Funny Familiar Forgotten Faces

The return of beloved characters! Is it a good thing? Generally it doesn’t live up to your expectations, and can leave you feeling slightly disappointed. Anyway the 3 we’re looking at:

Star Trek:TNG - Relics
Doctor Who - Battlefield
Blake’s7 - Blake

Nothing is guaranteed to get the fans chomping at the bit more, than the return of a beloved old face from the programme’s past. I’m aware Star Trek has done TOS faces turning up more than once, so why Relics? Also Battlefield wasn’t the Brig’s first return, why Battlefield and not Mawdryn Undead? Gareth Thomas turned up in Terminal via a drug induced dream sequence, why not that instead of Blake? Well at the moment I’m appreciating David Bowie’s Little Wonder in my ears as I type this and all I can say is, at the moment there is method behind my choices.

The return of James Montgomery Scott, we weren’t exactly clamouring for it, but when it was announced that as well as Scotty returning we were also going to get the original bridge recreated! Well that whipped the Trekkies into a frenzy, sadly all too short lived. The bridge is only seen for an extended chat between Scotty and Picard. Also Scotty seems to have been transformed from loveable and curmudgeonly into an annoying pain in the arse, and worse still LaForge the smug banana clip wearing poker up his ass dullard that he is doesn’t seem to appreciate he is in the presence of a legend. Worry not folks it’s simply a plot device so we can have some cosy moralising about how we should appreciate the older members of our community, and look! A contrived situation designed to highlight that the ‘old people’ still have something to offer society. So what do the Beige Brigade do with this enlightened attitude? Well obvious really, kick him off the ship into deep space with only a short range shuttle as transport….Help The Aged should take notes. The main problem with Relics is it could’ve been any elderly engineer/random character hiding in that transporter buffer, and as such all the episode seems to do is serve Doohan and his beloved character a severe injustice.

Whereas with Battlefield as mentioned The Brig had made two appearances 6 years previously, so why the big fuss, well the season opener was going to be a fully fledged UNIT story, a lovingly crafted tribute to the classic stories of the past…..well as we all know that’s not what we got! Oh no what we got was a story that opens in a Garden Centre! At first we thought the Brig is undercover, there’s going to be Krynoids in this Garden Centre! Nope no Krynoids, The centre manager is another of the Master’s disguises as he attempts to bring the world to its knees via the use of mulch? No it’s just a Garden Centre and he’s buying a tree…with his wife!(In one fell swoop ten years of Slash Fiction fell to the wayside). What follows is a very tedious journey as The Brigadier takes his sweet fricking time getting to the action, granted a very nice scene when he meets the 7th Doctor for the first time, and a very quick succession of fanboy pleasing nods including Bessie follow. However at this moment we’re down to about 36 minutes of storytime remaining, and the whole point of bringing The Brig back has been fumbled, fudged and failing dismally. The Doctor and The Brigadier should’ve been together for the majority of the story, so we could see the friendship between the two, so when it looks like Alastair has croaked it, it just might actually mean something to the viewers, alas no it didn’t.And to compound the tedium of the story it finishes with our heroes doing a spot of gardening!!

Now here’s the odd thing what made Battlefield fail, is Blake’s main strength. Keeping Avon and Blake apart makes the final episode absolutely pitch perfect. The tension is drawn out, we become aware of their plans, big stuff happens and yet the main event is still to happen, Avon and Blake meet again(And properly this time, not a dream sequence with Blake and a RSC beard), all very tense. Yes yes Blake chooses his words very poorly, yet I think no matter what he said Avon was going to shoot him anyway (If only to keep the catering budget down),and as if that wasn’t enough everybody dies! The joy of Blake in this episode is, it is clearly the same character but he has changed in the intervening years and Thomas plays it just right, especially when he’s up against a full throttle Paul Darrow who by the time he reached the end of the series, was so OTT even The Shat would be saying reign it in a bit. Also unlike the previous two selections there is a clear and valid reason for the return of Blake, Avon needs him, if he ever hopes to defeat the Federation, so it’s not just tokenism.

It has to be said it is good when old characters turn up, but when they don’t behave the way they have done in the past you have to argue what is the bloody point? However let’s face it producers are going to continue to do it as it initially guarantees good ratings, ever if it’s a clunker of a episode, it generates extra interest, and that to them is always a good thing.

An Idea

Teaser: Earth, England, August 1845. A balmy summer’s night, the three daughters of the household are getting ready to retire for the evening; they are all reading or writing.A distant rumble of thunder, torrential rain starts out of nowhere, the thunder rumbles louder, the girls look out of the window, a screeching splitting noise is heard followed by an almighty crash, all is silent then a knocking sound is heard, the knocking is constant, the daughters go to the main door of the house, asking Who’s There? No answer but the knocking continues, one of the girls open the door. It is the Doctor, dishevelled and beaten, on the point of collapse, he whispers Help Me and falls into their arms.

Act One: The Doctor wakes up, it is the next morning, the three ladies are standing around him, and they introduce themselves as Anne, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, The Doctor’s arm is in a sling, his head is bandaged, they ask him what happened? Flashback to The Doctor and His Companion in the TARDIS, a message is received, it is a wanted dead or alive notice regarding the Doctor, suddenly the TARDIS is under attack, and whatever is attacking the TARDIS is causing temporal energy to leak into the control room, making his companion age rapidly. For her own safety the Doctor puts her into a stasis chamber which will protect her from the temporal energy, the Doctor attempts to steer the TARDIS through the attack, he hits the Earth’s atmosphere, and crash-lands near the Bronte house.

Act Two: The Bounty Hunter that attacked the TARDIS is attempting to pick up the Doctor’s trail again. The Bronte sisters become enamoured of the Doctor, as he recovers
(his Time Lord constitution making him heal quicker than a human), but he is still too weak to make it back to the TARDIS, besieged by questions from the girls, he attempts to explain something about himself. The Bounty Hunter has determined the time and general location, he lands and immediately attacks a villager, demanding information. He is told of the weird weather and burning skies of the night before. Satisfied he is in the right area, he unleashes the Pack, genetically enhanced Ogrons, to track down the Doctor.

Act Three: The Doctor sensing that something is wrong tells the girls to bolt all doors and windows, however it’s too late the Pack come crashing into the house, the Doctor and the Bronte sisters run for their lives, realising that their lives are in danger if they stay with him, the Doctor tells them to hide, and he makes off into the woods. The Pack and The Bounty Hunter follow, a game of cat and mouse ensues, with the injured Doctor coming off the worse.

Act Four: The Doctor is at the mercy of the Bounty Hunter, suddenly the sisters turn up,
They distract the Bounty Hunter, by blasting him with a shotgun this allows the Doctor to escape, Leading the Doctor to safety, with the Bounty Hunter and the Pack in pursuit, however the sister are leading the Bounty Hunter into a trap, he falls into an abandoned pit, when he lands the device that controls the Pack is damaged, without the device the Pack turn on the Bounty Hunter and kill him, The pack are still trapped down the pit, the Doctor comments that without hormone revitalisation they’ll be dead in 36 hours, the sisters help him back to the house, It is the next day the Doctor is nearly back to full strength, he is saying his goodbyes to the sisters, he has managed to dispose of the Bounty Hunter’s ship, and found the TARDIS, the Doctor leaves wondering who would put a bounty on his head. The sisters marvel at the TARDIS dematerialising and also each sister wonders wouldn’t the Doctor be the most marvellous inspiration for a romantic lead in a novel.

It wasn't a good day

As every day slips past me, a realisation is growing - well when I say growing it would be fairer and more accurate to say festering - this post recession world of ours has managed to unite everybody, now it seems each and every one of us is a penny-pinching mealy mouthed fuctard who would quibble, gripe and snipe over anything. Standing in a coffee shop today and I overheard a woman who realised after she had ordered her food the prices had gone up(Post budget blame Mr Darling I muttered at the time), by the staggering amount of 50p, and she queried the bill, and griped and she sniped , basically being a pain in the arse and holding everybody up in the queue. I remember hearing heartening spirit lifting stories of how families and communities survived the Great Depression. However, sadly it seems our modern era cannot engender the same spirit unless it's downloading a song from iTunes sung by a pack of shallow vacuous shitehawks who lets face it would let an elephant come all over them if it got them on the cover of Heat.

Speaking of which Britain's Got talent is back for a new run this week, Jesus must be crying buckets at this load of old codswallop being back on the box. A freak show of the highest order but surely the vilest sin it commits is letting people like Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan feel as if they have some validity to their lives. Lets face it, you don't want to hear their empty platitudes or their carefully scripted meticulously rehearsed put downs. All you really want is to open the paper in the morning and find out Piers Morgan fell into a vat of shit and drowned in it, and Amanda Holden due to her inability to keep her libido in check any longer, was rushed to hospital as she was 'locked' with a Great Dane, and it took 4 hours to separate them. A bit harsh but lets face it they've got it coming to them!

Also having watched the apparently historic politcal debate last night, all I can say is the UK should prepare itself for anarchy and dissolution if those three empty headed muppets are considered good enough to govern. yes we expected petty point scoring, yes we expected Gordon Brown to play the part of a man hopelessly out of synch with the rest of us. Cameron delivered his only to be expected Tony Blair impression, and I didn't expect much from Nick Clegg, and at least he didn't disappoint on that score. Watching the three of them trundle through the motions made me yearn desperately for the zombie apocalypse. But then again I've been waiting on that to happen for years.