Media Centre Description: Sci-fi drama series. An ice-cold replica of Commander Koenig takes control of the moon – and orders its destruction.
Recorded from ITV4 on Sunday 6th May 2007 17:58
After this programme, the recording ends as Jim Rosenthal and Barry McGuigan introduce The Best Ever Big Fight Live.
The next recording starts with the end of yesterday’s Doctor Who.
There’s a trail for Gavin and Stacey.
Then, a repeat of Doctor Who Confidential – Monsters Inc although it’s a Cut-Down edition.
Media Centre Description: Behind-the-scenes look at the making of Doctor Who. An episode just wouldn’t be the same without a monster, but the creation of such a beast is never easy, especially when it’s purely computer- generated. There’s a look at some of the prosthetic and CGI monsters created since the series returned in 2005 and an interview with guest star Mark Gatiss.
Recorded from BBC THREE on Sunday 6th May 2007 20:43
There’s a trail for Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive, and 60 Seconds news. Then the recording stops after the start of Bashing Booze Birds which sounds like the world’s stupidest AI was asked to come up with the most BBC Three programme title ever.
The next recording is episode 3 of Kingdom. Trevor Peacock plays fisherman Tom Case, whose trawler is wrecked in an explosion, but the insurance company won’t pay out because he was previously convicted of sinking another boat and claiming on the insurance.
Kingdom’s sister Beatrice spots a man she fancies, and when he turns out to be an artist looking for life models, she signs up. It’s a but creepy, to be honest, as one of the older artists actually faints, and there’s a lot of leering, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is exactly what life drawing classes are like. 70% pervs. The artist, by the way, is played by Paul Kaye, so I’m just waiting for him to be an awful person.
Tony Slattery’s Sidney Snell is being harassed by the council, because he’s preventing them building a car park. They’ve installed a speedbump which goes right up to his front door so he can’t open it.
Kingdom instructs the council to remove the speedbump, which they do, but then erect a 30mph speed sign right outside his door.
Beatrice and her artist friend get it on, in a scene which involves a lot of paint, and which is completely missing from the BritBox version of this episode (as is a bit of swearing earlier).
Kingdom and Lyle talk to Tom Case’s son, also called Tom, and played by Harry Peacock, who is Trevor Peacock’s son. He swears he didn’t see his dad do anything that might have sabotaged the boat. Kingdom is thinking of spending £5,000 on a salvage team to bring up the boat so they could prove there was no foul play. Lyle is very sceptical and thinks Kingdom is being conned.
But despite his scepticism, and his seasickness from their first trip to the site of the sinking, Lyle offers to go diving to the wreck to take pictures which might prove there was no sabotage. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make it to the wreck, and is swept away by a strong current, and ends up on a beach talking to a French family. He’s relieved to discover they are holidaymakers.
Sidney Snell’s speed limit sign is removed, but now he’s in a hole.
Kingdom is approached by the Wallers, whose son Christopher was a good friend of his brother, and whose name was on a driving licence he found in his brother’s house. They want help with a planning application to build a swimming pool. Kingdom is surprised they have so much money, since the father was a milkman, but they tell him the money comes from Christopher’s bank account. “We never knew he planned to leave us money. But we keep getting these installments. Quite unexpected.”
Tom Case is getting desperate, and he visits the headquarters of the insurance company to spray slurry all over it. Which just gets him arrested.
Kingdom decides that he believes Tom Case, and pays for the salvage of the vessel himself. Everyone else thinks he’s mad, and when the investigators find evidence of sabotage, he thinks perhaps his judgement in this case has been misplaced.
Snell’s next trial from the council is a parking restriction outside his house.
Beatrice finds the artist in bed with another woman, so is distraught. Kingdom tries to help her get over it.
Tom Case Jr arrives with £5,000 for Kingdom, having sold his beloved motorcycle. He admits that it was him who sabotaged the boat, and they go to the police station. His father is heartbroken of course. “I just wanted to be on the water with you.” “I’ll be out soon enough.” “I need you now.” Kingdom reassures him. “Mr Case… ..every time you go out to sea look to the land, and one day sooner than you think you’ll see your son.” And yes, dear reader, the hug did have me crying.
Media Centre Description:
Recorded from ITV1 on Sunday 6th May 2007 20:58
After this, the recording stops as the News is starting, leading with the death of a police officer on duty.
Today’s first recording starts with the end of The Cramp Twins.
There’s a trail for Roman Mysteries.
Plus another trail for Dinosapien.
Then, a repeat of Totally Doctor Who. With the wrong Media Centre description.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show for children celebrating the the latest adventures of the Time Lord. Camille Coduri, who plays Jackie Tyler, joins Barney and Liz for a chat. Also, a look at some clockwork droids, and the cadets in Companion Academy get to grips with any old technology.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 5th May 2007 10:28
Then the recording ends with the start of Tracy Beaker.
The next recording starts with the end of Whizz Whizz Bang Bang.
There’s trails for Raven and Roman Mysteries.
Then, yes, another repeat of Totally Doctor Who. With a completely different Media Centre blurb that’s still wrong.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show celebrating the the latest adventures of the last living Time Lord. They look at anything and everything that Doctor Who has inspired children to create and do – from TARDIS-shaped garden sheds to new alien designs, from DIY special effects to new versions of the theme music. There’s also the Companion Academy, in which eight young hopefuls who think they’ve got what it takes to travel with a Time Lord are recruited.
Recorded from CBBC Channel on Saturday 5th May 2007 17:58
After this, a trail for Dinosapien, then the recording stops with the start of The Slammer.
The next recording is an edited recording of Doctor Who – The Lazarus Experiment to no trailers around it, but stick around for something extra.
The Doctor and Martha land somewhere. Martha is excited to see where they’ve gone this time, but she’s very deflated to discover the Doctor has (as he promised back in the first episode) taken her home, just a day after they left. Freema Agyeman is so good in this scene, as the Doctor seems entirely unaware what she’s feeling.
The phone rings, and it’s Martha’s mother, telling her to turn the TV on because her sister Tish is on the news. She’s doing PR for a Professor Lazarus who is holding a press conference. “But I can tell you that, tonight, I will demonstrate a device. With the push of a single button, I will change what it means to be human!”
The Doctor says goodbye to Martha, and leaves. Martha looked so crestfallen I just started crying, despite knowing full well what happens next. Sometimes I think I might be a little bit invested in this show and its characters. But the Tardis fades out, then the music switches to a major key, gets rather triumphant, and the Tardis comes back, and the Doctor pops his head out of the door. “No, I’m sorry. Did he say he was going to change what it means to be human?” Cue titles.
We meet Professor Lazarus and his main investor Lady Thaw. He’s played by Mark Gatiss under a lot of prosthetics. She is played by Thelma Barlow, Mavis off of Coronation Street. At no point in this does she says “I don’t really know” which is a missed opportunity, I feel. They do discuss the safety of the forthcoming demonstration. “I’m confident I’m in no serious danger.” “That’s comforting, Richard, but it wasn’t just you I was worried about. The people in that room will represent billions of pounds’ worth of potential investment. Mr Saxon wants to be sure they’ll like what they see.” “Don’t worry. Our friend will get his money’s worth.” The mysterious Mr Saxon gets a lot of mentions in this episode.
Martha’s sister Tish brings in a guest list, and Lazarus leches over her. “That’s an interesting perfume. What’s it called?” “Soap.”
Martha’s whole family have been invited to the event (except for dad). Martha’s mum immediately goes into defensive mode when Martha introduces the Doctor.
Lazarus presents his experiment. He gets into a machine, and it starts spinning and glowing. Then it starts overloading, and the Doctor has to spring into action to stop a disaster.
Martha pulls the door open, and Lazarus steps out announcing “Ladies and gentlemen, I am Richard Lazarus. I am 76 years old. And I am reborn!” Into young Mark Gatiss in a fetching blond wig.
The Doctor and Martha talk to Lazarus. The Doctor is impressed with the technology, but unsure it’s complete. “You couldn’t possibly have allowed for all the variables.” “No experiment is entirely without risk” replies Lazarus. “The thing nearly exploded! You might as well have stepped into a blender!” says the Doctor. Lazarus and Lady Thaw talk about the commercialisation of the process – she’s very keen to have a go herself – and they bid the Doctor and Martha goodbye, Lazarus kissing Martha on the hand. “Ooh, he’s out of his depth. He’s no idea the damage he might have done” says the Doctor. “So what do we do now?” asks Martha. “Now? Well, this building must be full of laboratories. I say we do our own tests.” Martha shows him her hand. “Lucky I’ve just collected a DNA sample then, isn’t it?”
They find strange things happening in his DNA. “He hacked into his own genes and instructed them to rejuvenate.” “But they’re still mutating now.” “Because he missed something. Something in his DNA’s been activated and won’t let him stabilise. Something’s trying to change him.” “Change him into what?” “I don’t know, but I think we need to find out.”
Lazarus and Thaw discuss their past, in London in the war. Then Thaw says she wants to undergo the process, and Lazarus, being the typical man he is, says “You think I’d waste another lifetime on you?” They argue, and she makes another veiled threat featuring Mr Saxon, but Lazarus responds by transforming into something we don’t yet see, and attacking Lady Thaw.
The Doctor and Martha discover Lady Thaw’s desiccated body and know that something extremely bad is afoot.
They leave Lazarus’ office just as Lazarus (back in human form) arrives, with Martha’s sister Tish, who he’s still hitting on.
The Doctor and Martha go back to the party looking for Lazarus, but Leo tells her he went upstairs with Tish. Martha’s mother wants to talk to them, but they rush off to find Tish, which makes Martha’s mother even less well disposed to the Doctor. A mysterious man comes and hands her a drink. “I think you need one of these.” “Thank you. That’s very kind of you.” “Do you know that man?” “No. He’s a friend of my daughter’s.” “Perhaps she should choose her friends more carefully.” I thought he looked vaguely familiar, and checked to see he’s Bertie Carvel who was in the very good Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
On the roof, the Doctor and Martha find Tish and Lazarus. Martha tries to warn Tish about him. “Every time I find someone nice, you have to try and find fault.” “He’s a monster!” “The age thing’s a bit freaky, but it works for Catherine Zeta Jones!” Missing Lazarus behind her convulsing, collapsing and transforming.
Into an end of level Boss character from Quake 2, by the looks of things. I have to admit that this is one of the less successfully realised CGI monsters in the show at this time. It’s fine, but not great. And I’ve always thought that face looks nothing like Mark Gatiss.
They rush downstairs, but Lazarus follows them to the party, where there’s a lot of panic and general mayhem. Leo gets knocked out by a flying table (I guess to explain why he doesn’t join with Martha and Tish to help the Doctor) and Lazarus snacks on one of the guests. This is a perfectly good design, horrifying enough, but it’s just the rendering isn’t quite there.
The Doctor leaves Martha with the sonic screwdriver, so she’s able to open the security doors and let the panicking guests out, while he draws Lazarus away from the people. There’s some good shot design here.
The Doctor opens up all the gas taps in a lab, and sets off an explosion as Lazarus is chasing him. This is actually David Tennant doing this stunt which looks very scary.
Martha’s mother still doesn’t believe that Martha went off to help the Doctor. “She just met him.” And the mysterious man is there again, telling her that the Doctor is dangerous, and whispering something in her ear.
Still running from Lazarus, the Doctor and Martha end up hiding in Lazarus’s machine to stop him attacking them, but Lazarus activates the machine. Luckily the Doctor has an old trick up his sleeve to save them. “It really shouldn’t take that long just to reverse the polarity. I must be a bit out of practice.” The machine’s effect was reflected to the outside, and when they emerge, they find a dead professor Lazarus lying there, back in his human form.
Back outside, and Martha’s mother gives the doctor a slap, warning him to stay away from her daughter. “Always the mothers! Every time!” But the argument is interrupted when the ambulance taking Lazarus’s body crashes as it’s leaving, and the Doctor, Martha and Tish run off to see what’s happened.
Lazarus has gone to Southwark cathedral. The Doctor tries to reason with him, but tells Martha that if things go wrong, he might have a plan. “If I could get him up into the bell tower somehow, I’ve an idea that might work.”
When he does start transforming, Martha and Tish lure him up to the bell tower while the Doctor finds the Organ loft, and boosts the sound with the sonic screwdriver.
There’s some traditional high-up peril, but the Doctor’s organ recital finally makes Lazarus fall from the tower, finally dead.
Back in Martha’s flat, they’re saying goodbye again. Martha says she doesn’t just want one more trip. She doesn’t want to be a passenger. The Doctor agrees, and they leave in the Tardis again, but as they go, Martha’s mother leaves a message on her answering machine. “Martha? It’s your mother. Please phone me back. I’m begging you, I know who this Doctor really is. I know he’s dangerous. You’re gonna get yourself killed. Please, trust me, this information comes from Harold Saxon himself. You’re not safe.”
Media Centre Description: Time-travelling traumas with the Timelord in the TARDIS. Martha returns home, but has to save her family from the schemes of the monstrous Professor Lazarus.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Saturday 5th May 2007 18:58
I’ve got another recording of this episode (according to its metadata) but what this recording is is the Next Time trailer shown with this episode. Which is quite special because there’s no episode next week (I thought it would be because of football, but no, it’s Eurovision next week).
This is a great trailer, but unfortunately, my attempt to upload it was blocked. There are a couple of versions on YouTube, so here’s one, but it’s in 4:3 so it’s not brilliant. Although the trailer itself definitely is
The next recording starts with a trail for Gavin and Stacey.
Then, Doctor Who Confidential – Monsters Inc which looks at the programme’s history of monsters and aliens.
We hear from director Richard Clark on the set.
Mark Gatiss is delighted to be in the show. Richard Clark says he was very easy to direct because he’s so used to working with prosthetics on the League of Gentlemen.
Neill Gorton explains the process of turning Mark Gatiss into the old Professor Lazarus.
Gatiss’ fellow cast members were fascinated by the old age makeup. “The spots on his hands and veins… The veins. ..on his hands. We were going, “Mark, show us your hands!”
Visual effects Supervisor Barney Curnow explains the process of shooting for a CGI character.
Will Cohen talks about how they tried to give the actors an idea of what the creature will look like.
CG Supervisor Jean-Claude Degara (who does not sound like a Jean-Claude): “The first versions that we did, we took a load of photos of him. We built his head fully in CG. And then, when we put that to the model, it looked too much like a human head stuck on. We had to make him more threatening. We added bits like the mouth that opens up… ..kind of wrinkling up his face till it felt right, like it was sitting nicely on the model.”
The episode goes on to a general discussion about monsters in the show, and where the limits are. Russell T Davies: “There are limits to how graphic you’re gonna make a monster, purely because we’re transmitting at 7pm. And also, it’s not just that. There’s a wholesomeness and a fun to Doctor Who. It’s not the sort of programme in which to do a monster that rips people’s heads off. It’s blood. Blood and literal, physical violence are the things you need to be very careful with. That’s not our area. Other people can do that.”
Sarah Parish talks about being the Racnoss Queen. “It’s extremely uncomfortable. Luckily I’m only here for three days, so that’s about all I could manage, I think. I don’t know how people do films with prosthetics. It’s like being in your own personal hell.”
Mike Crowley talks about the explosive stunt that David Tennant did with the gas explosion.
Stunt co-ordinator Tom Lucy: “This is usually a stuntman’s job, but they asked if I could use David, which made me a little nervous cos it’s your lead actor doing it. I tested it myself.”
The programme even talks to the organist at the cathedral they shot in (which was in Wells, not Southwark). He was also the hand-double for David Tennant.
Media Centre Description: Behind-the-scenes look at the making of Doctor Who. An episode just wouldn’t be the same without a monster, but the creation of such a beast is never easy, especially when it’s purely computer- generated. There’s a look at some of the prosthetic and CGI monsters created since the series returned in 2005 and an interview with guest star Mark Gatiss.
Recorded from BBC THREE on Saturday 5th May 2007 19:43
After this there’s a trail for Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive.
There’s also a trail for Supergrass. Then a segment of 60 Seconds news that is significant because the top story is the abduction of Madeleine McCann. This stopped me cold, because it was (and is) such a huge story, and here it is, just two days after she went missing in Portugal. I don’t have the whole 60 seconds, but this felt like a more historical moment. Slightly annoyed that it cuts off just as a Star Wars related story starts.
Fridays have been quite busy over the last few weeks, and this continues today.
The first recording starts with the end of Extreme Animals.
There’s a trail for Dinosapien.
Then, the next episode of Totally Doctor Who (only one version today, for once).
They have some fun with a Dalek in the studio.
Eric Loren, who played Mr Diagoras, is in the studio.
Team Totally is fun this week, as they have to operate a Dalek. They are assisted by Dalek operator Barnaby Edwards.
Dalek vocal coach Nick Briggs
And Dalek Remote Controller Colin Newman who operates the Dalek’s eyestalk and dome.
There’s more from Kirsten in New York
She goes on a hunt to find a Dalek, and eventually discovers it’s a model Dalek that two fans have been photographing to look life size.
Barney gets to go on location for a future episode, where he talks to Freema Agyeman.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show for children celebrating the the latest adventures of the Time Lord. Camille Coduri, who plays Jackie Tyler, joins Barney and Liz for a chat. Also, a look at some clockwork droids, and the cadets in Companion Academy get to grips with any old technology.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Friday 4th May 2007 16:58
The next recording is another episode of Derren Brown: Trick or Treat. And I’m puzzled slightly as the Channel 4 episode list and iMDB both say this should be a different episode to the one I’ve recorded.
The subject this week is Yshani, a 21 year old student.
When she chooses the Trick or Treat card, this time Derren doesn’t show it to a camera. Which is odd, given how the cards work. So the show doesn’t want to tell us if it’s a trick or a treat.
“Now, I’ve always been a big fan of Pop Idol, so I was excited to learn that Simon Callow had agreed to come on the show.” I love Derren’s introductions. He’s very dry. He gets him to guess a word, which is revealed in a very interesting way.
Back to Yshani. “I know from talking to her that she lacks confidence, and is disillusioned with her college work. This will form the basis for her trick or treat.” Again, not saying which one it is. He asks her if she can play the piano, and she says “Basic” which she demonstrates with a pretty bad rendition of chopsticks.
Derren explains what’s going to happen. “So one week from now, you are going to be giving a concert, a piano recital, at Wigmore Hall, in London. But that is the last time you’ll play the piano between now and then. Forget the piano, forget playing the piano, and focus on the things I tell you.”
I remember this episode getting me quite cross. There’s more hypnosis going on, “and I’m teaching Yshani using six or seven different levels of unconscious learning”.
“After the sessions with Derren, I don’t remember much, don’t think about it. I really haven’t discussed it with my friends. They’re slightly concerned that I am spending hours with a crazy mind-control guy and I don’t remember what’s happening.”
The sessions do feature music. “I start with a rudimentary introduction as to how the notes ‘on the manuscript paper relate to the keys on a piano.”
There’s another New York segment, in which Derren pretends to be a psychic waiter, and is able to guess what the guests want to order. Then he tells some other diners a lot of things about themselves that he ought not to know. It’s all magicians in restaurants these days.
Yshani is asks which card she picked. “I think I picked a treat. I think, it feels like a treat so far.”
The day of the recital comes. Derren has a pep talk.
The audience comes in. There are three musicians playing today, and Yshani is on first. As the start draws closer she’s getting nervous. Derren talks to her again. She says “I… I don’t think I can do it.” “Pardon?” “I just don’t want to do it. Genuinely.” He tries to reassure her. “That nervousness, that adrenalin will… you know, it will aid your performance. You’ll be fine, just trust it, sit down, start playing, it will all come.”
She goes ahead. She starts playing, and stops after a couple of notes. Then, after a short pause, she starts again, and plays the piece beautifully – I think it’s Mozart’s Twinkle Variations, which gets pretty complicated, especially for someone who doesn’t play piano, and hasn’t touched a piano all week.
Afterwards, Derren talks to her. “You did play amazingly and the real reason why you played amazingly tonight is that you have actually played all your life. You have been playing since you were tiny. You have played all your life and you are a very good pianist. The reason why I did this is because when I first spoke to you about playing the piano, you told me that you were, sort of, a little jaded by it, that when you were seven, you were able to play and it was something exciting and powerful and positive and that as you’ve grown up, you’d sort of lost that excitement and lost that connection with.” We see her talking to Derren. “I’m very up and down with it – between getting really inspired and really defeated.”
“All the practice that I have taken you through wasn’t really to teach you how to play the piano in a week, it was to do the opposite of that, it was to undo all the teaching that you had, and to make you forget how to play the piano. From now on, every time you sit down in front of a piano and start playing, your mind will take you back to this day and reconnect you with the excitement you had when you were seven that you lost, growing up. And that was your real treat.” Now we see what she selected. And it was at this point, when I first watched this, that all the anger I was having about how this was so obviously fake completely went, and I was crying.
“Thank you for trusting me and doing it because I know in your head, you’d never played before and that was so brave and you were fantastic. Thank you so much. I am so proud of you. You’ve got an amazing talent.” “Thank you.”
Media Centre Description: Psychological illusionist Derren Brown involves members of the public and celebrity guests in a fiendish version of the Halloween game. Derren teaches a woman to play concert-standard piano in just two weeks, does psychic readings in a New York restaurant and actor Simon Callow is the latest celebrity to fall under his influence.
Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 4th May 2007 22:00
After this the recording stops after a few minutes of Peep Show.
The next recording today is Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights.
It’s singles night at the Phoenix, which is a bit of a sad affair. But Brian has a meet-cute with a woman called Beverley when he runs over her foot.
What says romance more than a bout of Paintball?
Brian sings “Wind Beneath My Wheels” at Karaoke.
Brian plans an evening of romance, which starts with him giving Beverley his mother’s pearl necklace, offering her a toblerone, and showing off his Jukebox. The evening ends with a kiss.
Brian invests in a water bed, and he and Beverley go up to try it out. But Beverley has a confession. He didn’t run over her foot when they met. She was there working for the DWP, investigating possible fraudulent benefits claims. So Brian asks her to leave.
Media Centre Description: Sitcom set in a northern social club. It’s singles night in the club, and love could be in the air for Brian Potter.
Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 4th May 2007 23:03
After this, the recording stops after a few minutes of Transmission.
The next recording starts with the end of some snooker.
Media Centre Description: Classic sci-fi series. The crew of the USS Enterprise are forced to put well-earned holiday plans on hold. After a strenuous mission, Captain Kirk receives orders to investigate the disappearance of a Vulcan-manned spaceship in the solar system of Gamma VII A. When the search uncovers a malevolent force that is threatening the entire universe, Spock is called upon to make the supreme sacrifice.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 5th May 2007 01:23
After this there’s a trail for Supergrass – not the Comic Strip comedy but a police drama.
There’s also a trail for The Seven Ages of Rock.
Then the next episode starts.
Which brings us to the last recording today, which starts with the end of the previous episode (I do like having multiple tuners for the Media Centre).
The next episode is Star Trek – A Private Little War. I definitely didn’t like this one when I looked at it on a tape.
Media Centre Description: Sci-fi drama series. Kirk’s reunion with an old friend on the planet Neural is overshadowed by a threat from the Klingons, which leaves the Captain contemplating a breach of Starfleet’s standing order of non-intervention in order to help a beleaguered race.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 5th May 2007 02:13
After this, there’s a trail for Supergrass and the creepy Dot Cotton trail for Eastenders.
Then the recording ends after a couple of minutes of Malcolm in the Middle.
I noticed, in the trail for Transmission, Lauren Laverne introduces her guests as Paddy McGuinness and Leigh Francis – so not specifically in character for once, which is unusual.
Today’s first recording starts with the end of Police Camera Action, as Alistair Stewart breathlessly narrates some police traffic footage.
Then another episode of Criss Angel Mindfreak – Celebrity Minds.
His first subject is Vince Neil of Motley Crue. They go in separate lifts, and he has to write a number, a word, and draw something, and Criss has to duplicate it in a different lift.
Vince’s girlfriend Lia Gerardini goes with Criss in his lift to ensure no funny business.
They do all their planning for the illusions on this show on nice sofas in the middle of their production office.
He makes a chosen card appear in Ice Cube’s wallet.
He does a newspaper prediction trick with voice artist of the rich and famous Robin Leach.
He hands out flyers to people which make them faint.
Then he makes an entire restaurant of people faint under hypnosis.
One of his consultants, Luke Jermay (who’s a Brit) sports a fetching hat.
At least this episode had a few well done prediction effects, but once again, the hypnosis stuff really does leave me thinking everyone’s just pretending. I’d like to be proved wrong…
Media Centre Description: Self-styled extreme entertainer Criss Angel is on a quest to bring magic to the lives of his audience in a series of amazing feats that challenge the traditional concepts of magic and illusion. Criss reads the minds the minds of celebrites, including Ice Cube, Vince Neil, Mark McGrath and Robin Leach.
Recorded from ITV4 on Wednesday 2nd May 2007 23:38
This recording ends with the start of World Poker Tour in which celebrities play poker.
The next recording starts with the end of Movie Rush.
Then, we have Piranha. It’s a film I looked at on one of my tapes. Surprisingly, for an entry written in 2014, I wrote quite a bit about it, and I definitely liked it, so here’s that review with some freshly captured images.
A Roger Corman production clearly conceived as a quick knock-off of Jaws, but when a film is written by John Sayles and directed by Joe Danté, it’s likely you’ll get something interesting. It starts off with a very cheeky nod to Citizen Kane.
Two teenagers break into a strange facility in the middle of nowhere, and decide to go swimming in the large pool there. Naturally, they are not alone in the pool.
Heather Menzies plays an investigator hired to search for the missing teenagers, and she recruits Bradford Dillmann, a grumpy loner with a drink problem, to help her.
They soon discover the facility where the teenagers disappeared – she’s a very good investigator, clearly – and discover lots of strange things in the lab. There’s some nice stop-motion here.
They find the teenagers’ belongings, and Menzies decides they must have drowned in the big pool, so they start draining it, when they are attacked by the custodian of the facility, played by Corman regular Kevin McCarthy, who clearly doesn’t want the pool drained. “They’ll kill us, they’ll kill all of us” he says, but never anything actually useful, so the mystery continues.
We learn that Dillmann is divorced, and his daughter is staying at the summer camp further down the river, run by another Danté regular Paul Bartel.
Dillmann and Menzies have to get McCarthy downriver, but their Jeep is crashed, so naturally their only option is to raft down the river.
McCarthy explains what was happening at the lab – Army experiments to breed killer piranha which can survive in the cold rivers of the US – and Dillmann realizes that if they don’t get to the dam lower down the river, the piranha will be released into the lower lake, where the summer camp and a new resort are waiting.
McCarthy makes a heroic but incomprehensibly pointless sacrifice when he jumps into the river to save a young boy trapped on a capsized canoe, leading to a very tense scene where the raft is being nibbled apart with four people on it.
But they do make it to the dam, just in time to stop it being opened. But that’s not the end of the story, and now the Army turn up, with Piranha expert Barbara Steele in tow – you can tell she’s an expert because she pronounces the word ‘Piranya’.
And yet another Danté (and Corman) regular Dick Miller plays the Murray Hamilton role of the owner of the new resort having their opening day gala.
While Dillmann races to save his daughter in a stolen police car…
…the piranha reach the summer camp, and there’s a quite nasty scene of carnage. The kids are all on the water in rubber rings, taking some merit badge or other. Dillmann’s daughter is scared of the water and refuses to swim, because she somehow knows there are creatures in the water, but when the other children and the camp counsellors start being attacked, she takes to the water in a dinghy to help rescue them.
In the same scene, Paul Bartel, who has, up until now been an officious, pompous blowhard, braves the piranhas to rescue as many children as he can. This is just one of many small character moments which help elevate this film from a campy, schlocky rip-off to a well-rounded thriller that works entirely on its own terms.
It’s also a film packed with great roles for women. Menzies takes the lead in almost all situations, rarely having to leave all the action to Dillmann, although the scene where she distracts a guard by flashing her chest betrays the film’s exploitation heritage. Amusingly, the soldier she’s trying to distract is played by writer John Sayles.
Dillmann’s daughter is shown as brave and resourceful. Barbara Steele is the expert. Even the female teenager at the beginning is the one taking charge. In a genre where women are often relegated to just being victims, it’s another thing that makes this so much better than it could have been.
Piranha really works. It’s clever and knowing, but without lapsing into full-blown parody. So when it does get nasty – and it definitely does – there’s true jeopardy and menace, and it doesn’t fail to deliver the blood. It shows the respect that Danté and Sayles have for the genre that they take their responsibilities to scare the audience seriously.
The effects were handled by some now-familiar names. Phil Tippett did the stop motion creatures at the start (which never reappear) and Rob Bottin, Robert Short and Chris Walas worked on the many Piranha attacks. And the score, while not quite matching up to John Williams’ iconic Jaws score, is a typically lush and rich Pino Donnagio score.
In the ‘clever and knowing’ category, I’d put the scene where a speedboat collides with another boat, and both explode.
And the TV news reporter intoning “Lost River Lake. Terror. Horror. Death. Film at 11.”
It even leaves things wide open for a sequel, but in the event, nobody involved with the original had anything to do with the eventual sequel, which marks the directorial debut of James Cameron, but not one he lists on his CV.
Media Centre Description: Tongue-in-cheek ‘Jaws’ spoof in which shoals of specially bred killer fish are accidentally released into a river, putting the community – and a nearby summer camp – at risk. The trouble starts when a female detective on a missing-persons hunt comes upon a suspicious pool at a deserted army base and decides to drain it. An affectionate creature-feature with an all-star B-movie cast and a script from John Sayles.
Recorded from Film4 on Thursday 3rd May 2007 00:33
After this, the recording stops after a few minutes of another movie – Star Maps.
Today’s recording starts with the end of Derren Brown – Trick or Treat.
Then the next episode of Peep Show. Mark has got a personal trainer.
Nancy, Jez’s ex, is also working at the Gym. “So what have you been up to?” “I was supposed to hang out with these Belgian nuns but then I got waylaid and ended up on crystal meth assistant-managing the IMAX in Bradford.”
Mark bumps into Jez setting fire to a postbox because he’s sent something to Big Suze that he regrets.
Mark has Massage Anxiety.
Jez gets a job at the gym so he can see Nancy again.
Nancy fancies Matt, Mark’s trainer and a judo instructor, and asks Jez to put in a good word. These aren’t good words. “I’ve got a message from Nancy on reception.” “The gorgeous blonde?” “Yeah, she says she’s seen you looking at her and she thinks you’re disgusting.” “Oh, shit.” “Yeah. She says you stare at her like a sex offender. And if you keep doing it, she’ll call the police.”
Nancy thinks Jez fancies another woman at the gym, but he’s only interested in Nancy. To this end, he’s put some weights on the flotation tank that Eva was using, and she started to panic.
“Ugh. Why do they have to park the bikes right in front of the sexualiser?”
Mark and Jez want to get rid of Matt, so Jez does a poo in the pool, and they say Matt did it. Then Mark says he touched his penis. So the manager calls Matt into the office to hear the accusations.
Matt is sacked, but at a Judo session, he turns up. Matt and Jez bravely stand up to him. Only kidding.
Media Centre Description: Comedy series about two socially dysfunctional losers. Mark is having doubts about marrying Sophie so joins a gym in order to spend time away from her, but it soon transpires that his personal trainer takes exercise extremely seriously. Jeremy discovers his ex-wife Nancy has started working at the gym so takes a job as a cleaner to try to get back with her, but his former partner takes a shine to trainer Matt.
Recorded from E4 on Tuesday 1st May 2007 22:58
After this, there’s the start of an episode of Scrubs.
The first recording today is An Awfully Big Adventure – Kenneth Grahame – a look at the life of the author of The Wind in the Willows.
Terry Jones has not only directed an adaptation, but also played Mr Toad.
Griff Rhys Jones describes these books as a holiday.
Alan Bennett has voiced Mole before.
Alison Prince describes his early life in Scotland.
His life was fairly tragic. He regretted his marriage, and his son, over whom the parents doted, was a rather unpleasant young child, further ruined by being sent to Rugby school, and who eventually killed himself by lying on train tracks.
Here’s the whole thing, but there’s a segment at the end which is muted because of some music that’s not allowed on YouTube. Here’s the missing voiceover:
In their final years, the Grahams wandered the continent. Elspeth seems to have made a recovery from the weak nerves which affected her until Mouse’s death, and she took control of the husband who appeared a broken man.
“Kenneth had 10 years left to live and it was a process of simply going through the motions. They sat on the porch and drank port out of paper cups.”
The Grahams returned to Pangbourne for his last years and lived in a house by the banks of the Thames, where Kenneth could sit and watch the river.
“I feel strangely tired, Rat. As if I’d been through something very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over. And yet nothing particular has happened.”
“It’s lucky we’ve got the stream with us to take us home. And hark to the wind playing in the weeds.”
At the age of 73, Kenneth Graham died in his sleep and is buried beside his son.
“I think it was unutterably tragic. I think this was a man who would much rather have been loved by a woman and had children and been taught how to be loving to them than have ever written a single word.”
“Kenny’s life was not a total tragedy, and he had that satisfaction of knowing that he’d done something absolutely notable. He saw it become popular with children and with adults all over the world, and one can still read The Wind in the Willows now, as an adult, and wonder at it.”
Media Centre Description: Series about the lives and work of six great figures in children’s literature. This programme looks at the life of the creator of The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame. It analyses the events which shaped Grahame’s life, his thwarted ambition and personal tragedy.
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Monday 30th April 2007 18:58
After this, there’s the start of a short programme, Diary of a Nobody featuring Hugh Bonneville.
The next recording starts with the end of The World.
There’s Weather, and a trail for The Edwardians and Maxwell.
Alfredo Perl performs a Chopin prelude.
Then there’s a trail for Diary of a Nobody.
Then, episode 3 of The Phoenix and the Carpet.
The children have to get the carpet back from the horrible Mrs Biddle (Gemma Jones). One of them pretends unsuccessfully to be a fortune teller.
They try pretending to be Totters.
When they finally get into the house, one of them wishes that Mrs Biddle was nice, and she suddenly is, and they get the carpet back.
Next day, they take the Phoenix out to see the town. They meet Christopher Biggins.
There’s some top class street urchin acting, as three ne’er do wells steal the bag with the Phoenix in it, then sell it to a pet shop owner who wants 20 Guineas for it.
Media Centre Description: Children’s classic drama series, from the pen of E Nesbit. Now that the dreadful Mrs Biddle has the magic carpet, can the children get it back?
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Monday 30th April 2007 20:28
The first recording today starts with the end of an episode of The Royal.
Then, the next episode of Kingdom. This was a content advisory I wasn’t expecting to see for this show (from BritBox).
I can assure the reader that there were no scenes of zombie violence in this episode, unless you count Hermione Norris’s character wantonly shredding conveyancing documents.
A woman called Aeste asks for Kingdom’s help getting her baby back. It’s been taken by a local farmer, Jack Thriplow. But she doesn’t want the police involved.
Thriplow is played by Steve Pemberton, who says he’s the father, and his name is on the birth certificate. “But you don’t deny you took the child?” “No. Most fathers would have done the same. She walked out, went to live on the streets. What am I meant to do? Have any idea how cold it is outside at 3:00am?”
Kingdom has to explain the local sport of Dyke Jumping to his clerk, Lyle. Someone has delivered the wrong type of poles.
Aeste trashes the strawberry stall in the town square, so she’s arrested. Her interrogation doesn’t go well. “These identity papers are false, aren’t they? You’re not Estonian at all, are you? If you were, you could and work here under EU regulations, no problem. But you’re Ukrainian.” “Don’t answer that.” “Yes. I’m from the Ukraine.” “And do you have a visa? A work permit?” “That you mustn’t answer.” “No. No visa. No permit.” “In which case, I’m afraid… ..you will be deported.”
Kingdom puts her up in his missing brother’s house in the meantime. There’s some post there, one of which looks a little threatening. “Simon Where’s my money?”
He also receives a DVD in the mail – some porn, with Aeste on the cover. He knows who it’s from so he goes to visit Thriplow. “I learnt another thing, too. 30 people sleeping on mattresses, all paying £50 a week. That’s a lot of money.” “They work for me. I help provide accommodation.” “Oh, quite the little philanthropist! That’s what? £1,500 a week for a stinking hovel that’s hardly worth £500 a month. You really pay with one hand, and take back with the other, don’t you? Did I tell you about my friend who works for the Department of Health, overseeing the suitability of rented accommodation? No? Oh, yes, very close we are. Having lunch with him tomorrow. Unless, for some reason, I see fit to cancel the appointment.”
Kingdom’s clerk, Lyle is really creepy. We see him from a distance as he checks up on Aeste, and he actually leans in for a kiss. He’s gross.
A man looking textbook shifty watches as Lyle leaves, then bangs on the door shouting “I know you’re in there. Simon Kingdom, you’re a dead man.”
Kingdom’s sister is acting like a ten year old. This is the oddest characterisation I’ve seen in a long time. There’s no suggestion she has anything like learning difficulties, although Kingdom’s aunt does say earlier in the episode “Why do you suppose she behaves like a spoilt child? Because she’s never had a normal family life. Shipped from one institution to another. She needs attention. She never got it from your father and step-mother.” Still, she’s irritating me.
Kingdom meets the man who’s looking for his brother. He’s a shady bookmaker who’s owed a lot of money, and he says he’s not the only one.
He gets Aeste a visit with her child.
“If she was from an EU country or married to a British citizen, things would be very different” muses Kingdom, at which point Lyle sees his opportunity, and tries to propose to Aeste. Kingdom thinks it’s a terrible idea. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Take a cold shower! Go online or something. I will not have you bogusly marrying our clients.”
But Lyle insists, and Kingdom asks Aeste what she wants to do.
Kingdom breaks the news about the forthcoming nuptials to the bad farmer.
Lyle gets stood up. Kingdom says “You’re the first man never to have taken advantage of her. Perhaps she didn’t want to do that to you.” has he not been watching this episode? Lyle gives himself away, though. Gloria says “There are more fish in the sea.” Lyle replies “Yeah. But not ex porn stars.” Yuck.
Kingdom talks to Aeste and tells her that he’s filed papers with the European court to argue her case, so she’ll be staying in the country for a while.
Lyle has demonstrated an aptitude for Dyke Jumping, and been entered into the competition. At first he’s dejected, but then he sees Aeste and the baby on the other side, and jumps, but ends up in the dyke.
Clearing some things from Simon’s house, Kingdom comes across a driver’s licence for a Christopher Waller. He recognises it as the name of one of Simon’s clients. But he also finds the name on a gravestone near Simon’s house.
Media Centre Description: Aeste, a young woman from Eastern Europe, arrives in distress at Peter’s office. Her baby has been stolen and she accuses her former employer, Jack Thriplow – a local farmer – of taking her child. Peter discovers that Thriplow has been exploiting immigrant workers – which is what drove Aeste onto the streets. Beatrice continues to cause havoc. As Peter tries to find out more about the call which came through on Simon’s mobile, he learns that his brother owed money to many people.
Recorded from ITV1 on Sunday 29th April 2007 20:58
The next recording is the last episode of Superstorm. At first I thought I hadn’t recorded this, but it just turns out I can’t count to three.
Hurricane Grace is heading to New York. The Office of Emergency Management is mobilising evacuation plans. Leading this effort is Josie Abrams – Dan Abrams’ wife. I wonder if this is why their scene in the previous episode was so fractious. She’s having to clean up a mess that might have been caused by her husband.
Back at the shut down Project Stormshield, they’re wondering what to do. “New York hasn’t been hit by a hurricane since 1938. It’s not designed to withstand a storm like this. The concrete canyons will amplify the wind speed. The bridges are all exposed. A category three hurricane hitting New York is equivalent to a category 5 hitting anywhere else. It’s never happened. City’s not ready for it.”
Sara accuses Lance of being the one who gave the coordinates to Katzenberg. Dan says it wasn’t him, but won’t say who he thinks it was. “We don’t need a witch hunt right now.”
Throughout this programme, we’ve had segments of an interview with Sara, obviously done after the fact, in which she’s denying that Stormshield was responsible for the catastrophe. But for the first time, we can see that Katzenberg is in the studio watching the interview.
Dan calls his wife Josie at the Office of Emergency Management. “Did you do this?” “I can’t talk about this, Josie. Not yet.” “A lot of people are going to die.” “I know.” “I just want to know. My husband didn’t kill them.” “It’s just not as simple as that.”
They can’t get official permission from Katzenberg but he gives an unofficial go ahead. Sara goes up with the seeding aircraft. At one point it looks like they might suffer the same fate as the earlier flight, but they make it through unscathed, and initiate the seeding process.
Munish is looking a screens of text and looks worried, although it looks like the output of compiling a screensaver, so I’m not sure that’s so bad. But as Lance describes how bad conditions are going to get in New York, and in Long Island where they are, he’s starting to have flashbacks to his childhood trauma in Pakistan.
We see Dan and Josie’s daughter at home with their babysitter, worrying about whether she should take her unicorn into the bathroom, where they’re sheltering.
Dan decides to walk to his home from the OEM to check on the children. This is supposed to be one of the world’s experts on hurricanes. And he goes out on the streets when this is happening to the city.
The storm causes a lot of damage at the Stormshield lab. Lance’s poor computer!
Munish, another of these experts in storms, goes outside to look at the storm, and is killed by lightning.
There’s a lot of water on the streets as Dan is still trying to make it home.
After the storm passes, Josie makes her way home, looking at the devastation. Her children seem unhurt.
But her babysitter was hit in the face when a window exploded into the house.
Dan never made it home.
Katzenberg goes on TV and basically takes whatever glory there is in slightly reducing the damage from a hurricane, although it still looked pretty bad to me, and nobody mentions that it wouldn’t have hit New York at all if he hadn’t diverted Hurricane Grace from Miami.
We get to the end of Sara’s TV interview. She’s asked “Everything that you have told us here tonight suggests that the technology Storm Shield has pioneered is incredibly powerful. Now, if you are not convinced that those who ultimately hold the power can be relied upon to use it responsibly, then the public has a right to know. This is your chance to tell them the truth, Doctor Hughes.” And the programme ends before she gives an answer. Which feels like a cop out to me.
Media Centre Description: Futuristic drama series which follows a team of scientists as they investigate ways of diverting and weakening storms. The team have inadvertently created a superstorm which is now heading for New York. Being the world’s largest financial centre and home to over 8m people, there is no realistic possibility that they can evacuate the city in time. The team must decide if they dare intervene again, seed the storm to try to weaken it or nudge it off course.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Sunday 29th April 2007 21:00
After this there’s a trail for Dalziel and Pascoe.
One for Panorama – Midwives Undercover.
A trail for Inside Sport.
A trail we’ve seen before for Hustle, and a very messianic trail for Holby Blue.
Then there’s the start of the 10 O’Clock News, leading with another British solider killed in Iraq, and concerns over Prince Harry’s safety in combat.
The final recording today starts with a trail for Maxwell.
Then, the last episode in the series of The Science of Superstorms – Storms and Cities.
Dr Jeff Donnelly is not, as the picture might imply, a master of the digeridoo. He’s an expert in Paleotempestology, looking at cores of soil to see signs of past hurricanes.
Greg Kopp is researching the effect of hurricane force winds on windows.
The Office of Emergency Management is a real organisation. I thought it might have been made up, but that’s mainly because the acronym is OEM.
Here’s the whole programme.
Media Centre Description: The third of three films exploring the science behind weather modification. This episode explores future developments in weather modification, including methods to stop a superstorm destroying New York City.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Sunday 29th April 2007 22:00
Happy New Year! And to mark this, how about a complete break from the usual? Just kidding, it’s a day full of Doctor Who.
The first recording today starts with the end of The Underdog Show.
There’s a trail for Shaun the Sheep and an ad for the CBBC website.
Then, another repeat of Totally Doctor Who.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Kirsten O’Brien look at everything Doctor Who with exclusive behind-the-scenes clips, and the next instalment of exclusive Doctor Who animation, The Infinite Quest. There are chats with Miranda Raison, who plays dancing girl Tallulah, and writer Helen Raynor, whilst Team Totally take on a choreography challenge.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 28th April 2007 10:28
After this, an ad for the CBBC Red Button service and a trail for Extreme Animals. Then the recording stops after a few minutes of Tracy Beaker.
The next recording is yet another repeat of Totally Doctor Who. I really wasn’t taking any chances with these. I’ve got two copies of each recording too.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Kirsten O’Brien look at everything Doctor Who with exclusive behind-the-scenes clips, and the next instalment of exclusive Doctor Who animation, The Infinite Quest. There are chats with Miranda Raison, who plays dancing girl Tallulah, and writer Helen Raynor, whilst Team Totally take on a choreography challenge.
Recorded from CBBC Channel on Saturday 28th April 2007 17:58
This is followed by the start of another repeat of The Underdog Show.
The next recording is Doctor Who – Evolution of the Daleks. The Doctor talks to Dalek Sec, now merged with Mr Diagoras. “I feel… everything we wanted from mankind, which is… ambition… hatred, aggression. And war! Such a genius for war!” No. That’s not what humanity means.” “I think it does! At heart, this species is so very Dalek.” So then the Doctor talks about music. “Oh, with music, you can dance to it, sing with it, fall in love to it. Unless you’re a Dalek, of course. Then it’s all just noise.” Then he uses the sonic to make a high-pitched noise, to distract them enough that the humans can escape.
Two of the daleks have a conversation, not a common thing on the show. “What is your opinion of Dalek Sec?” “We were created to follow him.” “But you have…doubts?” “Affirmative.” I love the way the second dalek looks behind himself before talking, in case someone is listening. Nice touch.
Back in Hooverville, the Doctor tries to persuade Solomon to get everyone to leave and hide, as the Dalek will be coming to capture them for processing. But it’s too late, and the Pig Men arrive, then some flying daleks.
Solomon makes a big speech, asking the Daleks for compassion. It doesn’t work, and he’s exterminated, but Dalek Sec gasps at this when he sees it.
The Doctor tells the daleks to kill him, if it will save the other humans. Sec stops the dalek from doing this, saying they need his genius. Before he leaves with the dalek, he asks Martha to stay there and help the injured, but he also passes his psychic paper to her and winks.
Dalek Sec shows the Doctor what they’ve been doing. They’ve got hundreds of humans with their minds wiped, ready to receive new programming. Sec thinks that lack of emotions is a weakness for Daleks, and believes a combination of Human and Dalek will be a good thing. This is why they’re changing the antenna on the top of the Empire State. There’s a solar flare coming which they’ll use to power the conversion.
The Doctor offers to help Sec. He talks to Laszlo. “Laszlo…I can’t undo what they’ve done to you. But they won’t do it to anyone else.” Laszlo asks about Dalek Sec. “Do you trust him?” “I know that one man can change the course of history. The right idea, in the right place, at the right time – that’s all it takes. I’ve got to believe it’s possible.”
Martha, Tallulah and Frank have used the psychic paper to get into the Empire State, and Martha is looking at the plans to see if she can discover what the Daleks have changed. They also talk about The Doctor and Laszlo. “Listen, if the Doctor’s with Laszlo now, there’s every chance that he could get him out.” “And then what? Don’t talk crazy. There’s no future for me and him. Those Dalek things took that away. The one good thing I had in my life, and they destroyed it.”
The other Daleks disobey Sec’s command, and stop the gene splicing technbabble that he and the Doctor were working on. I confess I might not have been paying attention to this part of the plot.
The Doctor and Laszlo get away, and get to the top of the building to find Martha and Tallulah, but the Daleks and pig slaves are coming. The Doctor climbs the antenna to disconnect it, but drops his sonic.
Martha rigs up some pipes to conduct a lightning strike into the lift, to destroy whoever’s coming up.
The Doctor, unable to dismantle the Dalek antenna, grabs hold of it as the lightning strikes.
Martha’s conductor does the job.
The Daleks prepare their new Human Daleks for invasion.
The Doctor has to distract the Daleks from their invasion so he draws them to the theatre. This reimagining of Starlight Express looks a bit grim.
They finally kill Dalek Sec.
But the new Human Daleks won’t kill the Doctor, because he got in the way of the lightning. “Time Lord DNA got all mixed up. Just that little bit of freedom.” They fight back against the Daleks. But the one remaining dalek triggers a destruct, and all the hybrids are killed.
The Doctor faces the last Dalek, Dalek Caan. He offers him compassion, but the Dalek triggers an emergency temporal shift.
Laszlo is dying. The pig slaves only last a few weeks.
But the Doctor has a whole genetic laboratory at his disposal. So Laszlo gets better. And Frank talks to the people in Hooverville. “Well, I talked to them. I told them what Solomon would’ve said. And I reckon I shamed one or two of them.” “What did they say?” “They said yes. They’ll give you a home, Laszlo. I mean, er…don’t imagine people ain’t gonna stare. I can’t promise you’ll be at peace. But in the end, that is what Hooverville is for – people who ain’t got nowhere else.”
So it’s a happy ending for Tallulah and Laszlo, sort of.
Media Centre Description: As a new Dalek Empire rises in 1930s New York, the Doctor must enter an unholy alliance.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Saturday 28th April 2007 18:43
Then, the recording stops after a few minutes of Any Dream Will Do. There’s ten Josephs left, and here they all are. This opening must have been tense in the gallery, as they have to cut between close-ups of all the Josephs, in the right order, and make sure the right caption is showing for the phone vote. How many of these do you remember? Some very 2000s haircuts. Who was your favourite? And don’t phone now as your vote will not count and you may still be charged.
The final recording tonight starts with the end of The Real Hustle looking at card counting in blackjack.
There’s a trailer for the real Hustle. And for Annually Retentive.
Then, it’s Doctor Who Confidential – Making Manhattan. In the intro, we learn the truth about the mystery that I’ve been pondering for the last week, as Russell says, in the opening, “but we ended up sending an effects crew and the director, James Strong, and Confidential over to New York where they got the right angles. They just got beautiful, clean shots of the Statue of Liberty, shots of Central Park, that sort of stuff.” So I would assume that Helen Raynor and Kirsten O’Brien probably went on the same trip, so they could all double up on hotel rooms, or whatever the BBC did to save money.
Director James Strong, Producer Phil Collinson, Visual Effects supervisor Dave Houghton all got to make the trip to New York, to film background plates which the effects team can use to create their 1930s New York backdrops.
David Tennant had to make do with Wales. “Sorry, sorry, could I just point out…? Our lovely producer, Phil, and our director, James, and our visual effects man, Dave, and some of the Doctor Who Confidential crew all got a nice weekend in Manhattan… We are in a car park at Penarth Leisure Centre! Draw your own conclusions.” “I’m ashamed!” “And a local dog just wee’d on the TARDIS.”
Back in the studio, Dave Houghton supervises the greenscreen shooting to put actors into the matte paintings they’ve created from their location shoot.
Edward Thomas talks about all the art deco influences on various Doctor Who stories.
Danny Hargreaves explains how they create a nice big fireball.
Watch it on iPlayer below.
Here it is on YouTube.
Media Centre Description: Behind-the-scenes look at the making of Doctor Who. There’s a trip to to Manhattan to find out how to recreate 1930s New York in the heart of south Wales. The producer and director of episodes four and five visit the New York locations they plan to reproduce and the visual effects supervisor shows what they need to make Manhattan in Cardiff.
Recorded from BBC THREE on Saturday 28th April 2007 19:28
The first recording today starts with the end of The Likeaballs.
There’s a trail for Extreme Animals.
Then, a new episode of Totally Doctor Who. There’s some dancing girls, and Barney is wearing the little angel wings (and a Yoda T-Shirt – interesting choice).
Miranda Raison is in the studio.
Kirsten is in New York, visiting the Empire State Building. I wonder if this was at the same time that Helen Raynor visited in Confidential, to save money on the crew.
Talking of Helen Raynor, she’s in the Blue Box Cafe to talk about the episode.
Team Totally sees the two teams having to devise movements for the pig men, guided by choreographer Ailsa Berk.
Who Goes There is another easy one to guess – although younger viewers might be misled by the pig men in the most recent episode.
There’s a rather strange feature where Helen Raynor and two of the audience improvise a bit of a story with some random props. Helen starts by saying Martha sits on a sofa that then eats her and turns her into an egg. Then young Jeffrey says “Well, Martha’s gonna go over to the toilet, into the toilet, flush the chain and she’s now scrambled egg.” How do you “Yes and?” that? He just wanted to use the toilet prop no matter whether it was appropriate.
Helen draws a clue for the next episode.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Kirsten O’Brien look at everything Doctor Who with exclusive behind-the-scenes clips, and the next instalment of exclusive Doctor Who animation, The Infinite Quest. There are chats with Miranda Raison, who plays dancing girl Tallulah, and writer Helen Raynor, whilst Team Totally take on a choreography challenge.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Friday 27th April 2007 15:58
Then the recording stops after a few minutes of Extreme Animals.
The next recording is a repeat showing of Totally Doctor Who. It starts with a trail for CBBC Saturdays. Then an edition of Newsround featuring whether young people should be able to drink alcohol at home, and Stephen Hawking in zero gravity.
There’s also a trail for Shaun the Sheep.
Then Totally Doctor Who. Once again, the Media Centre is showing metadata from series one, despite getting it right two hours earlier.
Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show celebrating the latest adventures of the last living Time Lord, aimed at children. Actor Noel Clarke reveals more set gossip, there’s a ghost hunt in a haunted Doctor Who location and a chance to get airborne with some Kung Fu monks.
Recorded from CBBC Channel on Friday 27th April 2007 17:58
After this there’s trails for BBC Saturday Morning, and Extreme Animals. Then the recording stops after the start of Stupid.
The next recording is another episode of Derren Brown: Trick or Treat. His subject this week is Anne, a 75 year old lady. And it’s at this point that I’m really hoping she doesn’t pick Trick. (Regular readers will know that I suspect that the choice is a force by Derren, so really I hope they’ve decided to give her a treat.) She’s on a bus laden with hidden cameras, which stops, the lights go out and all the passengers leave.
At least, when Derren appears from the top deck, she recognises him, and relaxes a bit. I’m immediately invested in Anne, and will be very angry if anything bad happens to her.
However, she does (genuinely) choose Treat, so I’m relieved. Or maybe they let her choose Treat. I’m sure Derren and the team wouldn’t want to dump poor Anne in the middle of Marrakesh looking confused.
Another segment has Derren pretending to be a waxwork. I do love his introductions. “So despite my winning three Olivier Awards and four BAFTAs, Madame Tussauds still refuse to do one of me, as if they couldn’t melt down Alan Titchmarsh and add a goatee.” There’s a recording of his voice telling people to imagine they were stuck in place, and sure enough, people couldn’t move.
Anne’s treat is that Derren is teaching her to play Poker, so she can compete in a big competition. He “teaches her” his methods of spotting when people are bluffing, and guessing which cards people have. I suspect a lot of this is just misdirection, but at least it’s misdirected into something fun.
George, her husband, is skeptical. “They must recognise her straight away, that she can’t play, surely.”
In Las Vegas, Derren manages to convince a woman in a nightclub that Yellow is Red, and Red is Black, so she’s very confused when he asks her to show him her car, which is red, and she can’t understand who’s painted it black. Again, my hypnosis denial gets in the way of really enjoying these tricks, but this one was amusing, at least.
Anne’s poker game is great. She defeats all but one of the professionals, and only loses the last hand thanks to an unlucky dealer’s hand. But coming second means she did win some prize money, and it’s impressive for someone who never played poker before this week. I love her so much.
The show is available on Channel 4. Click below to watch it.
Media Centre Description: Psychological illusionist Derren Brown involves members of the public and celebrity guests in a fiendish version of the Halloween game. Derren teaches a pensioner how to play poker professionally, becomes a living waxwork in Madame Tussauds and visits a Las Vegas nightclub where he makes a woman temporarily colour-blind.
Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 27th April 2007 22:00
The next recording starts with the end of Peep Show so spoilers for me.
Then, there’s an episode of Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights. I don’t know why, but I’ve not watched much of Phoenix Nights. Maybe it’s a Peter Kay thing.
This episode sees a the club looking forward to a sellout performance from a psychic, although they’re having trouble with the marketing.
The local fire safety officer, Peter Lard, gives a lecture on fire safety (including a dramatic reading of a terrible tragedy involving fire, which turns out to be the lyrics of “Disco Inferno”). He’s played by Peter Kay, so we get an obligatory split-screen scene. Much fun is had from his recent court case where we was accused of having sex with a dog (although he was acquitted).
He does a surprise inspection of the Phoenix Club, and shuts it down for fire safety violations. But one of the club regulars tells Potter that only a week or so ago, she saw Lard in the back seat of a car with steamed up windows, with a dog. So Potter calls him back, and shows him a picture he’s had photoshopped. “300 of them dumped in the right places, you know what people will say. ‘There’s no smoke without fire.'”
But the Psychic whose show was sold out turns out to be pretty bad, and ends up getting punched by an audience member.
However, the funniest thing about this episode is the disclaimer at the end. I would love to learn the true story behind this.
Media Centre Description: Sitcom set in a northern social club. Will fire safety officer Keith Lard succeed in closing the Phoenix Club? Or will Brian manage to keep it open for the sell-out performance of psychic Clinton Baptiste?
Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 27th April 2007 23:03
The first recording starts with the end of some Snooker.
There’s a trail for Maxwell. and a trail for the final episode of Superstorm.
Then we have Star Trek – The Gamesters of Triskelion.
Media Centre Description: A transporter beam is intercepted and Kirk, Uhura and Chekov find themselves on Triskelion, where the games are anything but fun. The Captain is less than enthralled by the life of a slave, and plays a dangerous game in order to discover the brains behind Triskelion’s operation.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 28th April 2007 02:23
After this, there’s another trail for Superstorm and an advert for TV Licensing.
Then the next episode of Star Trek starts.
The last recording starts as the previous episode is finishing.
It’s Star Trek – A Piece of the Action. A great fun episode.
Media Centre Description: The Chicago mob-world of the 1920s is alive and kicking on the strange planet Iotia, which has adopted the era as its model. On a planet where the streets are mean and the racketeering rife, Kirk and the crew have a tough cleaning-up job to do, and it looks like they could soon be making their excuses down the barrel of a gun.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 28th April 2007 03:13
Well here’s a novelty – a film I recorded from Film4 which I haven’t edited to remove the ad breaks. This one starts with the end of Kung Fu Hustle.
But the movie today is Assault on Precinct 13. John Carpenter’s pre-Halloween siege drama. Fun fact – Film Editor John T Chance is a pseudonym for John Carpenter.
It’s 1976, and everything was gangs and ghettos in those days. The film opens with a group of gang members being shot down in an alley by a police ambush.
A radio broadcast talks about the many different gangs, who are out of control, and fears of what might happen if they were to organise. So we see a group of gang leaders making some kind of blood pact. Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with men.
Austin Stoker plays Police Lt Ethan Bishop, who’s starting a new assignment. Quite a boring one for his first day, as he’s assigned to the Anderson Precinct 13 which is being shut down. He has to look after it for the evening. So it’s going to be a quiet night.
Elsewhere, Carpenter regular Charles Cyphers arrives a a local prison to pick up three prisoners, and take them to a Death Row prison.
One in particular is obviously particularly notorious, as he’s kept in leg irons. He’s Napoleon Wilson, played by Darwin Joston. There’s a running gag about other people asking where he got his name, which the film refuses to pay off.
Tony Burton plays Wells, another of the prisoners. He’s obviously not as notorious as Wilson as he’s just handcuffed.
The newly united gang are on the prowl for something, although since they never have a single line of dialogue, we don’t know what. They spend quite a lot of time screwing silencers onto their guns.
At the precinct, Bishop checks in, and meets Leigh, played by Laurie Zimmer.
Also still there is the younger Julie, played by another Carpenter regular Nancy Loomis. I love the old switchboard.
A man and his daughter are driving somewhere to meet a relative and persuade her to come and live with them in a better neighbourhood. But he doesn’t know the area, and has to stop and telephone for directions. She asks him for money for an ice cream from the ice cream van just up the road – who we’ve seen watching nervously as the car full of gang members keeps cruising up and down the street.
He give her an ice cream, and she leaves, but the gang is there to pick him up for some reason. Maybe this is the LA version of Bill Forsyth’s Comfort and Joy? We never find out. This film knows that all that matters is these are bad people doing bad things.
Unfortunately for little Kathy, she notices that her ice cream is missing sauce, so she goes back to ask for some. One of the gang members is at the window of the van, looks at her and shoots her in the chest. This is still pretty shocking. The girl’s father sees what’s happened, runs to his daughter, and the Ice Cream Man, with his dying breath, tells him there’s a gun inder the van’s dashboard. How thoughtful of him. The man goes off in pursuit of the gang.
In the prison bus, one of the prisoners, who we don’t really find out much about, is quite sick, so the bus has to make a stop at the nearest police station – Precinct 13. Napoleon and the others are placed in the cells.
The father of the murdered girl has his revenge in this life, shooting dead the gang warlord who killed her. But then he sees more gang members coming after him, so he runs to the nearest safe building – Precinct 13.
Soon after, the phone in the Precinct is cut off, then the power goes out. The sergeant goes out to see if he can use his car radio to ask what’s happening, and he’s shot dead by a silenced gun. But those inside couldn’t hear anything so they don’t realise. Bishop goes out and is also shot at. but makes it back inside.
At the rear of the building, they’re moving the prisoners to the bus, but they come under fire too. The almost silent gunfire is quite spooky. The main office is also under fire for some time, with silent bullets ripping through windows and doors.
Leigh can handle herself in a fight. She goes down to bring the remaining prisoners up, and the cells are attacked by gang members. One of them shoots her in the arm – a graze, but more than a scratch. Then she whacks him in the face and kicks him in the balls. She’s a textbook “Strong female character”.
Napoleon’s ability to shoot bad guys is perhaps less surprising, as the gang members start trying to get in, and they have to hold them back.
There’s a long shoot out, and at the end of it, young Julie didn’t make it.
Because all the gunfire has been silenced, it seems that nobody in the area will have reported anything. They might be able to get help by crawling through the basement and coming up through a manhole outside, then steal a car. Since Bishop is a cop, he doesn’t know how to hotwire a car, so it’s between Wilson and Wells. Wells says he’s always been unlucky and doesn’t want to flip a coin, so they do one potato two potato.
Wells is chosen, and he makes it out of the manhole and to the car. But there’s a nasty surprise hiding in the back.
There’s a desperate last stand, rigging a corridor with an acetylene tank, and finally the local police notice something’s wrong, and call out a lot of help to the station. There’s a cool reveal where all the smoke from the exploding clears, as the arriving police approach, revealing the last three standing.
They take the bereaved father, who’s spent the whole of the film sitting in a catatonic state, away on a stretcher. One of the paramedics says to Leigh “We have a stretcher for you, miss.” She ignores him and walks out. A police officer goes to put handcuffs on Wilson. Bishop motions for him to leave, and when he continues, he grabs him and pushes him away. “Get away from him.” He turns to Wilson and says “It would be a privilege if you’d walk outside with me.” “I know it would.” Bishop laughs. “You’re pretty fancy, Wilson.” “I have moments.”
Media Centre Description: Taut thriller inspired by Howard Hawks’s classic Rio Bravo. In Anderson, Los Angeles, six members of a tough street gang have been shot dead in a police ambush. The local police station – on the verge of closure and all but empty – comes under siege from the rest of the heavily armed gang. Can the few occupants who remain – one cop, two secretaries, and two death-row prisoners – hold out until help comes?
Recorded from Film4 on Friday 27th April 2007 01:23
Here’s the ad breaks. Including Victoria Wood doing an Asda advert.
VHiStory 