Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

I know what you did 44 summers ago...

Children of Earth: Day Four

Sweet. Mothering. Sunday.

Towards the end, I suspect like most people, I was thinking that they're not going to gas the entire building - they're going to merely open the doors and quickly reveal in half Tweet's worth of flimflam that the gas would lose its effectiveness as it met the polluted London atmosphere. Or there would be a handy suck label on a less than convenient air-con lever that our heroes would locate and throw just in time (after traversing an obstacle course of inappropriately positioned locked doors, abandoned tea trolleys and discarded ministerial red boxes). But no. They actually all died.

He's dead.

And Ianto. If this entire series wasn't good enough they actually killed off Ianto. Of course, you sit there thinking, bet he's taken his anti-gas pills this morning and he'll be right as rain. Or his gentleman's relish sessions with Jack has resulted in some immortality rubbing off (so to speak) onto him. Or he reveals, in the mildly humours coda at the end that, of course, he was the Porthcawl Buttlins' breath holding champion for 6 summers running. Oh how we'd laugh. And throw our fists through LCD screens. But no... Just when you thought things couldn't get any better, they killed him. They killed them all. All apart from the people in the Cobra room and Dexter.

No... he really is dead.

The Cobra room as basically an amateur dramatics retelling of what happens in the Deal of No Deal Banker's mind every time he mulls over the latest offer to make to mugs with boxes (except, with slightly less Nick Briggs). Earlier, the meeting with the PM and military figures was full of the sorts of recriminations and backbiting a partner might be subject too if their other half were to find a piece of suspicious underwear in a compromising position, ie on the end of a car radio aerial. "You should have told us you'd had dealings with The 456 before - oh why didn't you tell us", the Americans asked jealously. I'm surprised at that point the PM didn't through the entire back catalogue of Target novelisations at them and ask for 367 other incidents to be taken into account. What was the UNIT chap doing as all these discussions were going on? Thinking to himself "Please don't mention the Yeti. Please don't mention the Yeti. Please don't mention the Yeti.". A bit like Ianto's shock at Jack not telling him about events from his past. I'm surprised he stopped at the existence of Alice and Stephen and didn't as for another 367 incidents, at least, to be taken into account.

He's still dead. He ain't coming back. He is stone dead.

Whilst the trip into the tank might have taken a little bit of a shine off the threat (revealing a less than menacing load of latex) at least death on a massive scale will always trump bad alien prosthetics (and why am I being constantly reminded of the Jed Mercurio epic Invasion: Earth when it comes to the alien threat?). Even if the death was mostly down to that old standby - sheer bloody-minded Torchwood arrogance.

There is no returning from this one. He's definitely not coming back. He's as dead as crushed nylon three-quarter slacks with an embroidered Chuckle Brother on each knee. He... is... DEAD.

What will they do tonight? Catapult the Isle of Wight into the heart of a sun? Orchestrate the destruction of the eastern seaboard of the United States by turning the Atlantic into a bath of acid? Or simply crack open the planet like a Kinder Surprise and play keepy-uppy with the molten core as humanity fizzles into blistered nothingness in the vacuum of space?

Whatever happens, I can't wait. And that's the most surprising thing of all...

Should Have Gone To Specsavers

Also known as "The Captain's New Clothes" or "Cup o'Beans, Mr Partridge?"

Children of Earth: Day Three

I do genuinely worry for some Doctor Who/Torchwood fans. After two series of what could, at the very least, be termed abuse and at the worst a flagrant disregard for all standards of decency and humanity, Torchwood is finally delivering the goods. And how. Yet, there are people out there in Webshire who long for Cyberwoman, who are gently rocking themselves to sleep, crying into the coat of their Captain John action figure and attempting to eek viewing 4,985 out of their terminally damaged Meat DVD. These people worry me. What on earth do they want? Would they like the gas to clear in the tank and for The 456 to be revealed as nothing more than Gray standing there naked apart from a prosthetic aardvark head and a bout of the norovirus?

Pray silence for Mr and Mrs Fiscal Tightening and their budgie, Cuts.

I suppose now that the hub's been blown apart series 4's main threat will come from keeping the tramps from pissing in the doorway of their new base - so normal service might be resumed after all. Of course there were moments of silliness, aside from the Primark version of Hustle. Jack's skewed priorities and Ianto's ability to pinpoint the nearest Army Surplus store - even if you've got to ask yourself which army, in this day and age - generates these sorts of surpluses? Is there a big stock of World War II great coats out there? Perhaps that's all the MoD have left to send the troops to Afghanistan with.

The offspring of John Le Mesurier and Richard Briers.

And the 24 hour rolling news woman's back again. This poor dear remains the sole US news anchor on duty, now entering her 5th consecutive year without so much as a minute's rest. At least the UK seems to have a fairly deep roster of anchors to chew their way through, Louise Minchin being the latest in the long line. What I would give to have Peter Allen be the next one. In fact, when the inevitable happens and we get subjugated by an alien overlord, I'd like to request that it is Peter Allen's grumpy tones that impart the bitter news to a shattered nation as we're taken, one by one, to a fantastical meat processing plant and filleted. Even if Minchin's big scene is basically a re-run of the Aliens of London/World War III (I can't be bothered to work out which one) scene where Andy Marr's running commentary covered the political arrivals at the Number 10 Ball. Pray silence for Mr and Mrs Fiscal Tightening and their budgie, Cuts.

The highlights of the series so far has been Frobisher, who I thought was almost about to give The 456 chapter and verse on diplomatic protocol right down to the correct temperature to serve Ferrero Rocher and Dexter who looks like the offspring of John Le Mesurier and Richard Briers. Perhaps The 456's slight dicky stomach is down to one too many Ferrero Rochers from their last diplomatic encounter. Who knows... perhaps it is Gray after all and the last two days will be spent petulantly sulking at the Universe?

At least it'll keep certain sections of fandom happy for a few scant moments.

Bits'n'Pieces

In a futile attempt to get something in the bag about Day Two here's a somewhat hopeless effort to slap a few entrails together, wrapped up as a blog post, in the hope that when I come back in 37 minutes time, it's regenerated itself into fully flowing prose. But known my luck it'll just be standing there waving its bits about and scaring the cattle...

Children of Earth: Day Two

Rumour has it that there's going to be a new line of Jack Character Options figures. The Jack Harkness Offal Bag. Endless fun for all the family. See if you can put him back together blindfolded. Play pin the tail on Harkness and watch those nuns faint. Actually, they could release this as one of those build your own skeleton part-works, except this would build up to the full fleshy Monty. Parts 45 thru 68 will be individual sections of his willy whilst parts 354 to 654 will contain his ego.

But not the ones with the faux cheese filling.

There was one memorable (for all the wrong reasons) scene in early trailers where Gwen was launching herself out of the back of some thing, bigging it up in a John Woo action stylee, giving it extra-large with both barrels of two hand guns. It was the single scene in the entire trailer that screamed "the usual Torchwood is back". Was this meant to be the shot as Gwen launched herself from the ambulance after taking the Government agents' (remember that - Government agents - it's going to play key role later) guns from them? If so then the person responsible for cutting this together should be showered with praise, knighted instantly and given a years supply of his favourite 10p chewy sweets.

Meanwhile the 456 are slowly revealing themselves to be the showiest of pretentious aliens. First there's a series of messages delivered through the mouths of an entire planet's children. What about a simple phone call? A postcard? Sky writing? Then there's their rider. One that would put the most petulant of divas to shame. Here's a set of Ikea pamphlets, build that please. Then fill it with gas cos we've been watching loads of that Babylon 5 and we really dig all that alien atmosphere jazz. Then we want a marmoset monkey in each dressing room, with a bath of Kiaora and champagne and some Tuc crackers. But not the ones with the faux cheese filling otherwise WE SHALL DESTROY YOU...

Dropping C-Bombs all over the place.

Actually, you start to worry about these aliens. The Government (hello The Government, I've not forgotten about you, honest) named them after the frequency they used. But... as this was the 60's, with the abundance of pirate radio ships, how could they be sure it wasn't just Tony Blackburn on crackly shortwave they were picking up? And given the Government's greed in selling off various chunks of the spectrum it's a wonder the frequency is still unused and not been flogged to provide the Babestation+1 channel to angry loners and politician's spouses. Is it any wonder that all this nonsense is slowly driving John Frobisher into Malcolm Tucker. The potty language has doubled from yesterdays. By Friday he'll be dropping C-Bombs all over the place and not even batting an eyelid.

A two hander between them in the Dot'n'Ethel mould.

And speaking of The Government... Well. What can you do when you've got the thickness of Gwen running to the Government for help despite knowing that the fake ambulance men were Government agents. Then you've got chief spooky-do woman hijacking PC Andy because he knows where she [Gwen] lives and they don't!

And if that weren't enough, there's the fact that Ianto's comic relief appears to have been distributed amongst Rhys and PC Andy ("if she's anti-terrorist, I would not mind being Uncle Terrorist"). I for one can't wait for Day Four which is a two hander between them in the Dot'n'Ethel mould. Which one's Dot and which one's Ethel? That would be telling. But I can tell you that there'll be periodic off screen obsenities hurled from an almost fully formed, and unseen, Tucker.

Tidy!

Gone Fishin'

Torchwood. Didn't that used to be on the radio? An every day story of Welsh folk. Designed by committee to fill a gap in the prestigious afternoon wireless schedules. Something to take the joint key demographics of starchy retired colonels and 90-something Daily Mail reading ladies who lynch from the end of The Arches through to Money Box Live without allowing them to fully realise the futility of eternity and attempt suicide by overdosing on clotted cream teas.

Accompanied by a massive semen stain which will all but obscure You and Yours.

I begin to wonder whether it was any more than a series of quirks of fate that resulted in three Torchwood plays being commissioned for Radio 4? At the end of time, when Broadcasting House is turned over totally for a Lenin style mausoleum to Nigel Rees, there'll be this odd little deformed footnote in the Home Service's illustrious history that will read, "Torchwood Wuz 'Ere". And it'll probably be accompanied by a massive semen stain which will all but obscure You and Yours. It's win-win!

Perhaps we're witnessing the maturing of a television programme here. The young upstart packed off, unceremoniously, to attend a BBC3 bootcamp, where it had all its adolescence anger, swearing and sex hammered out of it to allow it to grace BBC2's somewhat more discerning palate. There it grew out of its acne, its tone lowered and its balls dropped onto an open copy of the Radio Times. Only to be turned over to BBC1 when the great schedulers in the sky deemed it worthy, and suitably cleansed, to be presented to the wider public. Progression along these lines can only lead to one thing, corduroys, Geography teacher style patches on a tweed jacket and series 4 premièring on BBC4 as a series of darkly lit, smoky monologues where the key characters debate existential concepts whilst being seduced by the cleverest man alive dressed in nothing but sock suspenders.

Children of Earth: Day One

It's scientifically proven, probably, that you can't watch anything made in Wales without being reminded of Gavin and Stacey 17 times a minute. And Torchwood's no exception. From Gwen's opening gambit, channeling Ruth Jones' character, "What's occuring, Glynn?" to the slightly odd relationship between two of the key male characters. Of course, whereas you've got Uncle Bryn and Jason's unspecified fishing trip history in the latter, here you've got something whole lot odder going on. "It's not men, it's just him", is how he describes it to his sister. Presumably he also said, of half cyber converted Lisa, "It's not all tin cans, it's just her".

Victoria Derbyshire's phone-in number on speed dial.

Whilst still peppered with faults we're a country mile from the likes of Countrycide and Cyberwoman here. Like when the children first stopped dead, saying that it was random enough for no-one to notice. What?! In a world of rolling news coverage and citizen journalists everywhere with camera phones, an over inflated opinion of their own opinions and Victoria Derbyshire's phone-in number on speed dial if even two children simultaneously did something there'd be BREAKING NEWS flashes quicker than you can say Twitter. You've gotta be concerned for alien hunters when geo-tagging trends on social networks seem as far outside their sphere of understanding as gravity is to an ant. And when a triple deadlock might be enough to fox a serious alien menace but is nothing when it comes to an arse wielding chav, you've gotta be careful.

Where were all the porno flicks in the Home Office?

But perhaps the main problem wasn't even of Torchwood's making. Thanks to crusading broadsheets I can now no longer take British politics seriously. I mean, where were all the porno flicks in the Home Office that the Secreatry of State had inadvertently claimed for? How many duck islands were there lurking in ministerial red cases? It's a bit (i.e. not much) like the way they'll have to depict American politics in future feature films. All those years when they equated edgy with casting a black President. And now we've got one in real life where else is there to go? Female president? What happens in 2012 when Sarah Palin becomes President and or 2016 when it's Hilary's turn? What then? President Mallard, the first quacking President? The first, that is, if you overlook that episode in the 60's with ------------- [text redacted for legal reasons].

And what, precisely, does putting UNIT up to Yellow Alert actually entail? I'm pretty sure The Claws of Axos episode one podcast dealt with UNIT alert bulb colouring and if I'm remembering it correctly a Yellow alert means pack enough lead weights, maggots and waders for a 5 day retreat...

Cos it's about to get complicated.

Doctor Who's Comedy Vehicle

Easter. It is the shit version of Christmas, isn't it? You don't get showered with gift after pointless, ill-thoughtout, gift. There's not some tinselled tit in a red coat and white beard salaciously beckoning you to come sit on his lap and listen whilst you rattle off page numbers and product codes from the Argos catalogue of the latest tat you simple could not stand to live a moment longer without having close at hand. And you don't normally get a super douper extra special episode of Doctor Who either.

Specialist adverts for laxative requisites.

But as Doctor Who has become firmly planted in the nation's psyche as the 21st century version of that other tele holiday staple, Only Fools and Horses, it was only a matter of time before the show spread its sphere of influence to encompass other religious holidays and spurious public worklessness days (in the days before quantitative easing made it's way out of specialist adverts for laxative requisites and into the general consciousness as a solution for a depression of ledge jumping 1930's proportions we'd have cheerfully called these Bank Holidays).

A special set on a bus. A godless bus.

How long before the Letts School Boy diary ceases to be a handy pocket sized year planner and instead becomes more like a never ending version of the Lofficier's Programme Guide. Each named religious festival and public holiday listed with its very own Doctor Who special. Fourth Wednesday after Quadragesima. The sacred week of Pentecost. The three sevenths of the Dawn of the Age of Aquarius. They'll all have them. Each will have their very own Doctor Who special. Not bad for a programme that's written by an atheist which consistently evokes religious themes and imagery at every turn. So perhaps it's fitting that we should now mark all religious holidays with not only rampant consumerism and over-eating on a truly heroic scale, but also a Doctor Who special. A special set on a bus. A godless bus.

Like being car crash with a celebrity.

And that's the problem. The Radio Times told me it was a special, and I knew it wasn't Christmas because I wasn't becoming increasingly irritated by the timely - some say convenient - publication of celebrity books and greatest hits compilations, so what was I to expect? It didn't feel like a special, nor did it feel like a regular episode. Forever trapped in the some weird TV hinterland - like a daytime tv programme you can only glimpse through a convoluted series of angled mirrors. As a series episode it would probably have worked well enough. Stuck out on its own there it remains something of a curious disappointment. Like being car crash with a celebrity - you imagine you might end up best of friends with them or be courted by several tabloids at once bidding for your story. And just when you've visualised that salute edition of OK Magazine to indefatigable spirit in the face of a shattered brake lights you merely exchange insurance details and part with a perfunctory good-bye.

As hollow and as bitter as a Lebanese chocolate ball.

And that's it. Not even the thought of the one time Bionic Woman's one time Bionic Posterior is enough to swing it. Not even Norman Wisdom's turn as a faux Welshman. You're just left with an Easter Egg with no special gift in the middle. As hollow and as bitter as a Lebanese chocolate ball. And as you feel an increasing sense of remoteness and disconnect from the show, fondness seems to grow in the hearts of the nation at large inversely proportional to your disinterest. Until it reaches such a critical mass even scenes like Lee Evans bit of underplayed business with the glasses supplant the bar scene from Only Fools as the nations favouritest tele moment ever. You know the bit... Where Del Boy's leaning on a bar trying to impress some women. Then the hatch is opened and he falls through the bar. He falls through the bar, Stew. He was upright. Then he wasn't. And he falls through the bar. Stew, he falls through the bar. And then John Lumic made a face.

With apologies to Stewart Lee and anyone else for whom the ability to experience joy at the little things in life hasn't yet been hammered clean out of them.

Carry on Follow that Tritovore...

Digital Spy are reporting that the Doctor Who easter special, Planet of the Dead, pulled in 8.41m (39.6%). Over on ITV Primeval got 2.71m (14.3%) but all were trounced by the return of the televised gwaping freak shack that is Britain's Got Talent which averaged 10.52m (45.1%).

Squee Here

Here's a temporary post for you all to squee about in until the first review of Planet of the Dead is posted. Please hose the walls down after you've finished. Thanks.

Gallifrey One: Gentlemen... We're Not In Stockton Anymore

I think it's fair to say myself and others were becoming coming oh so very weary of Doctor Who conventions. With locations so lacking in glamour and sophistication even a Tele Savalas quota quickie wouldn't have increased their attraction rating one iota. With their ticket prices so far divorced from the actual scheduled content it would take a phalanx of counsellors to even get them back in the same hemisphere let alone any closer together. And with more than a soupçon of organisational incompetence that would have embarrassed the project managers of Terminal 5.

Picketed by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall protesting at the factory farming methods of UK convention organisers.

In the space of the last few years, they've turned from a heady mix of entertainment and ale into the fan equivalent of a tightly packed bovine milking warehouse. Get them in, attach the suckers to their wallet-teats and start slurping the buggers dry. It's a wonder that the venues aren't being picketed by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall - protesting at the factory farming methods of UK convention organisers and demonstrating this by having a Doctor Who fan stand in a minuscule cell formed by walls of unsold Dapol Dalek boxes to illustrate just how much room they all have to manoeuvre at these sorts of events.

Despite being a borderline sociopath (and therefore adhering to all 63 stereotypical fan character flaws) I've met and come to know many fantastic convention regulars. The effect of which means that in spite of, not because of, the convention you'd be assured of a good time. No matter how dismally repetitive or how badly planned a convention was you'd always meet up, get completely sluiced and have a damned fine time doing it. Although you'd end up with a feeling of not really getting value for money for the price of admission - as if you were basically having to make your own entertainment - like what we did back in the olden times before god created Sky+.

My first Who convention, Panopticon'94, was a solitary affair, driving from Swansea to Coventry on both Saturday and Sunday (don't ask) and that was quickly followed by a Star Trek convention at the Royal Albert Hall (I'll probably go to hell for that - or at least be damned for all eternity to reside in a tent by the A1). After that it was 9 years before convention going became a regular event. But in the space of 6 short years, and no more than a dozen weekend and one-day events, I felt I was becoming weary of the whole scene...

Making a Azal costume from discarded Taco Bell serviettes and dried Yak poo.

But then along came Gallifrey One. And you realised precisely how these things should be done. It's fair to say, not since the early days of Dimensions - with its less than salubrious hotel rooms, its vistas over the widest high street in Europe and its interactive bitch-slap betting opportunities outside the Zanzibar - have I enjoyed and laughed so much at convention. I believe I attended a grand total of 3 panels - one of which I was a panel member at - out of dozens. But that didn't matter one bit. The schedule itself was simply amazing - with several things going on at once it meant that you didn't need to hear the same anecdote for the 945th time when you could pop off to hear how best to approach making a Azal costume from discarded Taco Bell serviettes and dried Yak poo.

Honorable mentions go to the three Radio Free Skaro dudes - Warren, Steven and Chris. Meeting these three Canadian nutballs was an unedited pleasure (sorry, that should have read unparalleled pleasure). They spent all weekend  podcasting their collected Canadian asses to a small and bloody nub. I'd only really started chatting to these three online about a week before Gally started and needless to say the House of Tachyon TV and the House of Radio Free Skaro got on like a hotel on fire. Looking forward to many a drunken interlude with them in the future.

We knew [from that moment] that we definitely weren't in Stockton.

Another honourable mention must go to Joshua Friedman, who's a Podshock contributor, movie AD and part-time Playboy Mansion bar tender. Described by Jack Black as the Harley Davidson version of Jack Black, this man was the walking embodiment of LA. From the second he bounded over and shook us both strongly by the hand, started effusively talking of his love of the Tachyon TV podcasts, we knew that we definitely weren't in Stockton. Joshua Friedman - mixer of cocktails, provider of Playboy branded bottled sexy-water and AD on the forthcoming movie that deserves to clean up at next year's Oscars (Bitch Slap - you read it here first), you are one fine gentleman and I can't wait for our paths to cross again.

Then there were the celebs. We [I say we, John] interviewed a vast array of celebs who were more than happy to stop by for a long chat. I'm not going to reveal anything that was said - you'll have to wait for the podcast - other then to say how fantastic they all were. Superlatives will dry up so I'll simply say that Kai Owen, Phil Ford, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, David J Howe, Nev Fountain, Rob Shearman [best give up the writing Rob, it's not working out really is it ;)], Phil Collinson and anyone else I've forgotten were all quite, quite marvelous. If any of them are reading this (via a Google Alert on their respective names) I just want to thank them for being so generous with their time and their willingness to stay and chat long after the mic had gone off. We've done convention interviews in the past but I'm struggling to remember any other time when it was so goddamed relaxed as at Gally.

That, my friends, is the sheer raw power of Doctor Who.

And last, but definitely not least, Mr Toby Hadoke (not forgetting Mrs Toby either - without whom the weekend would have been 34% less entertaining). And this kind of crystalizes how plainly barking mad this world of Doctor Who shenanigans can get. I first met Toby during the initial Edinburgh Fringe outing of his fantastic one man show, Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, some 3 years ago now. The day after my not-we other half (who saw the show and enjoyed it) and I were walking down the Royal Mile and she nudged me in the ribs, or at least in the chunky man flab covering my ribs, and said there's that bloke we saw last night. So I bounded over, said hello and shook him vigorously by the hand. Now, I'm guessing that neither of us would have thought that just 3 years - and several subsequent meetings - later we'd both be sharing a death defying cab ride through the deserted streets of LA in the early hours one morning in February. All in the name of cheesecake.

That, my friends, is the sheer raw power of Doctor Who. Never underestimate it. Never ignore it. And never, ever, accept a ride from a cabbie who drives like a hologram from a bad Glen A. Larson television series.

This is Damon Querry for Tachyon TV, sober (for the first time in days), 36000 foot up over Kansas.

Gallifrey 2009: The Calm Before The Oncoming Storm

Spent a relaxing day yesterday in LA mentally preparing myself for the excitement of Gallifrey One. Not a soul was to be seen as I sat at the poolside - did I mention the room opens out onto the pool - and watched Timelash (that's the good Timelash not the one you were thinking of).

Anyhow, you'll be able to keep in touch with the goings on via our Twitter accounts @DamonQuerry, @NeilPerryman and @KittyFisher or via the mashed up Twitter Feed (bit flaky at the moment) of all three or via Behind the Sofa.

I'm off now to get my convention conjuntivitis seen to. If I didn't then I'd end up with enough eye patch anecdotes to drown the Brig!

Chin chin.

Vote Result: The Next Doctor

Here are the results for The Next Doctor blog poll:

• 62%: Superb - Next to Perfect
• 38%: Not Good - Next to Useless