Fake Logo Watch #1: Deeny’s
July 8th, 2007 by Brack
From Detective Conan OVA #5
Posted in Anime | Tags: Fake Logo Watch | No Comments »
Ha Ha, Fan Entitlement Whovians!
July 4th, 2007 by Brack
This has provided me much amusement the past couple of days, seeing overzealous, overserious Dr Who fans’ heads spin round and round.
Now I do think that the BBC are guilty of overhyping Tate. Still Game, the wonderful Scottish sitcom reportedly pulls in more viewers on BBC2 than Tate’s show, but you don’t see Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill get Dr. Who roles. (Note to the BBC: give Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill roles on Dr. Who). And her sketch show is wildly variable, in that her performances are, on whole, pretty good, but the scripts prove repetitive.
But you know what? The Christmas special with her in was fun. And fun is the minimum I want from Dr Who, sure it’s great when it soars to heights like Blink, but fun is more than enough for a TV sci-fi show. Because most aren’t.
Now, I can see how some people found the character annoying to begin with, but it was toned down and became more serious as the show went on. And the one thing I really loved was that the character was somewhat atypical for a Dr Who companion.
Certainly one weakness of this last series is that a lot of writers didn’t seem write Martha as well as she came across in her first episode, and so in some episodes it could have just as easily been Rose there. I don’t think a character like Donna will have the same problem, if simply because she’s an older character. And a gobshite.
But most of all I like the idea of using her ongoing, because it will wind up the sort of fan who takes it personally when a show doesn’t adhere to their preconceived idea of what the show should be.
Posted in TV | Tags: Catherine Tate, Doctor Who, Fan Entitlement | No Comments »
Reviews of Old Things: Lenin Of The Rovers
July 2nd, 2007 by Brack
Lenin Of The Rovers was a Radio 4 sitcom from 1988 and 1989. It starred Alexei Sayle as Ricky Lenin, a footballing descendant of the more famous Lenin, who turns Felchester Rovers into Britain’s only communist football team.
The other key characters are Stevie Stalin, Terry Trotsky, Colonel Brace-Cartwright and commentator Frank Lee Brian. The latter role was just as key to the show as Alexei Sayles, as it was played by iconic football commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme.
The series was a dual parody, of football comics like Roy of the Rovers, and of the commercialization of football, which had begun to pick up steam at the time. The first series seems a little leaden now, and Keith Allen’s Terry Trotsky is a one note Liverpudlian stereotype. The second, with Phil Cornwell in the role, is a much livelier affair, helped in part by guest appearances by John Sessions and Jim Broadbent. This was born out by the audio cassette release the show was given, with only series 2 seeing the light of day on BBC Audio. Which was a much loved Christmas present when I got it in 1992, and subsequently played to death.
With the creation of BBC7 the series has been repeated on occasion, and there have been torrents appearing here and there. There’s a user on Demonoid (down atm) who has seemingly created a vast archive of BBC comedy shows and I picked up a fresh copy of the series from there a few months back. I was surprised to see that recordings were taken from the original broadcasts, complete with the continuity announcer informing the listener that the first two episodes are the final performances of the late Ballard Barkley (the Colonel in Fawlty Towers) as Colonel Brace-Cartwright.
Posted in Comedy, Radio | Tags: 1988, 1989, Alexei Sayle, Football | No Comments »