Category: TV

Detective Montalbano: Episodes 23-26

detective montalbano

For a brief period, I was reviewing a lot of international crime dramas from around the world, all released by a company called MHZ. The shows were usually good, the DVDs were pretty bare-boned, and the cover art was often terrible. I mean just look at this image. My daughter has better design skills, and she’s only 11. It looks like someone took a random screenshot and then added the most generic-looking text on top of it and called it a day.

The show, as you can read in this review, was pretty good.

Prime Suspect: The Complete Collection

prime suspect the complete collection

Prime Suspect is one of my all-time favorite detective television shows. Helen Mirren stars as Jane Tennison, one of the few female Detective Chief Inspectors in London. The series follows her as she fights against institutionalized sexism, her own destructive personality, and solves some pretty gnarly crimes. It is incredibly well made and Mirren is absolutely brilliant. I highly recommend the show as you can see from the review I wrote of the complete series that came out on Blu-ray a few years back.

Doctor Who: Spearhead From Space

spearhead from space

Doctor Who
Spearhead From Space
Season 7, Story 51
Originally Aired: January 3-24, 1970

My answer to the question as to who is my favorite incarnation of The Doctor is usually answered by which Doctor I most recently watched. But if pressed Jon Pertwee is often my definitive answer (when it isn’t Tom Baker, or David Tennant, or Peter Capaldi…). But Pertwee is a great Doctor.

Spearhead From Space was his first story, it was also the first Doctor Who story to be shot in color and the first to be released on Blu-ray. I reviewed the disk when it first came out and you can read my thoughts here.

Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks

doctor who remembrance of the daleks

Doctor Who
Remembrance of the Daleks
Season 25
Story 148
Orignal Air Date: October 5-26, 1988

In watching Classic Doctor Who I really do have a tendency to skip around. In this, case I recently watched this story which if the first part of Season 25, then went back to watch Dragonfire which was the last story of Season 24 and after, that I watched The Happiness Patrol which is the second story of Season 25. Normally I skip around a lot more than that but I liked this story quite a lot and as it was clearly early days for Ace, I wanted to watch her intro. But whatever, here we are.

The Doctor and Ace landed on Earth in the year 1963. They are after the Hand of Omega, a Time Lord device The Doctor left at Coal Hill School during his very first visit to Earth. They find the device but also discover two warring factions of Daleks. He must enlist the help of the military to stop the Dalek’s war from destroying the world.

As this story begins the series 25th year there are lots of references to previous stories. The series began in 1963 and the very first story too place at Coal Hill school. The Daleks were some of the first villains he fought in the story (and they remain a fan favorite). They return to seveal locations The Doctor visited early in the series and there are loads of little Easter Eggs hidden throughout, like when Ace picks up the very same book that Susan had handled in the fist story.

As such this story is a delight for old fans who can delight in all of the throwbacks and references, but its also a very fun story on its own. It is packd with action and there are some good bits of humor. Sylvester McCoy, who laned the role just a few short weeks before Season 24 began shooting finally had time to actually think about what he wante to do with the character and he seems to fully inhabit it here.

All around it is a very fun story and one of my very favorite late-era Classic Who tales.

Doctor Who: Dragonfire

doctor who dragonfire


Doctor Who
Dragonfire
Season 24
Story 147
Original airdate: November 23 – December 7, 1987

While we do watch the new Doctor Who series every Friday I periodically watch the Classic Series. I do that pretty randomly – jumping around from story to story, Doctor to Doctor, whenever the mood hits me. Since I’m planning on writing about NuWho every Friday I thought I’d write about the Classic Stories as well.

Dragonfire was the final story in the 24th season of Doctor Who. It saw the end of Mel (Bonnie Langford) as the Doctor’s companion and the beginning of Ace’s (Sophie Aldred) run. She would be the last companion of the classic series.

The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Mel land the TARDIS on Iceworld, a trading colony on the dark side of the planet Svartos. At an ice cream parlor, they run into Sabalom Glitz (Tony Selby) whom The Doctor had run in a previous story (Trial of a Time Lord). Glitz has a map that purportedly leads to a treasure buried under the colony. A treasure that is protected by a dragon. As it happens Ace is working at the ice cream shop as a waitress. She was accidentally transported to Iceworld from her home on 20th-century Earth while she was toying around with some homemade explosives. She is totally keen to follow our heroes, battle a dragon and capture the treasure.

Our main villain is not the dragon, but rather Kane (Edward Peel), a great evildoer who was exiled to Svartos some 2,000 years ago. He hopes the treasure will help him return to his home planet. The trouble is his natural body temperature is super cold and any conflict with a fire-breathing dragon would kill him. He’s been waiting for someone courageous like the Doctor to get the treasure for him.

Not knowing that they are unwittingly doing Kane’s bidding The Doctor and his companions venture underneath the city in search of the dragon and the treasure. They find both, but as these things usually go Kane gets the treasure which is an energy source he can use to pilot his spaceship and return to his home. Naturally, he is thwarted and The Doctor wins.

As a story Dragonfire is pretty lacking. Kane is straight-up evil. He enslaves the people of Iceworld to do his bidding and generally doesn’t care if they live or die. The sets are actually pretty great with lots of plastic sheeting used to create the ice world. There the usual caves and what-not, but they use them to good effect. There is one giant room that must have been built on a massive sound stage that gives the place a more expansive feeling than most Doctor Who stories.

Mel has never been my favorite companion and she’s not given much more to do here but complain and scream in terror. Still, it is always a little sad to see a companion go. Strangely, throughout the story she makes no indication that she plans to leave and then in the last five minutes she’s like “well, I’m off, see you around Doctor” and leaves with Sabalom Glitz. I haven’t seen the previous story so maybe she indicated this was going to be her last adventure there, but it seems so quick here.

Ace is naturally then invited to go on more adventures and she gladly accepts. I’ve come to like her as a companion with her adventurous spirit and willingness to jump right in (and blow things up).

So not the best story, but not the worst by a long shot.

Wilfred: Season Two

wilfred

Reading these old reviews that I wrote is such a strange experience for me. There are times when I’ll read a review and have no memory of ever watching that movie to TV series. Or my memory of the thing is totally different from what I wrote on the page. Wilfred is a show I do remember watching. I remember which house I was living in when I watched it and my mind’s eye sees me sitting there watching. But I couldn’t tell you a thing about it. If asked if I liked it I’d probably shrug and say it was ok. But reading my review I see that I quite liked it. That I found it crass, but very funny.

I don’t know that this means anything, except that I’ve watched a lot of stuff over the years and written about it. And that my memory isn’t great. Now I think I may have to see if I still have those Wilfred DVDs and watch them again.

Doctor Who: The Visitation

doctor who the visitation

I originally wrote this review in 2013. It is fun to read my thoughts on this story as it was pretty early days for me and Classic Who. This was my first time watching Peter Davison in the role and I wasn’t thrilled with his performance (I’ve since come to love him). It is also funny that I note that Adric seems pretty useless and Tegan does nothing but complain (my opinions on them have remained the same).

As a side note my current cat is named Nyssa.

Anyway, you can read the review here.