Goodbye Sarah Jane

R.I.P. Elisabeth Sladen
1 February 1948 – 19 April 2011

The lovely and talented Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who opposite Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker in the 1970’s and then again opposite David Tennant in 2006 before getting her own highly successful series The Sarah Jane Adventures, passed away today aged just 63. She’d apparently been fighting cancer for a while but had kept her illness a secret shared only with her family and a few close friends. She was due to make a fifth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures this year for CBBC.

Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet Elisabeth. Even so, the lady and I go way back.

You see, one of my earliest and most vivid of memories is being sat at home on a Saturday evening watching Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, together with the smart, beautiful and feisty Lis Sladen as Sarah Jane in a weird and scary adventure running around some creepy looking caves. Now I don’t remember the exact episode. I was only around four or five at the time. I just remember being glued to the TV, utterly mesmerised by what was going on.

And so I kept on watching.

Eventually Doctor Who left the air in 1989 after ratings and quality fell through the floor. But even after the latter shonky scripts and the even shonkier creative decisions, like many fans I kept the hope alive that one day the show would return and the quality would return, too.

And return it did in 2005 thanks to Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner at BBC Wales. And one of the best decisions Russell ever made was to bring back the beloved Sarah Jane Smith in the wonderful 2006 David Tennant episode ‘School Reunion’. It was like old times. Elisabeth had barely aged. She was still smart, still beautiful and still feisty. And still with that lovely smile of hers. She was still Sarah Jane Smith. And a whole new generation of fans soon fell for her just as we had done thirty years before. So much so that the BBC gave the lady her own series on CBBC – The Sarah Jane Adventures, which quickly became the channels biggest hit and stayed that way through four series with a fifth planned for this year.

Simply, Elisabeth Sladen made Sarah Jane Smith arguably the greatest and the best loved of all the Doctor’s many companions. Even people who don’t know much about Doctor Who will often still know who Sarah Jane Smith is. It was wonderful of Russell T Davies to have given Elisabeth the opportunity to reprise the role and to have (naturally) gone on to become beloved by a whole new generation of fans. I’m sure there will be children and parents and grandparents up and down the nation and all around the world who will be so incredibly sad to hear this awful news. Like I said, I never had the opportunity to meet her in person, but she is one of those figures who played such a big part in my childhood that I kinda feel like I’ve always known her. Those lucky enough to have met her over the years have said that she was a warm and thoughtful lady, a pleasure to know. I don’t doubt that for a second.

My thoughts and prayers go to Elisabeth’s family and friends at this sad time.


A fun little Sarah Jane tribute I found on YouTube

What the Dickens? Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

And so it came to pass that Steven (The Moff) Moffat did make the most Christmassy Doctor Who ever…and he was not ashamed one bit.

Moffat’s A Christmas Carol is a gloriously bonkers, clever, weird, hilarious, magical and sweetly sentimental affair that instantly adds itself to the collection of best interpretations of Dickens classic - my personal favourite still being the Muppets untouchable 1992 film.

We are all familiar with the basics of this timeless tale so I won’t go in to any great detail of the plot. Suffice to say The Doctor takes on the role of ghost of Christmas past by attempting to change the ways of a miserly old Scrooge-like figure (Michael Gambon) in order to save four thousand people (including Amy and Rory) on a doomed ship about to crash in to a planet. A planet that looks a lot like a Victorian steampunk London. Along the way we get fish in fog, scary sharks, frozen people, Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra, a beautiful welsh singer who actually can act, and lots and lots of Moffat’s favourite timey wimey cleverness all bound together in to a tender love story and classic moral fable.

Look, I don’t care what anyone says, Matt Smith as The Doctor is just so damn good. He owns the role completely. Doubters be gone. His impishly eccentric yet also playfully subtle childlike/old man portrayal is pure genius. Somehow he never seems to take it too far as I felt Tennant sometimes could. And as for Katherine Jenkins as Abigail… Well, the term angelic doesn’t quite do her justice. I’ve never really seen much of her before apart from in brief interviews and photos. Of course she is incredibly beautiful and when I did see her in interviews she always came across as a genuine and sweet natured person. And thankfully that comes across on screen in her acting. And then some. Sure, she wasn’t exactly being stretched in the acting stakes here, but what she had to do as Abigail she did incredibly well. A lovely and luminous presence. And so what of Michael Gambon? Well, what can you say? The man is a legend and is, of course, brilliant in every scene.

The behind the camera team are on top form here as well. Major kudos must go to director Toby Haynes and to the design, art direction and photography - all wonderfully evocative and atmospheric - especially the design and execution of the Victorian steam punk city. Also, added kudos too to Murray Gold for his sterling musical work. The really quite beautiful end song he wrote and that Katherine sang (see YouTube clip above) was so goose pimple-raising good it deserves to be released by the BBC, ideally for charity.

Anyway, I absolutely loved A Christmas Carol. Sure, you can pick holes in the plot and ask questions of logic and science. And almost none of it will likely add up. But then that’s kind of missing the point. For this is a fable, a tall tale with a distinct moral at its core. It’s not about logic or science, it’s about emotion and magic, just like Dickens timeless classic. This is a Christmas fairy tale that perfectly captures the spirit of the original story and also of new Who, making it by far the best of all the Doctor’s Christmas specials. Only the hardest of hearts could fail to be warmed. Bravo! 4.5 (out of 5)

"Come Along, Pond."

Doctor Who series five ended last Saturday and I’ve been rewatching some key episodes of the season including opener The Eleventh Hour and the final two parter The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. So I thought I’d give a summary of my thoughts on this brand new regeneration of the classic and much loved series.

As Doctor nine would say: ”Fantastic!”

I get Steven Moffat's approach to Who. Because it's the same one I have. It hits all the right buttons for me.

This season was a twisty crazy fairytale all about little Amelia Pond and her imaginary friend, a madman with a box who fell out of the sky.

"When I was seven I had an imaginary friend. Last night was the night before my wedding, and my imaginary friend came back."

While left all alone one night, a brave little girl called Amelia prays to Santa for someone to come and save her from the scary crack in her bedroom wall. And come to her someone does, falling right out of the sky and in to her garden. The Raggedy Doctor. A brilliant yet strangely childlike madman with a box who eats fish custard and loves bowties and thinks fezzes are cool. But after fixing the crack in the wall, The Doctor disappears leaving poor little Amelia all alone once more. But she refuses to give up on him and settles down to wait for his return. And she waits and waits and waits. Little Amelia eventually grows up to believe that she imagined it all, that nothing that happened that night was real, that the Raggedy Doctor never existed. The wonder, the magic, the imagination of childhood has finally been driven out of her. She loses herself, her innocence, even losing her name, now being called Amy. As an adult she becomes cynical, rather bitter and hard nosed - albeit charmingly so.

And then one day, many years later, right out of the blue (box), her imaginary friend returns.

The story of Doctor Who season five is not so much about hanging on to the wonder and the imagination of childhood as it is about regaining it once lost. It’s about losing our cynicism and finding the simple joy in everything that is out there beyond the narrow, repetitive often soul-destroying confines of adult life. Now, most of us (I certainly do) remember how when we were kids we could happily play for hours, imagining all sorts of weird and wonderful adventures to lose ourselves in. We didn’t need much, just our imagination and the freedom to disappear within it. But there comes a point – maybe around age eleven or twelve – when that ability starts to fade. It gets harder and harder to have imaginary fun in our own little worlds, fun that once felt so easy, so real. The magic of childhood starts to leave us as we begin the difficult journey in to adulthood, having to spend more time thinking about real life because real life has suddenly become far more complicated and far more necessary as more demands are put on us along with more responsibility.

But the good news is that just because we become adults with all the baggage that brings, we can rediscover our imaginations. We can learn to see with more innocent, wondrous eyes again. We can rediscover our inner child so to speak. That is exactly what happens to Amy. By seasons end she has found little Amelia. Literally. The Doctor was the key to her re-discovering her inner child, her sense of adventure, discovering the weird, crazy, silly, scary fun that life can be.

The Doctor: “Fourteen years since fish custard. Amy Pond. The girl who waited, you've waited long enough.”

Amy: “When I was a kid, you said there was a swimming pool. And a library, and the swimming pool was in the library.”

The Doctor: “Yeah. Not sure where it's got to now, it'll turn up! So! Coming?”

Amy: (shaking her head) “No.”

The Doctor: “You wanted to come fourteen years ago.”

Amy: “I grew up.”

The Doctor: “Don't worry. I'll soon fix that.”

This season has been my favourite of new Who so far. And that’s due primarily to its thematic undercurrent, one which chimes perfectly with what I love most in storytelling - the fairytale vibe, the innocence and wonder and scariness of childhood and of life in general. It’s what Spielberg has been doing for years. And it works for a reason. The same reason it has worked down through the centuries. It imparts important stories and lessons to children while also reminding adults what it is like to be a child, reminding us not to lose that special gift that lets us make up crazy adventures and weird and wacky stories in order to pass on down to our own children the same important messages and themes.

I love this season for its range of stories too, and that while shifting from the more overblown, camp, panto feel of Russell T Davies’ tenure to Steven Moffat’s more odd, sinister, eccentric fairytale feel, Doctor Who hasn’t lost its sense of fun nor its crazy, silly, very British whimsy. The stories this year have ranged from the downright nightmarish (The Time of Angels) to the very silly (Victory of the Daleks) to the emotionally sublime (Vincent and the Doctor). And throughout it all, Matt Smith has been a total legend and has made The Doctor his own. I liked Tennant, though I much preferred Eccleston, but Matt Smith has trumped them both. His energetic, clumsy, rather mad little old man in a young man’s body has been a joy to watch. And I love Amy too. Like many men I am in lust with Karen Gillan. She is great and has such a wicked chemistry with Matt that just crackles both onscreen and off. And she had to be great because this season was Amy’s story. It was the story of little seven-year-old Amelia Pond, the girl who waited. The girl who grew up, but who then became a child once more. Brilliant!

Any negatives? Well, my only real problem has been with some of the FX. There’s been some pretty shoddy CGI in places. So, please, someone give the guys at The Mill a kick. They do some great stuff (the two-part finale FX are all pretty darn excellent) but then they seem to counter it with some truly ropy stuff. A bit more quality assurance needed me thinks.

Anyway, this has been a wonderful new start for The Doctor with Steven Moffat proving yet again why he is such a genius of a writer and one of the very best working in the industry today. Everything in this season was thought out and planned in detail. Things are set up and pay off throughout – both plotwise and thematically. It’s an intricate machine of storytelling, which ends with the sublime two-parter of The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. And, of course, with season five a star has been born in the form of Matt Smith. So roll on the Christmas special.

"Geronimo!"

My Weekend: A Mind Blowing Trailer. A Kick-Ass Movie. A Creepy Book. A Time Lord in Venice.

Movies:

Inception (trailer)
HOLY CRAP! If you haven't seen it already, check out this new trailer for Inception, Christopher Nolan’s follows up to The Dark Knight. Nolan is the master at making intelligent thrillers with complex narratives and strong adult thematic underpinnings. This just looks stunning. Basically it is a high tech sci fi crime/heist film set in the world of dreams. I'd be mightily surprised if Inception doesn't end up as the best film of 2010. Jaw meet floor.

(Sorry, couldn’t find an embed.)

Iron Man 2
Good but not great. The first one was better. This time around the story was too unfocussed with all of act 2 being just long stretches of talk and virtually no action. Mickey Rourke, though good, was rather an underused villain. Also the films 'wow' factor was pretty much absent this time - except for the great race sequence in Monaco.

But despite its flaws I still enjoyed it quite bit. For a big summer blockbuster superhero film it might be too shallow to be quite so talky but then again when you have the likes of Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Jackson verbally sparring on screen then that’s real talent and charisma overload. Throw in the wonderful Gwyneth Paltrow, whose chemistry with Downey Jr is still pleasingly sparky, the fun Sam Rockwell and the gorgeous ass kicking goddess who be Scarlett Johannsen, plus some pretty cool (when they happen) action sequences, and IM2, for all its faults, is still a cut above. Oh, and if you’re a superhero/Marvel geek then hang around until the end credits are over for a foretaste of the next big Marvel movie. A certain Norse thunder god is on his way. 3.5/5

Kick-Ass
I watched Kick-Ass again this morning. God I love this film. It is just bursting at the seams with such creative, irreverent, yet weirdly warm and affectionate energy. If you’ve ever loved superheroes and wondered why nobody ever tried doing it for real (or maybe you secretly dreamed of doing it for real yourself) then Kick-Ass is for you.

Kick-Ass is directed by Mathew Vaughan (Layer Cake, Stardust) and adapted from Mark Millar’s excellent graphic novel of the same name. Aaron Johnson in the title role is perfect. He comes across as an even geekier version of Toby Maguire’s Peter Parker and a lot more realistic as an ordinary hormone fuelled teenager with dreams of masked heroism and of getting the girl. But it is a certain pint sized psycho moppet who truly steals the show. Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl is a phenomenon. She’s an eleven-year-old whirling dervish of mayhem, death and profanity. And with a vicious curled lip that would make any grown man quiver in fear. Quite simply this kid in this role is an instant pop culture icon. A lot of the stuff she does and says is very, very wrong for such a little lass. And yet she does it so darn well. As her daddy, Nicolas Cage is almost as brilliant. When in his Batman-esque costume, Cage adopts an Adam West style persona that just kills. Watching him in this you remember why he actually is a movie star.

Kick-Ass is the best film I’ve seen this year. And the most fun film I’ve seen this year. And the most wrong film I’ve seen this year. I mean watching nasty Mark Strong punching an eleven-year-old girl in the face repeatedly is a mightily disturbing sight. But don’t worry dear reader, he soon gets his comeuppance. Oh yes indeed. 5/5

Books:

The Reckoning
I’ve just finished The Reckoning, book three in Kelley Armstrong’s Darkest Powers young adult series.

Fifteen year old Chloe Saunders, a troubled but powerful young necromancer, is on the run from Lyle House Children’s Home along with bitchy witch Tori, handsome arty sorcerer Simon, and Simon’s adoptive brother, the hulking, bad moody Derek, a fast maturing werewolf. Hot on their heels is the mysterious and deadly Edison Group, a shadowy organisation who’ve been doing some very nasty secret experiments on supernatural children for years. Chloe and her new friends seem to be the culmination of those experiments. And the Edison Group wants them back.

This third book wraps up the first trilogy of the Darkest Powers series in a fitting and exciting way. The Reckoning is a cracking read full of realistic and witty dialogue, great characters, dramatic action, high emotion, nasty monsters and supernatural shenanigans. There are a lot of chases, fights, double crosses and supernatural showdowns as well as some cool payback and destruction. But, as always with Kelley’s books, the characters, relationships and the emotions are always kept at the forefront. The fact that this is part of a young adult series doesn’t matter. The Darkest Powers series is still set in Kelley’s Otherworld universe and her usual writing style is kept 100% intact. Content-wise the action, humour and horror is all still there. But (as only to be expected in a YA book) the fairly graphic eroticism that plays a role in her adult work is not present here. Instead we get elements of teenage angst along with some burgeoning conflicted feelings; feelings which never amount to anything more physical than a hug, the holding of hands or a tender kiss. And that’s fine. For the teens in this series are so well drawn and so layered and complex in their characters that you totally accept it. It seems truthful and real. You really do like these kids and feel for them in their plight. Kelley Armstrong gives great character.

Anyway, I’ll miss Chloe. She was a great narrator who went on a fun, scary and challenging journey over the three books from a stuttering, insular and rather timid little daddy’s girl to someone of burgeoning power, intelligence, maturity and courage. The fact that she was also a major movie geek (especially horror and action films) and an aspiring screenwriter was just the icing on the cake. Although this part of Chloe’s story is now over, the book’s ending sets up the bigger tale with new and dangerous future missions to undertake. The next Darkest Powers trilogy will have new main characters, new stories and a new narrator, but Kelley says that Chloe, Derek, Simon, Tori et al will be back at some point, most likely as supporting characters rather than leads. And I look forward to meeting up with them again. 4.5/5

TV:

Doctor Who
Doctor Who is still great. Matt Smith now owns this role so much it ain’t funny. I much prefer his Time Lord take to that of David Tennant. I liked Tennant but preferred Chris Eccleston. Now I prefer Smith to them both. And Amy Pond is just sublime. She’s gorgeous, smart, fiery, funny, perfect. The stories so far have varied in quality from the excellent opener, the brilliant Weeping Angels two-parter, to the fun but flawed Victory of the Daleks, and the okay but not great second one called The Beast Below. This week’s ep was Vampires in Venice from Being Human writer Toby Whithouse. It was a fun romp made all the better by the wonderful location filming in Croatia (doubling perfectly for Venice), Whithouse’s witty, funny, insightful dialogue, and Matt Smith knocking it way out of the park as The Doctor. Watch and revel in his quiet, subtle scene with the main villain as they debate about what to do next. He gives a level of mature restraint, thoughtfulness and sly wit that Tennant would have had trouble in selling. My two main criticisms of this episode are:

1) The actual plot is very samey to new Who tales that have come before. Think The Runaway Bride meets The Fires of Pompeii.

2) The FX. The Mill FX house dropped the ball here with some of the crummiest CGI recently seen in the show. The Doctor climbing the tower at the end is embarrassingly bad, as is some of the obvious CG water added throughout to make the location look even more Venice-y.

On the big plus side, though, the gaggle of female vampires are a foxy lot with even The Doctor getting a bit overexcited at times. And Whithouse’s script is full of many wonderful lines and some great character based humour. Next week sees The Doctor and Amy trapped in a world of dreams and having to find their way out before they die. It looks very interesting and suitably weird.

Trust Him. He's The Doctor.

Matt Smith's debut as The Doctor has now aired in the UK.

And I gotta say...it was brilliant!

Steven Moffat's rejuvenated Who is (pardon the pun) just what The Doctor ordered. The tone is indeed like Moffat’s promised dark fairytale - especially the first ten minutes or so of this Moffat written story titled The Eleventh Hour. This episode charts the first and then second meeting between the new Doctor and his new companion Amy Pond. And this meeting is quite special, clever and touching.

So, most importantly, how is our new Doctor?

He's great.

Being still in the grip of his regeneration cycle Smith's Doctor is rather confused, manic, and still a bit Tennant-y in his ways. But as the episode goes on he slowly becomes more of his own man. Eccentric in a young-yet-old professor-ish way, he is also effortlessly witty, a bit goofy, a bit reckless and quite a lot charming. Smith's Doctor makes an instantly great impression. The food tasting scene with the little girl in the kitchen is simply brilliant. “Fish Custard.” LOL. You can see why Smith leapt out at Moffat and co. during auditions. He genuinely does have an odd, otherworldly quality to him. And as new companion Amy Pond, Karen Gillan is very good too. In this episode she is all (lovely) legs, fiery red hair and cynical attitude. She’s a bit messed up, a bit of a bad girl and doesn’t really trust The Doctor and isn’t afraid to give him what for. She is also very, very easy on the eye. Amy and The Doctor should prove for an interesting and fiery dynamic with their relationship having been set up in a very cool and intriguing way.

And the story? It’s fine. It does the job. An escaped intergalactic shape-shifting alien prisoner is hiding out on Earth while the Prison Guards (giant flying eyeballs) arrive to give the world only twenty minutes to hand the prisoner over before they destroy the whole planet. As a story it’s not as good as what Mr Moffat has given us before (we’ve been spoiled) and he uses it mostly as a hanger for introducing the new Doctor and the new feel to the series as well as reminding us of its mythical heritage. And in that way it works spot on. But Moffat still manages to do what he always does so brilliantly. He layers his script with smart precision plotting and intensely creative ideas while also inventing scary images and creepy concepts based around things an audience (especially kids) can relate to as being odd and kinda disturbing at a very basic level. At night a big crack in the wall of a child’s bedroom becomes sinister and so very creepy with whispered voices leaking out. A bleak phrase is repeated over and over through every piece of electronic communications equipment everywhere. Extra rooms in a house seem to appear but are only visible glimpsed through the corner of the eye. An alien changes itself to appear as regular people but gets it a bit wrong, appearing as a mother walking hand in hand with twin little girls, except the children speak with the mothers voice and vice versa. And it also appears as a man walking a dog, but the man barks and growls, not the dog. Weird and properly creepy. And Moffat being Moffat he also laces his script with some great quips and one liners. “You’re Scottish. Fry something!” The direction of the episode is excellent too. There are two stand out moments: a glimpse in to The Doctors mind as he recalls an event that has just occurred, looking for a clue in his own memory. Then, later on, glimpses of all past ten Doctors ending with the heroic emergence of Doctor number eleven to confront the bad guys. Also, the first ten or so minutes of the Doctor crashing the TARDIS and meeting a little girl left alone in her house and scared by the sinister crack in her wall is just all-round superlative. A very special shout out goes to young Caitlin Blackwood who plays said little girl. She is wonderful and does a quite brilliant job opposite Matt Smith.

As well as a regenerated Doctor, the rest of the show has had a ground up regeneration too. There’s a new title sequence with a dark and scary time tunnel complete with lightening bolts striking the TARDIS. And there’s a new, more electronic and choral version of the iconic theme. The TARDIS has also regenerated after being almost wrecked at the episode’s start. It looks newer and brighter outside while inside the console room is twice as big and on multiple levels with curved and odd-angled walls and with stairs going off in many directions. It looks weird and very, very cool.

So colour me impressed. I could tell within the first ten minutes that I loved this new take on our favourite Timelord, it being much closer to my own personal tastes than that of RTD’s version. Not to take anything away from the awesome job Russell T did, but I just love the whole dark fairytale vibe, the more sinister-yet-playful feel. And I can see a whole new generation of kids properly hiding behind their couch come Saturday evenings as a result. And their parents might just be joining them.

So bring it on. And like the man says: “Trust me. I’m the Doctor.”

Indeed you are, sir.