Eurovision 2020

Typical mannys - we cats are used to them being hopeless and making us wait a whole year for Eurovision, but this time they have gone too far and made us wait another whole extra second year! Outrageous!

'Peoples of the European Broadcasting Union, please attend carefully. The message that follows is vital to the future of you all. The choice for you all is simple. I am the Portugese singer and you will vote for me.'

I've clearly been watching too much Doctor Who while waiting impatiently for this last year's Eurovision Singing Competition, because now when I see a manny with a goatee I immediately think it must be the Master.

This year's event had a shaky start, with an early song from Belgium being performed by a band called Hooverphonic. Oh noes! If Hoover has infiltrated Eurovision, no wonder it was so late.

Perennial Eurovision Baddys Russia accidentally sent a goody. Not only did she have a good song and performance, but also a positive message.

Greece's entry really shouldn't have let Barry Letts direct her CSO-heavy dance routine. It's not the UNIT era any more, lol!

Other entries that I enjoyed included Iceland, with its colourful wheel of keytars, and reliable old Sweden had a great entry as usual. 

Lithuania was my favourite in the end, with a quirky, silly song and dance.

The actual voting was as baffling as ever - you can always tell it is mannys who vote for these things, what with their thumbs meaning they can use the telephone, and they don't always vote for who their cats tell them to, mew!

Plus the stupid system of assigning the votes has been kept on from two years ago, and my critcisms from then are just as true now.

The UK and Germany did particularly badly this time, with the UK getting no points at all from anybody. I for one couldn't tell why mannys across the whole of Eurovision liked the entries from Switzerland and (eventual winner) Italy so much more than those. None of them were as good as cat singing anyway.

Good Omens

The novel from 1990 is one of my very favourites, and manages to be better than anything else I have read by either of the two authors individually - this includes over 30 of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, although I must admit I am less familiar with the oeuvre of Neil Gaiman, seeing as that includes a lot of comics and short stories.

Good Omens sends up The Omen film series (as well as a few other films in the very niche sub-genre of 'Apocalyptic Antichrist Horror') while at the same time requiring its readers to have no knowledge of the thing it is sending up.

From the running gag about Elvis being still alive (which made it into the TV series in the form of an 'Easter Egg' for fans of the book to spot) to the footnote explaining pre-decimalisation British currency, the book is packed with witty wordplay and Laugh-Out-Loud comic moments for the reader, even as the characters are taking very seriously the imminent rise of the Antichrist and ending of the world.

But I'm now going to spend the rest of this post talking about the TV adaptation from 2019, starting with

The Good

It was just so much fun to see the TV series after so many years of waiting. It's such a great story and has deserved to get a decent visual (film or TV) adaptation for so long. The BBC Radio 4 series was good, and contained a near-perfect cast (arguably even better on the whole than the TV series), but the lack of visuals left it somehow feeling incomplete and unsatisfying.

The decision to have God as the omniscient narrator delivering many of the book's asides in the style of the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy was a great one (even if Her casting was, shall we say... unorthodox), allowing many of my favourite moments to make it to screen, including Aziraphale and Crowley dancing - on the head of a pin or otherwise - and Mr R P Tyler's hesitation over pointing out that Crowley's car is on fire.

David Tennant and Michael (not Martin) Sheen as Crowley and Aziraphale bring a kind of star quality to the TV series (as well as having amazing chemistry together, as was later also seen in their lockdown sitcom Staged). No wonder their parts were expanded to make them indisputably the central characters, rather than the more ensemble cast of the novel.

They would not have been my first choice for playing the characters - in my opinion Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap from the radio series are more faithful to the book versions - but Sheen & Tennant won me over very quickly.

The final item for this list is Dog, who steals every scene he's in.

The Bad

The WW2 Nazis scene with Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton at the start of episode three I found to be unfunny and way too OTT, bordering on the level of Panto (when Tennant arrives in the scene he reminded me of some of the more annoying character tics from his time in Doctor Who). I can see its purpose in both continuing to develop Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship over the course of history (including setting up the holy water plot device for later) and establishing the significance of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter (Witch), but I think the screen time spent on this scene could have been better used by doing the subplot from the novel about the publishers Bilton and Scaggs, they of the three great publishing disasters, who could even have been played just as well by Gatiss and Pemberton.

Jack Whitehall as Newton Pulsifer is easily the most miscast actor in this. He could have been fine in the small role of Witchfinder Major Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer, but not as Newt, one of the main characters and a personal favourite of mine from the novel. He is the Martin Freeman of this series - he just rubs me up the wrong way every time he's on screen.

Some of the CGI is unforgivably bad, such as the explosion at the burning of Agnes Nutter - made worse by the fact that, like the tank in the third cliffhanger of Robot, we see it more than once - or the appearance of Satan in the last episode that manages to look worse than the CGI monster in the Doctor Who episode The Satan Pit, despite that being from 13 years earlier.

This is all the more surprising because so much of the SFX in Good Omens are really effective, from their realisation of the walled Garden of Eden through to the M25 motorway being on fire, and it makes the poor effects stand out even more.

And, to be clear, I am not including in this category the CGI that was made deliberately unconvincing 'bad' for comic effect, such as Dog's original hellhound face or Crowley's scary face from when he's scaring the manny from The Thick of It.

The Neither Good Nor Bad On The Whole, or The Equally Good And Bad (Do You See What I Did There?)

The addition of so much extra material, which mainly serves to increase the focus on Crowley and Aziraphale, leaves less screen time for other things from the book, such as the Four Horsemen. They are underdeveloped as antagonists as a result, certainly compared to Gabriel, Hastur, and the other angel and demon antagonists who we do spend time with since they are personal antagonists to the two leads.

Scenes taken from the book establishing War and Pollution much earlier in the story were filmed but consigned to the DVD Special Features only. I think including these would have helped establish their presence earlier, so their first appearances aren't when they are receiving their packages. And that's without me mentioning the other Four Horsemen, who are left out of the TV series entirely.

The largest addition comes with the extended ending, giving the story an additional climax centred on Aziraphale and Crowley, as they face their reckoning with Heaven and Hell respectively. Now, let's be honest here, the ending to the book is its weakest part - after a long, wonderful build up to the end of the world, it ends way too suddenly (the plot, I mean, not the world). Not for the first time in this article will I compare Good Omens to the books of Douglas Adams, when I say the abruptness of the ending is comparable to that found in his Dirk Gently novels, and for those too this is their biggest flaw.

Therefore, making an improvement to the ending was virtually the only way in which the TV series could improve upon the book. I'm no adaptation purist (although I hate gratuitous changes, such as those found in abundance in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy), so would have counted this among The Good, except for the aforementioned fact that the additions necessitated the omission of other scenes I would have dearly loved to see on screen, something that belongs with The Bad.

So let's call this one, in the end, on balance, a draw.

my name is nick

my name is nick.

i am 57 and a half years old.

i am the presenter of today on bbc radio 4.

our mission is "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain."

i am in charge of millions of listeners.

i talk with politicians to help them get their party's message to voters.

this is mr starmer and his deputy mrs rayner.

they are in opposition and want to be the government, but they have a dangerously 'left-wing' ideology and i cannot interview them fairly 'cause if they win they might make me pay more tax.

this is mr johnson. he is the prime minister. he is my best friend.

his press secretary is called laura. they are having an affair.

after work i go to the pub with my friends. i like talking about politics.

i also like football. my favourite team is manchester united. i like sailing and the theatre as well.

i am usually very tired after a day in my studio, but i can't wait to get back to work tomorrow!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon Episode Four

Ssorg wins the shootout at the Peladon Corral and he pewpewpews Arcturus. The truth comes out - Arcturus was in league with Hepesh to take over Peladon, and the attack on Arcturus in part two was faked. Hepesh escapes, and the Doctor worries that he will start a civil war in the Federation by accusing the Ice Warriors of murdering Arcturus. This raises the stakes beyond Peladon to the Galactic Federation beyond, but it doesn't feel all that dramatic because we haven't seen anything of that Federation beyond three seasons of Star Trek the delegates themselves.

Grun, having been spared by the Doctor, has changed sides. He chases Hepesh and fights with his guards, but despite his strength he is overwhelmed by their numbers. The Doctor follows Grun's trail and finds him wounded, but he is able to tell the Doctor that Hepesh has "many" soldiers on his side and is about to try and take over the castle.

Fighting breaks out in the throne room and Hepesh captures the king - checkmate! He then tells Jo and the delegates to surrender or he will kill the king, and so that way he captures them too.

The Doctor takes Grun with him to look for Aggedor.

Grun is still scared even as the Doctor once again tries his hypno-eyes plan on Aggedor. This time he succeeds (because Jo isn't there to interrupt him) and he leads the pacified Aggedor away with him.

In the throne room, Hepesh demands the delegates leave Peladon. It looks like he has won, but then the Doctor bursts in and says:

"Who dares challenge Peladon! Kneel and pay homage to his sacred guardian!"

Hepesh knows about Aggedor, and had been secretly using him for his evil ends, such as when he got Aggedor to attack Torbis in part one. Now he grabs a torch from the wall and tries to use it to make Aggedor kill the Doctor, but Aggedor pauses for a moment, looks at the Doctor, and then pounces on Hepesh and tries to nom him. Only the Doctor can calm Aggedor, and he leads him out of the throne room with his hypno-eyes device.

Hepesh makes a final speech to the king and then goes

With the plot now resolved happily, the Doctor shows Jo that the TARDIS has been brought into the castle. He thinks that the Time Lords permitted or even sent them to Peladon "at this precise crisis in their history" and that his exile is not over yet, which is a somewhat cheaty way for the writers to allow the Doctor and Jo to leave Earth whenever they want.

Aggedor comes in and the Doctor says 

"The trouble is he seems to have grown rather fond of me. He keeps following me about. Hello Aggedor."

I really hope this means Aggedor will become a new Companion, that would be great!

The Doctor leads Aggedor away so that the king can have one final doomed attempt to persuade Jo to stay and marry him. Jo confesses she isn't a real princess and the king says "that doesn't matter" which shows he has undergone character growth since the beginning of the story.

The Doctor and Jo are about to attend the king's formal coronation when a manny arrives claiming to be the real delegate from Earth. Alpha Centauri says the Doctor is the "accredited" Earth delegate, to which the newcomer replies

"Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor who?"

Lol. This forces a change of plan, and the Doctor and Jo head back to the TARDIS, just before the delegates enter the room in time to see it dematerialise.

What's so good about The Curse of Peladon?

Obviously Aggedor is the main attraction, one of the cutest monsters in Doctor Who history. Sadly he didn't become a Companion but he's so cute that he at the very least deserved his own spinoff show. More so than K9 or Torchwood at any rate.

Beyond Aggedor, the Ice Warriors being really on the side of the goodys makes for a good twist and an interesting way to show the Doctor being wrong for a change. The story itself is a decent one, and tightly paced across its four episodes, filling them well - although I shudder to think what this would have been like had it been padded out to a six-parter, so that was a narrow escape, and a good thing that never happened, mew.

The only real shortcomings are the at times ponderous, cod-medieval dialogue, something pseudo-historical settings have a reputation for defaulting to in BBC sci-fi shows (Blakes 7 is just as guilty, such as in The Keeper) and is definitely in evidence here, especially some of Hepesh's speeches and occasionally with the king.

Also, the cliffhanger ending to part two was unjustifiably contrived, and if I won't let Terry Nation get away with things like that then I'm certainly not letting this story get away with it either.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, this story is supposed to be a "political allegory." To which I respond: Allegory?

What allegory?

Allegory mew.

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon Episode Three

Izlyr makes the very reasonable point that

"A Royal pardon would count highly with the Federation."

but the Federation are forbidden by their own laws from interference with the laws of Peladon. This makes this Federation much more like the one from Star Trek than the one in Blakes 7, who would be interfering quicker than Izlyr could say 'Servalan.'

The king offers the Doctor "trial by combat" over Hepesh's objections. He will have to fight Grun to the death. If this is what Hepesh meant when he ordered Grun to kill the Doctor, they're taking a very roundabout way to do it.

Once everybody else has left the throne room, the king proposes marriage to Jo. She is unhappy about this coming so soon after the king was ready to sentence the Doctor to death, so she runs away.

The Doctor is well aware that Hepesh is behind his predicament. Hepesh gives the Doctor a chance to escape back to the TARDIS, saying that he doesn't want the Doctor to die, he just wants the Federation to leave... Fedexit, if you like. Mew.

Hepesh expresses his fears about the Federation:

"They'll exploit us for our minerals, enslave us with their machines, corrupt us with their technology. The face of Peladon will be changed, the past swept away, and everything that I know and value will have gone."

When the Doctor suggests this would leave Peladon facing the whole of the Federation, Hepesh replies

"We do not stand alone."

giving away that he has an alien ally.

The Doctor follows Hepesh's map into the tunnels where he hears Aggedor going rar, but the Doctor isn't scared. He is prepared for this, and has made a device for hypno-eyesing Aggedor.

'Aggedor dor dor, push pineapple shake the tree,

Aggedor dor dor, push pineapple grind coffee.'

The Doctor accompanies the spinning device with a Venusian lullaby that, between them, cause Aggedor to get... to get... zzzzz...

Mew, where was I?

The Ice Warriors help Jo escape into the tunnels as well (although they are secretly overheard by Arcturus, so there is much intrigue among the delegates), and when she sees the Doctor with Aggedor she gets a torch and uses it to chase away poor Aggedor. Boo!

The Doctor is also annoyed with her, and even says outright

"Oh, Jo, you idiot!"

Jo says she was only trying to help and they make up again quickly.

In the throne room, Hepesh says he wants the Doctor to be "hunted and killed like an animal" for running away from his trial, but then the Doctor enters and says

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Hepesh."

which is chairman delegatese for "Fuck you Hepesh, you two-faced cunt." The Doctor tells the king about seeing Aggedor in the tunnels, but Hepesh again lies and claims there are no tunnels, demanding the trial proceed at once.

The Doctor and Grun descend ropes into a pit where they get weapons and start fighting. The fight goes on for a while but is dynamically filmed and quite exciting. The Doctor gets the upper paw at first (well, he has an unfair advantage by having his stuntmanny on his side) but then Hepesh gives Grun extra weapons when he needs them.

The Doctor wins in the end, and demonstrates the higher quality of mercy when he spares Grun's life. This whole section of the story would get Captain Kirk's seal of approval, no question. Then Arcturus and Ssorg both fire their pewpewpew weapons, but they do it in extreme close up so that we don't know why or who they're shooting. This mystery is the cliffhanger!

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Six

The scene of the Doctor banging and shouting for Jamie and Zoe to let him in goes on for what seems like ages as the Ice Warrior ponderously moves to answer the door. Eventually, Jamie distracts it so Zoe can let the Doctor in. The Ice Warrior then chases them for a bit until they can close a "radiation door" between it and them.

It then has to do a classic slow cutting through the door (more like a slow pewpewpewing, mew), but is distracted by the arrival of some mannys with guns that are completely ineffective against an Ice Warrior, so it goes off to pewpewpew them for the lols. The Doctor makes a device similar to Phipps's from part two and it is his turn to hunt the Ice Warrior until he can pewpewpew it.

Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (must live) launch a satellite to lure the Ice Warrior invasion fleet off course. Zoe somehow knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slar

Sorry, I mean "knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slaar," despite it not having been used on screen before she uses it. Maybe she read it in the credits of one of the earlier episodes?

The Doctor makes his pewpewpew device "portable" and teleports to the Moon with it, where he pewpewpews an Ice Warrior before it can pewpewpew him, but then he gets captured by Slaar, who needs his thumbs to operate the teleporter.

Jamie is worried about how long the Doctor is taking so he gets Zoe to teleport him to the Moon too.

The invasion fleet is drawn off course by the fake signal. Slaar finally realises what has happened and knows the Doctor is responsible for unplugging the real signal. Confronting him with this, he says

"You have destroyed our entire fleet!"
"You tried to destroy an entire world."

Slaar orders the Doctor killed, but when the Ice Warrior tries to do it the Doctor grabs his arm and makes him pewpewpew Slaar instead. Then Jamie arrives and helps the Doctor to electrocute the last remaining Ice Warrior.

Back on Earth the foam OF DEATH is being destroyed by rain from the repaired Weather Control Station, so with everything all right again now the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe head back to the TARDIS, leaving Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (who lived) to immediately start arguing about which is better, spaceships or teleports?

The Seeds OF DEATH has its moments, but as a six-parter it is way, way too long for what plot it has, which progresses onwards at a seemingly glacial pace. It is no wonder that the Doctor was able to slip away for a holiday in the middle of the story without making much difference to it.

I don't understand why this is Longdog's favourite Doctor Who story, when I wouldn't even put it in my top three for its season (that would be The War Games, The Invasion and The Mind Robber, if you're interested - and two of those are longer than The Seeds OF DEATH so it is not that being long is intrinsically bad). The best I can say for it is that the Doctor has some nice scenes interacting with the Ice Warriors, and there are some interesting directorial touches such as when the lone Ice Warrior goes on location. Also Jamie is in it, but then you can say that about almost all the Patrick Troughton-era stories.

Still, the Ice Warriors were pretty evil here, with their plan to wipe out all the mannys using foam OF DEATH and then take over the Earth, so we can see why the Doctor wouldn't like them very much after all that.

Back on Peladon, Jo asks if they can just get the TARDIS back and leave, but the Doctor thinks they're stuck here and says they "didn't really have any choice" but to get involved. Jo replies with

"Oh, come on. You love all that 'chairman delegate' stuff. Admit it."

and she's got him bang to rights there.

They hear an alarm going off and follow the sound to discover Arcturus is in trouble. The Doctor says

"Someone has disconnected a vital part of his life support system."

but he is able to do some wiring so that the missing "vital" part isn't "vital" any more. Izlyr, Alpha Centauri and Hepesh come in and Hepesh immediately claims this as "the [W-word] of Aggedor."

The Doctor accuses Izlyr, but Izlyr then counter-accuses the Doctor.

Jo sneaks to the Ice Warriors' room and finds another clue - the missing piece of Arcturus's life support.

Ssorg comes in and finds her hiding - the Ice Warriors have obviously improved their perception skill since The Seeds OF DEATH. He takes the clue from her and goes to inform Izlyr - hang on, is Ssorg Izlyr's Companion? This is like Doctor Who has crossed over with the Martian equivalent.

Grun finds the Doctor and gets him to come with him to the castle's tunnels.

Jo meets Aggedor, who goes "Rar!" trying to be all big and scary, so Jo runs away. We viewers only catch glimpses of Aggedor for now, to keep the reveal that he is a super cute monster and not scary at all really as a surprise twist for later on.

Grun hears Aggedor's rar and he also runs away, leaving the Doctor on his own.

Jo runs into the Ice Warriors and they don't believe her story about meeting Aggedor. She puts to them what the Doctor said earlier about them being "a race of warriors" and Izlyr replies by saying

"We were once, but now we reject violence except in self-defence."

"What about Ssorg's gun? This is supposed to be a peaceful mission."

"Unfortunately, in order to preserve peace, it is necessary to survive."

The Doctor finds his way to a secret door that leads to another* statue of Aggedor, but it is a trap, because behind it (the trap, I mean, not the statue) Hepesh and Grun are waiting to accuse the Doctor of "extreme sacrilege." He is taken to the king, who tells the Doctor "the laws of Peladon allow for no defence."

Similar to the laws in The Keys of Marinus, this is all very convenient for getting our heroes into trouble, but in the case of Peladon doesn't leave them much in the way of defence against the accusations of being a "primitive" and "barbarous" planet with fucking stupid laws.

Obviously there is "only one punishment... death" so that is the end of the episode. The Doctor makes a nonplussed face, as though disappointed by the incredibly poor quality of this particular cliffhanger. In this he echoes the faces made by us cats watching at home.

* With the number of statues of Aggedor there seem to be on Peladon, I am surprised the new series of Doctor Who hasn't set a story there and had the statues turn into Weeping Angels... Weeping Aggedors?

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Seeds OF DEATH Episode Five

Fewsham finally resists the Ice Warriors openly, fighting with the one about to pewpewpew Zoe for long enough for the rising temperature to kill it off.

The Ice Warrior on Earth goes to the "Weather Control Station" (thank you convenient but stylishly-directed establishing shot) where it pewpewpews a manny and takes over.

The Doctor finally gets back from his holiday wakes up and is able to join Jamie, Zoe and Kelly in getting teleported back to earth by Fewsham. The Ice Warrior leader has not been killed by the heat, and he manages to turn the wheel back down.

The Doctor and Eldred (must live) team up to investigate the foam OF DEATH. Most of the characters, even the Doctor, call it a "fungus" but Jamie calls it "that foam stuff" so I will stick with that. In the laboratory, a balloon begins to inflate and the Doctor tries hurriedly to find something that will neutralise it, including several kinds of acids. The thing that he succeeds with is water... which is already pH neutral, so clearly "neutralise" was the wrong word this time.

Jamie and Zoe head for the Weather Control Station to make it rain water onto the foam, not knowing that is where the Ice Warrior has already been and borked all the controls. They even close and lock the door. thinking to keep the Ice Warrior out...

...Instead they've locked it in with them.

Fewsham secretly broadcasts his conversation with the Ice Warrior leader for the mannys on Earth to see and hear as he asks the leader to give him exposition about their plan to land their invasion fleet on the Moon.

Too late the leader realises the "video link" is switched on as he stares out through the fourth wall at us and the other mannys watching him from Earth. He orders Fewsham to get pewpewpewed. Then they also pewpewpew the video link, presumably because they lack the thumbs with which to turn it off. I sympathise, mew.

The Doctor hears from Eldred (must live) that the Ice Warrior on Earth was last seen headed for the Weather Control Station so runs there himself to try to help Jamie and Zoe. He can't get in because the door is locked, and he gets surrounded by foam. The Doctor makes an "oh noes" face because he is trapped, and that is the cliffhanger.