18th Birthday

I have just turned 18. To celebrate I get to vote in tomorrows London election. This has made a bit of an impression on me, and left me a bit, well, both optimistic and melancholy about the future. I can sumarize my main thoughts, as a kind of plan, which sort of goes as follows, in order of importance.

1. I need to take my exams a bit more seriously. I need 3 As for Exeter University. Eeeeek! Therefore, I need a back-up plan in case this fails.

2. I need to sort out my finances, so I can afford to pay for stuff when I need to pay for stuff.

3. I need to get some kind of employment. Partially, just to see what it is like.

4. I need to learn to drive. At some stage. I have all the stuff, I have just not been bothered to organise it yet.

This next year will be a success if these are all completed. This could be hard...

Pushing Daisies

Every now and again I find a new television show that I really love. Now, I have found Pushing Daisies.

The newest American import to be shown on British television, I love this show. It is a comedic love story, with intertwined murder investigating, and the crux that the two main characters can never touch. It is blessed by a mix of surreal realism, a well written script, perfect performances, superbly assisted by Jim Dale's narration, and a wonderfully life-affirming tone.

This show is brilliant. I love it. I feel blessed that I will get to watch my four favourite TV shows all together; Heroes having just started on the BBC, Battlestar Galactica on Sky, Lost returning in a few short weeks, and now Pushing Daisies.

ITV, however, I hate. They are the ones broadcasting Pushing Daisies, but due to terrible scheduling, only 8 weeks were allowed during which to show 9 episodes, and so ITV decided to miss the second episode of the series. They did not broadcast it.

This sent me spiralling into a world of online downloads, something I have been avoiding for various reason, mainly a mix of morality and cautious mistrust of the internet.

However, I was determined to watch the second episode of this delightful show before continuing with the third, which sits still in my Sky+ box. It took me a while to discover what to do, a long time to download, a while to transfer to my second PC, which has a better monitor, and a while to find a media player that would work, but finally I found a way to watch it.

I am so glad I did, for if this is the quality of the episode they decided to leave out, then my heart skips a beat to think of how great the rest of the series must be.

This is a brilliant show. I love it.

Back from Devon

I have just returned from a wonderful week in Devon, so sorry for the lack of posting. I went with my parents, brother, aunt, uncle and cousins, and had a grand time.

Passed the time very pleasantly and now I return refreshed. Of couse, a lot of stuff happened, but not much that is interesting to the world at large.

Naturally, I will now spend my weekend catching up on television, football and college work.

Liverpool 4 - Arsenal 2

My faith in the Champions League has returned! I may not be an Arsenal fan, I may not be a Liverpool fan, but that was still a tense finish. Brilliant to see such a great game, one that was end to end, with both temas going all out. Nice to be reminded of why I love the beautiful game.

Dr Who

Oh well. The time of year has come again. Dr - bleeding – Who.

This has got to be one of the most overrated television shows ever. Every year we get months of build up, people filled with adoration for Russell T Davis. The Christmas episode was useless, but the last season was not too bad. Sure, there have been mistakes, but there are a lot of shows that I put up with that have dud episodes.

I am not going to review this new episode, which was turgid and boring, and which is as formulaic the old ones, but not as terrible as I had feared. Instead I have a few points on Dr Who that I would like to point out in general.

1. The award for the most overused plot device ever - the Sonic Screwdriver. Every single tight situation where cunning might be useful, and they switch to the screwdriver. (Incidentally the best aspect of the Doctor's personality is his cunning.) Any part of the plot that doesn't add up? Use the Screwdriver to get out of it. It's painful. It’s lazy. And they seem to be pleased with themselves evertime they think of it.

2. I understand that this show needs to appeal to all age-ranges, but that does not mean make it suitable for the lowest possible age range, and mass market it to "families", meaning adults will feel it is acceptable to watch. Toy story - good for all ages. The Simpsons - good for all ages. Dr Who is most often (see 3) written by three years olds, by three year olds. Mass appeal does not make lazy writing necessary, it just, sadly, seems to make it acceptable.

3. This is the exception that I need to write about. The one good point. Anyone who wants to see what Dr Who could be like, go and watch the episode from last series, Blink. Steven Moffat, you are the greatest scriptwriter the BBC can call on, you saved Dr Who, and actually made it into a brilliant piece of Science Fiction. You actually proved what Dr Who can be. For that I am eternally grateful, and really pissed off at Russell T Davis for not doing a better job. This has been referred to as a Dr Who-lite episode, according to Wikipedia, because the Doctor is barely in it. This is why it rules! The Doctor is allowed to use his ingenuity off-screen to help our heroes, and it uses time as a mechanism for his brilliance. This is the only point I have in favour of the Doctor. I have seen one episode that proved how good it can be. And it really is good.

4. Average CGI does not impress me. Even awesome CGI alone does not necessarily impress me. CGI is a means to an end. Just throwing it at me and hoping that I, as a viewer, can make something of it is not a good production strategy. Get over yourselves, and use that larger-than-average effects budget in a way that does not dramatically disengage me form the action.

5. This is the most important point of all, but one that is almost always overlooked. He is a time-lord! He can travel in time! WHY DOESN'T HE THEN!?! Almost all episodes could be easily solved if he arrived on earth a few days before he did! Usually, this would have saved lives! He picks the date of his arrival! He picks the time! So why does he choose to arrive late? Sometimes the Tardis makes a mistake, and this drops him into a tricky situation, or sometimes he doesn’t know what he is dealing with until too late, and yes, they do need tricky situations so as to make a TV show. But most of the time he can simply go back in time and set up supplies or mechanisms to help him out. Why ignore time travel as a mechanism for the plot, and just fall back on the "stupid alien & screwdriver" mechanic? I am not suggesting replacing one Deus Ex Machina with another, but at least vary it a bit. Why ignore the best possibility of the Doctor?

In conclusion, Dr Who is almost always overhyped, is almost always badly acted, is almost always badly scripted and is almost always badly produced. Almost always it is a waste of time, money and effort. But every now and again, the potential for the Doctor shines though, and in those moments you know that what you do have is special. Here’s hoping we get one of those again.

Visiting Stamford Bridge

Last Sunday I was one of the 39,994 people who paid a visit to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea play Middlesbrough, in a Premier League game. It was the first time I have ever visited a Premier League match, and the first time in years I have been to a game. It was amazing.

I am not a Chelsea fan, but I felt like one. When Carvalho nods in the first goal, and everyone around me went wild, I felt a magnificent tingly sensation that I have never felt before. It was so liberating, to be able to look wherever I wanted to, to see what I could see, without replays, living the game in the moment. It was so humanising, to be able to see these players in real life, to watch how they play.

The seats we had were truly incredible. I don’t not really have a yard-stick to judge them by, but I understand that being in the front row of the third tier, almost level with the centre circle, is amazing.

I have never felt like this before. Never before have I been able to watch what the keepers do when no-one else is around, what the captain really does, to freely see how players run off the ball. The most interesting moment was watching an injury in the first half. I never knew that physio's ran so fast! They really sprint!

It was an exhilarating experience, and I now have a new goal in life: to go and see England play a proper competitive international at Wembley, and to go see Manchester United play at Old Trafford.

Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth

I love Stargate. It is not perfect, I will admit. It is prone to errors in judgement, and often suffers from bad episodes. Nonetheless, ever since the revamp, with the new Ori storyline, and the new characters, things have been very good.

For those who don’t know, Stargate SG-1 was good, not so great, great, crap, and then brilliant, more-or-less in that order, over 10 seasons and 214 episodes. It's time on TV over, even with a successful spin-off Atlantis, the makers of Stargate had still not finished their story, and they decided that their best plan was to create a dvd-movie to finish this off, and so this new incarnation revolves around that crusade in the name of evil gods that we were in the middle of when the TV show ended. This was shown, as a two-hour special on Sky One, this Easter just past. It is know as:

Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth.

Of course, in true SG-1 style, this is all about our heroes chasing a McGuffin with which to save the world, here by convincing all the followers of the false gods the Ori, that they are indeed false gods, and their crusade against all unbelievers is immoral. This is the titular “Ark” that will show them “Truth”. As it is, this is a great plotline, which does of course develop with many twists and turns. It is also problematic, because it alienates new viewers by being very much the conclusion to a story that some of us will be very familiar with, more so than others. If you have not watched SG-1 before, while this is a good showcase of what Stargate is, but I would recommend starting elsewhere, for much of it will not make sense. If you have been watching SG-1, this is the story that you have been waiting for.

This is because this is awesome, a true finale to the Ori plotline. It keeps a large amount of the humour that typifies the show, with self referential nods and jokes at science fiction staples, whilst keeping many of the things that have run throughout the show intact. The effects work is top notch, but not overused, and the tension builds in junction with the dual plots, which are well interwoven, timed and acted, especially because the relationships between the characters are brilliant. They fact that I have been waiting for this for so long does not hinder the end product, it fulfils everything that you could want the finale to do. It ties up the loose ends without closing the book entirely, or destroying many of the themes that are part of SG-1 lore, as many series finales tend to do, with Buffy and Serenity springing immediately to mind as key culprits.

The fact that there are bad points does not detract from the overall awesomeness of the entertainment, and they all draw from one point. Stargate is much better at creating plotlines, and setting up events than it is at finishing them off. The best episodes of Stargate always end as a set up something that will come later, or are entirely unrelated to the grander plot. Episodes that are finales, in every sense of the word, are always underplaying their potential; it is imposable for them not to. That is why the series did not tie up the loose ends, because that it not what Stargate is best at. The set up, the drama, is best before the end, and as such this is not a movie I would rewatch again and again. Once I have seen it once I am happy.

Importantly, the inclusion of the IOA and their plan is a masterstroke of a decision, which those who have seen this will understand, for it is amazing, even if it breaks SG-cannon slightly, it still works, and it really does make the film, even if it does slightly marginalise the huge crusade that is destroying our galaxy.

But there are some problems. Firstly, the extra money seems to have been given straight to the cameramen, who have spent all their time panning around characters, wobbly-cam at the ready, zooming in on every face in a very overdone style. Secondly, because this film cannot realise all of its enormous potential, some of the set-pieces are sacrificed.

An example, which is a spoiler, but one that does not matter in the slightest, a massive evil fleet approaches Earth. Instead of a huge-battle-where-Earth-fights-aggressors-and-is-saved-at-the-last-moment, the film leaves this alone, and focuses elsewhere. This set-piece is not realised, and this is repeated as the same for many other scenes. There is no time for the slower moments when everything conversation must either start “remember the time when…” and serve as exposition, or “our only hope is to…” and ramp up the tension. This cannot live up to expectations because it has to do so much. And yet, it still does. It matched my expectations, it is a magnificent finale, exactly what the series, and the fans, deserve.

The fact that this is a movie, that it comes over a year after the series ended and has to tie up all the loose ends, is problematic. It means that, not only do we need closure on a long-standing issue, but we need to be reminded of what that issue was. Who characters are, what they have done, why they need to be stopped or helped, an audience needs to be reminded of this, and only then can the answer be given. This is a very time consuming process, which does at some points drag away the tension.

Most of all, there is one problem with Stargate which always comes to mind, and may be more of a criticism in general than a particular fault of this film. It is especially apparent after watching Battlestar Galactica. SG-1 always approach a big issue, a controversial one, that has no “correct” moral answer, but instead of challenging our perceptions, as in BSG, they back away hurriedly and avoid the issue like the bubonic plague. For example, here it is the nature of religion, which they avoid, and the nature of fanatical interpretation of sacred texts, which they also avoid. I also find it morally questionable that they have, in the previous season, wiped out an entire race of beings, in if they are evil false gods, with another McGuffin, in an act of genocide, and seem quite proud of their actions. Fine, they saved humanity by doing so, but I would like it if a few of the characters approached the issue head on, and tackled it as it should be. Naturally, if you didn’t spot any of this, it if because it is only alluded to. I understand the reasons the writers avoid these debates, of how they could corrupt the tone of the piece, but it annoying the way in which they always pull away from, what I feel, could be the most interesting of punches, and the hollow feeling it leaves some aspects of the show.

To conclude, this is a brilliant movie of Stargate. The tension is high, without compromising the characters and their interactions with each other. This is exactly what I had hoped for, even if it does suffer from the long-standing problems that Stargate has always suffered from, and that concluding a long story is always hard. This cannot be as fulfilling as when the writers are developing a story to be finished later, but this is still a brilliant finish to the Ori plot, it does everything you could want of it, and does it well. However, I do not know how much enjoyment anyone who is not a full Stargate fan will be able to gain from this. I love Stargate, and was paying attention to all that happened in the last two years. If you didn’t watch those, chances are you will be left feeling unconnected to the plotline here, as more time is spent of reminding the audience of what is past than of developing the characters, something unnecessary for a full television series, but that may have been appreciated by new-comers to the move.

Bring on Continuum, the second film due in early summer, a more self-contained movie, a time-travelling adventure featuring Jack O’Neil!

If Ark of Truth is just the first example, it bodes very well for things to come.