Start to Finish: 6.04 - The Many Deaths of Jo Grant

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's time for the Third Doctor, and we're back with Jo Grant, in a title that does not bode well for the pluckiest UNIT agent; Cavan Scott and Mark Wright's The Many Deaths of Jo Grant.

The Doctor is desperately striving to save the life of a wounded alien and UNIT HQ is under attack. As the attackers close in, time is running out. This is the day that Jo Grant dies... and dies, and dies.

Scott and Wright's slightly trippy entry in the series doesn't ever convince you that Jo is doomed, of course, but it presents its puzzle well, with the common elements which drift through the different scenarios. Nicholas Asbury provides one of those elements as the recurring Rowe, but presents a range of characters within that umbrella, and between just the two of them Katy Manning and Asbury provide a staggering number of characters.

The old melancholy is back a little, but overall this story is one of defiance and celebration of the third principle of sentient life. The saarlac-esque scene is a little grim, but overall it's a solid entry and a lot of fun.

Next time, we'll wrap up the Oliver Harper trilogy with The First Wave.

Start to Finish: 6.03 - The Memory Cheats

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

As the series progresses, not only do the formats of the Companion Chronicles get more varied, they also begin to build up complex post-travel histories for some of the Companions. Such is the case with Zoe Herriot, whose story picks up in The Memory Cheats, with a framing narrative that is a direct sequel to Echoes of Grey.

Zoe Herriot remembers everything, and she knows she never traveled with the Doctor. So why is she under arrest, charged with various crimes, and presented with a chance to save herself if only she can explain what happened in Uzbekistan in 1919?

Having denied the Company her help in Echoes of Grey, the framing narrative for Simon Guerrier's The Memory Cheats picks up Zoe's story in prison, with a court-appointed defender urging Zoe to recall the information she needs for a plea bargain. Unusually, this Chronicle plays very much with the idea of the Companion as an unreliable narrator, not as a result of forgetfulness, but deliberation. Zoe specifically claims that her story is false, and peppered with hints to manipulate her listener, although the audience is left unsure.

Wendy Padbury is joined by her daughter Charlie Hayes, no stranger to the Chronicles having played Gatlin in Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code, as Jen, and the interview room scenes click well. The story is somewhat strange and unsettling. In fact many of the Zoe Chronicles have an air of claustrophobic menace about them, but in this instance Zoe's attempts to manipulate Jen's perceptions lead to some distinctly odd character moments.

Next, more perceptual shenanigans in The Many Deaths of Jo Grant.

Start to Finish: 6.02 - The Rocket Men

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Back to the First Doctor, and another TARDIS 'holiday', in John Dorney's The Rocket Men.

Vacationing on the Platform 5 luxuy hotel on the gas giant Jobis, the TARDIS crew are enjoying the break from danger and adventure. Then the Rocket Men arrive, and the holiday is very much over.

The frame of The Rocket Men is a bit of an oddity, with William Russell as Ian skipping back and forth in the narrative and breaking off to muse on that perennial favourite of Chronicle writers, Ian and Barbara as the OTP of the First Doctor era. The frame also blends into the main story, and is ultimately overtaken and let behind.

Despite the art deco look and 50s pulp adventure name, the Rocket Men themselves are a brutal depiction of piracy, murderous and more than a little sadistic, as represented by Gus Brown as their gleefully vicious, scene chewing leader Ashman. The massacre of innocents is classic Who all over, and the look of the Rocket Men makes it easy to visualise them in Radio Serial style, while the descriptions are rather more sophisticated.

Despite the limitations of the form, The Rocket Men manages to generate a real sense of tension and peril, and the Rocket Men themselves were good enough to return in series 7's Return of the Rocket Men, as well as Requiem for the Rocket Men, a forthcoming full-cast adventure for the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

We'll catch up with them later then. For now, the next play is a Second Doctor outing which develops the story of the older Zoe Herriot in The Memory Cheats.

Time for a change

"What's the site called?"

"The Bad Movie Mecca."

"Oh, that's brave."

Well, no it isn't. Calling my blog the Bad Movie Mecca was a callback to a student joke, and increasingly I've been aware that it was potentially offensive without making any actual point, and I figure if you don't have a point to make, it's not worth being offensive. If you mock those with faith just because you don't have any, you just turn into Richard Dawkins.

So, welcome to the Bad Movie Marathon!

Start to Finish: 6.01 - Tales from the Vault

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

We open series 6 of The Companion Chronicles with a bit of an oddity, in Jonathan Morris's Tales from the Vault, starring Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, who played the 'almost' companion Dr Grace Holloway and the 'almost almost' companion Chang Lee in the Paul McGann TV movie.

It's Warrant Officer Charlie Sato's first day at a new job, as assistant curator of the UNIT archives under the supervision of Captain Ruth Matheson. It might also be his last, if he doesn't learn to respect the archive's contents.

Ashbrook and Tso provide the framing narrative for a quartet of short stories, each taking the form of the UNIT archive's record on a particular artefact. Katy Manning, Wendy Padbury, Mary Tamm and Peter Purves voice Jo, Zoe, Romana and Steven, describing the four items which become central to the plot of the arc story, which is itself really a two-handed play which, with its single (locked) room setting is most like Solitaire among the Chronicles.

Matheson and Sato are likable protagonists, and the accents are an interesting change (although a little head-scratching given that the Vault is apparently located under the Angel of the North in this instance). The portmanteau stories are brief snippets compared to the richness of a full chronicle, but the weaving together of the four is done well.

Next up, interstellar piracy with The Rocket Men.

Edge of Tomorrow

There's a poster with Tom Cruise on as well.

Last week, I went to see the new Tom Cruise actioner, Edge of Tomorrow. Cruise is someone I can take or leave - as an actor; I have no time for Scientology - depending on his role and performance, and director Doug Liman's record balances The Bourne Identity with Jumper. I've liked Emily Blunt in most things I've seen her in, but this is no Sunshine Cleaning, so overall I went into this not sure how it would pan out.

This is a film in which Cruise plays a smug jerk, who becomes a hero in order to survive, in the course of which he is killed at least 24 times, often by Blunt, and gets called 'maggot' by Tony Todd an average of once every five minutes. It is also a mid-concept SF action film with a reasonable grasp of its philosophical limitations (unlike, say, Looper, it knows full-well that it's cleverness is essentially a trick) and Emily Blunt in power armour.

Breaking it down, and without spoilers, Cruise works well in the role of a smug snake who spins military press releases to avoid combat until he finds himself shoved onto the front line. He's actually a decent character actor if he can stop grinning for five minutes, and he's pretty effective here. Blunt, heretofore primarily a dramatic and light comedy actress, is a powerful physical presence as Sergeant Rita Vrataski (unlike Cruise's William Cage, her name isn't changed from the Japanese original, although she is British rather than American) and about as sexualised as a half-brick in a sock.

And then there's the supporting cast, including Tony Todd, whose only role is to call Cage a maggot, Bill Paxton as Cage's terrifyingly chipper platoon sergeant, a bunch of minor character actors as the expendable squad, and Brendan Gleeson as a ruthless general. They're all good, and if the dialogue isn't exactly deathless, it isn't full of howlers either. There are plenty of little character moments which give the film some dramatic weight to go with the action, although for myself I would have liked to see a little more of the squad rather than just the central dyad.

As to the action, it's pretty faultless. The combination of costume and wirework lends real weight to the characters' exosuits. The invasion, a brutal landing on the beaches of France, invokes Saving Private Ryan's frenetic, terrifying opening while making no attempt to pretend to equal weight.

The ending of the film is, for me, a little bit of a let down and feels slightly tacked on, although I've managed to square it in my own head.

Coming out of the film, we ran down whether it would be a suitable entry for the Bad Movie Mecca and decided it wasn't, combining high production values with a good cast, acceptable dialogue, a tight plot and good use of what it had to work with. Well worth a look.

The Great Gatsby

Don't get blase; everything in the film looks this good.

It was a couple of years ago that I found out Baz Luhrman was making a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, all art deco style and anachronistic musical numbers, and I said 'sign me up'. Hannah was also keen, which makes it odd that neither of us managed to watch it until a couple of weeks ago.

So, this is a Baz Luhrman film, so if you don't like Baz Luhrman, it's not going to be for you. It is a gorgeously stylised film, evoking the period of the novel through sumptuous art deco set design and costumes. The actors all look the part, in fact the casting is near-perfect, and the dialogue is snappy, while the plot rattles along at a rapid pace.

Di Caprio has now emerged from his difficult hearthrob phase and, like Brad Pitt, is now cheerfully excelling in the kind of character roles once denied him on account of his boyish good looks. Maguire is a perfect ingenue, and the supporting players - from Mulligan's self-centred Daisy and Edgerton as her brutish husband - to lesser parts such as Fisher's brassy moll and Debicki's enthusiastic socialite. The interaction between the characters - in particular the central triad of Gatsby's optimism, Carraway's blinkered devotion and Daisy's brittle reserve - is note perfect.

It's not a film with a great deal of depth, but it's slick and beautiful, and was definitely worth the wait.