Random thoughts

My entry for the Big Finish short story competition a few years ago. Okay so it was only a first draft and the prose was over descriptive- not to mention it seemed disjointed narratively but, to date, it is my only piece of fan fiction so I am going to put it on my Blog anyway! “Right Little ones not long now before you need to settle down for the night!” “Oh but Mommy, it’s too early!” sniffed Ratsinger, congealed snot tumbling from his squat green nostrils. “Now now, Ratty, you need to get your sleep otherwise you will never grow up to be as strong as Bulfraser the mighty…” “Huh, I don’t want to be as strong as him! I want to be like the Doctor, come on Mommy tell me about the doctor, Please I want to hear about the Doctor!” Ratina let out a sigh – a theatrical sigh but a sigh nonetheless. How many times had she told her son about the Doctor? Ten times? Twenty? Or more? She suppressed a smirk as she prepared herself to regale her son of the events of ten months ago back to the...

Well in the end any ratings fears for season 4 evaporated in the last few episodes. It was rather gratifying to see the show to reach number one in the weekly ratings for the first time in its forty five years. One interesting phenomenon was in the week where Who actually lost out to ITV. People flocked to ITV to watch the finale of Britain's got talent which was a live show. The next day the doomsayers were out in force on the ratings thread of the forum predicting that there was no way that people would bother to watch the second part of Steven Moffat's excellent two parter. As it happened people had caught up with the episode afterwards either on V+, Iplayer or Sky plus. The second parter gained a massive increase of the audience from the week before. I believe this is indicative of a growing trend amongst audiences to select the tine when they watch their programmes. It will be interesting to see how television producers will respond to this particularly in the commercial s...

A week ago I was explaining to my year thirteens that traditional reliance on ratings issued by BARB were no longer a strong indicator of a shows success. This is mostly due to differing viewing habits: people watch shows on V+ boxes or sky plus; people use the BBC's I player or similar services offered by other channels. The BBC, of course, isn't reliant on advertising revenue like its competitors- so how do other companies make money? Increasingly spin off sales through merchandising and DVD sales are increasingly becoming more important when producers consider whether a programme is successful or not. The BBC, at the moment, are making substantial sales of DVDs, books and other toy merchandising on the back of Doctor Who. Therefore, I think it is safe to say that the adventures of the Timelord are safe for a while yet!

After the disappointments of Fantastic four and Spiderman 3, I was beginning to tire of the comic book genre. I mean I expect visual scenes to predominate in this genre but I do like an intriguing storyline to sustain me through the visuals. I think some of the superhero comic films had relied too much on visuals and just hadn't worked for me. I must admit that I had been impressed by the trailers and other promotional spots for Iron man so I did have high hopes for the film. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed. I thought Downey Jr was superb as Stark- he managed to make a flawed character chariasmatic: you felt you could actually like this character although he was self centred. I enjoyed the humour and the way we saw the evolution of the suit. I thought Bridges was great and Paltrow made a great Pepper Potts. I didn't have the patience to wait through the credits as I was too hungry. If you haven't seen the film yet, I recommend that you wait for the end: there is a nic...

A selection of reviews I have written for partners in crime- this is followed by the review I have written for my blog after some further reflection: A promising start. I enjoyed the comedic moments between the Doctor and Donna. My family and I enjoyed it all the way through. I was unsure about the Adipose at first when I saw a clip the other day but they worked well when I saw them in the context of the episode. A good light hearted start. Loved the Rose sequence at the end which elicited gasps of surprise from my youngest step daughter. Yeah Tate was pretty good. Was unsure about the Adipose after seeing a clip the other day but seeing them in the context of the episode I thought it worked. A promising light hearted episode. Just finished watching Partners in Crime with my family and I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the comedic moments between the Doctor and Donna. The clip with Rose was a great surprise- I wasn’t exp...

Some trepidation before viewing tonight's episode. The trepidation had been caused by the preview clip showing the Adipose. However, I thought I'd wait and see before passing judgement. I'm glad I did: when seeing the episode in its entirety, the Adipose worked. It made a refreshing change to see aliens in Doctor Who who were not intent on savage colinisation! The cynic in me thought that the BBC were seeing the pound signs when they saw RTD's script but what the heck they added to the comedy! If every episode in this series contains this sort of comedy I would soon get fed up but for a season opening, I thought the tone was appropriate. I liked the scene where the Doctor and Donna were reunited and I thoroughly enjoyed the first fifteen minutes where we saw the Doctor and Donna sepeartely investigating the Adipose and kept missing each other- I enjoyed the timing of the near misses. Not all comedy has to be thought provoking simple visual tricks can work just as effect...

Here is a cross section of some of the comments I have posted in the Doctor Who forum relating to the final three episodes of Torchwood season two. Adrift: Enjoyed that episode- seemed to highlight to me that being the leader of Torchwood is fraught with difficult decisions. I liked the ending: not everything in life can be resolved happily. I think the episode was highlighting that sometimes there are no easy answers and being a leader in an organisation such as Torchwood is littered with tough decisions to make. I don't think the answer to what the right course of action to take on this issue is an easy one: parents need to know what happens to their children when they disappear but sometimes the knowledge of what happened could be soul destroying. Seriously I think that is a tough call to make. Interestingly, I watched an old episode of X files the night before when a serial killer suggests that he killed Mulder's sister. When they tell another victim's father what happe...