We're on the home stretch now, as Who supremo Russell T Davies takes over writing duties for the final four episodes. There's the Big Three to round off the season, starting next week, but first we have a small-scale episode set on a futuristic minibus...
Doctor Who has finally done what I thought it should since the 'Doctor-lite' episodes commenced in season two, and that's pair the necessary 'Doctor-lite' episode with a 'companion-lite' one. Next week Donna (and friends) take the starring role, so this week the Doctor goes off by himself (leaving Donna in a health spa) to check out a natural marvel on the planet Midnight, which is made entirely of diamonds but with a surface so irradiated you can't even look at it. A jaunty beginning on this futuristic minibus lulls the unsuspecting viewer into a false sense of security... before something starts knocking on the outside of the bus... and then inhabits someone inside...
It's a deceptively simple episode, set entirely on one set (bar some bookends with Donna) and featuring all the guest characters locked in that one room with the Doctor, facing a possessed passenger who just repeats what they've said. But with these few elements Davies constructs an episode that is unmeasurably freakier than Steven Moffat's whizz-bang flashily-structured two-parter -- who'd've guessed RTD would craft a scarier episode than Moffat! The central performances of David Tennant and Lesley Sharp are what make the script work of course, especially when the two sit face-to-face hurling random words at each other.
If one wanted to pick flaws you could argue that the resolution is weak (almost non-existent), yet this lack of explanation helps retain the scariness of what you've just witnessed. There's also the very Who moment where the Doctor points out that no one even knew their saviour's name, though for once this isn't over-laboured and effectively speaks for itself. Like a lot of this episode, then: minimal and under-explained, and all the better for it.
Saturday, 14 June 2008
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier" by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Running Commentary, Part 2
The Dossier proper begins with an account of our world's encounter with other planes, drawing heavily on the Lovecraft Mythos. Like The New Traveller's Almanac, it's a rather dry scholarly exercise in combining mythologies and providing a fictional history of the world, which I'm sure is of interest to some but just seems to provide near-irrelevant background to the series proper.
More interesting is the next item, the life of Orlando told in the style of '50s children's comics -- albeit with more graphic imagery! It's like a more entertaining version of events hinted at in The New Traveller's Almanac, telling the life of Orlando (obviously) chronologically and with pretty pictures. The brevity of the text makes it less verbose than the preceding document, which is a welcome change -- especially with some faux Shakespeare to come.
This Shakespeare 'play' (just the first two scenes from Act One) is convincingly written, though clearer to a modern reader than genuine untranslated Shakespeare is. It retains a sense of wit and mystery, however, and with references to events already covered or hinted at in the first two artefacts, the beginnings of a linking thread -- perhaps what one might even call a plot -- for this graphic novel are emerging. Individually, it shows the genesis of the first iteration of the League (commonly referred to as Prospero's Men in the series).
It may seem obvious to say this, but Black Dossier initially seems to be no more than a collection of roughly chronological artefacts, which together build up the world and history of the League. If it were just this then it would be an interesting experiment, of interest to diehard fans, but not convincing as anything more. However, in these first three documents there are some themes and ideas overlapping that, perhaps, will come together to create some sort of plot for this volume, beyond just the history of the League. Obviously it's impossible to say for certain until the end, but there is hope that there's more to the book!
Either way, what is here cleverly mashes various ideas and fictions together, and while each artefact follows the story of one character or group there are always crossover points that help you tie the sequence together. The advantage of having both things like the Almanac and this is that they are different ways of presenting similar information -- the Almanac being geographical, for example, whereas this is chronological-by-character. Put them all together and it becomes easier to follow the story. It's also worth nothing that, by the end of the book, there'll have been 108 pages of new story (as in, 'proper' comics pages) for the League itself -- equivalent to four or five issues of a normal comic, which makes it almost as long as the previous series.
More interesting is the next item, the life of Orlando told in the style of '50s children's comics -- albeit with more graphic imagery! It's like a more entertaining version of events hinted at in The New Traveller's Almanac, telling the life of Orlando (obviously) chronologically and with pretty pictures. The brevity of the text makes it less verbose than the preceding document, which is a welcome change -- especially with some faux Shakespeare to come.
This Shakespeare 'play' (just the first two scenes from Act One) is convincingly written, though clearer to a modern reader than genuine untranslated Shakespeare is. It retains a sense of wit and mystery, however, and with references to events already covered or hinted at in the first two artefacts, the beginnings of a linking thread -- perhaps what one might even call a plot -- for this graphic novel are emerging. Individually, it shows the genesis of the first iteration of the League (commonly referred to as Prospero's Men in the series).
It may seem obvious to say this, but Black Dossier initially seems to be no more than a collection of roughly chronological artefacts, which together build up the world and history of the League. If it were just this then it would be an interesting experiment, of interest to diehard fans, but not convincing as anything more. However, in these first three documents there are some themes and ideas overlapping that, perhaps, will come together to create some sort of plot for this volume, beyond just the history of the League. Obviously it's impossible to say for certain until the end, but there is hope that there's more to the book!
Either way, what is here cleverly mashes various ideas and fictions together, and while each artefact follows the story of one character or group there are always crossover points that help you tie the sequence together. The advantage of having both things like the Almanac and this is that they are different ways of presenting similar information -- the Almanac being geographical, for example, whereas this is chronological-by-character. Put them all together and it becomes easier to follow the story. It's also worth nothing that, by the end of the book, there'll have been 108 pages of new story (as in, 'proper' comics pages) for the League itself -- equivalent to four or five issues of a normal comic, which makes it almost as long as the previous series.
"The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier" by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill - Running Commentary, Part 1
Black Dossier is not The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume III, despite being the third book in the series. Rather, it bridges the gap between Volume II and the forthcoming Century storyline. It's also technically the series' first graphic novel (the preceding volumes were originally released as six-part miniseries before being collected as trade paperbacks).
The volume also has a most unusual construction, mirroring the titular book -- really speaking, it's a real-life recreation of the Dossier, right down to the cover design (when you take the dust jacket off) and using different paper stock for some segments. Though it also has comics pages inserted, telling the story of how a couple of characters came across the Dossier itself (and then read it). As such, in my daily summaries I'll be listing all the sections I've read (much like I list individual episodes of TV) along with the pages I find them on. (I've chosen to number the opening pages 1-8, despite some random page numbers later suggesting they should be unnumbered. They're clearly part of the book and I don't imagine it will ever be published without them. The total page count this way is 192.)
As for the book itself... the Prologue tells the story of how two characters (most readers will know who they are) acquire the Black Dossier, which contains secret documents relating the history of the League, its members, and rival organisations. After this, the documents from the Dossier itself begin. In the LoEG world, Britain has just come out from the rule of Big Brother (from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four) and so the book begins with warnings from that government. To this point, it's all just introductory stuff really, though the Prologue effectively establishes the new setting, re-establishes the characters, and gives some hints to what has occurred between the end of Volume II (set in 1898) and the start of Black Dossier (in 1958).
There's also a good use of a thinly-veiled James Bond -- thinly enough to avoid copyright issues, I presume, but clearly enough that any reasonably educated reader can't fail to work out who he is. One thing I dislike, however, was Jimmy ordering his martini stirred instead of shaken -- he's right that shaking it bruises the vodka and that's why one normally has it stirred, but in Casino Royale Bond states the bruising the vodka is precisely why he has it shaken. Possibly a slight gap in Moore's cleverness there, or just a deliberate inversion of the character's 'reality'? Who can say...
The volume also has a most unusual construction, mirroring the titular book -- really speaking, it's a real-life recreation of the Dossier, right down to the cover design (when you take the dust jacket off) and using different paper stock for some segments. Though it also has comics pages inserted, telling the story of how a couple of characters came across the Dossier itself (and then read it). As such, in my daily summaries I'll be listing all the sections I've read (much like I list individual episodes of TV) along with the pages I find them on. (I've chosen to number the opening pages 1-8, despite some random page numbers later suggesting they should be unnumbered. They're clearly part of the book and I don't imagine it will ever be published without them. The total page count this way is 192.)
As for the book itself... the Prologue tells the story of how two characters (most readers will know who they are) acquire the Black Dossier, which contains secret documents relating the history of the League, its members, and rival organisations. After this, the documents from the Dossier itself begin. In the LoEG world, Britain has just come out from the rule of Big Brother (from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four) and so the book begins with warnings from that government. To this point, it's all just introductory stuff really, though the Prologue effectively establishes the new setting, re-establishes the characters, and gives some hints to what has occurred between the end of Volume II (set in 1898) and the start of Black Dossier (in 1958).
There's also a good use of a thinly-veiled James Bond -- thinly enough to avoid copyright issues, I presume, but clearly enough that any reasonably educated reader can't fail to work out who he is. One thing I dislike, however, was Jimmy ordering his martini stirred instead of shaken -- he's right that shaking it bruises the vodka and that's why one normally has it stirred, but in Casino Royale Bond states the bruising the vodka is precisely why he has it shaken. Possibly a slight gap in Moore's cleverness there, or just a deliberate inversion of the character's 'reality'? Who can say...
Friday, 13 June 2008
TV
Babylon 5
1x09 Deathwalker
Doctor Who [classic]
19x19 Earthshock Part One [4th watch]
19x20 Earthshock Part Two [4th watch]
19x21 Earthshock Part Three [4th watch]
19x22 Earthshock Part Four [4th watch]
See here for my thoughts on this story.
House
4x15 House's Head
Part one of House's two-part season finale, with a mystery that viewers without a medical degree can actually participate in: House was in a bus crash he can't remember, and must decipher clues from dreams and hallucinations to work out why he was there and what he saw. It's an interesting episode that leads to a neat cliffhanger.
1x09 Deathwalker
Doctor Who [classic]
19x19 Earthshock Part One [4th watch]
19x20 Earthshock Part Two [4th watch]
19x21 Earthshock Part Three [4th watch]
19x22 Earthshock Part Four [4th watch]
See here for my thoughts on this story.
House
4x15 House's Head
Part one of House's two-part season finale, with a mystery that viewers without a medical degree can actually participate in: House was in a bus crash he can't remember, and must decipher clues from dreams and hallucinations to work out why he was there and what he saw. It's an interesting episode that leads to a neat cliffhanger.
Fiction
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: War of the Robots by Trevor Baxendale
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill
'Titles' (pages 1-8)
Prologue (pages 9-23)
This Warn You (page 24)
Contents (page 25)
See here for my thoughts on the opening 25 pages of Black Dossier.
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill
'Titles' (pages 1-8)
Prologue (pages 9-23)
This Warn You (page 24)
Contents (page 25)
See here for my thoughts on the opening 25 pages of Black Dossier.
Doctor Who: Earthshock
I should warn you, dear reader, that this review contains major spoilers for the 26-year-old Doctor Who story Earthshock; spoilers that are plastered all over the DVD cover and menus, and are the main reasons people still talk about the story. But still, in case you are in blissful ignorance and may ever see this story without stumbling upon a DVD or VHS cover, or indeed a basic plot description, I felt I should warn you.
There's a good deal to like about Earthshock -- hence why I chose it, of course. There's the fifth Doctor, who's one of my favourites (and now everyone's, I'm sure). His TARDIS may be a little over-crowded with three companions, but this story soon sorts that out -- hurrah, Adric dies! It's a fantastic mix of joy at the annoying little brat being gone and some sort of shock/sadness at the death of a companion. But it's much needed, really, as three companions is too many -- Nyssa basically stands around in the TARDIS doing sod all for four episodes. Two companions, on the other hand, is a great number, with Tegan and Adric having plenty to do. The new series should look into using this idea (dalliances with Mickey, Jack and now Martha aside). Of course, Nyssa and Tegan may get more to do now that Adric's dead (hurrah!).
Then there's the Cybermen, the series' best-ever villains (sod those bloody Daleks). In this case they may be (as the Doctor puts it) "positively flippant", but they still stomp around with a certain degree of shiny silver coolness. And they can go up stairs (as a certified Doctor Who fan I'm still allowed to make that joke -- casuals, newbies and proper journalists aren't). They get a cool reveal at the end of Part One, and cool robot minions before that, and their plan to destroy Earth with a freighter is pretty nifty too (even if the bomb-in-a-cave before it is a crap one), plus they get the honour of killing Adric. Adric dies, you know -- did I mention that? Also, any story that has the audacity to completely change its setting and most of the guest cast after an episode and a half has to be applauded, especially when it makes it work so smoothly.
Parts of Earthshock are irritating padding, it's true, and especially obvious on repeat viewings. But when you've got Beryl Reid's excellent space captain, a traditional traitor-who-falls-foul-of-his-masters (just like in Tomb), the Doctor's classic speech about emotions, and all sorts of other nice bits and pieces -- and Adric's death! -- it's quite hard not to find something to enjoy in almost every part of Earthshock.
Plus, Adric dies.
There's a good deal to like about Earthshock -- hence why I chose it, of course. There's the fifth Doctor, who's one of my favourites (and now everyone's, I'm sure). His TARDIS may be a little over-crowded with three companions, but this story soon sorts that out -- hurrah, Adric dies! It's a fantastic mix of joy at the annoying little brat being gone and some sort of shock/sadness at the death of a companion. But it's much needed, really, as three companions is too many -- Nyssa basically stands around in the TARDIS doing sod all for four episodes. Two companions, on the other hand, is a great number, with Tegan and Adric having plenty to do. The new series should look into using this idea (dalliances with Mickey, Jack and now Martha aside). Of course, Nyssa and Tegan may get more to do now that Adric's dead (hurrah!).
Then there's the Cybermen, the series' best-ever villains (sod those bloody Daleks). In this case they may be (as the Doctor puts it) "positively flippant", but they still stomp around with a certain degree of shiny silver coolness. And they can go up stairs (as a certified Doctor Who fan I'm still allowed to make that joke -- casuals, newbies and proper journalists aren't). They get a cool reveal at the end of Part One, and cool robot minions before that, and their plan to destroy Earth with a freighter is pretty nifty too (even if the bomb-in-a-cave before it is a crap one), plus they get the honour of killing Adric. Adric dies, you know -- did I mention that? Also, any story that has the audacity to completely change its setting and most of the guest cast after an episode and a half has to be applauded, especially when it makes it work so smoothly.
Parts of Earthshock are irritating padding, it's true, and especially obvious on repeat viewings. But when you've got Beryl Reid's excellent space captain, a traditional traitor-who-falls-foul-of-his-masters (just like in Tomb), the Doctor's classic speech about emotions, and all sorts of other nice bits and pieces -- and Adric's death! -- it's quite hard not to find something to enjoy in almost every part of Earthshock.
Plus, Adric dies.
"Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: War of the Robots" by Trevor Baxendale
Regular Who author Trevor Baxendale joins the Decide Your Destiny stable with this sixth book in the series (which has so far made it to twelve entries), the dramatically titled War of the Robots. Baxendale's adventure is set "on a distant world populated by robots [where] war has been raging for many years. Can you, the Doctor and Martha discover why the robots are fighting and end the war once and for all?" Ooh, peaceful.
The story begins as it means to go on -- with war! Smoke, gunfire, explosions... it's all-action here. Sadly, the first time I read the book through, Baxendale fell prey to the same trap as Davey Moore, shuttling the reader from page to page without any choices. It was so brief and horridly linear that I did actually read it through again, the first time I've bothered to do that. As an exercise, this showed how unlucky you can get with the wrong choices, as a re-read (attempting to follow several paths at once, too) gave me many more options and longer, more action-packed storylines. The first time through we quickly wound up on a space station, talking a robot into stopping the war; the second time we encountered a group of humans, and wound up killing robots and battling robot dogs. Compared to this, it's a shame the somewhat dull space station alternative even exists. Elsewhere, the choices offered are decent enough (importantly, as I stress with good reason in every review, you direct your character and not the story), if never hugely different. To be fair, I imagine it must be hard to offer many branches with just over 100 segments, and it may be too harsh to pick on the story always leading to similar events -- especially when I also call for the NPCs to be doing more or less the same things in every version.
Get the right path and Baxendale's book provides an entertaining read with moderately varied choices and some exciting sequences; but get the wrong one and you'll be shuttled through a dull denouement -- possibly a common problem that I just haven't been unfortunate enough to come across before. Even with this, it's one of the series' better efforts.
The story begins as it means to go on -- with war! Smoke, gunfire, explosions... it's all-action here. Sadly, the first time I read the book through, Baxendale fell prey to the same trap as Davey Moore, shuttling the reader from page to page without any choices. It was so brief and horridly linear that I did actually read it through again, the first time I've bothered to do that. As an exercise, this showed how unlucky you can get with the wrong choices, as a re-read (attempting to follow several paths at once, too) gave me many more options and longer, more action-packed storylines. The first time through we quickly wound up on a space station, talking a robot into stopping the war; the second time we encountered a group of humans, and wound up killing robots and battling robot dogs. Compared to this, it's a shame the somewhat dull space station alternative even exists. Elsewhere, the choices offered are decent enough (importantly, as I stress with good reason in every review, you direct your character and not the story), if never hugely different. To be fair, I imagine it must be hard to offer many branches with just over 100 segments, and it may be too harsh to pick on the story always leading to similar events -- especially when I also call for the NPCs to be doing more or less the same things in every version.
Get the right path and Baxendale's book provides an entertaining read with moderately varied choices and some exciting sequences; but get the wrong one and you'll be shuttled through a dull denouement -- possibly a common problem that I just haven't been unfortunate enough to come across before. Even with this, it's one of the series' better efforts.
Bond from the Beginning #1: Dr. No
As previously mentioned, I'm going to begin posting 'archive' reviews of the films I've so far watched on my Bond from the Beginning undertaking. Here's the first:
James Bond movies have always been utterly escapist, despite what some might claim. No film shows this better than the first -- the series didn't slide into crazy plots and fantastical creations, it began there! Dr No and his secret base are as mad as anything that follows, and Honey Ryder (in that bikini) is still the defining image of a Bond girl (almost a genre unto themselves).
The story slowly draws you in to its fantasy of villainy; the Technicolor excess must surely have made for a beautiful break from the bleak 'kitchen sink' dramas of British cinema at the time, or the bleak Cold War threat in the real world. Connery is perfect from the start, and amongst the rest of the cast only Felix Leiter feels like a mistake. The action sequences are exciting, the villains are evil, the girl is eye-catching and Bond is properly ruthless. What more do you need?
Dr. No is oft forgotten behind some of the films that follow it, but it really shouldn't be -- if this hadn't been so good we wouldn't have any more.
James Bond movies have always been utterly escapist, despite what some might claim. No film shows this better than the first -- the series didn't slide into crazy plots and fantastical creations, it began there! Dr No and his secret base are as mad as anything that follows, and Honey Ryder (in that bikini) is still the defining image of a Bond girl (almost a genre unto themselves).
The story slowly draws you in to its fantasy of villainy; the Technicolor excess must surely have made for a beautiful break from the bleak 'kitchen sink' dramas of British cinema at the time, or the bleak Cold War threat in the real world. Connery is perfect from the start, and amongst the rest of the cast only Felix Leiter feels like a mistake. The action sequences are exciting, the villains are evil, the girl is eye-catching and Bond is properly ruthless. What more do you need?
Dr. No is oft forgotten behind some of the films that follow it, but it really shouldn't be -- if this hadn't been so good we wouldn't have any more.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
TV
The Graham Norton Show
3x09 (12/6/08 edition)
Heroes
2x08 Four Months Ago...
Heroes takes a leaf out of Lost's book, and finally flashes back to what happened the night Peter exploded and in the four months since.
3x09 (12/6/08 edition)
Heroes
2x08 Four Months Ago...
Heroes takes a leaf out of Lost's book, and finally flashes back to what happened the night Peter exploded and in the four months since.
Fiction
Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming
Chapter 12
In which, true to traditional Bond structure, Bond and the girl are captured and taken to the villain's lair, where he's treated to an explanation of the villain's Evil Plan. From memory, Gorner is certainly one of the most despicable, sickest, least vulnerable villains Bond has encountered. Super.
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Crystal Snare by Richard Dungworth
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapters Five & Six [the end]
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
All done! Hurrah!
Chapter 12
In which, true to traditional Bond structure, Bond and the girl are captured and taken to the villain's lair, where he's treated to an explanation of the villain's Evil Plan. From memory, Gorner is certainly one of the most despicable, sickest, least vulnerable villains Bond has encountered. Super.
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Crystal Snare by Richard Dungworth
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapters Five & Six [the end]
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
All done! Hurrah!
"Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Crystal Snare" by Richard Dungworth
The second set of Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny books begins with The Crystal Snare, the series' fifth book, written by its only good author so far, Richard Dungworth. And right from the outset he's created another triumph -- the first Decide Your Destiny book brave enough to travel to somewhere that isn't the future! Hurrah! It's back to Victorian Britain, to attend the Great Exhibition. "People from all over the world were amazed at the exhibits on display at the Great Exhibition [exhibits at an exhibition? Whatever next!] - and they didn't even see the alien visitors! Help the Doctor and Martha put a stop to the aliens' plans, before they wreak havoc on humankind..." Ooh, ominous.
The Crystal Snare has something to live up to, as the first historical of the range, and it uses its setting well. At the start, you explore a bit of the Exhibition, with the Doctor telling you all sorts of interesting things. There's a choice of routes, of course, so the reader can see different exhibits on each read. It's not too long before the monsters turn up though, nanobot-things that can take the form of other creatures, including humans. The aliens' plan -- using these remote-controlled bots to collect and analyse a planet's life, then crafting a virus specifically to destroy them all before invading -- is certainly a clever one, but somewhat disappointing in that once the Doctor defeats the robots he doesn't bother going after the aliens who sent them. Surely they have more bots to send? This is also a 'celebrity historical', in the vein of The Unquiet Dead and Tooth and Claw (both also with a Victorian setting, incidentally). The choice -- engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel -- is entirely appropriate, but also underused by the story (at least in the version I read), turning up late and disappearing just as quickly.
Gameplay isn't bad this time round, though doesn't feel as exceptional as in Alien Arena. Pleasingly, the basic story is the same but with variances in experience. The four endings (I should've counted the number in the other books really) offer different resolutions, but none that contradict each other -- for example, in two the Doctor disrupts the signal to the nanobots, while in the other two he destroys their individual processors. Dungworth isn't afraid to write sections that run to several pages if he needs to convey that much information (the opening is five pages, all the climaxes three), which is a much better way of doing things than Davey Moore's forceful page-turning.
The Crystal Snare isn't quite as much fun as the same author's range highlight, Alien Arena, but the historical setting makes a nice change, the gameplay is more appropriate than Colin Brake's entries, and the plot less bogged-down in linearity and technicalities than Moore's book. All in, it's a worthwhile addition to the series.
The Crystal Snare has something to live up to, as the first historical of the range, and it uses its setting well. At the start, you explore a bit of the Exhibition, with the Doctor telling you all sorts of interesting things. There's a choice of routes, of course, so the reader can see different exhibits on each read. It's not too long before the monsters turn up though, nanobot-things that can take the form of other creatures, including humans. The aliens' plan -- using these remote-controlled bots to collect and analyse a planet's life, then crafting a virus specifically to destroy them all before invading -- is certainly a clever one, but somewhat disappointing in that once the Doctor defeats the robots he doesn't bother going after the aliens who sent them. Surely they have more bots to send? This is also a 'celebrity historical', in the vein of The Unquiet Dead and Tooth and Claw (both also with a Victorian setting, incidentally). The choice -- engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel -- is entirely appropriate, but also underused by the story (at least in the version I read), turning up late and disappearing just as quickly.
Gameplay isn't bad this time round, though doesn't feel as exceptional as in Alien Arena. Pleasingly, the basic story is the same but with variances in experience. The four endings (I should've counted the number in the other books really) offer different resolutions, but none that contradict each other -- for example, in two the Doctor disrupts the signal to the nanobots, while in the other two he destroys their individual processors. Dungworth isn't afraid to write sections that run to several pages if he needs to convey that much information (the opening is five pages, all the climaxes three), which is a much better way of doing things than Davey Moore's forceful page-turning.
The Crystal Snare isn't quite as much fun as the same author's range highlight, Alien Arena, but the historical setting makes a nice change, the gameplay is more appropriate than Colin Brake's entries, and the plot less bogged-down in linearity and technicalities than Moore's book. All in, it's a worthwhile addition to the series.
"Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Corinthian Project" by Davey Moore
The first batch of Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny books comes to an end with The Corinthian Project, the fourth book in the series, written by Davey Moore. Once again the reader/player is taken to the future (something I bemoaned in my last review), though this time it's only the near-future. "When the TARDIS lands in an undersea community known as the Corinthian Project, it doesn't take you long to realise there are some very strange things going on. Explore the Project and see if you can uncover the truth..." Ooh, misleading.
Well, somewhat misleading at any rate, because "explore" you certainly do. Moore has clearly spent at least as long creating the setting for this adventure -- its technology, its technicalities, and especially its acronyms -- as he has the actual plot, and he wants you to know it. Consequently the writing is highly descriptive, but too much so -- you can't run down a corridor without being told if you're going clockwise or anti-clockwise; early on you're herded into a Presentation Pod for an introductory lecture, where you're handed a three-page letter explaining the terms and characters... at the end of which you're offered the 'choice', "Now head back to 32 and choose a new direction".
And there is the book's fatal flaw. Never mind exploring the station or riding on a Sea Bike in no way that furthers the plot -- at least that sounds cool, and certain boys will revel in the over-detailing of the way the undersea station works -- but, frequently, once you've chosen a path via two or three decisions, you're shuttled from page to page following "Turn to 59"-style instructions. Where's the choice in that? Moore seems quite happy to let you make a few choices, but after that he wants to tell a straightforward story for a good half a dozen (or more) pages. At least it seems to fulfill another of my desires expressed last time, which was for the same essential events to be occurring 'behind the scenes', but if that sacrifices any choice then I'd prefer the shifting explanations of the last book.
So, at the end of the first batch of Decide Your Destiny books, they don't have a very good batting average. It's not the fault of the concept or the younger audience they're aimed at -- the prose style is good, simple but descriptive, effective for this sort of work. And the concept is obviously a brilliant one. But the weak plotting and style of choices in the books by Colin Brake and Davey Moore (who between them penned three of the initial four titles), makes those books less than satisfying. Only Richard Dungworth's Alien Arena has given me unquestioning enjoyment so far.
Looking ahead to the next batch, they're written by Richard Dungworth (yay!), Trevor Baxendale (author of some entertaining normal Who novels)... and Davey Moore and Colin Brake. Perhaps they learnt from their initial follies?
Well, somewhat misleading at any rate, because "explore" you certainly do. Moore has clearly spent at least as long creating the setting for this adventure -- its technology, its technicalities, and especially its acronyms -- as he has the actual plot, and he wants you to know it. Consequently the writing is highly descriptive, but too much so -- you can't run down a corridor without being told if you're going clockwise or anti-clockwise; early on you're herded into a Presentation Pod for an introductory lecture, where you're handed a three-page letter explaining the terms and characters... at the end of which you're offered the 'choice', "Now head back to 32 and choose a new direction".
And there is the book's fatal flaw. Never mind exploring the station or riding on a Sea Bike in no way that furthers the plot -- at least that sounds cool, and certain boys will revel in the over-detailing of the way the undersea station works -- but, frequently, once you've chosen a path via two or three decisions, you're shuttled from page to page following "Turn to 59"-style instructions. Where's the choice in that? Moore seems quite happy to let you make a few choices, but after that he wants to tell a straightforward story for a good half a dozen (or more) pages. At least it seems to fulfill another of my desires expressed last time, which was for the same essential events to be occurring 'behind the scenes', but if that sacrifices any choice then I'd prefer the shifting explanations of the last book.
So, at the end of the first batch of Decide Your Destiny books, they don't have a very good batting average. It's not the fault of the concept or the younger audience they're aimed at -- the prose style is good, simple but descriptive, effective for this sort of work. And the concept is obviously a brilliant one. But the weak plotting and style of choices in the books by Colin Brake and Davey Moore (who between them penned three of the initial four titles), makes those books less than satisfying. Only Richard Dungworth's Alien Arena has given me unquestioning enjoyment so far.
Looking ahead to the next batch, they're written by Richard Dungworth (yay!), Trevor Baxendale (author of some entertaining normal Who novels)... and Davey Moore and Colin Brake. Perhaps they learnt from their initial follies?
Wednesday, 11 June 2008
Films
Almost Famous (2000)
[#41 in 100 Films in a Year 2008]
Van Helsing (2004)
[2nd watch]
Four years on, with vastly lowered expectations, it's still not very good.
[#41 in 100 Films in a Year 2008]
Van Helsing (2004)
[2nd watch]
Four years on, with vastly lowered expectations, it's still not very good.
Fiction
Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming
Chapter 11
As Bond escapes and recovers from his investigative previous chapter, Scarlett somehow finds him again. She's becoming increasingly suspicious, that girl, and yet somehow Bond accepts everything she has to say, and even takes her along when he returns to investigate the 'Caspian Sea Monster'. Is there a poorly thought-through 'twist' coming with her, or is her story just as ludicrous as it seems?
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Corinthian Project by Davey Moore
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapter Four
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
Ploughing on through this, as I feel I ought to read it before embarking on Black Dossier (especially as it contains clues to what will happen in that), a book I've had for a good six months now. I'm looking forward to it (believe it or not).
Chapter 11
As Bond escapes and recovers from his investigative previous chapter, Scarlett somehow finds him again. She's becoming increasingly suspicious, that girl, and yet somehow Bond accepts everything she has to say, and even takes her along when he returns to investigate the 'Caspian Sea Monster'. Is there a poorly thought-through 'twist' coming with her, or is her story just as ludicrous as it seems?
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Corinthian Project by Davey Moore
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapter Four
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
Ploughing on through this, as I feel I ought to read it before embarking on Black Dossier (especially as it contains clues to what will happen in that), a book I've had for a good six months now. I'm looking forward to it (believe it or not).
Doctor Who: City of Death
And so my chronological wander through classic Doctor Who jumps 10 years on from the last story, deep into the era of the longest-running and arguably most-famous Doctor: the fourth, Tom Baker. The story I've chosen is City of Death, well known among Who fans as the highest-rated story ever (aided by an ITV strike, it reached the giddy heights of 17 million viewers). This is the first time I've seen it, however, and I was a bit wary -- the last time I saw such a well-regarded story was The Talons of Weng-Chiang, which I found a bit weak. Luckily, there's a lot more than just ratings success to make City of Death a memorable adventure.
In fact, where to begin? How about the beginning, an atmospheric prehistoric opening with some brilliant set design, models and visual effects work. The story moves quickly on to Paris -- the first time Doctor Who had shot overseas. While most of what we see is the Doctor and Romana running up and down Parisian streets, there's some good location work -- the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre all feature -- and it's truly bizarre to see them riding on the Metro, or indeed existing anywhere outside of the cosy confines of small sets built at Television Centre and shot on video! There are some artful shots too, giving a feeling more like something from the French New Wave than '70s British kids' TV. Dudley Simpson's music underlines this too, with possibly the most genteel race-against-time music I've ever heard (in Part Four, when the Doctor, Romana and Duggan run across Paris to the TARDIS).
But after the production team have had their fun showing off the location it's full steam ahead with a plot that involves a time-altering device and six fake Mona Lisas. It's a very strong storyline, backed up by an endlessly inventive and furiously witty screenplay -- the scripts were co-written by Douglas Adams, and it really shows. The cast are more than up to the task of delivering the marvellous dialogue -- I shouldn't wonder if Tom Baker's faux fool Doctor here wasn't the primary model for David Tennant's current incarnation. There are some more fantastic effects shots too, including an aging chicken, a similar gruesome death, and a surprisingly effective virtual reality bit. The part two cliffhanger is also brilliant -- it's hard to say if it's surprising because I'm so familiar with it from clip shows, etc, but it still seems a neat twist.
There are flaws of course, but they're incredibly minor and really just nitpicking for the sake of it, especially as I haven't even listed all the little bits of brilliance contained within. City of Death (there's one flaw -- a totally meaningless title) is unreserved entertainment from beginning to end. Fantastic.
In fact, where to begin? How about the beginning, an atmospheric prehistoric opening with some brilliant set design, models and visual effects work. The story moves quickly on to Paris -- the first time Doctor Who had shot overseas. While most of what we see is the Doctor and Romana running up and down Parisian streets, there's some good location work -- the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre all feature -- and it's truly bizarre to see them riding on the Metro, or indeed existing anywhere outside of the cosy confines of small sets built at Television Centre and shot on video! There are some artful shots too, giving a feeling more like something from the French New Wave than '70s British kids' TV. Dudley Simpson's music underlines this too, with possibly the most genteel race-against-time music I've ever heard (in Part Four, when the Doctor, Romana and Duggan run across Paris to the TARDIS).
But after the production team have had their fun showing off the location it's full steam ahead with a plot that involves a time-altering device and six fake Mona Lisas. It's a very strong storyline, backed up by an endlessly inventive and furiously witty screenplay -- the scripts were co-written by Douglas Adams, and it really shows. The cast are more than up to the task of delivering the marvellous dialogue -- I shouldn't wonder if Tom Baker's faux fool Doctor here wasn't the primary model for David Tennant's current incarnation. There are some more fantastic effects shots too, including an aging chicken, a similar gruesome death, and a surprisingly effective virtual reality bit. The part two cliffhanger is also brilliant -- it's hard to say if it's surprising because I'm so familiar with it from clip shows, etc, but it still seems a neat twist.
There are flaws of course, but they're incredibly minor and really just nitpicking for the sake of it, especially as I haven't even listed all the little bits of brilliance contained within. City of Death (there's one flaw -- a totally meaningless title) is unreserved entertainment from beginning to end. Fantastic.
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
TV
Doctor Who [classic]
17x05 City of Death Part One
17x06 City of Death Part Two
17x07 City of Death Part Three
I'll post a review of this story after Part Four, tomorrow.
17x05 City of Death Part One
17x06 City of Death Part Two
17x07 City of Death Part Three
I'll post a review of this story after Part Four, tomorrow.
Fiction
Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Time Crocodile by Colin Brake
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapter Three
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
See here for my thoughts on this book.
The New Traveller's Almanac by Alan Moore
Chapter Three
(from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2)
"Doctor Who - Decide Your Destiny: The Time Crocodile" by Colin Brake
The Time Crocodile is the third adventure in the Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny series, in which the Doctor and Martha whisk you off to "the space zoo", which, unsurprisingly, "isn't like any zoo you've ever visited on Earth. For a start, some of the animals can talk! Explore the zoo and work out who can be trusted and who has a hidden agenda..." Ooh, leisurely.
Colin Brake, author of the series' first book, returns for this installment... and, sadly, all of the problems present in The Spaceship Graveyard come with him. Your choices are often limited to directing the story rather than your actions, and most routes lead to pages that just say the same thing but with different words! Or, at best, the events differ but you're left with the same choices at the end. At the worst point you're instructed to flip a coin to decide what happens next! It's dismal really, and, especially if you realise what's going on, hampers the fun. It suggests to me that Brake would be more comfortable writing a normal, linear novel. (To be fair, I haven't taken the time to examine the branching of options offered by the previous two books in this much depth, but even if they did it too it doesn't make it any less shoddy.)
Flicking through the bits of the book I didn't encounter, I think there are two different, mostly-linear stories, and which you get depends on whether you're polite or rude at the start. After that, they both seem to move along straightforwardly, with no real choice for the reader, until you hit a variety of endings. These endings are all totally different -- as in, the explanations for what's been going on are different each time. For example, one of the two stories leads to a resolution where the evil Professor Morrow (he's not so evil in the other thread) has captured something to create time windows. In one possible finale it's a Time Agent, in the other it's an alien from the future. In my opinion, it should always be the same thing trapped, and if/how it's released should be what you influence. It's probably personal preference, but I think this sort of book is better when there's one 'truth' behind events and your choices influence how it pans out, rather than your choices leading to almost completely different stories.
I'm not quite done moaning yet, though this is a problem with the range as a whole: they're all future-set sci-fi stories. One of the joys of Doctor Who is that there are present day and historical adventures too, but these are as yet unrepresented by the range. They were originally released in batches of four, but clearly no one thought to duplicate the "one past, one present, one future" theory of the normal novel releases. It's a bit of a shame and there's no good reason for it.
Regardless, The Time Crocodile is a weak entry, both in terms of plot and quality of play. There are two more books by Brake to come in this series, each released in a later batch -- I can only hope he learnt something from the vastly superior second book (and, possibly, the others I've yet to read) before he wrote them.
Colin Brake, author of the series' first book, returns for this installment... and, sadly, all of the problems present in The Spaceship Graveyard come with him. Your choices are often limited to directing the story rather than your actions, and most routes lead to pages that just say the same thing but with different words! Or, at best, the events differ but you're left with the same choices at the end. At the worst point you're instructed to flip a coin to decide what happens next! It's dismal really, and, especially if you realise what's going on, hampers the fun. It suggests to me that Brake would be more comfortable writing a normal, linear novel. (To be fair, I haven't taken the time to examine the branching of options offered by the previous two books in this much depth, but even if they did it too it doesn't make it any less shoddy.)
Flicking through the bits of the book I didn't encounter, I think there are two different, mostly-linear stories, and which you get depends on whether you're polite or rude at the start. After that, they both seem to move along straightforwardly, with no real choice for the reader, until you hit a variety of endings. These endings are all totally different -- as in, the explanations for what's been going on are different each time. For example, one of the two stories leads to a resolution where the evil Professor Morrow (he's not so evil in the other thread) has captured something to create time windows. In one possible finale it's a Time Agent, in the other it's an alien from the future. In my opinion, it should always be the same thing trapped, and if/how it's released should be what you influence. It's probably personal preference, but I think this sort of book is better when there's one 'truth' behind events and your choices influence how it pans out, rather than your choices leading to almost completely different stories.
I'm not quite done moaning yet, though this is a problem with the range as a whole: they're all future-set sci-fi stories. One of the joys of Doctor Who is that there are present day and historical adventures too, but these are as yet unrepresented by the range. They were originally released in batches of four, but clearly no one thought to duplicate the "one past, one present, one future" theory of the normal novel releases. It's a bit of a shame and there's no good reason for it.
Regardless, The Time Crocodile is a weak entry, both in terms of plot and quality of play. There are two more books by Brake to come in this series, each released in a later batch -- I can only hope he learnt something from the vastly superior second book (and, possibly, the others I've yet to read) before he wrote them.
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