And another thing…

I WAS never actually a fan back in the ’80s, but I do like Liam Neeson, and I had no idea they were remaking it (though I don’t know why I’m surprised, given the number of old series that have been “rebooted” in recent years).

For what it’s worth, this looks a lot better than the series ever was, but that wouldn’t be hard, would it?

“There is no Plan B” – cracking strap line.

UPDATE: The video was withdrawn shortly after I posted this, but you can watch a YouTube version of it here.

FORTY years.

Forty years ago to this very day, my five-year-old self sat in our livingroom in Beith and watched my very first full episode of Doctor Who.

And yes, it was scary! No hiding behind the sofa for me, oh no, no, no. As a featureless, silent dummy with a gun hidden in its plastic wrist pursued its victim through the woods, I exited the livingroom altogether, using the presence of a box of Gypsy Creams as an excuse to venture into the kitchen, re-emerging only after the action on screen had reverted to a less nightmare-inducing scene.

Not only was this the very first Doctor Who adventure broadcast in colour, it was also the first starring Jon Pertwee. And he was my Doctor. Always has been, always will be.

That’s not to say that I have no affection or admiration for other actors who have taken up the part; Tom Baker was probably the best Doctor ever. It’s just that he came along when I was too old to be scared by the programme. And I loved to be scared. Still do.

Which brings me to the departure two days ago of David Tennant’s tenth Doctor. He was an inspired choice to play the part, wasn’t he? I vividly recall hearing the news, after just one episode of the rebooted Who had been broadcast in 2005, that Christopher Eccleston was packing it in at the end of the season. The news provoked hysterical sobbing in middle aged men throughout the length and breadth of my house, and a consequent sneering contempt for them displayed by their wives. Or wife…

Anyhoo, the same news bullietin held out a grain of hope that the future was not as grim as first feared: speculation was rife that the star of Russell T. Davies’s previous BBC drama, Casanova, would take over from Eccleston. This was confirmed a few short weeks later and, on 18 June 2005, the ninth Doctor “died”, to be replaced by the gurning countenance of the young Scottish actor.

For four years he’s played the part – longer than the average tenure of other actors playing the role. Only Tom Baker and Pertwee lasted longer (if we don’t count Sylvester McCoy’s disastrous reign as lasting from 1987, when he took over, right up until Paul McGann’s appearance in the 1996 TV movie; the series was cancelled in 1989).

So before I offer some critical remarks about part 2 of The End of Time, let me offer a balance to some of the criticism that Davies has endured during his time as DW’s showrunner. Yes, his writing wasn’t always consistent. He too often relied on incomprehensible McGuffins to get the Doctor out of situations he himself had created. He wrote some real stinkers: Fear Her in season two springs readily to mind, as does the finale of season three, when the Master is defeated in an entirely unsatisfactory way.

Yet one of the reasons for the criticisms was that he himself raised the bar so high when the series was relaunched in 2005. RTD is a fan, and he understands what made DW such a success in the first place. More to the point, he understood why it was eventually cancelled. The ridiculous scripts, lamentable acting, and plots that tried to be more clever than scary and ended up as neither. The producer who presided over the death of the “classic” Doctor Who was Jon Nathan-Turner, a man who simply didn’t understand what the show was supposed to be. When it was cancelled it deserved to be; it deserved to be put out of its misery.

RTD was the anti-Nathan-Turner, reversing the damage done by his predecessor and breathing new life into a beloved show. Sometimes the critics overlook how successful he was. How quickly we forget how grateful we were that he was appointed to resurrect the show in the first place. Because he is one of the best TV writers in the country and he produced, even at its weakest points, something that was high quality and wonderfully entertaining.

But let’s talk about Friday’s episode which saw the introduction, in its last few seconds of Matt Smith’s Doctor.

It had all the hallmarks of a typical RTD story: an epic notion (the return, not just of the Time Lords, but the planet Gallifrey itself in Earth’s orbit), improbable solutions and more mysticism and prophecies than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at.

How could a single bullet fired into a computer panel foil the Time Lords’ plans to take over Earth? How could a diamond thrown by Rassilon (for it was he) at a hologram of Earth actually find its way into the Master’s back yard? How could the isolation chamber in the mansion be made of Vinvocci unbreakable glass? Why had Donna’s mother and fiancé, having turned into the Master the day before, not moved from the kitchen by the time the process was reversed by the Time Lords? What was the “defence mechanism” used by Donna to escape the pack of ravenous Masters in the alleyway?

Nevertheless, it was wonderful to watch, and it had some golden moments: the realisation that the Master’s own warped personality was a deliberate construct of the Time Lords themselves, the Doctor and the Master each choosing to fight the Time Lords rather than each other; Wilf doing a Millennium Falcon on the pursuing missiles.

And of course, there was David Tennant, whose performance was breathtaking. His angry bitterness at Wilf for getting himself trapped in the isolation chamber was just amazing. His plaintive cry of “I don’t want to go!” as his regeneration drew near was positively heartbreaking.

So, on the whole, a brilliant but deeply flawed episode, and one well worth watching again.

Davies and Tennant will be deeply missed and they have both contributed massively to the success of the popular myth that is Doctor Who. I’m prepared to be proved wrong, but I expect that Steven Moffat and Matt Smith will pick up the baton and take the series to new heights.

I’LL BE POSTING a review of part two of The End of Time on Sunday. Why Sunday, you ask? Because on that day I will have been a Doctor Who fan for precisely 40 years.

In the meantime, here’s a taster of Matt Smith as the new Doctor, courtesy of the BBC’s official Doctor Who website.

Russell "the T" Davies

ACCUSATIONS of a particularly nasty nature were chucked at Russell T. Davies during his four-year tenure as executive producer on Doctor Who.

Some of those accusations made their way onto this blog last week when I wrote about the first part of this year’s Christmas special. DW is now “too politically correct” and (God help us all) “gay imperialist” (what does that even mean? I have visions of stormtroopers breaking down people’s doors, charging inside and holding the residents at gunpoint while they re-arrange their furniture and populate their music collections with Scissor Sisters CDs…)

So, according to the uneasy-in-the-modern-world brigade, it is now offensive to portray gay or black people in positive ways. It’s unrealistic, they claim; not accurately representative of today’s society.

Presumably they’d be happier if there were no gay characters at all (yeah, because that would be so much more realistic, wouldn’t it?) and all the black characters were serving in McDonald’s?

What is so offensive about black actors finally being given a fair chance to play major roles? Black people were so excluded from television and film roles when I was a kid that when they started appearing more frequently, I noticed. I noticed the increasing number of black faces, and “black” was what defined them in my mind. Ronnie and Reggie, on the other hand, are so used to seeing black and Asian faces on TV (and yes, on Doctor Who) that I doubt they even register the characters’ colour. All they’re interested in is whether the characters portrayed are goodies or baddies or are entertaining.

Why shouldn’t fictional (even science fictional) scenarios be populated with at least a few gay characters, characters whose main function in the plot is not confined to their sexuality? Straight characters have been free to be straight since TV was invented, but no-one ever accused the makers of Z-Cars of being “straight imperialists”.

My gay friends grew up in a society where there were precious few positive gay role models on television. How awful it must have been for them to be given the unintended but very real message that they were abnormal and that there was no-one else out there who felt the way they did. And how fantastic that young, gay men and women can now see gay characters on TV who aren’t defined by their sexuality. Yes, Captain Jack is gay, but more importantly, he’s a soldier, he’s brave, he’s clever, he inspires love and loyalty, he’s a leader. He’s also gay. So what? Get over it. Donna Noble is brave, clever and funny. She’s also straight. Got a problem with that? No-one cares.

I don’t believe for an instant that black actors were hired by Russell T. Davies (brilliant writer and producer. Also gay, incidentally) out of any desire to “meet quotas” or anything so silly and offensive. He’s far too smart a guy to do anything other than hire the best actors available. But what I also have no doubt about is that, in the past, black actors were turned down for parts because of their colour. If those days are now behind us then I see no reason to do anything other than cheer.

And what does it say about those who are able to suspend disbelief enough to accept that Earth has endured alien invasions a dozen times in as many years but who can’t accept that black people can be successful, powerful or accepted as friends and equals by white people, or that gay people exist in the future?

THERE’S BEEN a great deal of comment and over-reaction excitement to the news that Simon Cowell might be bringing his X-Factor magic to the world of politics.

If he does, I hope it’s a damn sight better than the last reality TV programme that tried to do this. I think it was called Vote For Me! and involved a number of aspiring celebrities trying to impress a panel of judges led by Kelvin MacKenzie. The top prize wasn’t exactly in the X-Factor league of a million pounds record deal: it was basically five hundred quid, which is the deposit any candidate needs to put down if they want to stand in the general election. That’s right – the winner of  Vote For Me! was given the “privilege” of standing in the seat of his choice at the 2005 general election. At no point was it pointed out to the contestents that anyone on the voters’ roll can already stand in any seat they like, provided they pay a deposit and get enough local people to nominate them.

The graveyard slot in which Vote For Me! was broadcast says all there is to say about the confidence the schedulers had in the programme. So Cowell doesn’t have to make too much of an effort to improve on what’s gone before.

Last year I recounted my sole meeting with Cowell at Heathrow’s Terminal One some years previously. Since there’s been some recent speculation about his political views, I thoiught I might as well add my own observations from that encounter. Cowell had asked me what my job was, and when I told him, he asked which parrty I represented. When I replied “Labour”, one of his young female companions cheered “Yay!” At which point Cowell sneered at her and reprimanded her (jovially, I might add): “What do you mean, ‘Yay’?”

So, on the basis of a very quick encounter in the arrivals area of Terminal One, I did not get the impression Mr Cowell was a Labour supporter. But who knows? If he wanted to express support for one party or another, I’m sure he would do so.

Iain Dale has a very funny take on this.

UPDATE at 11.55 pm: I see that Iain Dale, and others commenting on this thread, have interpreted my remarks as criticism of Simon Cowell. For the absence of doubt, I am a fan of Cowell’s. He was perfectly charming and funny when I asked him for an autograph for my young son, and I am in awe of his business and media acumen. So, basically, A Good Bloke. So there.

CIRCUMVENTING the rather tedious and predictable public debate about whether or not there should be a US-style TV debate among all the main party leaders in the run-up to the election, Sky have decided to go it alone and invite Brown, Cameron and Clegg to appear anyway.

And to reinforce their case that this will be an overwhelmingly popular occasion, attracting up to dozens of viewers, they’re collecting names on an online petition: “We, the undersigned, support the campaign for a leaders’ debate.”

An avalanche of public support will coerce the Prime Minister into taking part, the thinking seems to go.

And yet…

According to Sky’s Miranda Richardson’s blog, by Sunday 13 September, the petition had attracted just over 10,000 signatures. So far so good.

But take a look at the Number 10 Petition website. By today, the petition calling for St George’s Day to become a national holiday had attracted 12,054 supporters. One calling for the RNLI to be exempted from paying a licence for using maritime radio frequencies had attracted 31,540. And, of course, the ultimately successful petition calling for the government to apologise for the shameful way Alan Turing was treated currently has 31,577.

So Sky’s attempt at mobilising a popular uprising in favour of  debate seems distinctly unimpressive so far. Perhaps the public aren’t as excited about the prospect as Sky had assumed. Or maybe they see Sky’s cunning stunt more as a naked attempt at securing a TV audience than an effort to re-engage the public in the political process.

I wonder how many of the 10,000 who have signed it realise that Nick Clegg’s agreed to be on it…?

IT SHOULDN’T really matter that the public are mysified and confused by Derren Brown’s “explanation” of how he appeared to predict Wednesday night’s lottery numbers.

First of all, he did nothing of the sort anyway, so any “explanation” he might provide is irrelevant. It is impossible to predict the lottery numbers. You can’t do it. One chance in 15 million. Never gonna happen.

But Brown is a terrific showman, with genuine talent. Carolyn and I are so impresed by some of his performances that we tend to refer to him as “Our Dark Master”.

But he can’t predict the Lottery numbers. And he didn’t.

For those unconvinced by my scepticism, who want to believe the trick was in some way genuine, the key was Brown’s refusal to let us see his selection of numbers before the actual draw on TV. He claimed that this was because no-one but the BBC were legally allowed to announce the Lotto numbers.

Yeah, right.

Anyone is allowed to announce what they think the numbers will be; I could tell you right now what my numbers for next Wednesday’s draw are. If they actually come out, do you really think the BBC or Camelot would sue me afterwards?

Brown could have got round this “legal obstacle” by allowing a member of the public or a live studio audience see the numbers before the draw took place; he didn’t need to announce them publicly until afterwards. And the fact that he didn’t, the fact that he waited until after the televised draw before letting the world know that his numbers – surprise, surprise! – matched exactly, suggests strongly that it was a trick. A clever, entertaining trick, but a trick nevertheless.

THERE was much excitement in the Harris household when the American sci-fi series V was broadcast in the 1980s.

The effects were state-of-the-art and the image of massive spaceships hovering over major world cities was gob-smackingly impressive, 15 years before Independence Day. The actual plot, where beautiful aliens (very eighties, with big hair and shoulder pads everywhere) offering love and peace turn out to have rather darker motives, quickly turned into a clumsy and subtlety-free metaphor for the fight against fascism. The TV series that followed the original mini-series plumbed the depths of credibility when budget restraints saw the alien occupiers swapping their space-age shuttle crafts for motorbikes.

Now the Visitors are back in a “re-imagining” (don’t American TV execs just love that word?) of the original V. I have no idea whether it will be a hit or a miss; if the producers follow the example set by the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, then it will be worth watching whenever it arrives on British shores. On the other hand, if it’s more like the Bionic Woman re-boot, probably better give it a miss.

Anyway, here’s an initial taster.

THE NATION will no doubt be disappointed that, following tonight’s show, I am no longer a fan of The X-Factor and will not be posting on it any more. I know, I know, it’s tough, but hold yourself together…

As I feared, the live arena audience for the auditions was a disaster. I’m as entertained as the next person (Carolyn) by the humiliation of people who are too un-self-aware to realise that they are crap singers. And when they are told as much in a small room in front of four judges and a camera crew, that’s fair enough. But when three or four thousand people join in the cat-calls and the gleeful laughter in response to a cruel put-down by Simon or Louis, that’s when you cross the line from entertainment to blood sport.

And I could be wrong, but there seemed to be fewer auditions shown this time round. Not surprising when you consider the time taken up by audience reaction and interaction with the judges. And there used to be a degree of charm when contestants, successful or otherwise, would emerge from the audition studio to tell their friends and relatives the good or bad news. But now those friends and relatives watch the auditions with everyone else, and witness their loved ones’ very public humiliation.

It’s a “no” from me. Carolyn?

“And it’s no from me. I’m sorry.”

UPDATE on Sunday at 9.50 am: Re-reading this post in the fresh light of day, I realise now that by criticising the audition process for being too cruel and then complaining that there were too few auditions, I’m sounding like the joke Woody Allen tells in Annie Hall: two elderly Jewish ladies in a restaurant. One of them says: “The food in here is awful!” The other replies: “Yes, and such small portions!”

THE NATION awaits with bated breath. The long haul to The X-Factor live finals starts tonight with the broadcasting of the first auditions.

But I have my doubts.

I think one of the reasons I’ve never warmed to Britain’s Got Talent is the format. First-time performers do their stuff in front of the judges as well as a theatre audience, most of whom can’t wait to howl their approval or disapproval at the acts. It’s just that, at that stage, I’m more interested in the judges’ reactions; the only amateur opinions I want are mine and Carolyn’s.

So with tonight’s X-Factor now following the same format, I’m not looking forward to it quite as much as I would have, and certainly not as much as I did this time last year.

Still, Simon Cowell’s no fool. I assume he knows what he’s doing. On with the show!