The Journal of the Browncoat Cat

It has been reproted that David Tennant is going finish filming on Doctor Who at the end of April and the begin rehearsing for Hamlet a the start of June.  This implies that the that the longest continuous block of principle photography for Doctor Who since the 1960’s has been completed.  Filming started in August for Voyage of the Damned, the 2007 Christmas Special, continued through to the end of March for Series Four [30] and then onwards for the still unnamed 2008 Christmas Special. That is nearly ten months of filming.  Although things will not be quiet at the BBC Upper Boat Studios, as work continues on Series Two of The Sarah Jane Adventures and in the fullness of time Series Three of Torchwood.

Anyway, broadcast of Series Four [30] continues, with the broadcast on Saturday of The Poisoned Sky, the completion of Helen Raynor’s two part Sontaran story.  after last Saturday’s cracking opening episode, I cannot wait for the conclusion.

The following was written by Keith Topping, a journalist and author who has written a number of Doctor Who novels and books about the series.  It was originally published on The Doctor Who Forum, it the “Sontaran Stratagem” Ratings, Audience Share thread:

You know, to me Doctor Who is rather like a mid-range popular beat combo on the 1960s and 70s. They were never quite in The Beatles or The Stones league but they hung for a long time and had a few really big hits in their day, surviving a changing landscape and a few periods where they looked as though they might be becoming passé.

Time eventually caught up with them – as it does with most things – in the late 80s when the world had got that bit harder and more unforgiving and so they split up. They did try a brief comeback in the mid-90s but it was unsuccessful – critically and commercially – the time not being right (it being the summer of Britpop and all).

Then in 2005 a bright, energetic, enthusiastic young manager, who’d been a huge fan back in the day came along, got the old gang back together and produced a new LP and, hey, it sold. I mean Big style. Easily as big (if not bigger, given the changing world we’re now a part of) than they’d ever been before.

Now, they go around the world playing stadiums and they have a whole new fanbase of kids many of whom weren’t even born when they were at their height first time around. Most of the new fans are – at the very least – respectful of the old stuff and politely applaud whenever the greatest hits are played, but it’s the new, innovative, 21st Century stuff they really want to hear. A lot of the old fans can be seen standing around the edges doing a sort of stroke-y chin “hmm yes, this is all rather intellectually interesting” thing when, really, the 10 year old inside of them is screaming “Sod being a grown up, doesn’t this make you feel like it’s 1975 all over again?!”

But, unfortunately, there’s a few guys down the front who are just like Homer Simpson when he’s at a gig and Bachman Turner Overdrive come on. “NO NEW SONGS! NO SERMONS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT! JUST PLAY THE HITS” And, further more, “play them exactly the same way as you played them in 1976 … or … I’ll complain about you on the Internet to anybody that will listen (and, frankly, anybody that won’t).”

They’re an occasionally amusing sight but they represent not the tiniest fraction of actual concensus in whether Doctor Who in 2008 is good, bad, indifferent or any number of shades of grey in-between.                                                                                                                     

©Keith Topping, April 2008

This is a much better  summation of the return of Doctor Who than my rather week effort a few years ago to compare the series to RISC OS computers, which have crashed and burnt, whereas Doctor Who is going from strength to strength. Also takes into account the changing attidude of Fandom to the return of the series.

With little fanfare, The BBC has commissioned a six episode series of Being Human on Thursday for BBC Three.  It will continue the story of a Vampire, a Werewolf and a Poltergeist sharing a flat in suburban Bristol, trying to pretend that they are normal thirtysomething. The series was created by Toby Whithouse, who wrote School Reunion, the return of Sarah Jane Smith, for Doctor Who and created Hotel Babylon for BBC One.  I reviewed the pilot in this web log back last month.  I am really pleased that this series has been commisioned.

I am going to have to buy myself some very large pots and a whole heap of compost.  In the Daily Mirror today, there was an advert for Dwarf Spur Apple Trees.  Buy one of each variety andy ou would get a pack of strawberry plants for free. The fact that they are columns of fruit that look really interesting appeals to me.  I didn’t have my wallet with me in work this morning, so I could not order them until I got home.  On visiting the Daily Mirror web site, I discovered a slightly different offer; buy the two apple trees, one of each variety, and get a dwarf pear tree for free.  Even better, as I already have plenty of productive strawberry plants.  The great thing about these trees is that I will be able to keep them in pots on my patio, as the maximum height that they grow to is just five foot.  I am looking forward to having the apple blossom in the Spring and a plentiful supply of fruit in the Autumn.

Thursday saw the release of version 8.04 of the Ubuntu Operating System that is based on GNU/Linux.   Every two years, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu set a benchmark for the ongoing development of the operating system.  This version, 8.04 LTS is one of those benchmark releases and will be supported in the long term for upto 5 years on Servers.  However, it is hoped that Ubuntu 8.04 will make a breakthrough in thepersonal computer Desktop Market.  This is why this release is important to me, as both my computers use Ubuntu, the Dell Dimension E520 desktop uses the vanilla version with the Gnome Desktop environment, whilst the laptop runs Xubuntu which features the light weight Xfce Desktop environment as the IBM ThinkPad 600X has less systems resources.

I did not bother even attempting to upgrade on Thursday, as I knew that the upgrade servers would be so busy, I would not have a hope of getting the new version downloaded.  I waited until 10am (BST) this morning.  Even then, the upgrade took three hours to download and install, finishing just before I had to head off to work.

I tried and failed to install the latest version of Envy.  However, a little messing around with the system revealled that I did not actually need it.  The nVidia GeForce driver that comes as a standard with 8/04LTS is sufficiently advanced to allow me to run Cedega, and therefore Guild Wars on my desktop.

However, the best thing about  the latest version of Ubuntu has to be Firefox 3 Beta 5, the most advanced version of the Mozilla Project’s open source Web Browser.  Firefox 2 made Microsoft’s Internet Explorer look sad, Firefox 3 simply blows it out of the water.

I noticed that there have been a number of subtle changes to the 24 hour digital news channel from the BBC.  It is no longer BBC News 24, it is now the BBC News Channel.  All the onscreen graphics have changed, as have the station idents.  There seems to be no change in the quality of the presentation, and of course the news is still the news.  So I find it dificult to understand why the BBC is wasting so much money on rebranding its digital news channel, especially when cash is tight at Aunty’s.

Tonight sees the last night of location filming for the 2008 Christmas Special. For the past three days, Parson’s Green, next to the Cathedral has been covered in fake snow. The story is set in 1851, at Christmas, and sees a solitary Doctor fighting of Cybermen. The most interesting thing about this is that in addition to Devla Kirwen, the cast for the Christmas Special contains David Morrissey, who starred in Blackpool (or Viva Blackpool in the USA) with David Tennant. Many people have said that Mr. Morrissey would be an excellent choice to play the Doctor when David Tennant actually leaves the series. The fact that location watchers have seen a trailer at the Unit Base labelled “The Other Doctor” has lead to speculation that this is a multi-Doctor story with a twist, and we will be getting our first glimpse of Doctor#11. This theory is in my opinion a load of horse feathers. Mr Morrissey is probably playing a Victorian physician and as there has been filming in Gloucester, I hope his character name is Dr. Foster.

Anyway, back to Series Four [30] and The Sontaran Stratagem which is the first episode of a two part story written by Helen Raynor, the Head of the Script Editing Department. Helen Raynor received a huge amount of totally uncalled for criticism for her two part Dalek story last year. I did not think it was that bad, it had a lot of good ideas, and was a great improvement on the mess that was Gridlock the preceding story.  I am really looking forward to this story, as I think the Sontarans, the youngest of the “Big Four” Aliens (Daleks, Cybermen, Ice Warriors and Sontarans), are a wonderful adversary for the Doctor. They exist only for war and for war’s sake.  They have enough intelligence to make the Doctor’s life very difficult whenever he encounters them.  Lets be honest, they have no redeeming features what so ever, and the Doctor is honour bound to put a spanner in whatever they are doing.

Anyway, the latest preview clip that the BBC have put on  their YouTube channel is another cracker.   Some sparkling dialogue.  I cannot wait.

Written by Keith Temple
Directed by Graeme Harper
Produced by Susie Liggat
Starring: David Tennant and Catherine Tate
Guest Starring: Tim McInnerny, Paul Kasey, Ayesha Dharker, Adrian Rawlins, Roger Griffiths, Paul Clayton, Tariq Jorden and Silas Carson as the Voice of the Ood

1.Plot:
The TARDIS lands on a snowy mountainside of a moon orbiting a gas giant planet.The Doctor is taking Donna to her first alien world. Setting the co-ordinates at random, so that even he does not know where they will end up. Whilst exploring, they discover a dieing Ood. The Doctor tries to save it, but as it dies, it attacks him, its eyes shining red.

Klineman Halpen, the Chairman of Ood Operations has arrived back on the planet that is the source of his wealth. He is not happy, as he obviously despises the place. Evidence has come to light that the mysterious deaths that have been occuring are not the result of natural causes as first thought, but were caused by a murderous Ood. If this fact becomes common knowledge, he will be ruined. It is not helped by the fact that a group of salesmen have arrived at Ood Operations to see where their merchandise comes from.

Donna is horrified that the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire is based on enslaving the harmless Ood. She and the Doctor set out to investigate why the Ood are so servile. They are horrified by what they see around them. The discover that the Ood are a hive mind, that they have two brains and communicate through a giant Hive Brain, that Ood Operations has held enslaved for two hundred years. That the glowing translator ball that each slave Ood is fitted with replaces the hind brain that hangs amongst the tentacles on their faces, and this is what turns the Oods into mindless drones.

Unbeknownst to Donna and the Doctor, the Friends of the Oods, the organisation opposed to the Ood’s enslavement have sabotaged the Ood Operations HQ and a revolution is about to break out.

2. Thoughts:
Oh dear, the Ood. Why bring the Ood back, they were rubbish the first time around in The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit. I really do not believe in a totally passive and subservient race that will suddenly turn on their masters when an outside influence overrides their programming. Also I don’t care how docile and subservient they may be, they are so butt ugly, I cannot imagine people wanting ot buy them in the first place.

There has bee a debate on The Doctor Who Forum about whether something as apparently fragile as a hind brain would evolve outside the protection of a body. Well evolution does not, contrary to popular belief, lead to perfection. It allows for survival, and if the rest of the package is successful and survives, then the minor oddity will also survive. After all, look at human biology, the male testicles are external to the rest of the body, with only a scrotal sack a few millimetres thick protecting them.

The villain of the piece Mr. Halpen was an evil man. However, he was not deeply evil in a galaxy ruling megalomaniac way, he was an amoral man who did evil things because the profits from them paid the bills and kept him in a lifestyle that he has become accustomed to. When enslaving the Ood was no longer viable, he was prepared to commit genocide just to move on to a new business opportunity. It was massive dose of cosmic Karma that his fate should be transformation into an Ood, the very thing kept him rich even though he despised so deeply. Halpen was a perfect example of what Steven Moffat calls the “banality of evil”. Tim McInnery was superb as Mr. Halpen, brining to the role a nice balance between harressed edginess and supreme self-confidence.

On the other hand, all the other characters were a bit two dimensional. Only the virtuous Doctor and Donna, who do not accept the slavery of the Ood survived the revolution on the Oodsphere unscathed. This is perhaps the biggest fault in The Planet of the Ood. It was obviously preaching that “slavery is a very bad thing”, and nothing was allowed to get in the way of that message.

The effect of Halpen’s transformation was gross, but unfortunately, it was not very original. The transformation of Dr. Constantine and various British Soldiers into Gas-Mask Zombies in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances was visually very similar to transformation in this episode.

The marvellous vistas of the ice-planet were a joy to behold. This just goes to prove that alien planets are not the monstrously expensive and difficult undertakings that Russell T. Davies once claimed. After the establishing shot of the Oodsphere had been seen by the audience, proving that the Doctor and Donna really are on an alien planet, then it was not necessary to keep reminding them of the fact. There is no need to constantly to composite something alien into every shot. Hopefull this will result in more visits to alien Worlds.

Once again, the story gives us a reference to the Hartnell Era back in the mid 1960’s. In this episode we are told that the Oodsphere is in the same planetary system as the Sense Sphere, home of the telepathic Sensorites, after whom the 1965 story was named. Why are we being constantly reminded of Doctor#1, is this all part of the on-going story arc? Whilst on the subject of story arcs, surprisingly, there was no mention of the return of Rose Tyler this week. When Ood Sigma says that the Doctor’s song will soon end, I doubt if it is a reference to an upcoming regeneration. I suspect that it is referring to more Time Lords turning up, thus ending the deep loneliness that the Doctor is currently experiencing, that must be plainly obvious to a telepathic race such as the Ood.

3. Stars:
2.5 out of 5

I found an envelope of old photographs yesterday. They were taken at an ArmadaCon convention down in Plymouth. I am not sure which year they were taken. I think about 1999, but I am not exactly certain. Anyway, I chucked them into Movie Maker, to put in a montage for this web log. Hopefully someone who was at that convention will be able to fill in some of the details.

[wpvideo uoKWy1Ng w=400]

This photo that has recently turned up in my mother’s house. It shows me meeting Tony Blair when he was the guest speaker at the Rhondda Constituency Dinner some time in the lte 1980’s or maybe early 1990’s, when Mr. Blair was the Shadow Spokesman on Law and Order. We all look so much younger then, when Tony Blair was a rising star in the Labour Opposition and John Smith was the best Prime Minister Britain never had.

Even then I didn’t like him. He seemed to say all talk and no substance, saying all the right things, but with no conviction behind it. He seemed false.