The latest entry spellfecker is priceless and seems very apt at the moment. Two clubs/societies I belong to are on the verge of shutting down due to problems with getting enough members to volunteer to do what needs to be done to keep them running (I do my bit for both but I’m aware that I could do more if I wasn’t so crap). I’m hoping things will sort themselves out ‘cos they’re both good ventures. Time will tell.

Very True Mood:  blah

Doctor Who reviews for this week and last. There may be spoilers here.

The Girl in the Fireplace

As the episode ended I said to pink_weasel that this one would divide the fans. And as predicted people seem to be either loving it or hating it.

Carrying on from the week before it looks at what it means to be the Doctor and what it means to be a companion. As with many themes explored in the new series, this has been done in the novels and audios but was never really touched upon by the old series.

Here we follow up on the idea raised the week before that the Doctor must leave all his human friends behind - by compressing Reinette’s life into one episode we see in microcosm what Sarah Jane and all the other companions (well, not Adric, just those that survive) must go through. Rose will need to come to terms with this sooner or later and no doubt future episodes will return to this theme.

The Doctor proclaims himself as “The Lord of Time”, but is the fact that he can’t use the TARDIS to return to Versailles to rescue Reinette (either time) a sign of the more restricted universe that exists after the Time Lords?

Gorgeous clockwork robots, nice horse, sudden intrusion of an Adam Ant video ;-), good performances (Tennant’s best yet) from everyone. And a cracking script, Steven Moffat can’t half write them. More please.

10/10

Rise of the Cybermen

It’s all about the parallels. Themes and lines of dialogue recur throughout this episode. Just as the ill fated scientist says of the cyberman at the start, paying homage to the classic Frankenstein films, “it’s alive” so the Doctor says the same when he sees that glimmer of light in the depths of the TARDIS. (And when the Doctor breathes life, literally, into the crystal, did you wonder just how more valuable than it seemed at the time was his gift of “the air from my lungs” in The End of the World?) The Micky/Ricky joke from last year is here made flesh. And Pete Tyler instinctively trusting and confiding in Rose, and Jackie not doing so, is repeated from Father’s Day. No surprise that at the climax the Doctor says that “it’s happening again”.

With so many parallels to the past, perhaps the similarity of Lumic and Davros is intentional?

A quick thought - in the parallel world the Torchwood Institute is mentioned on the news and at the party. So here the Institute is much more public than in the real world. But is it the same institute? If it is then either there was a parallel Doctor to partake in the events of Tooth and Claw and prompt its creation (where is he then?) or this ‘parallel’ branched off from our own universe sometime between 1879 and 1987 (the year of Rose’s birth).

Apart from the parallel earth setting this was the most traditional story so far this year. Lumic is a traditional villain (and sadly Roger Lloyd Pack’s performance is as hammy as anything seen in the classic show); Mr Crane is a traditionalhenchman; Ricky Smith and the Preachers (sounds like a blues band) are a traditional set of rebels (um, okay that’s an oxymoron but you know what I mean). And then there’s a classic monster and a traditional cliffhanger.

The Cybermen look and sound good - there was little chance of them meeting the scare levels of their 60s forebeard but this version easily surpasses the 70s and 80s versions.

After seeing the first 35 minutes last night I would have given this 7/10 at most, but the last ten minutes and a repeat viewing of the earlier portion brings the score up to 8/10

Oh and you can see my office in the aerial shots of London.

So last night pink_weasel and I went out for dinner with the weasel clan to hip and happening Sanderstead. we went to Modern Time which advertises itself as non-specific ‘Oriental Cuisine’. When I orderd the the ‘zesty orange beef’ from the menu the waitress felt obliged to warn me that it contained orange. Um, yes, I can read, I wasn’t just staring at the menu for fun for theleast five minutes and the word orange was quite clear and that’s why I ordered it. Whatever, as they say.

So once we got home we wanted to play Doctor Who back. Now this being the most important television program ever I had given it a nice generous fifteen minutes after the end, just in case. But, it goes and starts over twenty minutes late. Bastards. If you’re going to insist on showing all of the stupid football then cut some time off Graham Norton’s bloody dancing crap instead. Wankers, as I say.

Very True Mood:  annoyed