Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Utopia

Utopia, by Russell T Davies, is an episode from later in season 29 than Gridlock. It starred David Tennant as the Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha. It guest-starred John Barrowman as Captain Jack, and has Derek Jacobi in it as well!

It starts with the TARDIS appearing in Cardiff and Captain Jack runs up to it and holds on when it vanishes again. He's still holding on when it travels in time. I think they should have shown him still holding on all the way through the titles but they didn't do that.

On another planet there are scary monster-mannys with sharp teeth, and they are chasing another manny like a cat chasing a bunny: for noms. Then we see Derek Jacobi! He is Professor Yana. He hears drums in his head and has an assistant called Chan Tho, she is an insect-manny who talks in a funny way.

Captain Jack is dead but comes back to life because he is Captain Scarlet now. This is the fault of rubbish Torchwood because it took the very nice Captain Jack of Doctor Who season 27 and made him rubbish like the rest of Torchwood.

The Doctor and Martha meet Captain Jack when they come out of the TARDIS. They see the manny being chased and try to help him because they are goodys. They get in to a safe place where lots of other mannys are.

The chased manny finds his family so he doesn't need to be in the story any more. The Doctor finds a big rocket and then meets Professor Yana who is trying to make the rocket go. There is a monster-manny in the place pretending to be a normal manny, but the goodys don't know she is there so they are in danger.

Captain Jack has the Doctor's hand in a jar from when it was cut off and grew back. This is the fault of the rubbish Christmas Invasion because it had the Doctor's hand getting cut off when he could have just been pretending, which would have been a much cleverer thing to do.

The mannys want their rocket to go to Utopia, which is the name of another planet where they will be safe from monsters. Professor Yana made the rocket and the Doctor helps make it work. Professor Yana hears drums again when he sees the TARDIS and he tells the Doctor about it.

"No rest for the wicked."

Professor Yana also tells the Doctor that he is not a real professor; he just knows things and is clever. He is like Professor Cat in this way.

There is a red room full of radiation. It is red so we know it is dangerous. The monster-manny breaks an important thing so the radiation kills the manny in the room. Captain Jack goes in to the room because he is the only manny that will not be killed in it, and he fixes a thing that was broken to make the rocket work.

The rocket is ready to go. As it counts down Yana hears voices in his head. He has an old, broken watch. He opens the watch and gets turned in to a Time Lord by it. Martha has realised this is what Face of Boe meant when he said "You Are Not Alone" and she tells the Doctor.

This scene is very dramatic, but what happens next is even more dramatic, because although Yana was a goody he is now turned in to a baddy! He locks everyone out of the room except Chan Tho (who was there already), and then he lets the monster-mannys in to chase the Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack.

"I AM THE MASTER."

Yana is really the Master, who was a baddy in old Doctor Who and he was in Doctor Who and the Sea Devils and Frontier in Space and Castrovalva and Five Doctors and Trial of a Time Lord and maybe others that I haven't seen or don't know about yet. This is a very exciting twist.

He zaps Chan Tho with electricity but she shoots him. The Doctor gets in but the Master steals the Doctor's hand-in-a-jar and locks himself in the TARDIS. He regenerates into a silly evil version of the Doctor (who is not as good as Derek Jacobi) and steals the TARDIS.

This means the Doctor, Martha and Captain Jack can't escape from the monster-mannys who are trying to get in to nom them! It is a cliffhanger ending, how will they escape?

This episode is much better than Gridlock. It has scary monster-mannys who are very threatening, not like the silly Macra crab-monsters. But more importantly it has Derek Jacobi!

Derek Jacobi is an old manny here, like when he was Cadfael or old Claudius in I Claudius and not like when he was Hamlet or Richard the Second in Shakespeare, but he is still a very good actor. He is brilliant when he turns into the Master and becomes a baddy, it is shocking and scary - even scarier than the monster-mannys. Maybe even scarier than the Borad in Timelash.

This story builds up and up with tension and excitement until it reaches its climax in the last few minutes with a great twist and a cliffhanger. That is why this is a very good episode. So it is a shame that the episode that continues the story is a big let-down after this one...

Doctor Who is being rude

Big Gay Longcat reviews Blakes 7: Powerplay

The Liberator has been captured by a Federation Death Squad. So have Avon and Dayna. Vila and Cally are in trouble on a planet with an evil death hospital. It's up to Tarrant to save the day. But he's on the baddys' side... isn't he?

Powerplay, by Terry Nation, follows on directly from Aftermath at the beginning of season 3.

It starts with the Liberator in space, where Tarrant has captured Avon and Dayna. He has mannys with him, they are a Federation Death Squad - it looks like Tarrant is a baddy!

The baddys are led by Section Leader Clegg.

Oops, that was the wrong picture before - TEH SATIRES!111

Tarrant can't control the Liberator without one of the proper crew. Avon pretends not to be Avon so the baddys don't know who he is. Clegg is only suspicious but Tarrant guesses he is Avon when he doesn't want Zen to recognise him. They knock out Avon and Dayna but they are not given away.

Zen gets a message from Vila. Vila is on a planet where he meets a baldy manny in a skirt who helps him. Later Vila gets captured by two women who act friendly, but the baldy manny knows they're baddys really even though Vila doesn't.

Avon and Dayna are prisoners until they escape and find out that their guard has already been killed by someone else. Tarrant and Clegg go looking for them and they hide. Tarrant almost finds them.

Tarrant is very handsome in this episode, even dressed like a baddy.

Cally is in another spaceship. She meets Servalan. This scene gets in the way, I just want them to go back to Avon and Tarrant because their bit is exciting.

Another baddy gets killed while looking for Avon and Dayna, but not by them. Avon sets off an escape pod to fool the baddys, which is what a baddy did to try and fool him in Mission to Destiny.

Avon is very handsome too, look at his eyes. Purr.

Avon goes up to the bridge and speaks to Zen, but Dayna gets captured by Clegg again. Avon goes looking for her but he gets captured as well, by Tarrant and another baddy.

Tarrant reveals to Avon that he has recognised him, then he shoots the other baddy and says he killed the baddys earlier - he is on Avon's side! Avon is surprised by this, as he didn't know Tarrant was really a goody until now.

Cally meets Vila on the planet, where they are both in a hospital. Cally calls the Liberator to come and get them. Servalan tells them it is an evil hospital that will kill them and steal their organs, but she is going back to Earth to be President of the Federation.

Tarrant is given away when he is overheard by another baddy, who runs off to tell Clegg. Clegg threatens to kill Dayna unless Avon and Tarrant give up. Avon pretends to make a deal with Clegg to trick Tarrant so he gets captured. But they overpower the baddys and Dayna kills Clegg.

Vila and Cally get teleported up before the evil hospital can kill them. Avon lets Tarrant and Dayna join the crew and command the Liberator.

Dayna and Tarrant are Avon's new friends.

I love this episode! In fact it is my favourite of all Blakes 7.

The reason is that although there are many fantastic episodes of Blakes 7, this is Tarrant's best one. Avon has lots of amazing episodes, from Mission to Destiny in season 1 all the way through to Blake at the end, but Tarrant doesn't get as many.

This is not just his first proper episode, it is the one in which he is best. Tarrant is so clever in this story, he outwits Clegg and the other baddys, and he even fools Avon. He secretly helps Avon until he can show him he is a friend, and then he is best friends with Avon almost straight away.

The only bad bits to this episode are the scenes with Vila and Cally. They are important to the story as they show the two of them need to be rescued in the nick of time at the end, but they take too much time away from the thrilling scenes with Avon and Tarrant in them.

Avon and Tarrant are now the main characters in Blakes 7 (with Vila, Cally, Dayna, Orac and Zen helping them) and it is from this wonderful episode by Terry Nation that my best bits of Blakes 7 really begin. I am a happy cat!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Gridlock

Gridlock, by Russell T Davies, is an episode from season 29 of Doctor Who. It starred David Tennant as the Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha. It guest-starred Ardal O'Hanlon as the cat-manny Brannigan.

It starts with two old mannys in a space car who get nommed by a monster. This is a good beginning as we don't see the monster now, it is clear that is being saved for when it would be very dramatic, like when the Borad was revealed in Timelash.

The Doctor and Martha arrive on New Earth in the TARDIS. It is like Earth but in the future and in space.

A big-faced monster called Face of Boe sends a catwoman with a gun to look for the Doctor.

The Doctor and Martha meet drug dealers and then Martha gets kidnapped by two mannys with guns. They take her to a space car and fly away. The Doctor shouts at the drug dealers after they help him by telling him what is going on. From this I would expect them to be baddys but they are not in the story again.

The kidnappers are called Milo and Jean. They tell Martha it will take them 6 years to drive 10 miles in their flying car. This is the first sign that something very, very stupid is going on in this episode. I know I am only a cat but those numbers are just silly.

The Doctor meets the Irish cat-manny Brannigan, who rescues him from all the space pollution that the flying cars produce for no reason.

Brannigan has his own flying car. Inside is his wife Valerie and their kittens. They have been in their car for 12 years and gone 5 miles in that time. This is SO STUPID. Other silly things we learn include the fast lane has speeds of up to 30 miles in an hour and the police are always on hold.

Martha hears the monsters outside the flying car and Jean tells her a scary story about the monsters making flying cars disappear, but Milo doesn't believe in them. Their car gets a call from another flying car that is then attacked by monsters while speaking to Martha and her new friends.

Brannigan calls an old married couple who know things to help the Doctor and he finds out from them the car that Martha is in. The Doctor guesses how ridiculous the situation is because it does not make sense to him, then all the mannys in cars sing a song.

The Doctor jumps on to another flying car, he goes from car to car and meets different mannys, including two nudey mannys (that bit's rude!) and a red manny. In the car the Doctor left behind Brannigan and Valerie meet the catwoman with a gun.

The Doctor sees the monsters. They are great big crabs called Macra.

Although they sounded scary when we couldn't see them, when they are revealed they are not scary at all, they look silly. The Borad in Timelash was much scarier than this.

Macra attack the flying car that Martha is in. They stop the car and the Macra stop attacking them. They can only stop the car for a few minutes or they will run out of air. This bit is not dramatic at all. Only the Doctor can save them in time but he does not know this.

The catwoman with a gun finds the Doctor and they teleport away to a place with a lot of skeletons of dead mannys, killed by a drug called 'Bliss' that turned into poison (for some reason). Only mannys on the flying motorway didn't die of it. Except, I presume, for all those that weren't on the motorway like the drug dealers from earlier.

The Doctor meets Face of Boe, then he turns the power on and opens the roof of the motorway to let the flying cars out. The car with Martha, Milo and Jean flies up and escapes the Macra. Face of Boe tells the Doctor "You Are Not Alone" and then dies.

At the end the Doctor tells Martha he is the last of the Time Lords while the mannys sing their song and fly their cars in the sky.

I was looking forward to seeing this episode because I heard there were cat-mannys in it, and it started well with the promise of scary monsters nomming mannys. But I am a disappointed and sad cat now I have seen all of it because this is a rubbish story that makes no sense.

There are too many questions about why the world works the way it does for it to make any sense.

Why do mannys and cats live in flying cars?

Why is a traffic jam still going after 20 years?

If everyone lives in cars then where do the drug dealers come from?

If not everyone lives in cars then why don't the mannys in cars get out and walk as it would be much, much faster than driving at the silly slow speeds we are told the flying cars go at.

Why are their cars so polluting?

Why is a traffic jam still going after 20 years?

Why do mannys kidnap Martha instead of finding a friend to go with them?

Why are the Macra so bad at catching the flying car with Martha in?

Why can Face of Boe and the catwoman with a gun not help the mannys in cars but they can set up an elaborate lie about life beyond the motorway with holograms and songs and police on hold?

The Doctor is a clever manny but why is he the only one who can save the mannys in the flying cars from the Macra? All he did was turn the power on and open the roof.

Why is a traffic jam still going after 20 years?

It seems to me that everything in this story happens for no good reason. The manny who wrote this must be very silly to think a traffic jam could still be going after 20 years or that mannys and cats would live in flying cars that go much slower than walking.

The one word that best sums up the whole story for me is this: contrived.

This is a terrible, awful episode of Doctor Who. It is not dramatic or exciting. It is not any good at all, and it makes me a sad cat to think about it. I am going to have to read lots of Avon/Tarrant stories to cheer me up so I can be a happy cat again.

Eurovision 2010

I love the mannys' Eurovision Singing Contest, it is very camp and fabulous and it is tonight! I will be watching it with my friends, this is going to be a great Caturday for me.

Here is one of my favourite songs from recent years, it is about pirates!

My pirate friends cannot stop singing it, they are very excited about Eurovision too.

Have a great Caturday everybody, and enjoy the show if you are watching it.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Timelash Part Two

Part Two starts by showing the end of Part One again, so the Doctor gets in trouble with Tekker and the blue manny tries to put him in the Timelash and the Doctor makes his 'oh noes' face. Then the Doctor confuses the blue manny with a mirror he picked up in Herbert's house and the rebels chase the baddys away from the Timelash.

Meanwhile Peri has been captured by the beekeepers again.

Ooooo, it is sparkly and shiny and colourful inside the Timelash. This story is so fabulous.

The Doctor goes in the Timelash to get crystals. He has a rope so he doesn't vanish. Vena is still worried about him and says "he's dangling on the edge of oblivion" so we know what the Doctor is doing is very dangerous.

The Doctor makes a machine that makes him seem 10 seconds too late. He also makes a gun that sends the blue manny back in time and go on fire. I am glad it turned out there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why that happened in Part One, because it was very confusing at the time. This story has clearly been very well plotted in advance, it is clever as well as exciting and fabulous.

There is a fight between the rebels and the beekeepers and the rebels win. They see a picture of the Doctor but he looks different because it is a different Doctor when he was played by Jon Pertwee like in Doctor Who and the Silurians or Planet of the Daleks.

The Doctor is very smug because his machine worked. He and Herbert go looking for the Borad. The Doctor goes in the Borad's room, where it is dark and mysterious and not brightly lit like the other rooms on planet Karfel.

The Doctor sees Tekker and the Borad.

The Borad is a horrible scary monster, a half-manny half-monster with a giant hand and a melted blue face.

When Tekker finds out the Borad wants to kill all the mannys on Karfel so the monsters can take over, he turns against the Borad but the Borad zaps him and turns him into a skeleton. That is the end of Tekker and there is no more of Paul Darrow in this story. That is a shame because otherwise this story is very good, and at least Tekker dies trying to be a goody.

The Borad tries to zap the Doctor next, but he is seeing him 10 seconds too late. The Doctor reflects his pewpewpew back on the Borad and it is him that is turned into a skeleton. The clever Doctor has outwitted the Borad and beaten him with his own weapon.

Herbert rescues Peri from a monster, then the Doctor and Herbert go in the TARDIS to blow up some alien missiles. This is a very long scene and it is boring, I think because Paul Darrow is not in it any more.

On Karfel the Borad turns out to be alive again and captures Peri. When the Doctor and Herbert get back they find out this is a clone Borad. He says:

"I must have forgotten to mention the other experiment I have been engaged in."

Although this is an exciting plot twist it is a bit silly, and the Borad is not as scary this time, partly because he has already been defeated once, but also because he is in the bright lights instead of the mysterious, dark and atmospheric room he was in before.

The Doctor quickly defeats the clone Borad - he gets scared when he sees himself in the mirror, and then the Doctor knocks him in the Timelash so he vanishes, because the Borad doesn't have a rope.

That is the end of the story, except the Doctor and Peri have to take Herbert back to Earth so he can write books and become H. G. Wells.

This is the most fabulous Doctor Who story I have seen, and it is my favourite of all the ones I have seen with Colin Baker playing the Doctor. I think it may be second only to Doctor Who and the Silurians (which also has Paul Darrow in it) as my favourite Doctor Who story of all.

It is both exciting and clever, with scary monsters and plot twists. It may be a bit silly at the end, but I don't mind that because the bits before that (which had Paul Darrow in them) were so good.

Now I must next get Duncan to show me the Doctor Who story where Jon Pertwee's Doctor visits Karfel. I think it must be really very good from all the references to it in this story. I hope it is not one of the missing old stories I have heard about, that would be a shame. I wonder what it is called...

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Timelash Part One

Timelash, by Glen McCoy, was a two-part story from season 22 of Doctor Who. It starred Colin Baker as the Doctor and Nicola Bryant as Peri. It guest-starred Paul Darrow as Tekker.

Colin Baker was Bayban, a baddy in Blakes 7. Now it is Paul Darrow's turn to be the baddy.

It starts with the Doctor and Peri in the TARDIS having an argument. The Doctor is a very shouty manny here, but he is very silly with his big colourful coat.

On the planet Karfel some mannys are hiding from beekeepers but some of them get caught. One of them gets away but is shot by a blue manny and taken to see the Borad who is a manny hiding in a chair. He has a big chair and it is a bit like my new chair. He hides in it so we don't get to see who he is, that is a secret for now.

Paul Darrow appears! This is when the episode starts to get very good. He has a wig on. He is playing Tekker, who is one of the mannys in charge. They put their prisoners in the Timelash.

Paul Darrow! Also the Timelash.

There are lots of lights going on and off and mannys vanish when they go inside the Timelash, and that is why they are scared of it.

Two of the mannys in charge are plotting. One of them meets the Borad and we see he is a scary monster with a big hand, but we don't see who he is. He turns the plotter into a skeleton with his pewpewpew gun.

Tekker is now the Borad's henchman. He is going to have the other plotter, Mykros, thrown into the Timelash but instead Mykros's friend Vena steals an important amulet and gets pushed in and disappears. The Doctor and Peri see Vena appear in the TARDIS for a moment.

The TARDIS appears in the Timelash room. The Doctor says he has been here before but he didn't know they had a Timelash.

The Doctor meets Tekker.

Tekker looks like he might not be a baddy so he goes and speaks to some alien Bandrils and starts a war with them to show that he is a baddy. There may be some other reason for him doing this but I am not sure what it is, this story is quite confusing.

The Doctor stays with Tekker and Peri goes off with the beekeepers, but then she gets scared by a blue manny and runs away and meets a monster. She is rescued by rebels.

Then a blue manny appears and goes on fire. This bit is very confusing.

Tekker makes the Doctor go and look for Vena and the amulet because he has a TARDIS and they don't.

Vena appears in a house with a manny, Herbert, in it. The Doctor arrives and Herbert tries to scare him away but he is not scary. Herbert gets inside the TARDIS and goes with the Doctor and Vena to Karfel.

Tekker gets the amulet back but he doesn't give the Doctor Peri back like he said he would because he is a baddy. Instead Tekker orders the Doctor to be put in the Timelash by a blue manny. The Doctor makes an 'oh noes' face and it is a cliffhanger ending!

This is a very good story so far. Although it is confusing it is very colourful and exciting and lots happens. Paul Darrow is a good baddy (naturally) and there is a mystery of the scary monster called the Borad who is hiding.

I can't wait to see Part Two to find out what will happen next with the terrifying Timelash and why do the blue mannys go on fire and who the Borad is and how will the Doctor save the day?

But that is for another day because it is time for sleeps now. Zzzzz