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Forum of the Dead
Apr. 17th, 2009 05:51 amIt seems like ages since the Christmas special of Jarvis Cocker In Space was on, though it hasn't been any more time than usual. There's no series for 2009, just four special episodes to be broadcast at intervals throughout the year (or, in other words, two thirds of a normal British series). We saw the first of them during the last weekend we were in Britain, and, well, what can I say about it...
The premise of the first of this year's special episodes, Planet of the Dead, was that a bus fell through a giant plot hole into Dubai, where the Doctor met up with a couple of men in jumpsuits with fly masks on their heads briefly before they died, then stole a bit of their spaceship to fly the bus home (along with a couple of airborne metallic manta rays), after which he inexplicably let an intergalactic museum thief go free and jet the Superbus off into outer space. I didn't think this was really possible before, but the result of it is that I'm now more glad than ever that Mr T Davies is leaving after three more episodes - as much respect as he should get for getting the series back in the first place, and as much as the camp factor is a vital part of it anyway, his episodes go too far and are almost universally cringe-inducing (with Midnight being a strange exception - I was very surprised to find out that he wrote that one). Steven Moffat is taking over, and even though he might have his formulae as well, at least they're more along the lines of thinking up how he can make viewers unable to sleep for a week, rather than how he can camp up the episode beyond all reasonable expectations.
My family unanimously agreed that it was completely dreadful, but out of interest I went to look at the Doctor Who fan forum to see the wider reaction. This proved to be more trouble than I ever thought possible, because first of all it doesn't allow you to register with a GMail account, nor one from any other free email providers. I got around that by using my work email, only to be told that the forum was on limited mode because of heavy traffic (like some sort of dreadful airport) and that I'd have to come back the next day when it had calmed down. Appropriately, it's slightly like looking into a timewarp to the web ten years ago.
Even after I finally got to look at it, though, the effort wasn't worth it, because I forgot that this was a Doctor Who fan forum and was naturally filled with a disproportionate level of praise for this wallydom, mostly from people who have avatars of David Tennant's bottom and write fan fiction about him in bed with the presenters from Top Gear. The Internet is a very dangerous place if you want to keep watching TV in the same way.
They did have quite a good suggestion that the next Doctor should be Paul Merton, though.
The premise of the first of this year's special episodes, Planet of the Dead, was that a bus fell through a giant plot hole into Dubai, where the Doctor met up with a couple of men in jumpsuits with fly masks on their heads briefly before they died, then stole a bit of their spaceship to fly the bus home (along with a couple of airborne metallic manta rays), after which he inexplicably let an intergalactic museum thief go free and jet the Superbus off into outer space. I didn't think this was really possible before, but the result of it is that I'm now more glad than ever that Mr T Davies is leaving after three more episodes - as much respect as he should get for getting the series back in the first place, and as much as the camp factor is a vital part of it anyway, his episodes go too far and are almost universally cringe-inducing (with Midnight being a strange exception - I was very surprised to find out that he wrote that one). Steven Moffat is taking over, and even though he might have his formulae as well, at least they're more along the lines of thinking up how he can make viewers unable to sleep for a week, rather than how he can camp up the episode beyond all reasonable expectations.
My family unanimously agreed that it was completely dreadful, but out of interest I went to look at the Doctor Who fan forum to see the wider reaction. This proved to be more trouble than I ever thought possible, because first of all it doesn't allow you to register with a GMail account, nor one from any other free email providers. I got around that by using my work email, only to be told that the forum was on limited mode because of heavy traffic (like some sort of dreadful airport) and that I'd have to come back the next day when it had calmed down. Appropriately, it's slightly like looking into a timewarp to the web ten years ago.
Even after I finally got to look at it, though, the effort wasn't worth it, because I forgot that this was a Doctor Who fan forum and was naturally filled with a disproportionate level of praise for this wallydom, mostly from people who have avatars of David Tennant's bottom and write fan fiction about him in bed with the presenters from Top Gear. The Internet is a very dangerous place if you want to keep watching TV in the same way.
They did have quite a good suggestion that the next Doctor should be Paul Merton, though.
