Dragen Befaler

My friend Dragon really likes Taskmaster. Now that the most recent series has finished being on TV, he has taken to watching all the versions of it made in other countries, such as Bäst i Test from Sweden and Kongen Befaler from Norway.

I think the reason Dragon likes Taskmaster so much is because he would like to be the Taskmaster, and set tasks for all the mannys to do - tasks such as bringing him treasure for his hoard, or searching out the hidden city of Gondolin.

In series 9 of Traskmaster there was a task where the mannys had to write their own lyrics for the Taskmaster theme tune. Dragon has also done this for himself, and his lyrics are as follows:

Dragon's asleep
Nothing to fear
Taskmaster's on
Taskmaster's here
Dragon's awake
Dragon is near
Taskmaster is
His favourite show
You'd better not get in the way when Taskmaster is on the TV!
(Breathes fire)

Doctor Who Night 2019: DOCTOR. WHO. IS. REQUIRED.

The War Machines seems strange when looked at from the other side of many years of the Doctor saving present-day Earth, but this was the first.

Sir Charles thinks a handful of policemannys would be enough to defeat WOTAN, but when he describes the War Machines as being "like a tank" the Minister takes no chances and sends in the army - perhaps he had been briefed on the Coal Hill School Incident from a few years earlier?

This is famously the only story where the Doctor is referred to as "Doctor Who" as though that is his name, leading to some speculation as to why WOTAN does so - I like the theory that he has mistaiken the Doctor for Doctor Who, i.e. the character played by Peter Cushing in the two '60s films. It certainly isn't a mistaik by the story's writer - other characters have no problems in calling the Doctor the Doctor.

The War Machines themselves look really derpy, lol.

The Tenth Planet is, in a way, the counterpoint to An Unearthly Child - not only are they the last and first William Hartnell stories, but also in that An Unearthly Child is mainly remembered for its first episode, while The Tenth Planet is mainly remembered for its last part - where we see the first ever regeneration.

Of course the story is also notable for containing the first appearance of the Cybermannys, but the middle of the story goes in some strange directions as though it was being made up as they went along - not only does Snowcap base act as Mission Control for the spacemannys, it also has a Zee-Bomb (short for Zippy-Bomb, designed to destroy any monsters voiced by Roy Skelton) there.

This leads to some highly questionable lines of science dialogue, such as

"But don't you see, General? A nuclear explosion on Mondas would deliver a terrific blast of radiation, enough to destroy all the life on the side of the Earth that's facing it. It might even turn into a sun, a sort of supernova."

I'm no Cat Scientist, but that sounds like bollocks to me. Possibly superbollocks, or even hyperbollocks.

And thank goodness Polly was there to make them coffee, or else those poor mannys might have died of thirst.

50 Years of Something Completely Different

It's...

...50 years since Monty Python's Flying Circus began.

It arrived fully-formed on BBC television in the shape of the first episode, featuring such sketches as Italian lessons for Italians, 20th century painters on bicycles, and The Funniest Joke in the World.

"Wenn ist das Nunstück git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!"

Monty Python's Flying Circus didn't grow into its 'Pythonesque' humour, it was all there from the very beginning. Perhaps this is to do with the fact that the first programme broadcast was really the third one they made, but I think it is more because their style was not utterly new for this series, but a continuation of the style already in progress in their earlier radio and TV series I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, At Last the 1948 Show and Do Not Adjust Your Set.

This helps explain why the BBC management let them go straight into a 13 episode season instead of requiring a pilot - and it is hard to imagine a show starting out in the modern TV landscape leading with something as baffling as It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, where Mozart (John Cleese) introduces clips of the deaths of famous historical characters.

The Man in Room 17

Richard "Slartibartfast" Vernon seems hardly younger here than he was in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Sandbaggers or Yes Minister despite this being from about 15 years earlier than any of those series. Here he's the lead, ably assisted by Michael "Percy Alleline" Aldridge (season 1) or Denholm "Marcus Brody" Elliott (season 2), as they go about solving crimes and catching spies without ever leaving the titular Room 17 - a secret government department with a wide-ranging security brief that allows them to get involved in whatever the plot requires them to this week.

There's a lot of humour evident in this series, presaging some of the later telefantasy double-acts such as Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) or The Persuaders! (and contemporary with The Avengers just as it was taking that shape). In the first season it is largely confined to the interplay between the two leads as their egos clash, and perhaps also in their condescending attitude towards their notional superiors at Scotland Yard (usually in the form of Deputy Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Norton, played by Willoughby Goddard in a similar style to how he would later play Sir Jason in The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder), while the stories themselves were pretty straight detective or spy plots for the most part.

I feel this changed in season two, as the plots grew more outlandish and the limits of the format were tested, the comedic side came to prevail. All this leaves season one the better of the two in terms of story, but the second season is the funnier. Also, they funked up the theme music for season two (though not to the same extent as they did with The Power Game, thankfully!), and so it has the more dated title sequence as a result.

"I want to make a deal with the darkness..."

My friend Scary Cat has been increasingly confused by manny politics recently. This week there have been rumours that the Prime Minister wants to do a deal with Nigel Farage, which sounds to us cats like when Steel tried to do a deal with the darkness in Assignment Two. If you recall, this went badly for Sapphire and Steel.

Also it has been reported in some so-called-newspapers* that Jeremy Corbyn is a scaredy cat, when the real scaredy cats mannys are obviously those who claim Brexit is the "will of the people" but are too cowardly to prove it in a confirmatory referendum - if it is really the "will of the people" (by "people" they don't mean cats, they mean mannys... well, some mannys...) then such a referendum should surely pass easily, with only a tiny number of "Liberal Elites (TM)" and those who have been fooled by "Project Fear (TM)" voting against it.

The Prime Minister, shown here along with The Coward Boris Johnson.

* Although not so much in Scotland, which had different headlines that day. It's almost as if they're making up lies because they have an agenda to push, instead of merely reporting the news...

If he makes Dilyn a Lord...

...then we'll know that Johnson has gone full Caligula.

To lose is to win and he who wins shall lose

Rest in peace Terrance Dicks, who helped more kittens (and little mannys) "develop a lifelong love of reading than almost anyone else who's ever lived." You see, he may not have got an OBE, but he did know very well that immortality was a curse, not a blessing.