It’s a slightly busier day today, starting with Charlie and Lola – It Wasn’t Me!. This episode comes with a warning – my 23 year old daughter, when she saw I was watching this, said that this was the one episode she couldn’t bear to watch again. Be warned.
Charlie has built a beautiful model of a spaceship. It won first prize, and it’s very special, so he asks Lola not to play with it, because it’s so special.
Charlie goes out to play football with Marv. So Lola plays with her imaginary friend Soren Lorenson. It doesn’t take long for Soren Lorenson to suggest they use Charlie’s rocket in their game. I’m beginning to think he’s a bad influence on Lola.
She tries to get it down from the very extremely high shelf Charlie put it on…
But it falls down and breaks into pieces.
Lola hasn’t quite mastered invisible mending.
“Did you break my rocket, Lola?” “Me? I didn’t break your rocket.” She even denies that Soren Lorenson did it.
But Charlie threatens to tell their parents, so Lola and Soren Lorenson have to discuss what to do.
She tells Charlie about the game they were playing – how they had to take Ellie the Elephant back to Animal Land because the Hyenas were laughing at here, and they got there, but it was such a squish in the rocket that it fell apart. Charlie isn’t convinced and tells his parents about it.
Lola knocks on Charlie’s door, but instead of apologising, she totally throws Soren Lorenson under the bus for the crime. Charlie is having none of it.
But Lola knocks again, and this time she admits it was her, and apologises. Which is all Charlie wanted – for her to tell the truth. And they hug. It’s all about the hugging.
BBC Genome: BBC Two England – Monday 23rd January 2006 – 10:15
Next, it’s another edited recording of Blue Peter, but this edition is at least complete. There’s even a frame of Angellica Bell in a Superman T-Shirt just before the programme starts.
The episode opens with some drummers drumming along with the theme tune – a tie-in with the Music Makers competition that they’re running.
Then, there’s a rather delightful piece looking at the future of watching TV, 80 year since John Logie Baird first demonstrated his television system. The fact that he chose a ventriloquist’s dummy for the demonstration, and wasn’t immediately burned as a witch shows how compelling the idea really was.
There’s a sneaky glimpse of the Sky TV guide which zooms across – with the Sky branding almost erased, to demonstrate a DVR – Sky Plus was almost the only game in town, if you weren’t, like me, prepared to devote a whole PC to your TV recording.
There’s a true bit of history, as Matt demonstrates the BBC Interactive Media Player, or iMP, one of the prototype systems that would eventually evolve into the rather better named iPlayer.
These kind of portable devices you could watch downloaded programmes on. The PSP was touted to become the supreme handheld console and media device – I’ve even seen adverts in this recent run which mention UMD as well as DVD for movies. But it never really took off the way Sony were hoping, and in terms of consoles, I think people preferred the Nintendo DS. I’ve got DVD that came with Edge magazine, covering an E3 from around this time, and both the DS and the PSP were launched, and everyone wrote off the DS, and declared the PSP as the unmissable device. Another example of a long history of people underestimating Nintendo based mostly on hardware specs.
Zoe shows off a TV watch.
Here’s another idea that never really gained traction – it’s a device that you connect to your broadband, and your TV aerial, which can let you watch live TV over the internet from wherever you are.
There’s another prototype which promised you could “search the entire broadcasting world, past and present, and then download whatever you want.” It even lets you see what programmes other people have been watching. Even Liz thinks that might be a problem. “Matt, you’re being a little bit nosey.”
This is all such a lovely snapshot of TV history, here’s the whole piece.
Next, after being trailed for the last few weeks on the programme, Gethin starts his basic training with the Royal Marines. His challenge is to train enough so he can complete a 30 mile hike across Dartmoor in less than eight hours.
Liz introduces todays ‘make’ from the lighting gantry above the studio – Blue Peter always liked showing how TV is made.
It’s how to build your own miniature Blue Peter Studio. This was a fairly elaborate make, but it was quite impressive.
Liz has an announcement – she’s going to be leaving the show after Easter.
BBC Genome: BBC One London – Monday 23rd January 2006 – 17:00
The next recording is from E4 and it’s Smallville: Superman the Early Years – Hidden. We appear to have missed the first two episodes of Season Five, and some momentous happenings, judging by where things are in this episode. Don’t worry, though, dear reader, we will eventually see those two episodes, as I’ve checked, and my Smallville archiving gets a bit insane at points. But that won’t be for a while.
This episode opens in a nuclear missile silo, where a young man is holding the soldiers there at gunpoint and forcing them to initiate the launch. After which he shoots them both, and starts accessing the computer system.
You can tell he’s an elite hacker, because he types commands with one hand like only people in movies ever do.
Then he makes a call – to Chloe, telling her to get out of Smallville, and to tell his story. Because in an hour “Smallville’s going to be finally gone forever.”
Still, never mind – Clark can stop the missile easily. Or can he. Because Clark is human now, waking up next to Lana at home, and stubbing his toe as he rushes to get dressed and leave before the parents wake up. Only you have to get up very early in the Kent House to sneak past Ma and Pa. Lana makes a very swift exit, and Ma and Pa have The Talk with Clark. Clark must be relieved when Chloe turns up to tell them about the strange call she got from Gabriel the one-handed hacker.
Lana gets home to find Lex there. He’s been looking at her pictures, of the spaceship she saw (at the end of the last episode of Season 4 and presumably in the two missing episodes). She tells him off for not believing her.
Clark and Chloe go to Gabriel’s house to find some clues. They find a room filled with information about Meteor Freaks. They wonder why Gabriel’s dad didn’t stop him – then they find his body in the next room.
Lex has the spaceship Lana saw in a research lab. He’s berating one of the scientists for not having made any more progress. I think Elon Musk learned his management style from Lex.
Chloe and Clark know that Gabriel must be in one of the many missile silos strewn across the state, so to lure him out, Chloe stages a car accident and phones him for help. Now why, if she’s able to phone him, and he answers, do they not have the police tracing the signal? This is very reckless.
Lex finds a strange marking has appeared on his spaceship. He goes to visit Lionel who, for reasons we will presumably discover later, is on an asylum, looking a bit milky-eyed. “You’ll never open it. Only he can open it.”
We find out how reckless Chloe is being, when Gabriel turns up on his moped, Clark confronts him, and Gabriel shoots him.
Gabriel bundles Chloe off to the bunker. Lucky for Clark, a farmer heard the shot and found him, so he’s in hospital, and his parents are there.
Gabriel explains his plans to Chloe. He wants to wipe Smallville off the map to get rid of all the meteor freaks. And it was his dad who was obsessed with them first, clearly making a big impression on his son. Until dad was also mutated by exposure, and Gabriel had to kill him.
Lana goes to see Clark, confesses her love for him, he opens his eyes and smiles at her, then his heart stops. As the crash team are using the defibrilator, Lionel’s eyes suddenly clear, and he gets up, smashes the window on his cell, and runs away at super speed. But back at the hospital, Clark is pronounced dead.
Maybe it’s my age, and my concerns have changed, but John Schneider and Annette O’Toole really are the best. The core importance of Clark’s parents to the story was well understood by this show, and part of the reason that the later Man of Steel fumbled this so very badly, despite the excellent casting of Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent.
Back in the bunker, Chloe gets out of the ropes he tied her with, and bashes him with a big stick. Good. But she can’t cancel the missile launch, and he gets up and waves his gun about. They tussle, and the gun goes off, killing him. I’m not sad about that.
Clark wakes up. He’s in the Fortress of Solitude. We’ve missed the whole creation of this, that I knew was coming at the end of Commencement. It’s good that they’ve kept the brilliant design that John Barry came up with for the 1978 Superman, still a high-water mark in the on-screen portrayal of the character, and the crystalline Fortress of Solitude wasn’t, to my knowledge, taken from anything in the comics. Clark is greeted by Jor-El, who is currently inhabiting Lionel Luthor’s body.
Jor-El tells him that yes, he did die, but he’s being brought back. At a cost. “Unfortunately, this… rectification does not come without a price. The life of someone close to you will be exchanged for yours.” Clark doesn’t waver. “No, I would never ask for that.” Jor-El is in dick mode, though. “You already did when you decided to relinquish your powers and disobey me. It was your choice.” “Then just don’t put me back.” “It’s too late.”
Then Clark is transported back to Kansas, in time to see the missile flying. He does a super-jump to grab on to it, manages to pull himself to the top, and pull out the nuclear core. Nice that he knows how these things are put together.
He returns home to his very surprised parents. Sorry to sound like a broken record, but these two are the best.
It is always all about the hugs.
All about the hugs.
Lana returns, and I refer the reader to my previous comments.
Lana has obtained Clark’s medical file. She shows it to Lex. All his tests were completely normal (because, of course, at that time he was human). Perhaps this will stop Lex thinking Clark is different. Yeah.
Lana leaves and Lionel arrives. He’s been reading my blog because his first words are “Aren’t you going to give your old dad a hug?”
Finally, Clark sees Chloe. She tells him he really should tell Lana the truth, but he doesn’t think he can. Then Clark tells her that he should have listened to Jor-El and not given up his powers. “Chloe, I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Recorded from E4 on Monday 23 January 2006 21:00
After this, the recording continues with a bit of live Celebrity Big Brother, which is very dull.
The final recording today – recorded the same time as Smallville so I definitely had two tuners available – starts with a look at what’s on the BBC Channels. Afghan Ladies Driving School – what backward days these were, unlike our enlightened modern times when Afghan women aren’t allowed to work, study, or pretty much everything else.
There’s a trailer for Hotel Babylon and a teaser for Six Nations Rugby.
Then, episode 3 of Life on Mars. Sam is hearing voices from his present, telling him to hang on.
They’re called to a stabbing in a textiles factory, on the future site of Sam’s apartment building.
Sam talks to another man from the factory who knew the victim – he’s played by John Henshaw, who’s also in Johnny and the Bomb a Councillor Seeley.
Gene Hunt thinks that when they talk to the workers outside the factory, “The golden rule in all these cases is the first one to speak did it.” The first to speak is the man Sam was talking to, Ted Bannister. He tells Hunt it must have been robbery.
Back at the station, Hunt is visited by DCI Litton of the Regional Crime squad. There’s clearly a rivalry going between them. Litton is played by Lee Ross, looking a lot older than his early roles, in Press Gang and a Colgate advert that was on one of my oldest tapes.
Sam finds a fresh bloody footprint in the factory.
An eyewitness saw Ted Bannister leaving the factory after the murder, And Hunt has found a bloody shirt in Bannister’s back garden. It’s looking bad for him. Then he tells them that he did it. Sam wants details. Where’s the knife. How did he do it. Bannister gets angry and just keeps saying he did it.
Hunt thinks he’s got the case sewn up, but Sam thinks there’s something else going on, and Ted is covering for someone. He brings Ted’s son Derek to see him in his cell. Ted is more worried about getting the factory reopened than he is about himself.
Forensics come back showing that the victim was killed much earlier than either of the Bannisters left the pub, so it doesn’t seem like either of them could have killed him. Back at the factory, Sam wonders why the belts on one of the machines has been replaced. He realises that the victim was actually killed by a broken belt on the machine. Bannister found the body later and tried to clean it up, as a death in the factory could have got the factory closed.
Then they realise that another case – of stolen shotguns – ties in with this, and there’s going to be a raid on the factory to steal the payroll.
One of the robbers is Bannister’s son. He’s shot in the attack. His father talks to him. “It was down to me. I had to fight.” “You stupid boy! I mean, you’ve got your workmates, your mam and dad, your family. You’re not on your own, nobody is. Not unless you want to be.”
BBC Genome: BBC One London – Monday 23rd January 2006 – 21:00
After this, there’s a trailer for The Virgin Queen and The Bigger Picture with Graham Norton. Then there’s the start of BBC News with Huw Edwards, leading with a Russian claim to have discovered British Spies.
Adverts:
- trail: E4 First Look
- trail: The O.C.
- Motorola PEBL
- Daily Star
- Thomson Local Directory
- Tic Tac
- trail: Supernatural
- Stop Smoking
- Subway
- lastminute.com
- trail: Death Wish Live
- trail: The 100 Greatest Pop Videos
- popi.co.uk
- lastminute.com
- Homebase
- trail: Supernatural
- Teacher Training Agency
- Direct Line
- Zathura in cinemas
- Ryvita Minis
- Neutrogena Visibly Clear
- trail: ER
- trail: Desperate Housewives
- Royal Air Force
- Burger King
- Munich in cinemas
- Oral B Sonic Complete
- Sensodyne
- Pledge Dusters
- Nuts magazine
- Shreddies
- Tango Clear
- trail: E4 First Look
- trail: Second Chance Sunday
- Glade Wisp
- Land Rover Discovery
- Red Bull
- Teacher Training Agency
- trail: It’s a 9 thing
VHiStory 