Dark Skies – Cheers – tape 2513

Today, it’s yet another mid-90s SF show, which seemed to proliferate. I wonder if, in a few years time, we’ll see any of these shows rebooted? Trouble is, when the tendency in reboots is to go dark and gritty, that’s a bit hard when the original series is dark and gritty already.

I haven’t watched enough Dark Skies to really follow the overall plot, but the first episode here, To Prey In Darkness, feels like it’s near the start of a new series – but in fact, it’s very near the end of the one and only season they made. Jeri Ryan is now the partner of John Loengard as the Majestic organisation tries to suppress any news about the ongoing Alien invasion that’s happening in secret.

The plot involves a can of film that shows what happened at Roswell, and it’s now in the hands of a reporter, who wants to show it on air. Wanting to shut it down are the Aliens, one of them now having taken over Loengard’s former partner and lover Kimberley Sayers (Megan Ward) who also has their baby. It’s definitely unnerving seeing her have no clue what to do with the baby, and not in a funny way.

The broadcast almost goes ahead, but is foiled when a HUGE HONKING FLYING SAUCER flies over a Canadian power plant, zaps it, and plunges most of the Eastern Seaboard of the US into darkness. How not a single person there saw anything will remain a mystery, and you’ll notice that I’m watching something about a famous, huge power outage less than a week after Texas suffered a similar thing, although that one wasn’t caused by Aliens, but by capitalism.

Like many shows, this one has a lot of men who look the same. At least the main baddie has the decency to have a weird eye, so I can tell it’s him and not the hero.

The next episode is Strangers in the Night. John Loengard and Juliet Stewart have to travel to Russia (to Chernobyl, no less) when the Soviet counterpart to Majestic sends a distress message that they’re under attack. Their military team is led by a young Major Colin Powell.

While they’re enjoying a typical Base Under Seige adventure, back in the US, Bach pulls in Professor Carl Sagan to ask him about his theories about the existence of Alien civilisations. It’s a good thing that Sagan only ever wore one jacket, so we know it’s him, as we’d never know it from the performance of the actor, who doesn’t even try to do the voice. He even has to say Billions at one point. Very poor.

Sagan is back in the next episode, Bloodlines, last in the series. I’m fully expecting a huge cliffhanger which would never be resolved. Sagan has decoded a TV signal from outer space. I wonder where they got this idea.

John and Juliet meet Hippy guru Timothy Leary.

They are undercover looking for the supplier of drugs which are infected with alien something or other.

Bach and Sagan have a captive Alien, and they’re trying to question it about the signal they received.

The evil alien-possessed man kills someone, steals his wallet. “So who are you now?” “Charles Manson.”

Vice President Hubert Humphrey turns up demanding to know what’s happening.

Sagan briefs Loengard about his mission to infiltrate the Hive mothership. Incidentally, the actor playing Sagan has started doing more of the voice in this episode.

Oh God, now Ronald Reagan is making a guest appearance.

Loengard and Stewart get abducted – part of the plan to get him on board the mothership.

Bach’s second in command has assembled all the Majestic board members, and asks them to vote whether Bach should remain in charge, after he’s sent Loengard to his death on the Mothership. One of them is Robert Kennedy, and he votes to remove Bach. In private, Bach’s second in command reveals he’s been taken over by the aliens, and shoots him.

On the mothership, Loengard finds his son, who’s suddenly a lot older than he should be. And there’s a weird ending, where Loengard asks his son if he wants to stay with the aliens or go with him, and the son chooses Dad. We then get a voiceover from an older Loengard: “Since taking my son’s hand thirty years ago, I have learned that all endings carry in them the seeds of new beginnings. That I am able to tell you my story today is proof that hope is alive, even on this eve of the new millennium. Do not be afraid. The fight for humanity demands your courage.” So no attempt to explain how he might have got off the ship, and they’ve totally forgotten that Juliet Stewart was also taken up there. It’s almost as if they had to hurriedly put together an ending for the show when they were told it had been cancelled. I guess we should be grateful they even bothered.

After this, recording continues with an episode of Cheers – Send in the Crane. An old girlfriend of Sam’s visits him, and you know there’s going to be trouble when her daughter, who Sam knew when she was a little girl, arrives.

Frasier helps out Rebecca by appearing as a clown at a children’s party she’s catering.

After this, there’s NBA basketball. The tape ends during this.

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Earth: Final Conflict – tape 2510

Today, it’s another 90s SF series based on Gene Roddenberry’s work. It’s Earth: Final Conflict with an episode called Horizon Zero. Three astronauts who were supposed to be on a mission to Mars are told that the mission has been cancelled. One of them, Chandler, is very angry about this, assuming the Taelons were responsible. Da’an, the chief Taelon, says it’s not their decision, but offers them a chance to participate in a Taelon training scheme. He’s not interested.

Lili, one of the undercover resistance, takes Chandler on the Taelon shuttle she pilots, trying to get some idea of his attitudes. But this backfires when he steals the shuttle.

The astronauts find a way to overcome the shuttle’s block on leaving the atmosphere. There’s an exciting chase as Boone and Sandoval pursue the renegade astronauts, but can’t follow when they leave Earth.

Boone and Lili get a nice postcard from Mars. Weird that I happen to watch this in the week that another probe landed on Mars.

And their boss has received pictures of the Taelon mothership, which has never been seen before, plus a picture of a large Taelon construction on the far side of the moon.

The next episode is Live Free or Die. Da’an is taken hostage by a General who wants his men freed by the Taelons.

The Taelons won’t negotiate, and Da’an decides to let himself die rather than give the kidnappers leverage so he starts dissolving into fairy lights.

But don’t worry, Boone gives an inspirational speech, so Da’an goes back to normal. It’s weird that we seem to have to feel sorry for Da’an in this,

Next, an episode called Sandoval’s Run, in which Sandoval starts getting visions because his alien implant is malfunctioning. Majel Barrett appears as Dr Belman.

His implant is removed, and he’s no longer under the influence of the Taelons, so he goes to find his wife, who he committed to a mental hospital when he was implanted.

Boone learns that Sandoval has extra information about the Taelons, and wants to turn him to their side, but his team are sceptical.

Boone has to re-implant Sandoval, but he doesn’t want to, because of his wife. Boone (who’s still pretending to be a loyal servant of the Taelons) tells Sandoval that he doesn’t have to worry, as Boone has killed his wife – a reflection of earlier in the series where Sandoval killed Boone’s wife. So Sandoval gets implanted, but as this happens, we see that his wife is watching it happen, knowing she can’t see him again. I really liked this ending.

In return for re-implanting him, Sandoval tells Boone what he knows – that the fate of the Taelons and Humans is linked, and without the other, both will die.

The last episode on this tape is The Scarecrow Returns. The resistance science team are investigating a probe from a previous episode (which I haven’t seen) which replicated killer butterflies in an Amish community.

Unsurprisingly, it goes rogue, and starts transmitting a signal, while also killing and replicating the woman scientist who’s been studying this. Boy, this show is going all in on murdering the wives of men.

After this, the recording stops, and underneath, there’s the very end of an X-Files, and then a few minutes of the start of Caribbean Uncovered which, you will not be surprised to hear, I did not watch.

In the ad breaks, there’s this traumatic event from my past which, if I’m honest, I’m still not over.

Still, it explains a lot about this ridiculous choice.

There’s also a good trailer for a film season featuring Phil Daniels.

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Star Trek Deep Space Nine – tape 2516

Today, it’s over to Sky One for some season 5 episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine starting with Let He Who Is Without Sin. Love is in the air, even for Morn.

Oh God, it’s Dax and Worf. Why were the Star Trek writers so desperate to hook Worf up with every available woman. I know Michael Dorn’s hot, but Worf is such a humourless lump.

And Oh God part 2. They’re going to Risa, and they have to go with Bashir (a sex tourist if ever I saw one) with his date, Leeta, one of the Dabo girls from Quark’s casino – who is also tagging along.

Risa, of course, is the planet of swingers, so Quark is happy. I’ve always found this fairly gross.

On the other hand, when Worf is visited by Fullerton, who believes that the Federation’s moral core has been eroded, and Risa is a symptom, which he wants to shut down, I’m definitely not on his side. But Worf thinks he’s right.

Weirdly, Bashir and Leeta actually came to Risa to split up..

Fullerton’s stance is that the Federation shouldn’t use its technology to make things nice. So Worf helps him disable the weather grid. Which makes it rain. By the way, Worf does this because he feels Dax isn’t paying him enough attention. So he’s literally becoming a nazi because a woman is rejecting him (although she isn’t). It’s Gamergate all over again.

But when Fullerton goes further, and starts earthquakes that will destroy the whole resort, that’s a terrorist act too far for Worf, and he deals with him.

Nice to see Sky treating their programmes with some respect by holding breaking news until the episode ends and not slapping a huge chiron over the picture less than a minute before the episode ends – D’Oh! MUUURDOOOCH!

Before the next episode there’s the end of an episode of Real TV.

Then the next episode is Things Past. This is a slightly less interesting episode (to me) since it features characters who are trapped in some kind of dream reality, and so it’s unclear what the stakes are. Sisko, Garak, Dax and Odo are back on DS9 when it was a Cardassian station, and the story sees Odo relive a shameful episode of his past, although we don’t learn that until the end.

It does feature Kurtwood Smith as a Cardassian. I think this is him, although the makeup makes it hard to keep up with the Cardassians.

The next episode is The Ascent. Odo is delighted when he’s told to take Quark to a trial off-station, happy that Quark has to finally answer for all his crooked dealings. But the runabout is sabotaged, and the two of them are stranded on a rather inhospitable planet. It’s Enemy Mine but where the main source of conflict is who gets to wear the warm coat.

There’s a B-Story about Jake moving in with Nog, who’s back from Starfleet Academy, and has turned into a little proto-fascist, complete with a Jordan Peterson-like obsession with tidying their quarters.

The final episode on this tape is Rapture, in which Bajor is about to sign a treaty admitting it into the Federation, but Sisko (who is, if you recall, ‘The Emissary’ and somehow tied in to Bajor’s mystical woo) finds a clue to the location of a legendary lost city on Bajor in the form of a painting of an obelisk.

It’s always good to have a guest appearance from Louise Fletcher as Kai Winn, who’s definitely opposed to Bajor joining the Federation.

Added to the mix is the return to DS9 of Sisko’s old girlfriend Kasidy Yates (played by Penny Johnson Jerald off of 24 and Larry Sanders) who has been in space jail for a year after she helped the Maquis.

Sisko starts having visions, manages to find the lost city, and derails the Bajor/Federation meetup by predicting plagues of locusts. Something’s happening to his body, but he doesn’t want Dr Bashir to treat it because it would stop the visions, and he feels he’s on the brink of understanding everything. But Jake, as his next of kin, has to decide whether to allow the operation to take place. After an episode full of bullshit mysticism and prophecy, it was nice to see the episode pull back to a genuine human story, as Jake admits he still needs his father and doesn’t want him to die. I do love the father and son dynamic of Jake and Sisko. Father/Son pairings in Star Trek seem to invariably be damaging or toxic (cf Spock/Sarek) so it’s nice to have a counter-example of a strong bond. Parents in general get short shrift in fiction. I’m always commenting to my kids when we’re watching something, how so much drama is caused or made worse by bad parenting, so characters like Sisko, or father-figures like Giles in Buffy, really appeal to me.

And the ending is not quite a hug, but it’s close enough.

After this, the tape continues briefly with the start of an episode of Poltergeist: The Legacy. The tap ends shortly into it.

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Harry Hill – tape 2518

I like a lot of Harry Hill’s stuff. TV Burp was one of the best things on TV, and Alien Fun Capsule is always fun. But I get on less well with his solo shows, possibly because his persona feels like such hard work.

However, I can’t help but love a show which opens with Harry arriving in a Tardis, dressed as Tom Baker’s Doctor, and fighting off a parade of classic Who monsters (plus, randomly, King Louie from The Jungle Book). And I guarantee that there was a true Doctor Who fan involved in this, as it’s not just the obvious. There’s a Yeti, a Sea Devil, A Cyberman, one of the Robots of Death robots (that’s a fairly deep cut) King Louie (no idea) then someone chucks what looks like a stuffed toy version of one of the giant maggots from The Green Death.

“You’ve got to have a system.”

Keith Harris and Orville sing songs from the 90s.

Don’t forget, Al Murray was a regular.

“Looking for adventure, but also like Jimmy Savile? Join the Jimmy Savile Regiment of the Territorial Army.”

Tufty The Road Safety Squirrel has looked better.

Before the next episode there’s the end of an episode of Frasier.

Then more Harry Hill. Chas and Dave sing Blur.

Burt Kwouk and his inflatable head.

The Badger Parade is off again, as the badgers are on strike. “Tasmin Archer Badger, I’ve always been fair with you.”

The show ends with a dance routine to the Fame theme song. Literally 15 minutes after I was mentioning The Kids from Fame in a reply to a comment on a previous entry.

The next episode is introduced by Sean Connery.

Garry Bushell sings the instrumentals. A big step down from Chas & Dave.

Burt Kwouk sings Hey Little Hen.

Channel 4 News with Zeinab Badawi.

The BBC 2 is moving to Channel 4.

The closing number sees Harry do Freddy Mercury.

With Al Murray on drums, unsurprisingly.

In the next episode, musical interludes come from Billy Bragg playing novelty songs. Here he’s singing Agadoo.

Trigger Warning – Stuart Hall commentates on Claire Short and John Prescott hitting each other with big hammers.

“If Prince Edward were to marry a Womble, how would that affect the constitutional monarchy?”

Burt Kwouk is still trying to catch chickens.

The badgers have formed a Womble tribute band.

The next episode sees Harry on fire. Not really – the Power of suggestion.

Ian Lavender sings the hits of Madonna.

The only part of the Finsbury Park sections I like is the use of the Doctor in the House theme tune (which I had mistaken for the Man About The House theme until I looked it up).

It’s Jane Goldman and Jonathan Ross.

And the real Jonathan Ross

Will the real Jonathan Ross please step forward.

These chatlines are getting silly.

I’m not sure quite what Finsbury Park’s adjustments to Little Alan Hill are for this week.

The closing number is Happiness.

There’s the end of Frasier before the next episode.

Then, more Harry Hill lunacy. Rustie Lee sings the songs of Meat Loaf, and I would genuinely listen to this.

Al Murray reveals his true nature.

Russian Roulette Piano.

The closing number is The Jam’s Going Underground.

The last episode on this tape features Peter Davison singing the songs of Pulp.

Plus this: “You see, I was just trying to save the planet, and you just happened to be in the way.” “So it wasn’t a personal thing, then?”

That’s not the end of Davison, though, as the closing number is Pulp’s ‘Disco 2000’ and Davison looks confusingly like Chief O’Brien.

After this, the tape continues with the start of David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The tape ends shortly into the film.

In the ad breaks, there’s a BT advert that tells of the advantages of working remotely, but it’s from 24 years ago.

There’s also a trailer for a stand-up comedy show Gas that I don’t remember, but it’s fairly star-studded, as I spotted Lee Mack, Chris Addison, Peter Kay and Julian Barratt, all looking incredibly young.

And after the last episode there’s a trailer for Space Cadets, all in Klingon.

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Cardiff Singer of the World – tape 2509

This tape opens with a trailer for The Travel Show.

Then, the final heat of Cardiff Singer of the World, introduced by Huw Edwards.

It’s co-presented by Natalie Wheen.

The singers performing tonight are Marina Mescheriakova

Abel Motsoadi

Louise Walsh

Kornelia Perchy

The evening’s winner is Abel Motsoadi.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 20th June 1997 – 19:15

Before the next episode, there’s the end of a news bulletin, and weather from John Kettley. Plus a trailer for The Travel Show.

Then, the live final of Cardiff Singer of the World in which the finalists are Gwyn Hugh Jones

Abel Motsoadi

Christopher Maltman

Guang Yang

and Aquiles Machado

The Lieder Prize was awarded to Christopher Maltman.

And the overall winner is Guang Yang.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 21st June 1997 – 19:30

after this, the recording continues with a trailer for The Fly.

Then, there’s the start of a film, Brothers in Trouble. The tape ends shortly into the film.

 

King of the Hill – TFI Friday – tape 2517

Here’s another tape that just ends up being three hours of Channel 4 output. My habit was to just leave tapes running long after the scheduled end, just in case programmes were horribly delayed. Resulting in tapes like this.

The main programme is King of the Hill in which Peggy shows a keen aptitude for Boggle.

I still maintain that King of the Hill was a waste of animation. The show’s OK as a family sitcom, but it never uses the fact it’s animated for anything. I suspect the only reason it’s animated is because the studio had pigeonholed Mike Judge as ‘The Cartoon Guy’ after Beavis and Butthead.

After this, the recording continues with an episode of TFI Friday. Chris Evans is still trying to make his sidekick Will Macdonald a thing.

To the extent that he’s organised an offer for Will to play the baddie in a real panto.

Chris rants about how disappointing Christmas Chocolate gifts are. There’s a huge tube of maltesers, and he’s disappointed to find that it’s just full of regular small packets of maltesers. Then he show a huge malteser that they’ve had made, tells the audience there that it’s real chocolate, licks it to prove it, then hands it round for everyone to lick, and I’m watching this in our disease-ridden times screaming ‘Noooooo!’

There’s music from Terry Hall.

Michael Aspel is a guest.

There’s a brief appearance from Aspel’s old 6 O’Clock Show colleague Danny Baker in a Miss World-based joke.

More music from The Seahorses.

His next guest is Louise, before she was Louise Redknapp, although at the time of this interview she’s going out with him. It’s a typical Chris Evans interview of a woman – leery and all about sex, basically.

The show closes with music from Sleeper.

After this, the tape continues, and there’s quite a lot of a film, Police Story III: Supercop starring Jackie Chan, but it cuts off before the end, so I’m not going to watch it.

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Uncle Buck – Heathers – Clive Anderson Talks Back – tape 1329

Today we’re randomly flipping back in time for an earlier tape than most of the remaining ones. It’s movies, too, so first it’s Uncle Buck, a comic tale of appalling parenting, so you know it must be John Hughes. And recorded so long ago that it doesn’t even look like the movie channels were encrypted yet.

Let’s say hello to a pre-Home Alone Macauley Culkin. Still cute.

His sister Maizy (Gaby Hoffman) is also cute. She doesn’t get quite as much comedy as Mac though.

But their older sister Tia (Jean Louisa Kelly) is, frankly, awful. She’s horrible to her very much younger siblings, and she loathes her mother, seeming to blame her for having moved the family from their home in Indianapolis to Chicago, even though it was because of her father Bob’s job. Not that she has any affection for her father, but she seems to pour most of her hatred on her mother.

On the other hand, her mother Cindy is as bad, cold and unsupportive. You can see where Tia gets her sociopathy from.

There’s a family emergency, a late night call from Cindy’s aunt, saying that her father has had a heart attack. The parents have to travel back to Indianapolis, but have to leave the children in Chicago, and the only person they can find to look after the children is Bob’s feckless brother Buck, played by John Candy. John Candy is the only reason this movie works at all. Unlike his niece and sister-in-law, he’s absolutely lovely. Well meaning, thoughtful, and only a little rough around the edges. The kind of guy for whom financial planning involves getting a hot tip about a fixed horse race.

His main blindspot is his longtime girlfriend Chanice, played by Amy Madigan. She runs a company selling auto parts, and wants Buck to settle down and work at her company, but he’s reluctant to work for her, and also reluctant to commit. Amy Madigan is one of those actors who I always enjoy seeing in anything, as she’s always good.

Naturally, Tia is appalled at having Buck looking after her, especially when he’s very suspicious about the intentions of her boyfriend, ‘Bug’.

I love some of the small moments. Buck is looking through one of the family photo albums, finds  photo of his brother’s wedding, and finds that it’s been folded over to eliminate him from the photo.

Another actor who I love seeing in anything is Laurie Metcalf, who plays a nosey neighbour who takes a shine to Buck.

Buck punches a drunk clown.

He tells off the assistant principal at Maizy’s school for complaining that Maizy isn’t taking ‘her career as a student seriously.’ “She’s only six” is Buck’s reply.

Buck finally bonds with Tia when she bunks off to go to a weekend party, so Buck goes to look for her, and his search is intercut with scenes of Bug coercing Tia into having sex when she doesn’t want to, except when Buck finds them, it’s Bug, but with a different (and equally unwilling) girl. Buck drives home and finds Tia walking home. “You were right. Everything you said would happen, happened.” “I don’t wanna talk about it, I just want to get you home.” Despite how awful Tia has been up until this point, the film is still managing to make me cry.

But the bonding isn’t over, as Buck has a surprise in the trunk of his car. It’s Bug. He lets him go, but sees him off by hitting golf balls at him as he runs.

Tia and Chanice have a talk, and Tia tells her that earlier, when she’d said Buck was seeing Laurie Metcalf’s character Marcie, she’d been lying.

Tia’s parents arrive back, there’s a tense moment of stand-off as she and her mother face each other, then this happens, and you can bet I was crying again. It’s always the hugging. I want more hugging in my entertainment. I’m not sure the movie has fully sold this conversion, but it would be nice to think mother and daughter can repair their relationship.

After this, there’s another view of the dystopian hellscape that is the US High School system with Heathers. A film where every single character is appalling, and yet I really like it. High School is not a setting I’m overly fond of, given my general antipathy towards formal education, but when a film such as Heathers fully commits to the true horror of High School, I can really appreciate it. Plus they get extra points for the use of Croquet as a metaphor for class.

Let’s not forget this was Peak Winona Ryder.

This was the first really big role for Christian Slater, channelling his inner Jack Nicholson as the rebel without a moral compass JD.

This is so much a film of its time. Can you imagine a film made today where a high school student pulls out a huge gun and fires blanks at two annoying jocks and he’s not immediately arrested. Or shot dead, if he were black.

I love the manic way Ryder’s Veronica writes in her diary. “Dear Diary, I want to kill and it’s more than for just selfish reasons.”

On a date, Veronica and one of the Heathers double date with the two horrible football jocks. They go out cow-tipping. Which I had thought must be a real thing, because who would make that up (and I vaguely remember reading an interview with writer Daniel Waters where he talks about having heard of other people who’ve done it). But I just looked it up in Wikipedia and the consensus there is that it’s actually an urban legend. Cows do lie down, and can get up, and the weight of a cow would mean it could take up to 14 people to tip one over.

As the high school is swept with a wave of suicides, there’s a subplot where the band Big Fun have a single called ‘Teenage Suicide Don’t Do It’. Talking of things I thought were real, I had assumed, at least, that this was the actual band Big Fun, who had a brief career which intersects with the time Heathers was released. But the band in the film is fictional, and it’s possible they’d never heard of the UK band (a Stock, Aitken, Waterman band).

JD and Veronica plan to embarrass the two football jocks by staging a fake double suicide (using ‘Ich Luge’ bullets that are more like tranquilisers according to JD) and planting evidence the jocks were secret gay lovers. Trouble is, ‘Ich Luge’ means ‘I Lie’ and the bullets are real, so the jocks are really dead, and the cops find the smoking gun proof that they were gay – a bottle of mineral water.

In a film which sparkles with stylised high-school dialogue and funny lines (“My teen angst bullshit has a body count”) I’m afraid my favourite line comes from the touching moment where the father of one of the jocks speaks at his funeral and fully accepts who his son really was. “I love my dead gay son.” Although the footballs and the helmets truly make this scene.

This is the blackest of black comedies. By rights, I should hate it, but I still find it funny. And a couple of years ago, I learned that my daughter had also watched it, because she’d started listening to the soundtrack of ‘Heathers The Musical’. It seemed a bizarre choice of subject, but I suppose Sondheim wrote ‘Assassins’ and ‘Sweeny Todd’, ‘Carousel’ was about a wife-beater, and ‘Phantom’ was about a murderous kidnapping gaslighter, so maybe it’s not so odd. But when the show had a limited run in London, I took her to see it, and had a wonderful time. It was a little less nihilistic than the movie, and the songs were entertaining. So I’ll add that to the list of ‘obscure musicals based on older films with a high-school setting’ that I’ve watched, right next to ‘Carrie The Musical’.

After this, a nice surprise, something that wasn’t in my database. It’s an episode of Clive Anderson Talks Back, featuring guests Kriss Akabusi

Nigel Planer

and Tim Rice.

After this, recording continues, and there’s a bit of an episode of A Stab In the Dark, the ‘satirical’ topical show featuring David Baddiel, Tracey MacLeod (off of The Late Show) and that well known topical comedian Michael Gove.

Baddiel’s piece about the Aids fundraiser ‘Red Hot+Dance’ which was showing after the programme is sniffy about pop stars pushing condoms, Tracey MacLeod puts the boot into Princess Diana, and Michael Gove interviews Peter Bottomley, demanding to know why the government are trying to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland by doing things that IRA terrorists want, thus negotiating with terrorists. It’s a really weird and absolutist position from Gove, and would seemingly mean that any end to the conflict would be unacceptable, because the IRA would want that. And Bottomley just refuses to engage with his premise. It shows all the competence and grasp of world affairs that Michael Gove has continued to show in his subsequent career as politician and Pob lookalike.

The tape ends during this interview, but the whole episode is on All 4.

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Doctor Who – tape 2507

This tape opens with the end credits of The Sullivans. Either we’re back in the early 80s on daytime ITV or…

So it’s right back to the 60s for Doctor Who – The Sensorites. It starts off with the regulars reminiscing about previous adventures. It’s nice to see them happier than they sometimes are.

They land on a ship where they think the crew is dead, but they were in a long sleep. They’re being held there by the Sensorites, who won’t let them leave, put them in a deep sleep, but then apparently feed them and keep them alive. And when someone steals the locking mechanism from the Tardis, the Doctor and friends can’t leave either.

We see one of the Sensorites through the ship window. I’m not sure quite how this works.

Another crew member, John, a metallurgist, appears to have been driven mad by the Sensorites’ control.

The Doctor thinks that John has discovered vast amounts of Molybdenum on the planet, and that’s the reason the Sensorites won’t let them go. There’s a long speech about various metal melting points, and I’m genuinely surprised that the dialogue gets the melting point of Molybdenum right.

The Sensorites don’t trust the humans because they were visited before by humans, and now they are suffering from a disease. The Doctor offers to help them with the disease in return for the Tardis lock. But shortly after they have a meal on the planet, Ian is struck down by the disease.

Some of the Sensorites are a little hostile. One of them (this one I think) is played by Peter Glaze off of Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!). And it looks like he’s built Doc Brown’s mind reading machine from Back to the Future.

The Doctor thinks that the water on the planet is contaminated with Atropine, but he has to prove it. Cue a montage of the Doctor sciencing the shit out of the problem.

The evil Sensorites claim not to believe there’s an antidote. Yes, there’s a massive health crisis, and these Sensorites are denying there’s even a problem. Why does everything I watch seem to relate directly to the Pandemic? Anti-vax Sensorites. They stop Ian from getting the antidote, believing Ian is faking it.

The Doctor goes into the aqueducts to see if he can find the source of the poison. Because it’s dark, and because there’s monster noises, the Sensorites don’t go down there. The Doctor finds what he suspected, Deadly Nightshade, the source of the poison, but he also hears the monster sounds.

There’s a point where Susan talks about her home planet (still not named in the show). “At night the sky is a burnt orange, and the leaves on the trees are bright silver.” This is a description that Russell T Davies returned to when he brought the show back.

Back in the aqueduct, The Doctor and Ian find the identity of the strange monsters – they are human survivors of the previous human expedition. hairy but still ridiculously upper class. And like most upper-class military, they’re poisoning the indigenous population. The Doctor and Ian manage to trick them into going to the surface.

I quite enjoyed that. It seemed desperately cheap, and I guessed several of the plot turns long before they happened, but it had a lot of charm. I’m not a massive fan of Hartnell’s era – I was born after this first series went out, and Jon Pertwee was the first Doctor I have genuine memories of as a viewer, so I have no nostalgic fondness for these older stories, but I’ve enjoyed the last couple of Hartnells I’ve watched.

One bad thing about this recording is that it’s one of their Omnibus versions, so the individual episode cliffhangers are gone, and they’ve completely redone the end credits with no attempt to keep them faithful to the originals. Very shoddy.

After this, the recording continues, and there’s a large chunk of an Eastenders Omnibus, and the tape ends during this.

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David Blaine – Magicman – tape 2973

We’re getting close to the end. This tape is the highest numbered tape currently in my database. With all the highest numbers, they are a bit randomly distributed in terms of when they were recorded, because I had a lot of tapes I hadn’t yet logged in the database, so all the later tapes were logged and numbered as I digitised them.

I probably have a few more tapes somewhere in a box that I haven’t yet found, so there might be more to add, but until then, the tape with the dubious distinction of being the last in my database is David Blaine – Magicman.

I do love magic, and the way David Blaine took traditional magic, but framed the tricks as being performed on the street, definitely added a freshness to the art. when a trick is performed for someone, their reaction is often as important as the trick itself, so by taking the magic out of its usual environment, a theatre or club, and performing it outside, the reactions just seem bigger.

It’s also nice when the trick works for you as a viewer. This trick is a simple prediction. He’s asking the woman to think of a number between 50 and 100, where both digits are different, and both digits are even. With this kind of trick, you can’t help picking a number yourself, and in this case, he predicted the number I (and she) chose. Of course, if you look a bit deeper into the rules he set you realise that there are only 6 possible choices, so this trick would be simple to perform for a show like this – you just have to do it several times until you get a hit. And I bet there’s statistics on which choices are more likely than others. Even knowing all this, when the guy on TV says the number I was thinking of, it’s still a freaky moment.

I have no idea why this kid in Memphis is wearing his shirt in this way. I wonder if it was a local fashion trend.

Here’s the whole thing – not necessarily the version shown here, as it looks like some tricks are in a different place – there’s one shown before the credits on mine which is within the show on this version.

The tape ends after this programme.

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Tiger Bay – tape 2972

This tape opens with a trailer for Wildlife on One.

Then, a film called Tiger Bay. I have no idea why I recorded this. I don’t remember watching it, and the title rings no bells, either with me or my wife.

Horst Buchholz plays a Polish sailor, back from a voyage, who’s looking for his girlfriend Anya. When he finds her, she’s not happy to see him. She’d moved from where he last knew her, and wasn’t interested in continuing their relationship. They argue in Polish, as they are watched by a little girl who lives in the same building. This is really well done, as the Polish argument switches to English when we watch it from their point of view, but back to Polish from the girl’s point of view. I wasn’t surprised when he ends up shooting her.

The little girl who witnesses the argument, and the murder, is Gillie, played by Hayley Mills. She’s established as something of a tomboy, getting into trouble with her parents and other adults in the building. She grabs the gun he’d hidden, and he sees her take it, but has to run.

Hayley Mills’ father John Mills plays the Superintendent who comes to investigate the murder.

After she’s been interviewed, giving a very poor description of the man, she has to go and sing in the choir at the local church. She takes the gun with her and shows it to her friend while they’re singing. He wants to swap a bullet for a chocolate bar.

Buchholz is at the church and sees her. After the church closes, he hangs around and confronts her. She tries to bluff it out.

“Why did you shoot her?” “Because I love her too much?” Oh dear God. Another ‘good man’ who ‘snapped’ under the immense pressure of being rejected by a woman. And she’s going to look after him. Isn’t this the same plot as Whistle Down the Wind? At least in that I don’t think he was a murderer. Hayley Mills obviously has a type.

The murder investigation is complicated by the victim, Anya, having another boyfriend, Barclay, who’s a married man, and therefore wanting to avoid being involved. Lots of “Look, old chap” when he’s talking to the Superintendent.

As I predicted, Buchholz and Gillie do indeed start bonding, along with jaunty music. Incidentally, Horst Buchholz is a good name to remember as the one member of the Magnificent Seven that nobody remembers. Top Pub Quiz tip.

There’s a brief uncredited appearance from Glyn Houston as a police officer.

Gillie is found, and brought to the police station. The Superintendent sets up an identity parade, and Gillie picks out Barclay. Things are looking bad for him.

Buchholz gets a job on a ship leaving port soon. Once he’s outside the 3 mile limit, the authorities can’t touch him.

Now Gillie thinks she’s picked someone else, and Buchholz must be safe, she feels safe to explain what she saw. This is a great scene, as she acts out what she saw. But she makes a key mistake when she says they were arguing in Polish. How did she know it was Polish asks the Superintendent.

Superintendent John Mills is now sure that Buchholz was the killer, and there’s a rush to track down where he is. Shots of the ship leaving port slowly are intercut with police officers ringing round to find out which boat he might be on. There’s a rush in cars to get to Barry (this whole movie is set in Wales, which explains many of the accents) to catch a launch to get them to the ship before it leaves the three mile boundary.

They make it to the boat in time, but Gillie won’t identify Buchholz as the man she saw. The superintendent wants to take Buchholz back anyway, as he’s sure he can build a case with other evidence. But the captain of the ship, annoyed at being held up, tells them they’re too late, and the ship is outside the three mile limit.

Gillie runs off onto the deck of the ship, holding them up even more, and wouldn’t you know it – the ship tips heavily (on seemingly still waters) and she falls overboard? Who can possibly save her now? You will be unsurprised to hear it’s Buchholz, and he’s able to bring her safely to the Pilot launch. “Well, you’ve got your man” Buchholz says to the Superintendent. “Yes, and a very brave man” he replies. I guess this is something of a redemption. Readers will be unsurprised to hear that this did make me cry, despite my very real reservations with the arc of the plot and character.

Apart from the central problem of romanticising a murderer of a woman simply because he’s young and good looking, this was rather a great film. Hayley Mills is fantastic, and Buchholz does a good line in tortured youth. The black and white photography is often beautiful, and there’s real tension in the early scenes. If only he weren’t a murderer.

BBC Genome: BBC Two – 3rd August 2000 – 11:00

After this, there’s a trailer for Walking with Dinosaurs and Living With Dinosaurs.

Then, a trailer for Paul Merton’s Room 101 which is riffing off Apocalypse Now and is quite fun.

The tape ends immediately after this.