The first recording today opens with something incredibly exciting – a behind the scenes feature on the making of The Secret Show. But it’s just the very end – only the merest glimpse. We haven’t seen any of The Secret Show on the blog yet, but it was one of our favourites, and I’m looking forward to hitting a seam of them in the future.
The actual recording is Batman – Night and the City. Strictly speaking, it’s The Batman but saying that makes me feel like the kind of annoying comics pedant from the 80s.
Penguin, Joker and Riddler seem to be joining forces, although that kind of thing never lasts.
I honestly couldn’t work out which villain this was supposed to be until he was namechecked. I’m not used to the Riddler being so metal. It doesn’t fit his more usual iterations.
I’m unreasonably annoyed that the logo isn’t centred in the bat symbol.
Gotham PD think Batman is to blame for all the villains, and they also get annoyed that it’s always Batman putting the villains away, so they’d rather like to get rid of him. One of his contacts, Detective Yin (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) urges him to lay low, but he can’t when the villains are active. So Batman tells her to meet him.
Unfortunately, the police chief who isn’t commissioner Gordon catches her making the call, and sets a trap for Batman.
The Penguin’s goons seem to be dress like the Yiga clan in The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild.
Riddler thinks he’s captured Batman and Yen in a rocket, but when it opens, it’s Joker and Penguin.
Commissioner Gordon talks to the chief. “You’re a busy man, Chief. First I receive word you’re unmasking the Batman. Then, poof, you’re on the docks sending half our force to sea.” “Commissioner Gordon, we sighted the bat heading east in an unlicensed watercraft. He has a fugitive in tow.” “So could be the Batman’s on the lam. Or could be he’s on to something about this pickle we’re in.” “You’re not saying you want a vigilante to do police work?” “I’m saying we need to be smart about this. If we stop the Batman now, we may never find out where he’s at.”
The Riddler is hiding out on an oil rig. This is the kind of future we have in store if those Just Stop Oil protesters get their way.
I’m not sure I like the Joker design in this version. The Penguin looks OK, but Joker and Riddler are almost buff, which seems like it goes against their general presentation.
Batman prevails, obviously, and changes the Riddler’s question marks that were all over the city, to the bat signal.
“Gotham Tribunal” seems like a strange newspaper name. “Tribune” maybe, but not Tribunal.
Media Centre Description: Animated adventures from Gotham City. Joker, Penguin and Riddler battle over control of the City. They finally decide to settle their differences by giving all of Gotham over to whoever is able to capture and discover the true identity of the Batman.
Recorded from CBBC Channel on Monday 09 October 2006 17:58
BBC Genome: CBBC Channel Monday 09 October 2006 18:00 (Yes, CBBC Genome listings are still broken)
There’s quite a bit of stuff after this episode. There’s a trail for Raven: The Island
There’s an episode of Newsround featuring North Korean Nuclear Tests, the sentencing of the killers of Damilola Taylor, and a Dolphin with a missing tail. Incidentally, the Editor of Newsround was Tim Levell, who I worked with for a while on a website called iCan, which was supposed to help people with local organising of political and social causes. He later became editor of Blue Peter.
There’s a look ahead at Blue Peter, and a trail for Roar before the recording stops just as an episode of Raven starts.
The next recording today is another episode of Spooks. I’ve missed the start of this, so most of the Previously On is missing.
The UK government is selling a nuclear power plant to Saudi Arabia. The meeting is being monitored by some spies in a van who aren’t MI5. “But the Prime Minister’s determined to make it happen.” “What about the public?” “We managed to sell them a war based on a fairy tale.”
Adam’s nanny Jenny is getting suspicious about his strange hours. “I mean, come on, Adam. I’m not stupid. “Software specialist”? There isn’t a programming book in the house, you only have one laptop and none of the toys I’d expect a real computer geek to have.”
Harry is still missing Ruth.
Saskia Reeves is new to the team, as Sally Bernard. She’s a replacement for Ruth, and she’s working on facial recognition of six men who have arrived in a shipping container, presumably to wreak terror.
As if the presence of a new terrorist cell wasn’t enough, the team also have to look after four Saudi princes. Ros has been tasked to be on the inside, and Malcolm sweeps the rooms for devices. He’s having fun. “Aaah! What a beauty! Russian. Circa late-’70s. See that? It’s a motion sensor. Saves battery. It’s one of the few missing from my collection.”
Adam spots one of the six terror suspects as he leaves the house of a man who worked on the docks, having just killed him. There’s a chase, Adam gets punched in the nose, and the suspect gets away.
Someone’s spying on Sally’s terminal. And that’s a genuine IP address! It even returns pings, today.
It’s the other new person in the office, Neil Sternin. He has worked with Adam before, and there’s obviously a little friction there. He’s on secondment from MI6, having worked with the Saudis. He remotely locks Sally’s terminal as it’s running the facial recognition, then pretends to help her fix it, but he downloads a watch list of Muslim activists. She’s suspicious at some of the things he’s doing and says she’s going to get it properly checked out, but he tells her not to. “I’m working for the Attorney General. We’re running an internal investigation.” “Who are you investigating?” “Harry Pierce and Adam Carter and their links to Ruth Evershed and the Cotterden scandal. I need you to keep quiet about this, Sally. We’ll talk later.”
Malcolm injects a transmitter/receiver next to Ros’s mastoid bone so she can hear them, but nobody else can.
Neil hands over the watch list to one of the terror suspects. “They’ve turned a few of them.” “That will make it easier to distract your colleagues.” “Use the ones closest to the informants. This way they’ll pick up on it.”
Jenny tells Adam she can’t work for him any more, so Adam tells her the truth, that he’s a spy, and how his wife died in his arms. So she stays, and when Adam has another nightmare, she comes to his room, and they end up smooching.
The minister who was arranging the deal for the Saudi nuclear plant receives threats over the deal from an unknown person. They send him video of him with his young children. It’s interesting to see that sending video to mobiles is being used in the show, even in this pre-iPhone era. Harry reassures him they’ll keep him safe.
Ros has to drug the Saudi princes to get access to their laptops. One of them is played by Davood Ghadami, star of Eastenders and Holby City, but I mostly know from when he competed on Strictly Come Dancing.
The other prince is a lot creepier, and expects Ros to have sex with him. She drugs him, but he has a reaction to the drug and starts having a heart attack, which Malcolm tells her to treat with a drink of sugary lemonade. The noise he’s making makes the men outside the room worried and they come in, so Ros has to improvise.
The men on the stolen watchlist have been observed acting suspiciously. Harry thinks the six men from the container have been contacting different local terror cells, and are orchestrating a big attack. Harry calls it Armageddon. We see them preparing for the attack under the instruction of one of the container men.
They spot one of them on CCTV, heading for a nightclub, and are soon in pursuit. Adam tries to talk the man out of detonating, but he goes for the trigger and Zaf shoots him dead. But Adam discovers the explosive vest doesn’t contain explosive, just putty. It was a decoy.
Meanwhile, Ros is working the Trade Centre where the princes are in attendance, when the six container terrorists, posing as waiters, take control of the place and everyone hostage.
Media Centre Description: Drama series about the British Security Service.
BBC Genome: BBC THREE Monday 09 October 2006 22:30
After this, another Torchwood trail, then 60 Minutes news. One of the items is Google buying YouTube “It’s banking on more and more people watching TV online in the future.” They weren’t wrong. Also spot the typo in the rolling news chyron.
There’s a trail for Grime Scene Investigation and The Indestructibles and one for Dog Borstal.
Then there’s the start of an episode of The Real Hustle. Here’s the disclaimer:
VHiStory 