John Walker's Electronic House

Picking apart what went so horribly wrong with the recent attempt to revive Red Dwarf is probably something that should begin twelve years ago with the start of series seven. When Rob Grant left the former Grant-Naylor writing team, it became clear that Doug Naylor was not the man who had brought the gags to the show. They were an effective team, but obviously each brought different elements and the programme needed both. Having split over creative differences about where the show was heading, you can see Grant’s point. Series seven and eight (I admit I didn’t see all of eight, for the same reasons I look away when I see the remains of a pigeon that’s been hit by a car) did not take the show anywhere it needed to be.

I’m not arguing that Red Dwarf was ever amazing. It was always cheesy and aiming for primitive laughs. However, it was invariably charming. Performing science fiction in three-camera sets in front of a studio audience was a mammoth task, and the restrictions this imposed forced both creativity within a tight budget and confined space, and a focus on the relationships between the main cast. While there were duffers, there were also episodes like Polymorph, Backwards, Quarantine, and the touching Back To Reality that managed to cram in huge amounts of plot into 28 minutes. The four year gap between series six and seven saw much change, Naylor not able to capture the tone that had made the late 80s/early 90s’ episodes so fun. So the ten year chasm between series eight and this brief reprise, Back To Earth, didn’t bode well.

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Imagine you had a time machine. Where would you go? Well, forward a year until Russell T Davies finally has nothing more to do with Doctor Who, and his insipid incompetent writing is gone. There aren’t griefs good enough to express the disgust at how hideous the Easter ‘special’ was. If someone took the cheapest, laziest Disney live action adventures of the 1980s and distilled them down into one concentrated drop of piss, it would look like a homeopathic solution compared to that stinking insult to humanity.

I come to this with no great passion for Doctor Who. I care little about its history – it was mostly dreadful, if fun – but when it’s good, it can be pretty special. David Tennant’s appeared in a number of such special episodes, and they’ve invariably been written by Steven Moffat, (who thank goodness takes over next year). At his worst, Davies has made Doctor Who tedious, and occasionally pathetic, but he’d previously managed nothing as monstrously dreadful as Planet of the Dead.

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Oh good, it’s International Institutionalised Lying Day.

I loathe this ridiculous day. A day on which you can’t trust anything you read, hear or are told. What a brilliant plan it is – trusted sources of information becoming deliberately unreliable. So anything you hear on the radio, watch on TV, or read today on the BBC News site, Wikipedia front page, or whichever newspaper you pick up, is to be treated with suspicion.

The largest problem being, all these sources of news information cannot dedicate their output to half-arsed jokes. The world continues exploding, shooting at itself, and throwing all its money out a window. The inclusion of deliberate lies amongst the carnage is a knob joke at a funeral.

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You really should watch Kings.

Here’s the simple reason: the recently reborn Ian McShane as a conflicted King, ruling over a modern nation, Gilboa, a place bearing many similarities with modern North America. Gilboa is in a long and bloody war with the neighbouring Gath. A soldier, formerly a farm worker, called David rescues the king’s son who has been taken hostage by Hath troops, and is welcomed into the king’s courts – in the capital city of Shiloh. Here he becomes involved in the politics of a new city under a new king. There’s war, there’s brilliant dialogue, there’s battling family members, and there’s a backstab every commercial break. It’s beautifully made, McShane is magnificent – bemusing you as to whether he’s Machiavellian, naive, selfish, selfless, murderous or peaceful – and most of all, it’s really damned smart. It’s a remarkable programme, and it should be watched.

That’s the short version. Long version:

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Sorry to everyone whose comments weren’t coming through. They’ve all be approved now and should appear on the relevant posts. I’m so used to “pending” meaning “spam we didn’t filter” I’d forgotten to go through the pile.

I find myself in the completely new position of reading reviews of a videogame from the other side of the wall. Broken Sword: Shadow Of The Templars The Director’s Cut, a new version of Charles Cecil’s most famous adventure game, is now out on DS and Wii, with a chunk of brand new content, a smattering of new puzzles, and a new diary and hint system. I think it’s rather good. This thought is encouraged by my having written bits for it.

I’ve always loved the Broken Sword games, playing the first two multiple times in my teenage years, and reviewing the third – a game I adored – for PC Gamer. Broken Sword IV I also reviewed… But that aside, it’s a great gaming series, and certainly the best British adventure series there’s been. George, a American lawyer, and Nico, a French photo-journalist, pair up in escapades linked to Templar myths, modern day conspiracies, and the only decent will-they-won’t-they running story in gaming history.

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There’s a question that affects all our viewing lives, and yet no one gives it the attention it desperately deserves. Why is the BBC so absolutely incapable of picking new hosts for its TV and radio programmes? Since 2002, when Angus Deayton’s penchant for privately hired ladyfriends saw him fired from Have I Got News For You, the network has become riddled with this Guest Host Syndrome, rendering them incapable of making a single decision.

The most recent example comes with the announcement that the Beeb won’t let elderly, painfully infirm I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue die with any of the dignity it might have left. Instead it’s to be wired up to wheezing pumps and machines, forcing its feeble organs to keep huffing and puffing through painstakingly scripted gags, into some unspecified future. It’s presenter, Humphrey Littleton, sadly died last year, but this is apparently not recognised as a graceful opportunity to move on. So who is to replace the enormously loved Humph? Naturally, a rotating roster of guest hosts.

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You know when you read that bedtime story to your kids, your niece or nephew, or maybe that last time you were babysitting? You were violating the copyright agreement of the book, you disgusting criminal. Please hand yourself in immediately to the nearest police station, and you’d better be very, very sorry. As Amazon US has recently learned, reading books out loud without the publisher’s permission is the most heinous of crimes, tantamount to going to the author’s house and shitting in his goldfish bowl.

Of course all sorts of hundreds of years old industries are running around in increasingly frantic circles, alternately pulling at their hair and letting out terrified sobs, as various electronic tools start to render them irrelevant. The music industry is suing every grandmother, child and pet kitten it can find, trying to frighten everyone out of the evil act of sharing. The film industry repeatedly assures us that watching a pirated DVD is directly funding child molesting terrorists. And now the Author’s Guild is claiming that Amazon’s latest gadget, the Kindle 2, is driving writers to bankruptcy by its ability to read the books aloud in a little computer voice.

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While I realise screaming at outright lies and dangerous stupidity on the front page of the Daily Mail is much like screaming that you don’t like lava into a volcano, there are days when you’ve no choice. Today’s headline, “Social websites harm children’s brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist” is beyond ridiculous.

Following on from the embarrassing fiasco of publishing the completely unfounded and nonsensical claims printed last week, where they claimed that Facebook et al would give you cancer, now social networking is damaging our brains. And on what evidence is this based?

None.

This is what is most extraordinary. There’s not even a spurious study, a misunderstood academic paper, or even a suspected case. All there is are the thoughts, whimsy and suspicions of one Susan Greenfield. Greenfield obsesses on this subject, but boasts she does not have the data to demonstrate it.

Her claims “will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day” say the Daily Mail. Well, let’s take a look at this damning evidence that merits a front page, and a deliberate attempt to frighten parents.

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I think it might have lost me with “cern the diff”. But that wasn’t until episode two. Episode one was distinguished by not having a single memorable line, whether for good or bad. It was possibly the blandest writing I’ve ever experienced, despite coming from the brain of Joss Whedon. He somehow managed to turn something that appeared to be part wank-fantasy, part adventure-mystery into a mechanical, dull slog through an overly convoluted concept. Exposition was scattered through a series of unanswered questions, dozens of them, thrown at you in what felt a desperate attempt to hook you in on maybe one of them. Perhaps you want to know about Echo, an “Active” whose mind is erased and refilled at the behest of clients, and the past that brought her to the Dollhouse? Perhaps you want to know about the cop investigating, and why his bosses don’t believe it exists, and who is funding his investigation and ensuring it continues? Perhaps you want to know why Amy Acker has scars all over her face? Or why Echo’s handler is reluctant to do his job. Or why Echo had visions from previous minds. Or who funds the Dollhouse. Or how the bloody hell anyone can hire an Active from a company the police with massive resources can’t prove exists.

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