Many of you will no doubt be dubious about these two classic Cyberman serials, Revenge of the Cybermen and Silver Nemesis, which have been bundled together for this release. While I know they are not the most fondly-remembered stories, I think there is much to love about both of them. Firstly, I quite like the packaging, partly because I wasn’t expecting purple, but Blue. Clay is thinking, quite literally, outside the box. I like that. The individual covers for both stories are decent, too, even if Tom Baker does look a little crazy. Well, it’s hard to find a picture in which he doesn’t.

Revenge of the Cybermen, then. We’re back on that drab Ark in Space set again, and while I agree it was a good decision in terms of budget, to re-use it, they could have brightened it up a bit. Those white fairy lights hanging in front of the black cloth of ‘space’ are rather off-putting, too. I was soon put at ease by some first-rate acting by the beacon crew, headed by Ronald Leigh-Hunt. Apparent antagonist, Jeremy Wilkin also performs well as Kellman. I soon got very excited at the appearance of a Cybermat! I love the concept of the Cybermats, and their appearance in ‘Revenge’ drew me in. Similarly, the ‘plague’ effect, last seen in The Wheel in Space, is a nice visual reference to that golden oldie.

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Hello all. I’ve been very tied up lately, and don’t find very much time to write in-depth reviews. However, in the interest of aiding the fan community, I thought I’d give my thoughts on the recent Big Finish trilogy, comprising City of Spires, Wreck of the Titan and Legend of the Cybermen. Written by Simon Bovey, Barnaby Edwards and Mike Maddox respectively, these three stories will both evoke memories of the Troughton and 1980s Baker eras, and remind us all once again how well Colin Baker’s Doctor comes across in the audio medium.

It’s fair to say that the first two stories are heavily contextualised by the third. And while this might seem like a cheat, ‘Spires’ and ‘Wreck’ really work as seperate stories, out of this ‘arc’. It’s great to hear the kilt-clad highlander Jamie Mcrimmon opposite the Doctor again, and it’s not long before they’re plunged into the middle of an epic adventure. ‘Spires’ provides us with the first few clues as to what the trilogy is building to, but I can guarantee that at this point, you won’t know at all what is coming later. Seemingly set in the Scottish highlands, much like Jamie’s original debut story, Bovey seems to delve into subject matter far removed from what you might expect from this story initially, livening up what could have been a hollow romp. There are some unexpected twists that will again make more sense towards the end of ‘Legend’.

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I’d like to thank the troll on the previous post for giving me the motivation to post again so soon. This one’s for you, buddy.

So when we last left our insipid heroine, she was locked in an F-grade horror film- I mean basement, and the door mysteriously locked itself. Now I’ve recovered from laughing, let’s move on.

Rose continues on in Dead Before Credits tradition by calling out “is someone mucking about?” Come on, lady. Don’t you know that’s like the ringtone on the Grim Reaper’s pager? True to form, as soon as she moves past some dummies, one moves with an incredibly loud squeak. Alerted, she turns, and the Auton peeks out of the shadows. It’s probably just me here, but does anyone else mentally hear the Auton speak with the voice of that Scottish guy from The IT Crowd when it leans over?

“Hullo there!”

Rose is determined… to be a blonde body statistic of the movie’s villain, it seems, as she continues to spout classic lines blondes inevitably loose in this situation, including old chestnuts “You got me, very funny” and “Right, I got the joke”.

“Who’s idea was this, then? Was it Derek’s?” Oh please God, Doctor, PLEASE appear and save us from pointless references to characters we’ll never see, let alone care about. The Autons start surrounding her, with Rose insistent on getting every blonde cliché in the book into this scene by tripping over backwards. Luckily RTD has at least some sense in not having her scrabble away on the floor like the thousands of her predecessors have done since the dawn of the slasher movie. No, instead she begins getting up, and teleports about a foot away. Why does she not use this power of bad editing to escape? Maybe she can’t teleport through walls or something. Continue reading →

I’ve been humming and ha-ing about posting this for over two weeks now. Although I’m only a few minutes into the episode, I’ve already written over 1500 words. At that rate, it’ll take forever. So, I’m going to post what I have so far, and then if there’s enough of a response to it, I’ll continue on. Please, if you want to see more, leave a comment. I won’t know otherwise.

Now though, the post:

Russell T Davies: Bond Villain

Ah, Russell T Davies. What can you say about him? He’s possibly the most controversial behind-the-scenes figure in Doctor Who history. On the one hand, he took a long dead TV series and turned it into one of the BBC’s biggest hitters. On the other, he writes stories that, while appearing to be perfectly good stories on the surface, completely fall apart when given any level of scrutiny. Then factor in Doctor-worship, his story-trumps-rules approach or convoluted finales to add to the list of weaknesses. Hell, let’s not even talk about his overuse of gay or bisexual characters to make a Star Trek-esque statement on acceptance of different sexual orientations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a noble goal, but when almost every story has a male or female character mention in passing they have a partner of the same gender, it gets extremely irritating.

But, what of the early days? Continue reading →