Time is Relative - Season 12: The Ark in Space

Greetings humans.

Don't have time to watch all of Doctor Who in order? Or do have time, but would rather spend it doing literally anything else?

Well, great news. I have done it for you. Here you will find a quite accurate and occasionally amusing account of what definitely happened in every Doctor Who story. More or less.



The Ark in Space

Doctor Who has taken his friends, Harry and Sarah, into space to see what that's like. They have arrived on a space station in the future. There's no-one else about, so they can do what they want.

To their credit, they don't instantly start stealing things. Instead, they do an investigate. Well, Doctor Who and Sarah do.

Harry is just staring at the TARDIS in disbelief.  Travelling to the future in a little blue box has altered his entire perception of space and time. However, he is far too much of a gentleman to make a fuss, and so just says "Gosh" and "Crikey" for a bit, before settling down to enjoy the adventure.

Soon Doctor Who finds that the entire human race is on the space station, wrapped in freezer bags and having a long sleep.

Harry is carrying his shoes about for some reason. I can't quite remember why. Maybe he is just super polite, and always takes his shoes off when he enters someone's house. That said, he still has his blazer on, which suggests he might leave at any minute if the conversation becomes tedious.

Eventually some humans turn up, and say, "Hi, we've been frozen asleep for hundreds of years. What's been going on?"

They then discover that some of the frozen humans are missing. That woman in the background is staring at an empty freezer compartment, wondering where her friend has gone.

Sarah and Harry are wondering if now is a tactful time to leave. They haven't done anything wrong, but Sarah knows from experience that when people's friends die, what they absolutely don't need is Doctor Who being insufferably zany all over the grieving process.

Doctor Who decides to investigate the mystery of the missing humans. Here we see him striding purposefully. Doctor Who has worked out that if he strides purposefully, people will follow him about and assume he knows what is going on.

He does not know what is going on. In fact, you can tell by his face that he has already forgotten where they are and which adventure this is.

Doctor Who soon discovers a giant alien wasp thing. He instantly starts playing with it, while everyone else looks on in silent horror.

Well. The space woman is doing silent horror. Harry is just confused. Why is there a giant wasp? Why is it in space? Why is Doctor Who playing with it and pulling bits out of its brain? Is this what life is going to be like now? Watching a badly dressed madman do the most horrific things possible, in space?

Sarah is just deeply embarrassed. You can't take Doctor Who anywhere.

After a bit, the alien wasps take over one of the humans. He tries to pretend they haven't for a bit, but soon he is covered in green stuff, and even the most polite of his friends is forced to point out that he has something on his face.

He responds by shouting, "Die humans!" and instantly regrets his candour.

This is what the Alien Wasps look like. Which is to say, gross. They wobble about for a bit, shouting at the humans and demanding they be allowed to lay eggs in everyone's stomachs.

The humans say, "Absolutely not!" and ask Doctor Who to make the wasps go away please. Which he does, by murdering them all with explosions. None of that "Oh, but they're a noble race" nonsense this week. He just goes, "Die evil wasps!" and blows them up.

Good old Doctor Who. Making the universe a safer place, one genocide at a time.












Tune in here, for the next exciting adventure - The Sontaran Experiment.

Or go back in time, to the story of the Giant Robot!

Rob's Amazing Film Collection: Part One (About a Boy - All About Eve)

Morning. My, you look most fine with the sun behind you like that.

I've decided to share my film collection with you. Why? I don't really know. I'm probably avoiding doing some real work.

What inspired me was looking at my collection, and thinking "Man, I've never seen some of these films. And there are some here I have seen, that I honestly can't remember whether I liked or not. Why do I have all these films? Why do I keep buying more?"

So I thought I'd have a little stream-of-consciousness ramble through my shelves. See what comes to mind. Maybe you will find it entertaining.


Here goes with Part One. Come with me, should the mood take you.

11.09.01

There's a few anomalies right here at the beginning of the alphabet. Things I wasn't sure where else to put. So we start with 11.09.01, which is a collection of short films about the 11th of September 2001.

It's a nice conceit. There are eleven short films, all of which last, I think, eleven minutes and nine seconds. And one frame? Maybe? Something like that. Clever. Or pretentious, depending on your mood.

The subject matter is necessarily tough going. Some of the films directly address the events of the day and have people going "Oh no, the horror, the horror". Some are really oblique and leave you trying to work out the connections. So if you don't like to work at your entertainment, probably give this a miss.

The one I remember best involves a black screen and lots of cross chatter from the emergency services on the day. The main takeaway here is that I'm very arty and have an impressive social conscience.

A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese

I bought this when I was teaching film studies, in the hope that I could just put it on during classes and say, "Here, watch this while I go flirt with the admin staff."

Sadly, my students were unimpressed by an old owl-like man, shouting excitedly over black and white films and saying "Look at these shadows! Look at this camera angle! I am Catholic!" So I still had to explain what he was saying afterwards.

It's quite interesting, though Scorsese does go on a bit and all the films he talks about are super old. I would like a new version, where he has to watch the John Wick films.

Early Cinema - Primitives and Pioneers

Another hangover from my film teaching days. These are pretty good, though. Lots of early films, from the late 1800s and early 1900s. They are all about 30 seconds long, and they were made before anyone really knew what they were doing.

Subject matter is often banal, as the film makers were just excited to be pointing cameras at things. So you get films expressing ideas like, "Look - a wall!" or "Here comes a train!" or "This man has a hat!"

The titles are good though, and would provide a goldmine for people looking for names for their alternative rock band. Highlights include "Extraordinary Cab Accident", "Rough Sea at Dover", "Mary Jane's Mishap" and - best of all - "Sick Kitten".

About a Boy

Hurrah. An actual film. You've probably seen this one. Hugh Grant flops around the place being nice to a young boy so he can sleep with the boy's mother. I think. Is that how it goes?

I remember liking this a lot, and particularly enjoying the soundtrack, which is by Badly Drawn Boy. I went to see him in Leeds in the five minutes when that was a thing you might intentionally do. He was very entertaining and we missed the last train home.

Annoyingly, this DVD is packaged with Notting Hill. Nothing wrong with Notting Hill - it's very much the underappreciated "Hot Fuzz" to Four Wedding and a Funeral's "Shaun of the Dead". But it annoys me that I can't put it under "N" where it belongs.

The Accused

Saw this once, ages ago. Jodie Foster tries to get justice against some guys who abused her. I assume she does. I can't remember. It's one of those films that everyone is impressed by because of its themes, so it's hard to recall if it's actually any good or just very worthy.

Jodie's always good, though, isn't she? So I assume it's good.

Adaptation

Crazy old Nicholas Cage has fun playing himself and his own brother, who happen to be the scriptwriters of this very film. It's one of Charlie Kaufman's clever postmodern films where the act of narrative itself is up for grabs.

I mostly like this. It's a bit drab, and claustrophobic. I think it's meant to be. And I like the clever stuff about how we construct stories. Plus there's some really funny dialogue. It's not as good as Eternal Sunshine - also by Kaufman - but it is way better than Synecdoche New York, or whatever that godawful self indulgent wankfest was called.

Adulthood

Not-as-good sequel to Kidulthood, whose inferiority is signalled by its not-as-clever title. Kidulthood is a smart play on the word "childhood". Adulthood is just a word.

It's not bad, I suppose. An attempt to represent diversity and youth culture in British cinema is a good idea. Maybe I'm just put off because a film about me would have to be called "GrouchyOldManHood".

Adventureland

I can't tell you a thing about this. I've seen it, but all that's left is a vague sensation that Michael Cera might be in it. And Jesse Eisenberg? And they're on holiday at an amusement park. Possibly. Or is that The Way Way Back?

Why make films that I can't even remember watching, world?

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Now this I remember liking a lot. Three drag queens ride round Australia in a bus. Something like that. And it's very colourful, and I think I watched it when I was feeling sad in 2010, and it cheered me up.

I do like films where prejudiced people get punched in the face. It's very pleasing to me, and makes me feel like I've done something to make the world better. When all I've really done is laugh because a bad man fell over.

I recommend this film. I should watch it again soon. I suspect it has many depths about which I've forgotten.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

This is very enjoyable. It does a decent job of expanding a TV-Sized narrative to a Movie-Sized one. No easy task. Especially with comedy, which doesn't lend itself easily to the most obvious way of upping the ante - raising the threat level.

In fact, the film plays with this very idea - a provincial character forced to step into a world that is just slightly bigger than he is ready to face. The stakes are relatively small scale in film terms, but massive for him. That's pretty clever.

It's not the funniest Partridge has been, but it's good fun.

Alfie

A very good film and one I've watched a bunch of times. The first time I saw it I was surprised by how dark it got in places. Its image is all cheeky chappie, winks to camera, zooming round 60s London in fast cars and snogging dolly birds.

It does have some of that, and Alfie is often a fun, imitable character. But there's a deep sadness and emptiness here too, as I recall. Michael Caine is excellent, and you can see why he became the star he did.

The film is also notable, to me, for the dialogue snippets sampled on "Falling on a Bruise" by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, which I would like playing at my funeral.

Alien (and sequels)


In order of greatness, the original Alien films go

Aliens
Alien
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection

Aliens is top monster shooting action, with a great script, believable characters and loads of thrilling set pieces. When I first watched it, on VHS one evening in 1987, I was so excited I persuaded three of my friends to knock off school the next day to watch it again with me. And we were the good kids! Such is the power of Aliens.

Alien is pretty good, and massively important for the way it developed the language of science fiction cinema. But it's a bit slow, and the monster looks a bit stupid sometimes, and there is no shooting.

Alien 3 is one of those films I like or hate depending on my mood. Some bold and interesting decisions were made, and I admire the attempt to do things differently. It looks great. But I don't think anyone really believes that it works.

Alien Resurrection has some cool ideas, like the clone Ripleys and the underwater aliens. But it is, unfortunately, complete nonsense and has a stupid looking monster at the end that makes you wonder if you feel asleep and are now dreaming about a much worse sequel that would never get made in the real world.

All that said, I'd watch any of them again in a heartbeat.

All About Eve

I saw this once, at Cineworld ten years ago, when they were doing a thing called 'Classic Wednesdays'. It was a good idea - showing old black and white films to a generation who would only ever have seen them on TV screens.

I remember being very excited about how powerful the imagery was on the big screen, and properly starting to appreciate the art of lighting black and white photography.

However. I also fell asleep, so I can't remember what happened. It is not as good as Killing Eve. Which goes to show that you shouldn't make a story "all about" just one person.

Cineworld chickened out of their cool idea before too long. The last time I saw them doing a "Classic Wednesday", the film in question was Sex And The City.

Sex. And. The. City.





Right - that's your lot for now. See you later, for whatever comes next. Oh - it's clearly Almost Famous. Right.

See what's next - here

Time is Relative - Season 12: Robot

Good evening and well then. 

Welcome to this, the latest instalment of my quest to watch all of Doctor Who, and then retell it without much care for how much sense it makes. 

We're up to Season 12, but don't worry. You don't need to know anything. Just look at the lovely pictures and believe everything I say about them.

Robot

Doctor Who has got a new face. He does this every now and then, and most of his friends have gone from being astonished to just shrugging, like you would with someone who wears a different 'crazy' tie to the office every day.

This latest face is extra bonkers, and Doctor Who is clearly delighted with it. He likes the eyes (good for mad staring) and the teeth (good for unnerving grinning, and biting).

Doctor Who finds some extraordinarily weird clothes and spends most of his first day being unusual. The Brigadier, who is his best mate, was hoping that Doctor Who might have changed into someone polite and easy to spend time with.

His face suggests that things have not worked out as he wished. 

Soon there is an exciting mystery to solve. Doctor Who and the Brigadier have gone for a drive to find out about the mystery, which is something to do with people stealing space guns. To their delight, it is a sunny day, so they just spend ages playing in the sunshine.

The guy in between Doctor Who and The Brigadier is called Harry, and he is fantastic. He says things like "Gosh!" and "I say!" and "Crikey!" In this respect he is very much Penfold to Doctor Who's Dangermouse.  

Sarah Jane goes to do an investigate to see who stole the space guns. She finds a Giant Robot, who would be excellent for stealing space guns, and a Clearly Evil Woman, who would definitely enjoy having space guns stolen for her.

"We have not stolen the space guns," says the Clearly Evil Woman. You can tell from Sarah's face that she's thinking, "You definitely have, and I'm going to make sure you die alone and unloved."

The Giant Robot is a great bit of design. He's got a lot going on, shape wise, and would be fun to draw. He also has a rather jolly demeanour which suggests he laughs loudly at almost everything, and would be good company to watch Anchorman with.

As I recall, he's quite a likeable character and most of the evil stuff he gets up to isn't really his fault. He just wants to make everyone happy, and it's unfortunate that everyone he hangs out with is evil.

The Giant Robot was made by this guy, with the mental hair. The guy with mental hair on the right. He's saying, "My robot is very polite and would never steal a space gun."

Doctor Who is fascinated by this. Or at least by something. He may well have just found something in his pocket that is fun to play with. He's not really paying attention to this adventure, and is watching events in much the same way a cat might watch Jools Holland's Hootenanny.

The Brigadier looks startled. I think he is frightened by the guy's hair, and is hoping they can leave soon, before he has a panic attack.

After Doctor Who and his friends go home, the Giant Robot comes out to play with his daddy. They have a lovely time together. I think the Giant Robot wants to do a dance.

Mad hair guy is saying, "We can dance, but first we need to murder all the humans so they don't stop our evil plans."

I feel sad for the Giant Robot. He doesn't know that his daddy is insane. He probably thinks everyone's dad wants to murder people.

Doctor Who is already bored of this adventure and wants to go and play in space. The Brigadier thinks he should stay and solve the mystery of the robot and the space gun, but is having trouble getting through.

Usually at this point the Brigadier would offer Doctor Who some wine, or a selection of cold meats, or suggest they go and laugh at Sergeant Benton's new haircut. But that doesn't work with this new Doctor Who.

Now the Brigadier has loads of wine and cheese in his cupboard, and he's more of a real ale man.

The Giant Robot goes on an exciting rampage. I can't remember why. I think the Brigadier has commanded his soldiers to go arrest all the bad guys, and in response the bad guys have asked the Giant Robot to go murder the soldiers while they run off.

This is a lot of fun for all concerned, and the bad guys are really missing out.

Doctor Who is persuaded to pay attention for just long enough to do some science. He makes some Robot Killing Stuff out of chemicals. Harry is being supportive, and saying "Gosh!" and "Crumbs!" in an encouraging way, to keep Doctor Who on task. 

The Giant Robot gets zapped with some power or something, and becomes even Gianter. He runs off to the country and demands that Sarah Jane be his girlfriend, and glows red with over-excitement.

Sarah Jane is basically fine with this. All the normal people she knows are very annoying, so maybe it would be fun to spend time with a Giant Robot for a bit. Sadly for her, Doctor Who turns up with his Robot Killing Stuff, and murders her new friend, before driving off grinning like a madman.

That's how that story ends. Come back soon for more adventures with the new Doctor Who.

If you miss the old Doctor Who, his final adventures can be found here.