to Eurovision. Get ready for the World Cup by taking Keith Topping's World Cup Trivia . Till next Monday then!