Doctor Who – Timelash Review (or “Is It Really The Second Worst Story Ever?”)

So you’ll know from reading my review of it that the Twin Dilemma was voted the very worst Doctor Who story of all time.

In the Mighty 200 Rankings of all of the Doctor’s adventures broadcast to that point, it came in 200th.

And it arguably deserved that ranking.

But what came in at #199?

The answer to that question is Timelash, and it’s next up on my schedule.

Doctor Who – Timelash Review: What’s This One About?

Erm…

On some planet where the Doctor apparently once visited, an ugly bloke rules in a reign of terror by pretending to be Dennis Carey.

And HG Wells is in it.

And so are sock puppets.

Thoughts – Three Cheers For The Borad

While there’s a fair amount to criticise Timelash for, it has at least one major thing going for it, and that’s the Borad.

Up The Borad!!

Not only does he look very impressive – even by today’s standards, let alone those from 1985 – but the man behind the makeup acts the part exceptionally well.

Put simply, a poorer actor would play the part as a shouty or cackling villain, but Robert Ashby’s take on the character is to speak softly but firmly. It’s an interesting and far more effective way of doing it. As the old saying goes, people with real power don’t need to scream and shout to get things done.

So in that regard he’s similar to the likes of Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh.

Some of the dialogue the Borad comes out with like the line about how he is repulsive, or the one where the actor decides to replace the line “You’re lying” with “Another expedition into the realms of duplicity” are great.

In fact, almost everything about the character and the way it’s presented is worth commending. The effect of his death ray, the way he slides into shot on that chair, the way he used a robot Dennis Carey to talk to the people; it’s all very good.

And if the rest of the elements of the story were as sound as the Borad, Timelash would be a highly regarded affair.

But they aren’t, and it isn’t.

A Pantomime Affair

Unfortunately for Timelash, the rest of it mainly crap.

In some respects, the casting is good. You’ve got the aforementioned Robert Ashby supported by the likes of Dennis Carey, Paul Darrow and Neil Hallett, who are all worthy additions to the ensemble (well…I’ll get back to Darrow in a bit), but the rest of the cast – like Dicken Ashworth, David Chandler and Jeananne Crowley – are awful. Absolutely bloody awful.

And since Hallett and Carey are on screen for such little time, and since Darrow is quite openly taking the piss with his approach to the part, what we’re left with is a badly acted 90 minutes of TV whenever the Borad is off-screen.

Indeed, it’s all very pantomime, which isn’t helped by the way most of the action takes place in that big meeting hall that looks like it could easily be recreated on a stage, and a Timelash prop that is so cheap, I think I could have made it at school.

Where it’s similar to the Twin Dilemma is that it feels as though it’s written to make little kids laugh. In particular, you could imagine Vena (Crowley) turning to the camera and asking if the children at home can help them.

So there is that sense of embarrassment again that is forcing its way into the viewing experience.

Not Enough Plot

Apart from actors, the cheapness and the feel of it, Timelash’s biggest problem is that it’s too long.

Brace yourselves for the best cliffhanger ever seen. He…will do the talking.

And I’ve said the same thing now in almost all my Sixth Doctor reviews. If the story had been told at a quicker pace and was wrapped up in one episode (or two in the case of the Two Doctors) it would have been far better.

But once again we have a situation where the story just fizzles out in the final episode.

Here, the Borad is killed with almost an entire 23 minute episode length to spare. Had this been a four parter in the traditional sense, there’s no way they’d allow the lead villain to be written out in Episode 3.

But they do, and so the rest of the story – a story that I reckon exists purely to come up with the punchline that Herbert is H.G.Wells – is spent stalling.

We have those awful scenes in the TARDIS to kill 5 minutes, the dull conversations with the sock puppet and then – to top it all off – they bring back the Borad despite him being clearly killed, and have him say “Aye mate, it was a clone”, before he gets defeated again two minutes later.

And how we’re supposed to buy him as the Loch Ness Monster, I couldn’t tell you.

So it was another example of stalling, and it once again did not work.

The Colin Baker Cliffhanger Close-Up Count

We’ve got another one. And that takes the total to…

The Doctor 7-4 Peri

Random Observations

• On the subject of cliffhangers, the UK Gold version of Timelash – split into four parts rather than two – has perhaps the worst (or best) cliffhanger the show has ever seen. It’s just Paul Darrow saying to his lackeys “I will do the talking”. And that’s it, cut mid-scene. Wonderful editing.
• I mentioned the bad actors above, but I didn’t say who I thought was the very worst. Hands down that award goes to David Ashton as Kendron, who is pitiful. His scene with Paul Darrow before he dies is as low rent as low rent can possibly get.
• Over the past few stories, Colin Baker’s Doctor has become less of a problem than it was. Sure, the coat is awful, but his characterisation has mellowed, as has his relationship with Peri. So why Eric Saward wrote those extra scenes in the
  

  It looks like we came close to that Rape Scene I mentioned in my Two Doctors review

  TARDIS which took both characters back to their Twin Dilemma dynamic, I couldn’t tell you. At least Saward admits now how awful it was.

• The show’s obsession with its past takes a new turn in Timelash, with the story referencing a past Doctor Adventure that we hadn’t seen. As if to hammer the point home, there’s a mural of Jon Pertwee on a wall, and someone forces Peri to identify a picture of Jo Grant on pain of death.
• Now why would Peri know who Jo Grant is? And why would someone be given or even keep a locket with a picture of her in it?
• Furthermore, if it was a Third Doctor and Jo adventure, how come Paul Darrow remarks that the Doctor is only travelling with one companion this time? Who joined them? Benton?
• The worst bit of writing of the lot is where the Doctor reappears after the TARDIS is supposed to be destroyed, and just doesn’t bother to explain how he survived. We’d just seen 10 minutes of him telling both Peri and Herbert that he was about to sacrifice himself to save the planet, so when Peri asks how they managed to escape destruction, something better than “I’ll tell you later” would have been nice.
• What’s the point in those blue androids? Do you think Glen McCoy or even the director or producer thought giving them high pitched voices was a good idea? Because it wasn’t.
• I used to work with a guy who looked like the Borad, facially. It was unsettling.
• There’s something just so cheap about the way people don’t fall into the Timelash, but rather they slowly and gingerly step into it.
• If you’d never seen Paul Darrow before, I’m fairly certain you’d add him to the bad actors list, but I find him enjoyable to watch. The idea that he decided to play the part as Laurence Olivier playing Richard III just for a laugh is hilarious.
• My favourite Darrow line is his delivery of “…the most luminous force…in this part…of the Galaxy”. Awesome.
• This is the 300th article published on Stuart Reviews Stuff. I find it sad that it’s a review of Timelash.
• DWM Mighty 200 Ranking: #199

Doctor Who – Timelash Review: Final Thoughts

Timelash is a strange mixture of good and embarrassing.

The good parts – mainly those associated with the Borad who I find to be one the better realised Doctor Who villains in terms of appearance and acting – are well worth commending.

And Paul Darrow is fun in a deliberately hammy way.

But the bad parts – set design, half the actors, bad writing, the sock puppet aliens, the padding – are awful and cringeworthy.

I feel that this is a story that could have been much better if it was limited to a single episode, and I feel I keep saying that about this era.

The second worst story of all time? No, but it’s still comfortably in the bottom 10%

Doctor Who – The Two Doctors Review (or “Fannying About In Spain”)

Now here’s a story that should be good.

The last Doctor Who from the pen of Robert Holmes was the top rated story of all time, The Caves of Androzani and this adventure is one of the true rarities in the history of the show; a story involving more than one Doctor.

It’s only been done twice before, in the form of the mediocre Three Doctors and the excellent Five Doctors.

But with Holmes in charge and Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines involved, surely The Two Doctors will be good?

Right?

Wrong!

Doctor Who – The Two Doctors Review: What’s This One About

The Sixth Doctor stumbles across a Second Doctor Adventure that involves wrongly proportioned Sontarans, Servalan, a luvvie and…for some reason…Spain.

This is also a story told in three episodes, which means in terms of running time, this is the last Six Part story of the Classic Era.

Thoughts – How Could They Get It So Wrong?

The opening scene of the Two Doctors is filled with so much promise. The Doctor and Jamie in the TARDIS, blatantly trying to fit as much innuendo in as possible, setting up the story.

There’s no overacting and no stupid dialogue; you’re filled with a sense of nostalgia and hope for what could and should be a great three episodes.

And in fairness to it, the set-up continues well through the first half of Episode One (which – and I’m sorry to keep harping back to this – would be the entire length of a normal 23 minute episode).

Just for a moment, things seemed good

But then it all goes wrong.

Once Patrick Troughton’s Doctor exits the stage midway through that episode it just becomes a tale of fannying about in Spain.

It’s as if the plot doesn’t matter any more, and it’s more important to show the local scenery.

Beyond the set-up - i.e. the Timelords have sent the Second Doctor to put a stop to the time travel experiments of Kartz and Reimer but instead he is captured so they can extract the symbiotic nuclei from him – it’s a load of absolute drivel

• Why have they gone to Spain anyway?
• Considering they exist purely to be turned on (that’s turned against rather than be sexually aroused), why even bother with the Sontarans?
• Why are we supposed to care about a character whose sole purpose is that he “hilariously” wants to cook and eat a human?
• Why would Dastari even agree to bring the idiot chef with them anyway?

These are all key issues, because ultimately all the Two Doctors is is a story that seems to be fitted round what items John Nathan Turner wanted it to contain.

Much like the Arc of Infinity and Planet of Fire, JNT wanted to go abroad. It didn’t matter that filming it in Spain added the sum total of sod all to the story, nor did it matter that to get the city centre of Seville they’d have to come up with an utterly stupid plot device (turning the Second Doctor into an Androgum for the sake of getting them to a restaurant), nor – as I mentioned above – did it matter that the Sontarans added nothing of value either. All that mattered to JNT was that the story include these things.

And it suffered as a result.

Another Case Of Fizzling Out

In many of the reviews of this season I’ve bemoaned the way the stories fizzle out, and the Two Doctors is no exception.

Even allowing for how poor it is in the first two episodes, it gets worse as it goes along.

Like I said above, the stuff with the Second Doctor being augmented was a total waste of time, but beyond that it’s just padding, padding and more padding, until they have to rush to the finish and kill everyone off (because…you know…Eric Saward is the script editor).

The repetition is incredible. The Sontaran leader gets put through the mill, being stabbed in the leg, gassed, badly injured in the time capsule and then blown up, while Shockeye manages to get both Jamie and Peri on his table.

All in the same episode.

It’s just a chore to watch.

The Nature of the Story Makes No Sense

Having the Doctor cross his own timeline is a big deal. It’s only happened a few times and when it has, it’s been explained.

But it wasn’t to last

In the Three Doctors, the Time Lords brought them all together as a very last option.

In the Five Doctors, they were brought together having been scooped out of time.

But in the Two Doctors, there’s no special reason. The two of them just meet up.

And that is deeply unsatisfying when you take a moment to think about it.

Why would the Sixth Doctor not remember everything that happened? Surely that’s in his past?

Instead, it’s played out as if they are two completely different blokes leading separate lives.

The reason given for the Sixth Doctor being going to see Dastari is also convoluted. Considering the Second Doctor wasn’t killed, why would the Sixth Doctor feel as though he was? And why then? Why not an hour before? It’s just so poorly thought out.

And don’t get me started on how it makes no sense for a grey-haired Second Doctor to even be in a situation where he’s going out and doing assignments for the Time Lords with an older Jamie. For a show so wrapped up in its own continuity at this point, that makes no sense unless there’s a fabled ‘Season 6b’.

Moreover, it makes no sense that the Second Doctor would be familiar with the Sontarans when the Third Doctor wasn’t.

Argh it’s just so frustrating.

The Violence

I think the Two Doctors is the show at its lowest ebb when it comes to violence.

When you have the Daleks exterminating people or the Raston Warrior Robot butchering a troop of Cybermen, there’s an element of fantasy that detaches it from being properly grim. I mean sure, there’s death, but it’s not something that could possibly happen in reality.

But in the Two Doctors there are two instances that are different.

For a start, there’s the murder of Oscar. I actually find this to be perhaps the most unnecessary and distasteful death the show has ever presented.

For no good reason – i.e. for the sake of it – Oscar is killed by being stabbed in cold blood in his restaurant. Not only was it pointless, but it was also properly violent in a ‘real’ way. And then to top it all off, not only does he die in a theatrical and unrealistic way, but the characters around him act like it’s completely inconsequential. The Doctor’s half-hearted “Goodnight Sweet Prince” is unbecoming of the lead character in a show like this.

And speaking of unbecoming, the way the Doctor murders Shockeye with cyanide is exactly that.

To me, those murders sully the show for different reasons. The first was insultingly done and not needed in the plot, while the other just didn’t suit the character of the Doctor.

Go on Doctor, put your back into it. Murder him!! That’ll give the kids a good role model

Bad writing, bad decisions.

I’m just waiting for Peri to get brutally raped in Timelash now…

The Colin Baker Cliffhanger Close-Up Count

Here we have the best of all worlds.

Episode One finishes with a close-up of Baker
Episode Two finishes with a close-up of Bryant
Episode Three finishes with a close-up of them both.

And so the score is…

Doctor 6-4 Peri

Random Observations

• Quite a few people seem to praise the performance of John Stratton as Shockeye but I have always despised it. He’s an overacting luvvie, an annoying character and he looks stupid.
• And I don’t get the hierarchy with the Androgums either. They are presented as the lowest form of life yet consider themselves to be well above humans. But what species are the scientists on that space station meant to be if not derived from humans?
• And how can Androgums read Spanish and Chinese? And are we to assume that their natural language is actually English?
• Jacqueline Pearce just plays Servalan here. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to the individual.
• Earlier I mentioned the lack of continuity. Surely a team of Ian Levine and Robert Holmes could remember between them that the Sontarans are supposed to be small blokes, not giant hosses?
• If Shockeye is breaking down Jamie’s muscles so that he can be cooked more easily, how is Jamie able to walk without any problems moments later?
• The Incidental Music where the Doctor brutally murders Shockeye is reminiscent of the music from the first ever He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, The Diamond Ray of Disappearance.
• It began to drive me mad, so I looked up the script and checked this out. The words “Of Course…” are repeated 23 times in the Two Doctors. Patrick Troughton at one point starts almost every sentence with them.
• I find the moral of the story – i.e. that you can try to take the scum out of the gutter but you can’t take the gutter out of the scum – to be clunky and unbecoming of a writer as usually reliable as Robert Holmes
• Why did they murder everyone on the space station anyway? And why didn’t they save Kartz and Reimer?
• Despite all these problems, Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines are both very good and are clearly having fun. Even Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant are decent enough here, and in the main the Sixth Doctor is a better written character than he has been, but that’s not enough for me to be positive.
• Indeed, I feel that Patrick Troughton especially was underutilized and ended up being a side attraction beyond the first 20 minutes.
• DWM Mighty 200 Ranking: #125. Absolute nonsense. Rating it that high does a disservice to the likes of Revenge of the Cybermen, The Rescue, The Myth Makers and The Enemy of the World, which are all below it.

Doctor Who – The Two Doctors Review: Final Thoughts

I understand that people will like this because it has Patrick Troughton and Fraser Hines in it.

But that’s not good enough for me.

They are both a breath of fresh air in what is clearly showing up to be the lowest point in Doctor Who history, but even they can’t save this one.

The Two Doctors is badly written gimmickry that exists without anything resembling a decent plot.

I really do not enjoy this story, not in the least bit.

It should have been so much better.

Doctor Who – The Mark of the Rani Review (or “Dreary, With Terrible Accents”)

I want to like the Colin Baker era, but it’s just hasn’t happened for me so far.

The Twin Dilemma was awful and both Attack of the Cybermen and Vengeance on Varos were not without their own problems.

So what is it? The Writing? The Acting? The Characterisation? The new 45 minute format?

Well it’s been a mixture of all four so far.

I wonder how the next story – The Mark of the Rani – will fair?

Doctor Who – The Mark of the Rani Review: What’s This One About?

There’s a new evil Time Lord for the Doctor to face, or should that be a Time Lady, since it’s a woman.

And guess what? The Master is back too, despite him being killed off fairly definitively in his last appearance.

The setting? Northern England in the 19th Century.

The point? Who knows.

Thoughts – Nothing Really Happens

I found myself quite enjoying the first episode of Mark of the Rani.

Despite the fact that The Master was brought in without even trying to explain how he survived being burnt alive at the end of Planet of Fire (and I believe the explanation was left out because Eric Saward wanted to make the point that he

The bloke on the left has the worst stab at a Northern Accent ever heard on TV

shouldn’t have been brought back so quick) and despite the other issues with it that I’ll get to later, it seemed to be set up quite well.

The Rani is an interesting character, well performed by Kate O’Mara, and her reason for being there worked.

The problem was that as things developed, the setting really didn’t matter at all and as a character she offered little threat.

Sure, she was extracting the fluid from people’s brains that prevented them from sleeping, and thus made them more aggressive, but what did that actually matter? How was her plan going to influence anything?

It wasn’t, and it didn’t.

And The Master being there just made for some extra villainy for the sake of it.

As Episode 2 developed, it became clear that nothing was going to happen, there was no threat beyond a dog being killed and the Doctor rolling down a hill on a gurney and the conclusion was just a case of “All’s well that ends well so let’s just go home”.

Therefore, the story went from being quite promising to a damp squib.

Frustrating.

Is it a problem with the format? Probably. This is a story is so slow it’s almost going backwards, and without the ‘Rush to the Finish’ every 22 minutes, it lacked any urgency.

The Worst Regional Accents In Television History

Something about the Mark of the Rani that I found particularly annoying was the use of “Northern Accents” from actors who clearly didn’t speak like that normally.

One or two of the actors either did a good job or were from the area, but mostly it was embarrassing.

Watch the scene were the three badly acting “aggressive” blokes confront the Master. One of them, the one on the end, put on such a bad impression that you could barely understand what he was saying. He was that bad.

Peri’s taking her complaints about her costume to the wrong person

In the main it was actors struggling with a Northern Accent over their already put on BBC English way of speaking. It’s the language equivalent of Julian Glover wearing a Scarlioni mask over the Scaroth mask over his own face. Awkward and uncomfortable.

The Colin Baker Cliffhanger Close-Up Count

While there isn’t a close-up of Colin Baker or Nicola Bryant, this gets a bonus point for having a dramatic close-up of a mine shaft.

Ooooh, exciting.

Random Observations

• What’s the point of having the Master dress up as a scarecrow in the background of one scene? I mean really? Why bother? It’s pathetic.
• Furthermore, having the Rani in costume for a couple of scenes is also devoid of any dramatic license.
• The incidental music in Mark of the Rani sounds like the sort of thing you’d get in an early 1990s Sega Megadrive game. It lacks any oomph and is therefore perfect for a story with such little urgency.
• You’ll notice that Peri’s dress sense has only gotten worse. The costume department are seriously bad at this point in the show’s history. And don’t blame the fashion at the time either, because surely it wasn’t that bad?
• The scene where Colin Baker wears a different coat, even though it was a mucky brown jacket, instantly made him seem like a character to take more seriously.
• The cliffhanger to Episode One has one of the ultimate “Cheat” resolutions. In Episode One George Stephenson isn’t anywhere to be seen and yet in the reprise he pulls a level to redirect the gurney long before the Doctor would reach the
  

  ‘Mon Then!

  mine shaft. Boo!

• This story is also well-known for Pip & Jane Baker’s ridiculous use of language. Nobody, not even the Master would say “Fortuitous would be a more apposite epithet!” Now I like to think I’m a decent writer, but my style is to use language that people actually use and understand. Writing dialogue with words like that adds nothing.
• One aspect of the story I like is the relationship between the Rani, the Doctor and the Master. Her opinion that the two of them are as bad and childish as each other is fairly amusing.
• Beyond the Master and the Rani, the only member of the guest cast worth his salt is Terrance Alexander, and would you believe it, that’s because he was the only other person not speaking in a fake Northern Accent.
• The amount of times the Master says – dramatically – “The Mark….of the Rani” is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face.
• The stuff with the dinosaurs was pointless.
• To give the show some credit, I learnt what a Luddite was. It’s an insult I like to throw around to this day.
• DWM Mighty 200 Ranking: #148

Doctor Who – The Mark of the Rani Review: Final Thoughts

This is certainly one of my shortest reviews, coming in at just over 1,000 words, but that’s because there’s so little to say about it.

The Mark of the Rani is a story that starts brightly but ultimately goes nowhere. There’s no point, no drama, no reason to care. It’s dull, and that’s backed up by the Incidental Music and dreary location.

With a ranking of #148 I just can’t find myself caring enough about it to disagree.

And so once again, I’m waiting to find a Sixth Doctor TV story that I enjoy.

Stuart’s Top 30 Sitcoms of All Time: Part 6 (#05 – #01)

So we’ve reached the final five of my Top 30 Sitcoms of All Time.

The key to cracking the top five is consistency. 

These sitcoms are the ones that – as far as I’m concerned – are quality all the way through.

Well…almost.

5. Blackadder

I must hold my hands up and say I haven’t seen the first season of Blackadder in a long, long time, but for me, Blackadder is a three season affair anyway.

From Blackadder 2 to Blackadder Goes Forth, the quality of cast and scripts is excellent.

It even manages to make repetition work, with the multiple appearances of the likes of “Bob” and Lord Flashheart.

People still talk about bringing Blackadder back, but I think that would ruin it.

Best Episode: Goodbyeeee

Could it be anything else?

The final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth might not be the funniest one, but it was the best written and acted. As Blackadder and his fellow troops are at last told they’ll be going over the top, it becomes more of a poignant drama about the realities of life in the trenches in World War One.

And after so many “Cunning Plans” that never worked, you got the feeling that Baldrick’s last one – the only one he didn’t have time to explain – was going to be one that would work (that Blackadder should step on the giant splinter to avoid combat).

The ending is as sad a moment as you’ll ever find in a comedy. 

Superb.

4. The Big Bang Theory

I get the feeling this will cause some level of incredulity among readers, but I think the Big Bang Theory is more than deserving of a place in the top 5.

It remains consistently “laugh out loud” funny every week, it has strong characters played by mostly good actors (I’ve never been fond of Raj) and it does what so few sitcoms do – it allows room for character development.

Compare an episode from the first season to the latest one and you’ll see the likes of Sheldon, Howard, Leonard and Penny have all changed over the years.

With my love of everything from Doctor Who to Nintendo gaming, I can’t deny I find the humour somewhat relateable as well, even if that is slightly worrying.

I would say the Big Bang Theory works best though when it focuses on the relationship between Sheldon and Penny. They are absolute polar opposites and yet often find common ground.

It’s great stuff.

Best Episode: The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis

In terms of a specific episode of BBT being considerably funnier than the rest, I think it’s difficult to pick one.

So I’ve picked the episode where Sheldon isn’t quite sure what he should buy Penny for Christmas because he doesn’t know how much she’s spent on him. So he buys multiple gifts with the plan of giving her the price appropriate one and returning the rest. When he finds out what his gift from her is, he gives her them all and – in a touching moment of character progression – a hug.

Awwww.

3. Fawlty Towers

I think Fawlty Towers would end up being a Top 5 on most peoples’ lists.

It’s the ultimate example of a show that kept it short in terms of the amount of episodes, but retained the highest standard throughout.

Having said that, and what drops it down to #3 is that there are plenty of other series’ where the quality remains examplary for more than 12 episodes.

Best Episode: The Builders

For a lot of people, the best one is The Germans, but I think the dynamic of Fawlty Towers is at its very best in The Builders.

It’s the one where Basil doesn’t want to hire the more expensive builders and instead brings in the less than competent Irishman, O’Reilly to do the job.

The scene where Cybil attacks them both with her handbag remains one of my favourite sitcom moments.

2. One Foot In The Grave

In terms of British Comedy, it doesn’t get any better than One Foot In The Grave.

I read a comment on a forum recently from someone who said that it’s a show built around one joke. What nonsense. 

One Foot In The Grave is possibly the most deeply written sitcom there’s ever been.

Everything links up, comments made offhand at the start of episodes are really seeds planted for jokes to blossom at the end, and there’s just so much going on in every half hour.

I don’t believe any other comedy on this list could have done what this series did – had an episode with one single character for the whole 30 minutes and be funny.

You’ve just got to take your hat off to the ability of David Renwick.

Built around one joke? Presumably that criticism is directed at the “I Don’t Believe” style punchline, but again that couldn’t be further from the truth. 

People assume it’s a show about a miserable git, but it’s not. In almost every instance, Victor is the innocent party, and it’s often the case that it’s his wife who is the difficult one.

Slyly, One Foot In The Grave manages to be more chaotic than shows that supposedly thrive on that, like The Young Ones, and furthermore, in amongst the comedy, it manages to sneak in quite a lot of serious drama too.

The only bad thing about One Foot In The Grave was the final episode, which was dreadful. They did not need to kill off Victor.

Best Episode: The Worst Horror Of All

The Mini in the skip, the Mattress in the mini, Victor’s new job, the trip to the BBC with the wrong guy and of course the visit of Ronnie and Mildred.

One Foot In The Grave doesn’t get any better.

1. Arrested Development

I think I could watch Arrested Development from beginning to end three or four times a year.

It’s that good.

Unlike many of the sitcoms on this list, you can’t just watch a random episode and expect to get it – you really have to start with the first episode and go all the way through.

The amount of linked jokes, the depth of the characters, the addition of a narrator…everything you could want from a comedy you’d get in Arrested Development.

If I was to criticise if for one thing, I found the storyline with Rita pretty tiresome.

The show returns to NetFlix later this month and I just hope they can do it justice.

Best Episode: Amigos

It’s difficult to pick one in particular, and I had considered the likes of Good Grief, Pier Pressure and Making A Stand, but Amigos wins for me because there’s so much going on.

Gene Parseman, Ice, the trip to Mexico, Gob’s insecurities about friendship, Michael’s dislike of Anne.

It’s brilliant, but then they almost all are.

So There We Have It…

So that’s the countdown.

The Stuart Reviews Stuff Top 30 Sitcoms of All Time are…

30. Only Fools & Horses
29. Scrubs
28. Black Books
27. The Goodies
26. The Office (UK)
25. The Office (US) (Which retrospectively should be a lot higher than I originally ranked it)
24. Futurama
23. Modern Family
22. Parks & Recreation
21. Outnumbered
20. Family Guy
19. Gavin & Stacey
18. How I Met Your Mother
17. Coupling
16. Community
15. Red Dwarf
14. Still Game
13. Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads
12. The Inbetweeners
11. The Simpsons
10. Peepshow 
09. Dad
08. The Thick of It
07. Men Behaving Badly
06. Dad’s Army
05. Blackadder
04. The Big Bang Theory
03. Fawlty Towers
02. One Foot In The Grave
01. Arrested Development

So dear reader, in your opinions what have I missed? What have I got wrong? What’s too high? What’s too low?

Let me know.

Get Involved In The Debate

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Games – Impossible Road Review (or ‘A Simple But Fun Game That Offers The Elusive “One More Go” Factor’)

A sense of achievement is something that I often find lacking in modern “Campaign” games, which is why I’ve found myself playing them less and less.

You play through a game like Bioshock Infinite and it’s more of an experience (or chore) than a challenge. The fact that you can look up how long a game takes to complete shows that finishing the game is a given rather than something to aspire to.

I know I harp on about this, but it was different back in the day. If you played a game like Double Dragon or Rick Dangerous and you actually managed to finish it, you felt great. There were no safety nets like unlimited lives or checkpoints every five seconds in those days.

It’s the same with games like FIFA or Call of Duty if you play with your friends. When the outcome isn’t a certainty and you feel as though you’ve had to work hard to achieve the end result, it makes a difference.

So my gaming tastes have changed. Now I’d sooner play quick fix games that go back to the idea of “Aim for the High Score” than the big budget ones. Give me Pinball FX, Pac-Man or Geometry Wars 2 on the Xbox 360 over Fallout, Far Cry and Bioshock any day.

Luckily for me, there are plenty of games like that available on iOS and Android, and with that said, my latest iOS game comes from the maker of one of my previously reviewed efforts, Food Run (and you can read the review of that game here)

It’s…

Impossible Road Review – What Is It?

Influenced by games like Super Monkeyball, Wipeout and the Rainbow Road level from Mario Kart, Impossible Road is a simple concept.

You control a ball down a winding road with steep curves and no side barriers.

The aim is to pass through as many checkpoint gates as possible and beat your own high score.

Price

Available for all iOS products (iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone) on the iTunes store, Impossible Road can be bought for £1.49/$1.99

I played the game on both my iPad and iPod Touch and it was equally playable on both systems.

Thoughts

Well as I say, it’s a simple concept.

There isn’t much to Impossible Road beyond trying to get the ball down as far as you can.

Initially, I didn’t think there was too much depth to it, and in those first goes I found that my score was pretty crap. Each time I’d only get 1-3 points.

But then as I kept playing, I found myself learning and improving. I realised that how you approach the control system (which is an easy “touch left to go left, tough right to go right” system) matters and that – crucially – falling off the side of the

It’s goes for a minimalist look, but I’d have preferred the ball to be coloured

road isn’t the end, but is in fact key to success.

As the road winds downwards, you’re more likely to get a high score if you time falling off the edge so that you can land on the road below. Get it wrong and it’s game over, get it right and your score increases. It’s a risk versus reward affair.

What hooked me in with Impossible Road was that I wanted to first of all get a decent score, and then better it. It has that “One More Go” quality that games like this need, and when I finally got a score of 38 after a good 45 minutes of play time (it doesn’t sound like much but if you play the game, you’ll know it’s not to be sniffed at) I felt that elusive sense of gaming achievement I mentioned in my introduction.

What’s more, I gave my friend a shot of it and he too found that he couldn’t put it down, or at least he refused to until he beat my score. It never happened so I had to force him to relinquish it.

Terrific.

If I have one criticism of Impossible Road though it’s that I feel it would have worked better if the ball had its own distinct colour rather than just being white. I appreciate that the design is deliberately minimalistic, but it would have worked better for me if it was blue or silver.

It’s a minor complaint.

Final Thoughts – Is Impossible Road Worth It?

Impossible Road is the sort of game that you’ll be able to pick up and play today, tomorrow or a year from now and still get enjoyment from it.

Because you can’t complete the game, there’s no end point to it; there will always be something to aim for when you play it.

And I would also consider it the sort of game that you could have a quick go of on your iPhone when you’ve got a spare minute on the tube, the bus, at work or at half time at the football.

There’s no question in my mind that for what you get from it, Impossible Road offers fantastic value for money.

So spend your £1.49 and have a go of it today.

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Stuart Reviews Stuff is a free entertainment blog. If you enjoyed this or any other article on the site, please consider taking a moment to Like the official Facebook page. You can do that by clicking like on the side panel, or visiting the site here

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Stuart’s Entertainment Review – April 2013 (Everything from Suits to Six Numbers)

Considering we’re now 9 days into May, this article comes a bit late, but I’ve just not had time to do it.

Yes, it’s time once again for Stuart’s Entertainment Review of the Month…of April.

So here’s a rundown of what I’ve been watching/playing since the last update.

Television

The Big Bang Theory: Well you all know that I love BBT and thankfully, the past few episodes have maintained the level of consistency that I’ve come to expect from the best comedy on US TV. I’ve got to say though, the show would be better without Raj, who offers practically nothing these days. Not too keen on his new love interest either. She’s one of these actresses who gets jobs based on her looking a bit weird rather than because she’s a good actress.

Britain’s Got Talent: Can’t say I’m enjoying it as much this year. The whole thing just seems too staged, and that’s most likely because it is. When you’ve got members of the audience microphoned up to react in exactly the way the producers

Big Bang Theory – still the best comedy on US TV (oh, and I’ve not chosen this picture to increase traffic through Google Images – honest)

want, you have to ask questions. Similarly, people backstage have mics on them for them they say “wacky” things to each other. As for the ‘talent’, well I’ve not been bowled over. For me, the clear choice right now to win is the Shadow Theatre from the first week. They were tremendous. And as always, let me say that I hope no singers get through – they should stick to the X-Factor.

Castle: I’m all up to speed with Castle at US pace now. The 100th Episode – the one with the Rear Window theme – was one of the best they’ve ever done. Funny and with a great twist. I have to say though that I was very disappointed with last week’s one. Castle does not need a clip show FFS!

Community: I would say it remains inconsistent. Some of the episodes – like the one with the puppets – were pretty bloody poor. They relied upon a gimmick rather than writing an interesting and humorous script. However, the last three – The Christmas, Freaky Friday and Origins episodes – have been of a higher standard than we’ve seen all season. Let’s hope it gets saved for another year!

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: I enjoy 8 Out of 10 Cats as it is, but the Countdown episodes have been superb. Unfortunately Sean Locke was ill when they were filmed, but he was replaced by “Comedy Panel Show Captain For Hire” Lee Mack. Best bits as always are when Joe Wilkinson turns up. I must track down the sitcom he’s in.

Grey’s Anatomy: After a shaky start to the season it’s back to some level of form. Have to say though that it’s getting a little bit far-fetched with them now owning the hospital. Also, you’ll notice that Arizona has done a Paul Robinson and is walking around forgetting she’s supposed to only have one leg. One thing I found interesting about the most recent episode was that they had a teenager needing a stomach replacement as a result of a dry-ice cocktail gone wrong. So the writers read the papers then…

Happy Endings: Many expect Happy Endings to be cancelled at the end of the season, and I can’t say I’d be too surprised. While it doesn’t churn out rotten episodes like How I Met Your Mother and Parks & Recreation seem to do with alarming regularity these days, neither does it ever produce anything really funny. Indeed, it’s all a bit samey. The only characters I like are Alex and Brad.

How I Met Your Mother: *Shudder* Did any of you see the Time Travel episode? Possibly the worst episode they’ve ever done, and that’s saying something. Yes, they are desperately running out of ideas to keep the series going until Ted finally meets his wife, but having him hallucinate time travelling versions of himself and Barney in the pub just makes him seem like he’s mentally ill. Which he is of course. HIMYM really has become a pitiful TV show.

Parks & Recreation: On a similar note, Parks & Rec is becoming a pale shadow of its former self. Like I said before, it seems to be a case of turning the characters into caricatures. I think to be fair since I last did one of these articles they did the

Suits – they wear suits in it. And they carry out lawsuits. It’s a double meaning. Genius.

wedding episode, which was good and had the brilliant “You’re On With Ron” TV show, but the past few have been painful to endure. If they want to improve it, they need to get rid of stupid characters like Councilman Jam and Jean-Ralphio’s sister.

Samantha Who: Watched a few episodes on NetFlix when I was bed-ridden with food poisoning. Not a single laugh in it.

Sons of Anarchy: Similarly, I gave Sons of Anarchy a try. In truth, I watched the first episode about a year ago and couldn’t be bothered going back to it. Then six months ago I did the same with the second one. But since I had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, I knuckled down and watched the whole of the first season. And…I didn’t like it. I dunno if it’s the unattractive setting, the unattractive cast or the repetitive nature of it all, but I just couldn’t get into it. When the season ended and I saw the synopsis for Season 2 on NetFlix I just decided I couldn’t be arsed with it. So instead I moved onto…

Suits: Now this is what I’m talking about! Suits – a show about a bloke with an eidetic memory who scams his way into working in a top NY law office despite not going to Harvard – is tremendous  The best new TV show I’ve seen this year so far.

Engaging plots, interesting characters, a nice setting, good actors and plenty of twists, this has it all. Stuart Recommends Suits!

The Office: For anyone who has been reading my Top Sitcoms list, you’ll know I got back into watching the US Office after a couple of years off. It’s been superb. There’s been a quality and consistency in Seasons 7-9 that most sitcoms could only dream of. What I particularly like is that they’ve softened the relationship between Dwight and Jim compared to what it was at the start, and it looks like Dwight will get a proper send-off, having been made manager in the most recent episode. But there’s been so much to praise it for in the episodes I’ve just watched. The love triangle with the Senator, Angela and Oscar, the slow burning Pam/Jim marriage troubles, the Robert California stuff, anything involving Kevin and also the fourth wall breaking stuff with the boom mic guy. Indeed, the episode where Pam breaks down at the end was pretty gripping. And you know what? It works better without Michael Scott. When I watched the Season 7 episodes with him in it, I was bored with the character. He’d been done to death. The show ends next week, so let’s hope it goes out on a high, and let’s be thankful The Farm (the potential spin-off that had a back-door pilot in Season 9) didn’t get turned into a series.

WWE: I’ve been a fan of WWE since 1991. But I have to say that creatively, the show is the worst it’s ever been right now. I find Raw to be a chore; something that I feel obligated to spin on through on a Tuesday rather than a show to enjoy. It’s just the same old shit every week, and it needs to change or they’ll lose me as a viewer. Last year I stopped watching Neighbours, and I’d been a viewer of that since 1987, so me quitting watching WWE is not beyond the realms of possibility…

Games:

Not much to report on the gaming front. It’s been the usual case of playing FIFA and Call of Duty, with the occasional pick-up-and-play game on the side.

Felt like a case of style over substance

I got sucked back in to Candy Crush Saga because I refused to be beaten by Level 70. Completing that was a matter of luck ahead of skill though, and it’s clear that they want you to buy the consumables to help you get past certain levels, but sod that. If a game is free, then I’ll beat it without parting with my cash.

Over on my iPad, I got Six Numbers, which is a free game based on the numbers round from Countdown. Simple in its execution and easy to get lost in, it’s worth your time.

The only other new game I gave a shot to was Bioshock: Infinite – a game that received rave reviews and was mooted for Game of the Year.

But I just didn’t enjoy it. It seemed a case of Style over Substance and another one of these games that offers the pretence of being free roaming, but you’re really moving in a straight line the whole time. Also, the combat system is awful. People have told me to stick with it, but I already feel the game is lost to me.

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Stuart Reviews Stuff is a free entertainment blog. If you enjoyed this or any other article on the site, please consider taking a moment to Like the official Facebook page. You can do that by clicking like on the side panel, or visiting the site here

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Doctor Who – Vengeance on Varos Review (or “Cut This In Half And You’d Have A Good Story”)

Season 22′s move to a 45 minute episode format meant that the way the show was written changed.

Without the need to come to a climax every 22 minutes, it was believed that the pace could slow down a bit.

But is that a good thing?

Does a show like Doctor Who benefit from slowing down?

As I move into my next story – Vengeance on Varos – I’ll see.

Doctor Who – Vengeance on Varos Review: What’s This One About?

Trade agreements gone wrong, reality TV style voting on whether the Governor should live or die, and lots and lots and lots of walking through corridors.

Thoughts – One Episode Too Long

I feel as though Vengeance on Varos is an example of a Doctor Who story I’m supposed to like, but I don’t.

Boo!!! Hiss!!! It’s Quillam, the evil pantomime villain almost completely redundant to the plot

It’s not that I dislike it, but I just don’t find it enjoyable enough to sing its praises.

The problem? Well as you might guess from the section heading, I feel it’s one episode too long.

I mentioned in my introduction about the move to the 45 minute format and the resultant slow-down of pace. Well I don’t think it’s a good thing here. Yes, it means that stories don’t need to have a cliffhanger every 23 minutes, but that wasn’t exactly a major problem for the previous 22 years.

To me, there’s just not enough plot here for 90 minutes of material.

Instead, what happens is that everything gets dragged out. The Doctor and Peri only leave the TARDIS 24 minutes in. If this was the normal format, that would mean they spent the whole of Episode One there.

Last time I checked, people criticised that sort of thing when it happened in the likes of Meglos.

Then once they leave the TARDIS, they – or the Doctor mainly – spend the rest of the story wandering through corridors, with only a brief sidetracking where they are nearly executed. And not just that, when they walk around those corridors, they face the same bits more than once. In Episode One, they walk towards danger with happy looks on their faces because of pink smoke, in Episode Two, it’s the same thing with green smoke.

Similarly, there’s a great deal of repetition with the stuff in the Governor’s office. We don’t need to see him face the vote three times, and there’s too much to-ing and fro-ing over the price of Zeiton-7.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the idea behind Vengeance on Varos is good  but they could have made a far better story if it had been a brisk paced one part affair.

Cut out all the repetition, get rid of the mostly pointless pantomime villain character of Quillam, remove the bit where Peri and Areta are turned into animals for a couple of minutes and you’d end up with something really good.

And it’s not even that the idea of doing a 45 minute story is alien to Eric Saward – he did 3 of them in the Peter Davison era. What’s more, it’s proven to be a success with modern Who.

I get the feeling they really missed the boat here.

Sil

One thing I do like about Vengeance on Varos is the character of Sil.

The idea behind him is interesting, and it’s clearly written with a disabled actor in mind (I mean, can you imagine if he was played by a 6 foot bloke?) but what really makes him memorable is the acting of Nabil Shaban.

As written, the character is probably pretty dull. Sure, he might pronounce words wrong, what with his faulty translator, but beyond that, a lesser actor wouldn’t excel.

But Shaban’s mannerisms, delivery and especially that laugh make the character into probably the most recognisable and interesting thing about the entire Sixth Doctor era.

Is It Getting Too Violent?

When Doctor Who was put on hiatus (I would say cancelled but that never happened; rather it was delayed for 18 months and people got the wrong end of the stick. That’s the story according to About Time anyway) one of the reasons given was

Luckily, this deleted scene with particularly unpleasant domestic violence didn’t make the cut. Michael Grade would have had a stroke

that it was becoming too violent.

That was one of Michael Grade’s points when explaining the hiatus.

Is he right?

Well, yes and no.

Violence works when there’s a cause and character motivation – like in Caves of Androzani – but violence for the sake of it is a bit much.

In my Attack of the Cybermen review, I pointed out how I felt that the scene with Lytton’s hands being crushed was gratuitous, and I stand by that.

Here, there are two bits that stand out.

The first is the part where the Doctor apparently “throws people into a vat of acid and grins”. He doesn’t. One falls in by accident and the other is pulled in by the first guy. The Doctor doesn’t push either in.

What’s the point of the scene though? Two characters are introduced purely to be burned to death in acid. Pointless and again gratuitous.

The next example is a bit more disturbing though, as the Doctor plans and orders the carrying out of the pre-meditated murder of Quillam, The Chief Officer and a bunch of guards. Yes, he waited until his life was threatened, but it doesn’t seem even slightly “Doctorly” in my opinion.

So yeah, I do think the show at this point is relying too much on the crutch of violence. I don’t really see why people would tune in just for that. Viewing figures would suggest they do the opposite.

I’ll take proper storytelling any day.

The Colin Baker Cliffhanger Close-Up Count

Nothing to report today.

So the score is still

The Doctor 4-2 Peri.

Random Observations

• I would have said that in the main, the standard of acting in Vengeance on Varos is good, but that would be a lie. The truth is that while Nabil Shaban and Martin Jarvis are both excellent in their roles, the rest of the guest cast are ordinary
  

  I imagine they were probably proud of their performances

  at best.

• Especially bad are the two cannibal blokes who make the odd fleeting appearance.
• The Doctor – but for another tiresome set of early scenes in the TARDIS – acts pretty normally here. It’s almost as if the contracted writers pen him as a normal bloke and Saward insists on adding some added arsey touches (innuendo unintended) at the beginning just to remind us not to like him.
• Hey, that Guard Captain is in Game of Thrones!
• Nothing to report on Incidental Music, which is a good thing. It blends into the background well.
• Peri seems to have a very limited wardrobe. Here she’s wearing the same combination of skin tight top and dumpy shorts in powder blue rather than pink. At least she changes her clothes though; the previous four companions barely managed that.
• That line about “It was supposed to be a cold dinner” was excruciatingly bad. Whoever wrote that – steer clear of ever attempting to write a sitcom.
• The premise for the story – that the Doctor suddenly ran out of an important element that could only be found on one planet – is a bit of a stretch. Surely he’d keep a backup supply? Did he learn nothing from his first trip to Skaro?
• I like the cliffhanger to Episode One. It works, even though they are making a pretty big assumption that the Doctor is dead. The addition of Sil’s laugh adds to it.
• Speaking of Sil’s laugh, I’d a) love to be able to do it and b) if I could, I’d do it at a job interview just to unnerve the interviewers.
• Why exactly is it called Vengeance on Varos other than for alliterative purposes?
• DWM Mighty 200 Ranking: #124. Hmmm.

Doctor Who – Vengeance on Varos Review: Final Thoughts

There’s just too much padding and repetition to make Vengeance on Varos the sort of Doctor Who story I’d recommend.

If they’d cut it in half and had one brisk paced 45 minute story – like they do in Modern Who – I reckon it would have been excellent.

Indeed, it’s the sort of story that you could imagine working today.

But sadly, it wasn’t to be.

And so I would say that Vengeance on Varos ends up being a disappointment, meaning that we’re still waiting for a Sixth Doctor story that I can give the thumbs up to.