The Fades: Season One Blu-ray review

Knowing virtually nothing about it outside of a few enthusiastic remarks, I dove into The Fades. This is increasingly becoming the way I go into things these days: With the least amount of knowledge possible, having only heard something positive. It’s the opposite approach of the me of 15 or 20 years ago, who often devoured everything he could find on a topic before even experiencing the topic itself. It must be, more than anything else, a matter of developing a brand of patience over the years. It’s a good thing, I think, in the case of The Fades that this is how I came at it, because if I knew ahead of time what I know now, I might not have bothered.

The Fades is the origin story of an unlikely superhero (as they so often are) – a teenage boy who is awkward with girls, has a single mother, a sister who thinks he’s a dork, and a best friend who’s an even bigger dork than he is. Powerful forces begin popping up around him, and it’s at this point it dawns on him that he’s not like everyone else, and it scares the hell out of him.

Iain De Caestecker as Paul

The teenager in question is Paul (Iain De Caestecker), who realizes he has the ability to – just like Haley Joel Osment - see dead people. The dead people in question are called Fades, and they’re caught between our world and the next, having failed to “ascend.” But some of the Fades are getting restless, and they’ve found a way to become corporeal again, and it involves eating human flesh. It’s explained to Paul that he’s an Angelic, with the power to see what the normal person cannot. The Angelics, led by the flawed Neil (Johnny Harris), form a group of resistance fighters whose goal it is to stop the vicious Fades. But Paul has powers above and beyond the other Angelics, including, but certainly not limited to, the ability to sprout wings after he orgasms.

Johnny Harris as Neil

That description admittedly ended on a pretty goofy note, but when it happens to Paul in the series, it too is played for laughs. A show like The Fades needs the occasional laugh, otherwise it would get too bogged down in itself and be less easy to appreciate. The series is essentially a graphic novel made for the small screen – the way it’s lit and shot, the grandiose manner in which its layered mythology unfolds, how the myriad characters interact with one another – all of it feels like a comic book brought to life, even though it is not. Indeed, The Fades is more of a comic book than a lot of comic book adaptations (like, say, The Walking Dead, which seemingly trades in its roots for a sort of realism). The show was created by Jack Thorne, who previously wrote for Skins, and the entire six-episode first season is written by him, giving the whole thing almost an auteur vibe, though since he didn’t direct it, that word can’t actually be applied here. That said, the direction, from Farren Blackburn (“The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe”) and Tom Shankland, is arch, over the top stuff, but always highly effective, with shots often resembling comic book panels.

Like many protagonists at this early stage of their development, Paul is not the most interesting character, but rather it’s what he’s going through that makes him worth following (though certainly by the final episode, he’s got far more going on than he did in the first). His best bud, Mac (Daniel Kaluuya), however, is amusing in the extreme, which should come as no surprise, since he’s a raging geek. Check out the following exchange:

Mac: "Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything, or anybody."

Neil: "What?"

Paul: "He's quoting 'Star Wars.' Ignore him."

Mac: "I'm not quoting 'Star Wars!' I'm quoting Leia. You can't quote a film! You can only quote a character in a film!"

Daniel Kaluuya as Mac

It’s not enough for Mac to simply quote a movie, he has to dissect the process of quoting. Mac exists on something of a meta level. His presence is practically a necessity in this sort of story, in this day and age. Zombies, demons and vampires (all mythologies from which The Fades borrows bits and pieces to form its own original whole) are presently so commonplace in pop culture, that when a show goes down roads like this, it can help to have a character reference what the audience is thinking. One of the show’s most genius flourishes is to have Mac - in person and talking to the camera - provide the recap at the top of each episode (just wait until you get to the recap at the start of the last installment!). But if the show was all just one big in-joke, it would work even less effectively than if it had no jokes at all. As it moves forward, Mac changes and grows along with the other dozen characters who find themselves suddenly dealing with the notion that death may not be the final word after all.  

I have an irrational resistance to comic book fare these days, which is something of  a shame because I often discover that I’m missing out on some quality stuff (a recent first-time viewing of Thor was further proof I need to stop being so close-minded). Had anyone told me The Fades was a comic book, I’d have immediately zoned out. Thankfully, that never happened. The Fades is  also quality British horror television, replete with blood, profanity and even some nudity, so definitely don’t go into this if you’re on the squeamish side. But the rest of us, after devouring this first season, will be anxiously awaiting the second, as this one finishes up on a nice cliffhanger.

Blu-ray Extras: The Fades comes to Blu-ray with a crisp gorgeous transfer (the screen captures in this piece are not taken from the Blu-ray), though the DTS HD audio mix is unfortunately only stereo. It gets the job done, but one would like for the audio portion of the experience to match the frequent immersiveness of the visuals. There’s a fair amount of bonus material, such as extra scenes, deleted scenes & outtakes and a series of bits called “Mac Explains,” which delves into the mythology of the series, which are all presented in SD. However, there is a selection of behind the scenes interviews with the cast and crew which runs about 18 minutes that's presented in HD. All in all the extras add up to about an hour.      

A Taste of GCB

It’s only makes sense that ABC would try to find a series to fill the void that the end of Desperate Housewives is going create in its Sunday night schedule. That show was a ratings juggernaut for its first couple years, maintained a healthy audience over the next few, but has at this point pretty much fallen out of the Top 20. Given that the series lost a great deal of its initial edge and creative steam, that should come as no surprise, but what if the net could concoct something as juicy and fun to watch as Housewives was back in its heyday?

GCB, which sounds like a chain of health food stores, is an acronym for Good Christian Bitches, the title of the bestselling book by Kim Gatlin, upon which the series is based, and the sooner we all forget the sanitized placeholder title Good Christian Belles, which ABC had some time ago considered using, the better. Is it a terrible move to have reduced the profane into something squeaky clean and network TV safe? Hasn’t ABC simply done what fans gabbing on internet message boards will do within hours of the show’s premiere, anyway?

After her Ponzi-scheming husband is killed in a fiery crash (blowjob interruptus, of course), Amanda Vaughn (Leslie Bibb) must move back to Dallas with her two teenage children, and in with her bible-thumping socialite mother, Gigi (Annie Potts, playing yet another version of the same woman she’s been exploring for years). Gigi still lives in the same community she raised Amanda in, and her neighbors are the same girls her daughter tormented in high school 20 years ago. Though Amanda has changed, ladies like Carlene Cockburn (Kristin Chenoweth) and Cricket Caruth-Reilly (Miriam Shor) hold some serious grudges against her, and the new life she’s attempting to carve for herself and her children will be anything but a hayride.

The overt subtext of the series involves heaping loads of hypocrisy, frequently of the religious kind. While the “bitches” attend church every Sunday, their actions are all too often awfully un-Christian. Do unto others takes a backseat to doo-doo onto others, and Carlene is the clear ringleader. The characters’ antics are so over the top it seems unlikely that anyone could take the goings-on too seriously, but then the writers don’t seem to have taken into account (or perhaps they simply don’t care) how sensitive half of the country might be to the show’s repeated condemnation of the double standards of church-going folk.

Part of the key to the success of Housewives was in its bleached approach; the only thing offensive about that show was that it wasn’t even remotely offensive. It was a series that everyone could like. That isn’t the case with GCB, which potentially satirizes a rather large and influential portion of the country. “Potentially” because you never know where viewers will draw the line between seeing themselves and insisting “that’s nothing like me.” It’s anyone’s guess how the religious right is going to react to the show, but I’ll venture out on a limb and say it’s not something they’re going to embrace.

Yet the series is hell-bent on being liked, and as long as you don’t live in Highland Park, the affluent Dallas suburb GCB is lampooning, maybe it won’t be so offensive after all. Tall, tan, and athletic blonde Bibb is an ideal lead for GCB, looking identical to so many women I’ve known throughout the nearly 25 years I’ve lived in Texas. Though the supporting players often come off cartoonish, Amanda is grounded in a reality, and she’s such a thoroughly affable lead, it’s difficult to even imagine her as the high school bitch everyone else knows her as. When roadblocks are put in the way of her career, she sees no shame in getting a job at a fictionalized version of Hooters, despite the fact the Gigi is well enough off to take care of the entire family. When a mystery donor sends her a truckload full of expensive, designer clothing, she sends it all back.

Chenoweth chews every bit of scenery she can get her teeth on, and even her infamous vocals play a sizable role, as she’s a prominent member of the church choir. Carlene commits some pretty loathsome acts, yet given that she was, essentially, bullied by Amanda in high school, you have to sympathize with her on a certain level. Indeed, this is a series about what happens when the bullied strike back, only we’re supposed to side with the bully, which is quite the daring angle to take in this political climate.

On the flip side there’s Jennifer Aspen’s Sharon Peacham, the former high school beauty, now overweight and insecure, and a true grotesque. She’s severely underwritten, and the butt of one too many of the same kind of jokes over the course of the first two episodes. Shor’s Cricket doesn’t fare much better in the pilot, but the second episode reveals something decidedly more complex about her, and she just may be the character to watch over the long haul (and as an unrecognized treasure, Shor certainly deserves it). Rounding out the main cast is Marisol Nichols as Heather Cruz, a woman caught between Amanda and Carlene. GCB doesn’t yet know exactly what it wants to do with her character, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing at this early stage of the game. However, by the end of this mid-season run, we really need to see where all of these people are coming from and have a vague idea of where they might be going.   

GCB is the kind of TV programming that snobs like me go into wanting to dislike, and yet cannot because the show, by prime time network standards, is taking some major risks, and also because, well, it’s just so damn much fun, much of which is due to sharp dialogue such as “Why would anyone leave Texas for southern California? I mean, we’ve got the same weather without the liberals.” The show is far from perfect, and maybe it never will be, because of what it is, where it is, and when it plays, but it gets far more right than wrong, which quite frankly, isn’t something I’d have expected from an ABC Sunday night series at this stage of the scheduling and producing game. 

Don't Believe Everything You See on Facebook, Issue #2

The meme this parodies is mercifully in its final death throes, but if you spent any amount of time on Facebook in the last couple weeks, you no doubt noticed this bit of obnoxiousness more than a couple times. If you spend a lot of time of Facebook, you watched it start out as a mild diversion and then grow into a behemoth clogging your newsfeed.

It wasn’t terribly clever, and it only seemed to be amusing to the people who were sharing it. It also sent a message that needs to be stamped out right here and right now: Most people – your family, your friends, your co-workers, etc. - are in fact not thinking about what you do, and that’s because most people are too busy thinking about themselves and what they’re doing or going to do, which, in turn, is exactly why this meme ran so fucking rampant. It’s a Catch-22 of massive Facebookian proportions. It presents the delusion that the rest of the world cares about your nonsense, when in fact, they just simply do not, as they are too busy caring about their own.

Oh, I hear your cries! “Lighten up, Ross! We were just having fun!” Well your fun is impeding my sharing and receiving of useful information, and it’s pissing me off. If Facebook is indeed a tremendous waste of time, this meme is entirely emblematic of why.

On the surface, this is good times and great oldies, but lurking beneath is something much more sinister (but let’s face it: oldies can be pretty sinister to begin with). I think the implication here is that our parents were somehow “better” than the parents of today (i.e. “us”) because they let kids run recklessly and didn’t think so hard about whether or not bones would end up broken. Fair enough, but it’s not going to convince me that there’s anything wrong with not wanting your kid to be rushed to the emergency room if it can be prevented with a little common sense.

More importantly, however, when my son was a preteen, I’d never have let him go out of the house wearing a half shirt like the kid in the background. I might also have advised him to not sit like Farrah Fawcett when someone nearby has a camera in hand. Take that, parents of the ‘70s!

I looked up other pictures of Gillian McKeith. There’s no question that she’s not as conventionally attractive as Ms. Lawson, but there’s also no question that whoever put this together chose the most unflattering photograph they could find of her. Had the following shot been used instead, the graphic wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic.

For the record, I’m a big fan of both exercise and butter (though probably not at the same time).

Yes, let’s use fictional people (from the ‘60s, no less) to attempt to prove some kind of idiotic point about marriage today. What was that? Oh yeah, they were based on some comics from the ‘30s! I’ll see your Gomez and Morticia Addams and raise you a J.R. and Sue Ellen Ewing.

This is such a prime example of liberal hubris, it must be called out. Something that really gets under my skin about Democrats is their inability to know when to just fucking stop; to realize when they’ve won. It’s like that guy who thinks he’s a comedian, but he’s not, because he’s unable to instinctively recognize when a joke has reached its end. Here, someone has put together an impressive list of accomplishments by Barack Obama. It would stand tall, proud and strong, but they just had to go ruin the entire message with that last sentence: “What did you do in the last three years at your job?” You know why I didn’t do any of those things at my job in the last three years? Because I’m not the fucking President of the United States, you sanctimonious asshole!

This is why I do not go to Superbowl parties. Don’t play with your food, especially when you have this much of it (and all of it so unhealthy!) Last month I realized that I’m invited to more Superbowl parties than any real holiday of the year. Are there really more people gathering together on that one day than any other? Come on, folks, take just half the dollars you’re putting into this nonsense and do something cool on Halloween. You know how many Halloween parties I was invited to last year? None. Me, of all people! It beggars the imagination, yes it does. 

Robin of Sherwood on Blu-ray

If you’ve not seen or heard of Robin of Sherwood, don’t be dismayed by the fact that this article focuses on material from later in the series. It’s Robin Hood, OK? How lost can you possibly be, and how many spoilers can possibly be revealed? What might be important to know, is that I have no great love for the myth of Robin Hood. There are really only two versions[1] of the story that have ever jazzed me, and one of them is this series, which I’m slowly becoming rather fanatical about. Now this could mean one of two things to you, depending on your feelings about all things Hood. If you are a Hood fan and you haven’t seen this show, then by all means seek it out, and there’s no better way to do that than via Acorn’s recently released Blu-ray sets[2]. If you are not a Hood fan, then, like me, you may very well find Robin of Sherwood to your liking. Read on…   

Few TV series are able to creatively move past replacing their lead actor. Obviously, Doctor Who is the major exception to the rule, going so far as to incorporate the change into the narrative of the story, to the point where it’s not only something people accept, but actively embrace (well, the smart ones do anyway). Robin of Sherwood had been on the air for two seasons when its lead actor, Michael Praed, decided to jump ship to star in a Broadway revival of a musical version of The Three Musketeers, which must have been quite a disaster as it closed after a mere nine performances. Praed picked himself up and moved on to play on Dynasty for a season, while the producers of Robin moved ahead as if the death of peasant-turned-hero Robin of Loxley had always been a part of their masterplan.

Series creator and lead writer Richard Carpenter came up with a wonderful invention by pillaging and altering the Robin Hood myth even further (by this point, he was clearly adept at making it his own). In the history of Hood, there are, apparently, two very different origin stories. Carpenter’s preferred origin – that Robin was a man of the people – is the one he used to introduce and explore Praed’s Robin of Loxley. But with Praed leaving the show, he was forced to kill off his central figure, and he envisioned the mystical Herne the Hunter choosing a new man to don the mantle of Robin Hood. He turned to the other origin story, in which Robin Hood was disgraced nobleman Robert of Huntingdon, who gave up his position in society to fight for the common man. To play Robert, the son of a big screen Robin Hood was chosen: Jason Connery, son of Sean, who’d starred in the lovely, heartfelt Robin and Marian a decade earlier.

Obviously taking over the lead role in a successful series is no small feat, and perhaps for Connery the task was even more daunting given his father’s history (be he a Hood or not!). I’d kind of written off Jason’s Hood in the past, but if I’m being honest, I didn’t really give his episodes a fair shake. With the release of this Blu-ray, I set out to rectify that, and lo and behold I discovered a character that was more enjoyable and interesting than Praed’s take (who, admittedly, felt a little stiff). The thing with Connery’s Hood is that he spends a great deal of time proving his worth, whereas the Praed incarnation, being the original, had it pretty easy.

Clive Mantle as Little John & Ray Winstone as Will Scarlet

The action picks up about a year after the events of the Season Two finale, with the Merry Men[3] having dispersed and moved backwards into simple lives once again. After being bullied into adopting the mantle of Robin Hood by Herne, Robert must round each of them up and convince them to return to dangerous lives of derring-do, which isn’t an easy task. Amongst the trials he must suffer is getting into a massive, epic brawl with Will Scarlet (Ray Winstone). But there’s perhaps no area where Robert has a tougher time than in the wooing of Marian (Judi Trott), who’s devastated by the loss of Robin of Loxley, and doesn’t want to fall in love again, despite the fact that she does indeed take a liking to Robert. Their story plays out over the course of the 13 episode season, and it doesn’t have quite the happy ending one might hope for.

Judi Trott as Marian

Season Three was twice as long as each of the two seasons that preceded it, resulting in Praed and Connery basically getting equal screen time, despite the fact that the former technically played the lead for a longer period of time than the latter. Admittedly, Connery takes a bit of time to fall into the part, but certainly by mid-season he arguably plays it with more zeal than Praed did over his two season stint. His Robin also seems to be having more fun, and as a result, maybe the series is more fun, too. (Granted, these are all semantics – the show is mostly wonderful from start to finish.) What’s perhaps most noteworthy about Connery is that he really doesn’t resemble his famous father at all – not in appearance, and certainly not in sound; you’ll find no Scottish brogue here. This guy is definitely his own dog, and his lineage is quickly forgotten.

Richard O'Brien as Gulnar

So what of the series itself? What makes it so special, and sets it apart from all the other Hoods? For starters, it’s steeped in mysticism, which isn’t something that any Robin Hood before it featured. This adds the element of surprise, because once characters can use magic, anything can happen. Season Three features a wicked sorcerer named Gulnar (played almost ludicrously over the top by Richard O’Brien of Rocky Horror fame), whom Robin makes an enemy of in the opening two-parter, and who comes back to haunt our hero and his allies a couple more times throughout the season. One of the season’s best episodes is called “Cromm Cruac,” in which Gulnar raises a village from the dead, and ensnares Robin and the Merry Men into its seductive gaze. In addition to being one of the most compelling, it’s also one of the most emotional outings of the season. Another great revisionist piece is entitled “The Sheriff of Nottingham,” in which the Sheriff (Nickolas Grace) loses his standing and is put through all manner of indignities. Grace is the ace up the show’s sleeve. Anytime he’s onscreen the show is all the better for it, yet it also knows how to use him and his sidekick, Guy of Gisburne (Robert Addie), sparingly and properly.

Robert Addie as Guy and Nickolas Grace as the Sheriff

Surely you remember Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? That movie stole liberally from Sherwood. Alan Rickman’s Sheriff was a pale imitation of Grace’s, and Morgan Freeman’s Azeem was clearly a riff on the Saracen Nasir (Mark Ryan), a character created solely by Carpenter. (I’m sure there are other instances, but boy it’s been a few years since last I viewed it.) Costner’s was a typical, watered-down Hollywood version of something very special that came before it. Ironically, it may have been that very movie that so put me off the Robin Hood myth for the past 20 years. Now, all these years later, the series that inspired it, is providing me loads of entertainment. Go figure.

If you’re anything like me - and certainly you must be, or else you wouldn’t frequent The Rued Morgue - you hate the Bryan Adams song “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” with an unbridled passion. You’ve probably even hurt yourself trying to change the radio station when it’s quietly crept up on you, or maybe you’ve even hurt someone else, desperately escaping from a department store, when you realized exactly what it was that was playing over their sound system. You’ll find no such song in Sherwood. Instead you’ll find a score written and played entirely by Irish band Clannad, who provide a soundtrack that’s nearly a perfect match for the dually heroic and dastardly goings-on. A year after they weren’t used in Prince of Thieves, they scored a modest hit with “I Will Find You” for Michael Mann’s Last of the Mohicans. This is music that stays with you long after episodes are over, and lovingly greets you when you come back to the show a week or two later for more installments.

Finally, there’s the look of it all. In Costner’s flick everything appeared squeaky clean. It looked like a Hollywood production, rather than a slice of history. Not so with Sherwood, and that’s another of its many charms. Its texture is reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is an odd comparison, sure, but if you’ve seen that movie, you’ll no doubt know what I’m talking about. That grainy, dirty look just so ably defines the Middle Ages, and Sherwood has it and then some. Yet it also, frequently, offers up lush, green forests, misty moors, and gorgeous sunsets and sunrises. This is a show that’s as much about its look and sound as it is its acting, plot and action. Of course, there are some recognizably ‘80s haircuts on display, which I suppose could be a deal breaker for some folks, but if something that minor gets in your way of enjoying this otherwise fantastic series, then poor, poor you. If only somebody could steal from the rich and reward you.

Robin of Sherwood wasn’t really cancelled, but behind the scenes money troubles kept it from moving on to a fourth season, so Season Three was to be its last. It doesn’t end on any massive cliffhanger, however, and while some issues are never resolved, it mostly feels like it comes to a proper “open end.” It covered quite a bit of ground over its three seasons, and too many more years would’ve no doubt found the series repeating itself (there are only so many stories that can be told under the Robin Hood banner, magic or no magic), and as it stands there’s a perfect balance between the two lead actors, so neither man can claim to be the “real” Robin of Sherwood which, I think, is as it should be.

[1] The other version of Robin Hood that I love is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the aforementioned Robin and Marian.
[2] Blu-ray Set 1 contains the first two seasons of the series starring Praed, while Set 2 contains the third season with Connery.

[3] The phrase “Merry Men” is thankfully never used in this series. Above all else, these men aren’t merry much of the time, so it would be a very silly way to refer to them.   

Blu-ray Extras: The real reason to buy these sets is for the High Def upgrade, and this show looks bloody gorgeous in 1080p, but it’s worth mentioning that it was shot on 16mm, so expectations should be kept in check, in that regard. But as an example of period, non-BBC British TV from the ‘80s, you’ll likely find none that looks better than this. It was easy enough to fall into this show’s hypnotic universe via DVD, and now the Blu-ray makes it even more so. (All the screengrabs in this review were taken from the DVD, and not from the Blu-ray, by the way.)

The High Def extras on the two Sherwood sets are minimal, as both sets are comprised of three Blu-rays each, which feature the series proper, and a fourth disc – a DVD – with all of the extras ported over from the previous DVD editions. However, Set One does feature, in High Def, a new, longer (by about 13 minutes) version The Electric Theatre Show documentary which was on the DVD set, as well a photo gallery of “nearly 500” images that runs for 24 minutes. The Blu-ray also features five commentary tracks and four music-only tracks that were available on the DVDs, although those can hardly be considered High Def extras (though I suppose some might consider the music-only tracks presented in a lossless format to be a nice bonus). Set Two also features nine commentaries and three music-only tracks, and another nice 23 minute photo gallery.

Beyond that, the fourth disc, DVD extras presentation is a killer on both sets. Many people put a great deal of work into these sets to bring viewers all sorts of oddball extras (that I’m not going to line list), but the highlight must surely be the exhaustive talking heads and clips documentaries that feature on each set. Between the two sets, over the course of nearly three hours, just about every single person involved in the making of this show – both in front of and behind the camera – is interviewed at length. I don’t think they missed out on anyone, including Praed. And it’s a huge testament to the power of this series that all of these people are so incredibly happy to sit around and talk so enthusiastically some 15 or 20 years on (I’m unsure of when these were recorded actually). Winstone claims the series spoiled him for every acting job he’s had since. There isn’t a single person who has anything even remotely bad to say about working on Robin of Sherwood, and this isn’t a case where anybody has any reason to lie. They’re clearly being genuine and full of good will toward this series that in many cases catapulted its players to fame. These people had a blast making this series, which is reflected in the quality of the series itself.

Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe - Blu-ray review

Another year, another Doctor Who Christmas special, and in this case, it’s the last new Who we’re going to see until some time in the autumn, so we’d better make the most of it. I went well and truly gaga over 2010’s “A Christmas Carol,” and it’s easily the smartest and most well written of these the series has yet produced. Back then I had doubts that Moffat could best it, and as it turns out, he did not. He did give it a very good go, however, and “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” is still probably a better entry than any of Russell’s holiday efforts, although I should declare that a late December viewing of “Voyage of the Damned” – a story I’d previously considered the embodiment of everything that I hated about modern Who – left me feeling that I may have been a little harsh on the piece over the years. Indeed, diving in and pulling these seasonal treats apart always feels a little like kicking puppies, and we all know where that leads – hurt puppies, a phrase which could be the subtitle of this review. Or maybe just “The Apology.” Read on…

The action begins with the Doctor (Matt Smith) high above Earth, aboard a massive spacecraft, and in the process of presumably saving the planet from some unnamed and unseen aliens. The ship explodes and the Doctor plummets through space toward the giant blue orb below, chasing a floating spacesuit along the way (this sequence is reminiscent of Roger Moore and Jaws from the beginning of Moonraker). Improbable as it may seem (and it most certainly does), the Doctor hits the Earth’s surface, and the suit begins “repairing” him (he should keep this gadget in the TARDIS at all times!), but not before he’s discovered by Madge Arwell (Claire Skinner, who I will forever equate with Mike Leigh’s Naked). Without batting an eye, she aids the mysterious spaceman - whose helmet is on backwards, so she never sees his face – in his search for a police box. Right off the bat, there’s something remarkable about Madge, and as the story moves forward, we discover that there are many remarkable aspects to this woman.

The story fast forwards to 1941 - three years in the future - right around the holidays, and Madge has received a telegram delivering tragic news about her husband who's a pilot in the war. Given that it’s the season, she elects to not tell her two children, Lily (Holly Earl) and Cyril (Maurice Cole). The trio evacuates London, and heads for a relative’s house in the country. Upon arrival, there is no relative, only the bouncy, enthusiastic man referring to himself as the Caretaker (the alias is a nice nod to the end of Season Six), who intends on treating them to a delightful holiday season. Of course, things don’t go quite as planned, and before long all four of them are on a distant alien planet, in the middle of an alien forest, being only vaguely threatened by acid rain, sentient trees and harvesters from Androzani Major (see also “The Caves of Androzani”). The sci-fi aspects of the story are far less interesting than the emotion beneath it all and the places the emotions takes these people. 

Whether by design or default, Steven Moffat has, with “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe,” created not just another entry in the ongoing Who Christmas Special oeuvre, but also the very first Doctor Who Mother’s Day Special. On the surface this tale has all the December hallmarks, but its heart is squarely located in the celebration of All Things Mom. In many ways, this special is the opposite of “A Christmas Carol.” Whereas Kazran Sardick was a greedy, selfish man, Madge Arwell is a selfless, thoughtful woman. Whereas the Doctor found himself in a situation in which he was forced to meddle with Sardick’s life, with Madge he’s merely providing something of a good-natured service. In “A Christmas Carol,” the Doctor was the driving force; here he inadvertently supplies the “magic” that allows Madge to rise to the occasion so that she can do the great things. I often feel that Moffat doesn’t write women very well (as my frequent rants about Amy Pond will attest), and I’m not sure he does here either, as Madge seems to be more of a collection of brave deeds than an actual person, and yet I must give him props for at least trying, so as to possibly silence his detractors, one of whom I all too often am. If nothing else, he's created a narrative that seems to get at the heart of the power of women, and that's a triumph itself. My wife missed seeing this episode on Christmas. I fully intend to save her first viewing for May 13^th of this year, and I think she’s gonna love the sentiment behind it.

Indeed, with Season Six I frequently became very cynical about my favorite television show, and hopefully this close-to-a-year-long break is exactly what I need. “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” is a lovely, heartfelt episode of Who. Certainly the riff within the title leads to some expectations, but aside from a few flourishes, it bears no real resemblance to the classic C.S. Lewis tale, which is probably for the best. The final scene of the story, which sees the Doctor having a reunion of sorts, pretty much melted my hardened heart, and got me all stoked for Season Seven, which I suppose is the best Christmas present of all.

In the meantime, there are going to be loads of classic Who DVD releases (the classic range is nearly complete) coming out in the coming months, so there’s no better time to dive in and explore much of what came before. I’ll still be here watching and writing, and hopefully you’ll be reading and then watching.

Blu-ray Extras: As is to be expected, the special looks crisp and gorgeous and sounds just amazing. These days, I almost never have complaints about the presentation. How can you with a show that looks and sounds better than almost everything else on TV? 

Thankfully the disc includes the prequel to the story, which was released on the internet a few weeks before the episode played on Christmas. “Thankfully” because it goes some way toward explaining what’s happening when the episode proper begins. Something tells me it was supposed to have been part of the episode, but a decision was made to chop it and put it online as a tease. In any case, it’s highly recommended that you go into the special features menu and watch it before watching the episode.

Boffo points for presenting the three “Best of Doctor Who” specials (which each run at about 44 minutes) that played on BBC America in the weeks leading up to the premiere of the second half of Season Six, which are comprised of your standard mix of clips and talking heads. The clips come only from Season Five and the first half of Season Six, and the discussion is pretty much restricted to the Eleventh Doctor’s era. The heads are a real oddball assortment of celebs – Alison Haislip, Paul F. Tompkins, Reggie Watts, Hugh Douglas(!), Scott Adsit, Chris Hardwick, and Amanda Palmer to name but a few. The whole exercise won me over in the second installment (which is all about the companions) when the lovely Natalie Morales (The Middleman) showed up, draped in a Tom Baker scarf and showing a tasteful amount of cleavage. I adore this girl – even more so now that I know she’s a Who freak - and sure hope that somebody recognizes her talents soon. Make her the Doctor’s new companion, please! In any case, there’s so much fannish good will being tossed around during these specials – not to mention worthy points of view - that I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been a little hard on Season Six. We’ll see how I feel later this year when Seven kicks off.

Lastly, the disc includes an “in-game reward code” that can be used in connection with the online game “Worlds in Time.” No doubt this makes sense to a gamer, but since I am not one, it held no value for me, nor did the goofy stickers that make all the Doctor Who villains look like Muppet Babies.

Madge: "Lily and Cyril's father - my husband - is dead and they don't know yet because if I tell them now then Christmas will always be what took their father away from them, and no one should have to live like that. Of course when the Christmas period is over I shall...I don't know why I keep shouting at them."

The Doctor: "Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later. The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later."


(Thanks to Sonic Biro for the screencaps.)

The Human Centipede 2 [Full Sequence]

Laurence R. Harvey & Ashlynn Yennie

Writer/director Tom Six is one hell of a salesman. Peddling his particular brand of wares is no small feat, and peddling them successfully, even more so. I was rather on the fence about his controversial debut, The Human Centipede [First Sequence], admiring parts of it more than the whole, but with this follow-up he’s accomplished what few before him have, and that’s creating a sequel that bests its predecessor. On the other hand, since the first movie wasn’t all that tits in the first place, maybe the achievement should be kept in check. Maybe.

With this new film, the concept goes completely meta, with the first film existing as a movie within the universe of the second film. A short, fat mentally challenged man named Martin (Laurence R. Harvey) is obsessed with The Human Centipede, watching it repeatedly, making a scrapbook of its imagery and medical procedures, and even keeping a centipede pet of his very own. He lives with his aged mother (Vivien Bridson), and as the narrative moves forward we discover he was sexually abused by his father, who has left both of them. The mother is a wretched piece of work, constantly berating and blaming her son for everything that’s wrong with her life, and there’s little left to the imagination as to why Martin is the way he is. Although he can clearly speak, Six chooses to not ever let us hear him do so. As about 99% of the film is spent with Martin, the result is a movie told mostly through imagery rather than dialogue.

Read the rest of the Blu-ray review for "The Empire Strikes Back of mouth to ass movies" by clicking here and visiting Bullz-Eye.

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani - Special Edition DVD Review

As recently as 2009, several years into the run of the new series of Doctor Who, “The Caves of Androzani” was voted the #1 Who story of all time by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine – a dubious poll for a show about time travel to be sure, but still noteworthy when discussing this 28-year old piece of television. Surely “Androzani” should have been bested by “Blink,” or maybe the “Human Nature” two-parter by this point? Seems not, although it might be telling to see a breakdown of who voted in this poll (surely readers of DWM are not representative of how the general public feels?).

In any case, it’s not my intention to take anything away from the story; I marvel at the seeming potency of this particular serial. Several of my Who-devoted friends would agree that it’s the tops, and while I can’t say that I do, neither can I offer up any reason why “The Caves of Androzani” shouldn’t be someone’s – or even everyone’s - favorite Doctor Who story. The case could even be made (and probably has been) that “Androzani” is the last truly great story of the classic series – laying waste to the entirety of the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras in one fell swoop - and it might be a case easily won. It really is that good. “Androzani” even managed to get a shout-out from Steven Moffat as recently as “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe,” back in December. 

The Doctor comforts Peri in the presence of Sharez Jek

In the interest of informing the uninformed, here’s the story in brief. Androzani Minor is a backwater shithole - no doubt this is how writer Robert Holmes described it in his script – good for only one thing: Spectrox, the key to giving the denizens of its parent planet, Androzani Major, a lifespan nearly twice as long as normal (a youthful appearance seems to be a bonus of the process). As you might imagine, Spectrox is worth a lot, to a lot of people, yet in its unrefined state, it’s little more than a deadly toxin. Enter the Doctor (Peter Davison) and his new traveling companion, Peri (Nicola Bryant), who innocently stumble across some raw Spectrox, only to find themselves quickly succumbing to its ravages. As if that weren’t bad enough, the pair accidentally find themselves embroiled in a petty war involving a ruthless, fatcat businessman, sleazy gunrunners, an incompetent militia, and an obsessed, masked scientist and his (mostly) faceless android servants. The Doctor has no designs on saving the universe or a planet or outwitting any of his opponents; all he wants to do is find the antidote to the toxin, save Peri’s life, and take leave of the entire situation. Events spiral out of everyone’s control, as the story builds to an epic climax.

The Doctor and Peri with General Chellak

Phew! Just putting it down into those words makes me realize how utterly mesmerizing “Androzani” really is, and how I’ve perhaps grown accustomed to taking it for granted over the years. It's the final story of the Peter Davison era, and it’s hard to see this particular tale being anything but a regeneration story. Indeed, it is the ultimate regeneration story, and it’s probably influenced every regeneration story since. Death is written on every wall from as early as the first episode, and a sense of thrilling dread lurks around every corner. And it makes perfect sense that the Fifth Doctor - on whose watch Adric was killed - would go to the ends of the Earth (or in this case the universe) to make damned sure he doesn’t lose another companion.

The narrative of “Androzani” centers around bad, dumb luck, and something I took away from this DVD set was how easily the story itself could have been a failure if not for all of its components falling into the right places. Holmes hadn’t written for the show for six years. It’s borderline amazing that he was coaxed back and encouraged to write what’s arguably his finest script (out of many fine scripts) of the series.

What’s even more amazing, however, is that John Nathan-Turner took a chance on the relatively wet behind the ears director Graeme Harper. This could have been a disaster, yet it ended up anything but. Harper was hungry to make a name for himself, and it shows. His direction of “Androzani” is nothing short of revolutionary for this series, and he crams the frame with one invention after another. Harper remains the only director to helm stories in both the classic series and the new, however “Androzani” remains the jewel in his crown. What he was able to achieve with little money and no time should have been an inspiration for every Who director that came after him.

John Normington as Morgus

Then there’s that perfect cast, each of whom brings something solid to the table. John Normington’s Morgus, Christopher Gable’s Sharez Jek, Maurice Roëves’ Stotz – without any one of these guys, “Androzani” would be so much less, and I didn’t even mention Martin Cochrane, Robert Glenister, Barbara Kinghorn, Roy Holder, and David Neal, who round out the superb supporting cast. And then there's Davison himself, who really knocks it out of the ballpark, giving the best performance of his era, and rightly so, given the rich material he's working with. He's in turns sarcastic, smug, desperate, caring, determined, thoughtless, thoughtful...the list goes on. Bryant does a decent job, too, but early on this is choreographed to be The Peter Davison Show, and that's exactly what it is.  

Bet you thought I wasn’t going to mention the magma monster? Being classic Who, there’s of course always at least one element keeping a story like this from reaching total perfection, and in this case is a plastic-y looking creature, but much like Holmes’ “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” before it, there’s simply no way this monster keeps this from being Doctor Who gold, and you should certainly not let it, either. (It’s onscreen for probably all of 90 seconds of the serial’s 99-minute running time.) If you have never seen “The Caves of Androzani,” or didn’t buy the previous DVD edition, there surely cannot be any safer Doctor Who DVD purchase this year. If you did own the old DVD, read on…

DVD Extras: “Androzani” was first released on R1 DVD back in 2002, and it was a fine DVD with remastered picture and sound, featuring a commentary track with Davison, Bryant and Harper, as well as some enlightening behind the scenes footage of the regeneration shoot, an extended scene, a piece on Sharez Jek, some trailers and news items discussing Davison’s departure, as well as a photo gallery, the production notes subtitle option, and an isolated music score. All of this material has been ported over to the new edition. On the original disc, some matte paintings in Episode One were fixed, and viewers were allowed to watch the original version via seamless branching. The Special Edition does not allow for this, and instead offers up the original sequence as an Easter Egg. (The only item not ported over is the “Who’s Who?” text feature, which is a fairly insignificant omission.)

So what’s new? First and foremost, there’s a making of doc entitled “Chain Reaction.” Unfortunately, due to the passings of both John Nathan-Turner and Robert Holmes, we just don’t get an accurate representation of what went into putting this story together at its earliest stages, which I think could have been fascinating. The topic is left to Eric “Mr. Personality” Saward to discuss, and as usual he seems so uninterested in everything. (This guy could make a solid career out of boring folks.) Beyond that, it’s a fine doc and about on par with these sorts of things. There’s also a short piece on Graeme Harper entitled “Directing Who: Then and Now,” which via its title is pretty self explanatory. There’s an extra extended scene that’s not of very good quality. There’s a nice little vintage news show with Russell Harty which features both Davison and Colin Baker, and also this edition features the Radio Times listings in PDF form.

Beyond all of the extras, the serial has been given another visual overhaul, but quite honestly I couldn’t tell a huge difference from the old disc. The below screen grabs demonstrate the differences in picture. Notice that really only the exterior, filmed scenes offer up an improvement. The interior videotaped scenes – of which most of the serial consists – look nearly identical to the original release. For the fan who owns the old edition, I can’t really call this set a priority purchase, especially with so many discs currently on the horizon.

2002 Release

2012 Release (Note that the TARDIS is actually blue here)

2002 Release

2012 Release

2002 Release

2012 Release

2002 Release

2012 Release