Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten

I used to write Doctor Who episode reviews a life time ago when I ran a Doctor Who fan forum. Times have changed and I have become increasingly busy, but I still I have huge love for Doctor Who and thought I might get back into the habit of writing reviews. This blog has gone a bit unloved of late. I wish I could discuss my up and coming projects, but the one I am most excited about is top secret. There's also stuff involving rampaging elephants, and a short Film Festival entry which I shall probably blog about soon once I have the OK to show clips and pictures and what not. In the mean time. Doctor Who.

Matt Smith as a Doctor has grown on me considerably. I never really gelled with him in my post Tennant depression, though in hindsight that is mostly because I found the character of Amy Pond incredibly annoying (That isn't a dig at Karen Gillan by the way, who is a fantastic actress, but the character of Amy Pond) . Now she is out of the picture, and we have the fantastic Clara Oswald, who I love and a darker more brooding Doctor, I can fully appreciate the acting capability of Matt Smith. He's incredible.

So onto The Rings of Akhaten.

I had so much hope for this episode. The look of the episode seemed to be like the love child of Star Wars and John Carter of Mars, and really the first 20 minutes or so was stunning. Just take a moment to appreciate these VFX.

Really, I must shake the Concept Artist by the hand because, this is like nothing I've seen before. In fact the entire premise is original and completely alien, which is something New Who seems to have shied away from in the past. I just love the idea of using sentiment as a currency, and praying to keep the Gods asleep using what is effectively lullabies and bed time stories is just inspired. There were a few minor niggles (like why can't Clara understand some of the aliens the Tardis should translate for her?) which I let go of because, well it is a show aimed at children and the barking alien was quite funny, but then it started to go down hill.

The Doctors Sonic Screwdriver needs to go. I actually thought for a moment he would sell it and I rubbed my hands together with glee at the thought of him saving the day with nothing but his good looks and wits, but no. It has stopped being the device that opens doors (though it did open a rather large door) but in fact the all singing all dancing magical save the day device that gets the Doctor out of any sticky situation. It's a magic wand, he waves it and the bad things go away. It's an unsatisfying conclusion. It's a far cry from Christopher Eccleston trying to resonate concrete and then the humiliation of being saved by Captain Jack. Perhaps the Doctor has obtained a little too much alien tech.

It was all a bit down hill from there in my opinion. It's a real shame because it started out so well. Perhaps next week will be better.

Doctor Who - My Inspirations

Today I read that fans on twitter are sending abusive messages to Steven Moffat. Honestly I don't understand this. Generally I don't understand abusive behaviour at the best of times but this took the biscuit.

For me Doctor Who was a major inspiration, and one of the reasons I decided to enter into the world of Visual Effects. As a six former, young and somewhat naive, I was studying chemistry and opting for a very safe career path as a science teacher. This was who I was when the announcement that Doctor Who was returning to our screens. As a much younger person, I had grown up on classic science fiction reruns, Doctor Who included, so this breaking news sent me into a giddy overload which ultimately resulted in my exclusion from most social groupings. At this point in time I had a love for film particularly visual effects, but to me it was "computer magic" that I would never understand, let alone be able to one day do.

Fast forward a few years and I'm at university, a very good one, studying chemistry and generally unhappy with my life. It was at this time I started building websites for fun and sometimes money, and managed to get sucked into the magical world of the Doctor Who online community. My levels of Geekery massively increased ten fold, but something amazing happened. I discovered photoshop. With this knowledge, practice and development of artistic flare, I learned I could thrill people with my digital art work. I started making banners for other people's websites, members of the Doctor Who community would set me challenges to create wallpapers and blends to meet certain criteria. It was then that I realised chemistry was not the way forward.

The rest as they say, is history. I got myself some formal IT qualifications and went back to university to study visual effects. One day I hope to work on the Doctor Who series. That is my ultimate goal. Of course I would like to work on film and become a millionaire, swan around in a convertible and generally be loved by all, but honestly I would trade this just for one day working on this iconic show.

Doctor Who is a show for the whole family, it frightens children, stuns us with it's beauty and takes us on a moral and emotional roller coaster on a week by week basis. What other show in the world could do that? Russell T Davis brought this show back from the dead. Steven Moffat took it like an olympic relay baton and is racing to take it to new heights of incredible. If haters bring down this show, they would have destroyed something monumental. There are so many of us out here who still love it.

Outcasts - We Want It Back

Ok, so the scripting was a little rough, as was some of the acting, but as British Science Fiction goes, it was incredible. I won't deny this show had a few teething problems. The first few episodes had pace issues, and it took a while to explain what was going on, but these issues were resolved as each episode progressed, and as we got to know and like the characters it became compulsive viewing. I've mentioned before how visually stunning the whole thing was, everything from the location planning to added visual effects was near enough perfection. But what was important about this show, was that it reached out to a new audience, one that has been paying their TV license, but had been generally ignored for years. Science Fiction fans. We are here, and we don't like to fork out for Sky. Finally we were being provided with an intelligent science fiction drama, which had not been produced for children, and it gets torn down simply because it was not an easy no brainer singing talent show. News flash, some adults don't like that sort of thing, and we don't like being ignored.

So last Sunday, the final episode of the first series aired on BBC1, and this week we are informed that there will be no second series. A series that ended on a cliffhanger, with a story arc incomplete. With only 8 episodes in this series, I'm asking myself if this show was in fact cut down prematurely. It struck me as peculiar that there was little to no advertising for this show, and that the time slot was shifted from Monday, to Tuesday, back to Monday and then to the Sunday grave yard slot. It was as if the show was set up to fail from the very beginning. They manage to fit a lot into the each hour long episode, enough that if you missed one episode it was difficult to keep up. No wonder ratings dropped dramatically. I imagine all those people who tuned in on the second Monday to find they'd missed the episode the previous Tuesday, had no idea what was going on, got frustrated and switched off. Worse still they then had two episodes to catch up on before the following evening when the time slot shifted back to Tuesday again!

Personally I think this is a crying shame. I doubt that I will tune into the BBC again until Doctor Who returns to our screens, which makes me wonder if it's worth buying a TV license at all. With every show with any potential being cut if it is not an instant hit, what's the point in watching a new show as it will invariably never reach any conclusion? Why pay £145, when I can simply buy the dvd boxset for £30 on Amazon a few weeks later? So I can tune in to the mindless drone of soap operas and game shows at my pleasure? Thanks but no thanks.

Shows such as Firefly, Primevil and Torchwood were able to make a comeback thanks to the amount of noise made by the fans in protest, so maybe there is hope, though I am doubtful. Perhaps in the democracy that we live in, this program may be allowed a second airing, or at least a one off special to tie up the loose ends. In the mean time I will return to my X Files and Stargate dvd box sets. I have 9 years worth of TV right there to enjoy over and over again and at no extra yearly cost.

British television is a quickly growing industry, one that will produce jobs for the increasing number of graduates with digital media degrees. Why not give shows like this a chance to shine? Not every one will top the ratings charts, but as long as there is a story to be told, money to be made and a team willing to produce it, why give up so easily?

Outcasts, BBC1 Monday 9pm

From me there is a giant welcome to the new Science Fiction drama on BBC1 this week. I am an avid lover of the genre and in my opinion there is not enough of it on the TV. With the largest show of its kind being aimed more at children (though I am a massive Doctor Who fan particularly with Moffat at the helm) it is refreshing to see something for us semi-grown ups.

This show got off to a great start. It combined stunning visuals, particularly nice work on the the out of space shots; dark government conspiracies and deep character development. It introduces the citizens of Fort Hope, a settlement of humans who have escaped the destruction of Earth and set up a new home on the planet of Carpathia. But already we see that things aren't all as they should be. There are rebellious factions who want to start new settlements, a government who seemingly spies on their subjects and what exactly did happen to Earth and where did all the other transports go?

Looks exciting to me. I can't wait until the next installment and I can not recommend this enough.