Tuesday 4 November 2008

TV

Stephen Fry in America
Part 4 Mountains and Plains
Marvellous as ever. It's a wonderful mix of intelligence, wit, and boyish glee.

Non-Fiction

Story by Robert McKee
Chapter 10

Fiction

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again by Frank Miller & Lynn Varley
Book Three [the end]
Finally found a chance to finish this. The concluding part is better and more coherent than the others, but still suffers from Miller's over-simplistic over-large art, as well as bunging in a ludicrous number of things from the DC universe that he assumes you'll just know. A comic for comic geeks, then, and as weak as those usually are. Be sure to read The Dark Knight Returns (it's really brilliant), but skip this.

Articles

Outnumbered returns to BBC One
(from the BBC Press Office)
Hurray! Bring on November 15th I say.

Review of Executive Koala DVD by Kevin Gilvear
(from DVD Times)
This sounds wonderfully loopy. I mean, just look at that title, and consider that it's live action! Fabulous.

Click to enlarge

Tuesday Link-a-Mania by Dave Golder
(from SFX)
A few years ago, the BBC produced a two-part drama called Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, a near-future sci-fi in which a spaceship set out to explore the solar system. It was one of them drama-documentary things, designed to educate about the solar system, but one suspects writer-director Joe Ahearne (of Ultraviolet, Doctor Who, and next week's new BBC One series Apparitions) was more interested in the dramatic potential of the thing. And quite right too -- it's a fab idea (you should check it out on DVD). So I'm exceedingly pleased to learn that the BBC, US's Fox, and companies from Canada and Germany, are teaming up to do a 13-part version. Its plot is described as "eight astronauts from five countries who take on a mysterious six-year mission through the solar system", but is unclear if all six years are in those 13 eps or if they hope it'll run for six years. Either way's good by me. It's called Defying Gravity, which is a crap title so hopefully they'll think of something better.

Also on that link: The Dark Knight nearly breaks $1bn; Joss Whedon discusses more projects in the Dr Horrible vein; Heroes gets simple; and something about Planet of the Apes. Who'd've thought one news item could contain so many interesting bits?