Out of Time

Monday starts out with a brief autopsy of the weekend’s Doctor Who episode between friends. Some agree with my criticisms, others don’t.

Aside from the show suffering from massive Buffy the Vampire Slayer-envy and the irritating pop culture references, my biggest fault with Doctor Who is that as the series progresses it’s becoming painfully obvious what happens when you let lunatics run the asylum. Fanboys who loved the show when it was first on are now in charge of the revival. Of course you want the writers, producers and directors to love with their show. But not this much. It’s reached the point where you want to scream “Get a freaking room!”

So caught up in Doctor Who that was, they fail to realise what changes should be made to Doctor Who that is. Especially the significant change in the story length. Back in the day, the original stories usually came in four or six or eight half-hour parts. Now they have a 45-minute slot. (Aimed at an international market? Surely not).

And in those 45 minutes they habitually fail to tell a coherent story. Ah, but they have to spend time setting up the story and introduce all the fantastically elements. Well, Buffy did it. The X-Files certainly managed.

Instead of drama we get Tennant acting a twat and gurning like he’s just been violated with an egg whisk, Torchwood references, and a lot of old talk, which means come the forty-minute mark they have to reach for the deus ex machina catalogue and pick one they haven’t used yet.

The end result looks like four half-hour episodes were shot then severely cut down to fit the slot. If that isn’t bad enough, they let a cocking knob loose on the Avid to do it.

And relax...

Once that was done, I e-mailed the Designated Author to find out what the publisher had to say about our/my notes on the editor’s pass. Some of the edits made sense. Others look like he hadn’t taken his medication.

Not sure I want to hear their reply because I know they will have something else for me. Right now I don’t want to do it. Still.

Public Service Section

The internet is great for discovering little film snippets: from Jon Stewart verbally caning politicos in clips from The Daily Show to spoof commercials and all kinds of visual jokes that range from the sublime to the complete crapola.

Once you’re done downloading the new Spiderman 3 trailer and feel like looking for examples of some of the most beautiful and thought provoking animation put on film - you never know, it could happen - check out

The Monk and the Fish and Father and Daughter

The first an Oscar-nominee, the second an Oscar-winner, both films were made by the very talented Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit.

And now back to our normal programming...