One of the most successful British Sit-Coms, Only Fools and Horses followed the adventures of ‘independent trader’ Derek ‘Del-Boy’ Trotter and his younger brother Rodney as they scrimped and saved in Del’s quest to become a millionaire. The characters became part of British culture, everyone felt like they knew them. They felt a part of their lives – and grieved when Granddad died. The nation felt a huge cheer during the 1996 trilogy where the brothers finally achieved their dream…and sort of felt bad when Albert died. But wished the story ended earlier.

Rocks and Chips is the story of revelations revealed in the final episode – that Rodney and Del are half-brothers. Ex-con Freddie ends up seducing Del’s mum and changes the Trotter family forever. Characters we’ve seen before like Del, Boycie and Granddad are there – but they do take second place to the story of Freddie and Joan.

After watching it, I personally was left with a strange duality. The fan in me wanted to see a bit more set-up and in-jokes with the future; but the other half of me was impressed that John Sullivan didn’t go down the route of basically laying down clear foundations ala the Star Wars films. I.e. we didn’t see Del first seeing Rodney. There were plenty of references to stuff that happened before (like the Margate Trip) and we met people referenced in conversation. But Sullivan has to be commended on not going the injokey route for the majority of the ride.

In terms of style – it’s not a three-camera sit-com with three-walled sets. It’s a proper single-camera drama shot on digital film with no studio audience. There’s moments of comedy which work and some that don’t – but they mainly come from seeing characteristics that we have seen later on. In fact the golden moments here are Kellie Bright and Nicholas Lyndhurst as Joan and Freddie. Lyndhurst completely removes all trace of Rodney (mainly due to him looking older) and should play villains more often. Whilst Bright has come a long way from The Upper Hand and being the girlfriend of Ali G. She’s the star here, and she plays it to perfection and creates a multi-layered complex character that is the personification of the things we’ve heard from Del Boy over the years.

Kudos must go to James Buckley, who manages to stave off being Jay from The Inbetweeners and has some brilliant cameo moments that highlight the guy he is, and the guy he’ll become. There’s two moments in which I saw Buckley show the man David Jason would become. The first was Del standing up to his dad on his mum’s behalf, and the second was a wonderful moment where he basically scolds two of his friends for having drugs. It’s those moments which actually remind you that whilst he might be someone who does sell possibly stolen goods – he has a pure heart and a strong moral centre.

From something that was met with scepticism, this little one-off actually proved to be something a little more involving – which was a good thing. I don’t think we need to return to Peckham any more as the Trotter story has run its course – but it was a lovely and touching ride.

Working in IT Support myself, I can automatically see a lot of the funny side of jokes and the attacks on the usual stereotypes that occur with IT. It’s also being a slight fan of geek-humour that there’s a lot of the references and hidden slight gags I can get straight away and start laughing like a loon. T-Shirts with ‘RTFM’ on it and the bemusement of people thinking the internet is a black box: it’s all incredibly funny stuff.

The IT Crowd, from the guy who did Father Ted, is a slightly absurdist comedy with some quiet unrealistic situations and visual humour. It’s along the lines of the left-field stance to comedy that Ted took, but manages to get itself a strong and solid identity of its own. It features the adventures of laid-back Roy and the tech-geek Moss and their manager Jen who knows nothing of PC’s(she only got the job by lying she could use a computer on her CV).

It took a bit to get there, as it didn’t know just how absurd it wants to be – but once it does it has a lot of fun. The first season tinkers with the characters, but the second series just nails it all. The first episode of the second series where the team end up trying to figure out whether Jen’s date is Gay (and ends up taking everyone to a musical called GAY!)  is one of the funniest things seen today. The introduction of Douglas is a great step, though it does sacrifice Chris Morris, and the use of Noel Fielding as Richmond is also good stuff.

The third series doesn’t have Richmond, but it does have refined characters to play with. As the characters get hooked on social networking and try to be football fans – the scenarios are incredibly funny and just fun to watch. Once it gets it’s way it never lets go.

The hit E4 teenage drama series returns next week, and it’s quite possibly the last of the second generation of characters. So it’s eight episodes of Effy, Cook and Freddie before they end up shutting shop. Unless they are back for a fifth…

But anyways, Skins is going for a fourth series. Will this bring the series back to the heights of its first? Or will it stumble like the sophomore series of its predecessors?

The first series was a brilliant masterclass in plotting, layering and unravelling the depths of characters; leaving its main character as a complete unlikable cretin but as the series went on, it started to show what drove Tony (Nicholas Hoult) and the series rewarded re-watching to pick up all the hints and subtle foreshadowing of the characters. The character-focused structure of the episodes were a breath of fresh air, and the order they focused on the interesting characters was well selected. There was an intelligent approach to the show, and it was a nice hip breath of fresh air if very stylised.

The second series had a few brave approaches to its overall arc in having a mentally disabled Tony, and having a few strange creative choices (Sid/Michelle). The arcs weren’t fully figured out properly and episodes ended up going on weird tangents or being extremely too clever for the target audience. It ended on a sour note which left it far too open with threads left dangling and with a lack of audience satisfaction.

With the third series, there was a brand new cast (bar one) with plenty of strangeness. The mysterious strange kid arc was given to a supporting character and the main arc was the main character’s effect on the friendship of two lads and how it fractures it. It was a double-edged sword due to the comparisons to the first generation, but also because of some characters being very annoying. Cook an example. The hyper style and the weirdness is apparent, with some very strong episodes and characters but again it was littered with some bizarre ideas that didn’t fully work.

And Cook was very very annoying.

So what’s been revealed about series four? Well at the time of writing, only that JJ gets a girlfriend with a nine-month-old baby. Not really much, amongst rumours of Pauline Quirk and Will Young guest starring. But with eight episodes (shortest series yet) have the writers planned what they need? Or will they end up trying to explore secondary characters and leave the most popular relationship unresolved (this case it’s young lesbians Naomi and Emily).

And will Cook befall a nasty accident?

Honestly what I hope series four will bring is a definite conclusion to Effy’s character, basically meaning that she actually grows up, and stops Freddie and Cook from bickering. I’m actually hoping for Naomi and Emily do get a nice satisfactory ending and for JJ to prove himself as good as, better even, than Cook and Freddie.

Thinking about it, I think I’ve clocked on what the recurring problem Skins has: it finds it quite hard to conclude a story. The first series ended with a song, the second…yes, well. The third was more-or-less a two-part cliffhanger…the show really needs to go and learn how to give a proper conclusion. Hopefully they’ve learnt this by the time they reach episode eight in March.

So let’s hope.

WARNING SPOILERS. And thus it came to pass that the Doctor shall pass on the reigns to someone new. That he shalt regenerate and some other bible style verse language to create the metaphor. But in terms of this place and time, David Tennant – the tenth man to officially take up the mantle of The Doctor – is now moving on. Capturing the youth and the nation, Tennant managed to create a new science-fiction hero whilst capturing the original essence of The Doctor. So how does his last ever story, the last penned by Russell T. Davies, fare up?

Well out of the two parts of the story, the second part is the stronger. The first is a varied case of good and bad creative decisions lapsed with some ongoing problems the show has had. The kid show aspect sometimes goes a little too far (the ‘Obama’ appearance) and the spinning heads, whilst the Master’s reappearance is a little too 1980’s perhaps.

But as the story continues, The Doctor finds himself crossing paths with Donna Noble’s grandfather, Wilfred Mott, and then it gets more interesting. The scenes between the two of them when they reflect on their lives is great, especially in a small cafe when the Doctor reflects on his travels and how he feels about his death. In fact, the character arc here is strong throughout as The Doctor’s selfish nature is really played up amongst his guilt. His reaction to Wilf’s act of self sacrifice is an amazing scene, leading to the knocking four times which leads to The Doctor having to finally make the ultimate sacrifice and not leaving someone else to weigh upon his guilt.

This contrasts with The Master delivering his greatest threat – changing all humans to himself and robbing the Doctor of the people and the planet he seems quite fond of. Considering he is quite mad, it’s a diabolic scheme that works quite well at bringing an antagonistic force for the Doctor to accomplish.

This also leads to the return of the Timelords, which while majestic is quite brushed over when you think about it. Their power and manipulation is shown via the ease in which the Master-Race is reverted back; and also why The Doctor locked the Time Lords into the ‘time lock’. But then The Doctor’s given some choices and they’ve gone again. It’s probably to stop them overpowering the series, keeping things a little more simple, but it would’ve been nice to at least see a bit more of them.

Then you have the good closing moments. The Doctor revisits his companions (including the descendant of the woman he loved when he was human in that awesome two-part story in series three) before finally regenerating. His last words, “I don’t wanna go,” are a great choice – and they conflict the Ninth’s final words as he seemed chuffed to regenerate.

THEN we get Matt Smith’s first minute, and he captures things perfectly – setting up a new catchphrase whilst also hinting to him nailing the quirks of his personality, leaving a sense of excitement that was actually apparent throughout all of it. Because you knew the Doctor was going to die, there’s a sense of ‘is this it?’ that ran throughout, including the apparent change in the radiation room thingy. It all builds up the anticipation when finally he regenerates.

Bad points? Well there’s a lot of unanswered questions, the Jack-revisit is a little hokey, Martha/Mickey’s nuptial revelation is a little naff and the head spins were stupid. As mentioned the Time-Lords appearance was a little anti-climatic but in terms of a send off it was a loving tribute to Ten whilst giving a nice hook for the new era in the show.

GERONIMO!

This is the season where Buffy loves and loses her innocence, has to face her true love in battle, meets Spike and Drusilla, ends up a fugitive and basically starts the road to womanhood.

Originally, I can recall this being my favourite Buffy season – it has a lot of strong episodes and a solid emotional character arc that runs through it all. Is it as good as I remember? Let’s find out episode by episode…

When She Was Bad

“Hey guys, miss me?”

And we’re back in Sunnydale. Nothing’s really changed apart from Buffy’s hair and the fact she lost a chunk of weight. Oh and she’s got a huge attitude problem with everyone after…well, dying.  It’s hard to watch in places, but as an episode that resolves some issues as well as opening her arcs it’s not that bad considering it’s actually going on a conclusive episode that worked as a series finale. Plus Buffy’s slow dance with Xander has to be seen.

Some Assembly Required

There’s a rule with the BuffyVerse. Second episodes of a season just don’t seem to work. They have some premiere fall-out but act as a stand-alone which doesn’t seem to settle. I can’t fathom why this happened seven times (bar perhaps season three’s Dead Man’s Party) but this story of Frankenstein-like proportions seems clunky, saved by the interplay between the characters.

School Hard

Possibly my favourite episode of Buffy ever. Introducing Spike and Drusilla, there’s genuine peril and the sense things are really developing. The Anointed is offed by Spike, whilst the secondary characters have a taste of the person Buffy can be in future seasons. There’s great dialogue, great moments and just an overall sense of awesomeness that comes from Whedon’s pen.

Inca Mummy Girl

Bit of an average episode. There’s some good moments with Buffy and Ampata finding a kinship, it’s just the overall execution feels a bit naff. It has the first appearance of Oz, however – and he just reeks of coolness.

Reptile Boy

One of the worst episodes of the season, and the whole show for that matter. The show has a real grudge against alcohol and it really starts here with Buffy being drugged and nearly feed to a demon as part of a frat house. Maybe this is a sort of prophecy which gives a weird echo that show just doesn’t have the ability to emulate the high school metaphor to the college metaphor.

It wasn't just the teenagers getting some this year...

Halloween

Characters be people they aren’t (Buffy the damsel in distress, Xander the macho-army guy) and have a little bit of fun with it. Add Spike and the start of his growing obsession with Buffy, the introduction of Ethan Rayne and you get a solid strong episode. We get some more Oz, and Willow starts to develop some confidence! Oh and hints to Giles having a bit of a dark past…

Lie To Me

A Joss Whedon episode, and also what might be a season arc one. Buffy learns of Drusilla whilst dealing with liars and deception. Her own past and Angel’s past begin to collide and they start to become more drawn together.

The Dark Age

The first proper look at Giles, and a chance to break away from the pratfall buffoon and comic foil to a slightly more rounded character that had a history. It cements the bond between Buffy and Giles as well, whilst developing the Giles/Jenny relationship.

What’s My Line? Part One

The first two-part story (bar the pilot) in the series history kicks off with some added threat and arc development and the introduction of the Order of Taraka is a nice little twist and plot device that brings Angel and Buffy even closer. The majority of it is more set-up than anything though, and the episode leads up to a great multiple case of the cliff-hangers and the mother of all clangers and “WTF?” at the end of the episode.

What’s My Line? Part Two

Things develop, character relationships develop and couples start to couple up. The pacing takes a bit of a knock, but overall the story has some nice moments. The Xander/Cordelia stuff, the Willow/Oz stuff and the relationship between Buffy and Kendra adds a nice contrast with the theme of the story in Buffy’s future and ‘job’. Plus Drusilla returns to full health. Scary.

Ted

In a rare piece of ‘stunt casting’, John Ritter appears as Joyce’s new boyfriend who seems to be actually quite dark and abusive. The main story has a very strong and well written exploration of the abusive ‘step-father’ and the controlling nature of some men, but it does lose itself in the climax. The need for a supernatural element kicks in, and it does kind of spoil the episode somewhat. It is a shame as for a part of the episode; you honestly think that Buffy has killed an innocent man. It doesn’t help that Ritter is actually very good and sinister in the role, which is a long way away from the kind of the roles he usually has.

Bad Eggs

Uggh. In a list of the top ten worst episodes of the series, this should be near the top. A very stupid idea that really doesn’t have much relevance throughout the season, a vampire sub-plot which is completely an afterthought to the whole plot and it’s just….stupid. Some funny lines, but it can’t really be saved.

Surprise

Another two-parter, but this one is a sweeter, erotic episode which deals with the heightened passion that grows between Buffy and Angel. With Xander and Cordelia, and the sweet Oz and Willow relationship blossoms whilst Spike and Drusilla use The Judge (a walking plot metaphor) to try and kill a lot of people. The episode again is more set-up, but the sexual tension between Buffy and Angel is the main focus. It leads to a very worrying cliff-hanger, where Jenny Calendar’s true identity is revealed and Buffy and Angel will never be the same again…

Innocence

Aaaaand the second season really kicks into gear now. Buffy’s innocence is lost, and the metaphor of the guy who loves and leaves and is disinterested the next day. David Boreanaz absolutely revels and has a lot of fun as Angelus, providing a very dangerous enemy against Buffy and the Slayerettes. Sarah Michelle Gellar is heartbreaking as the heart broken Buffy and the episode, and there’s a huge amount of great character beats here that just cement what’s great about the whole show. Buffy in her room, the final Buffy/Angel moment with the sprinklers, the Willow/Xander moment, Willow figuring out what happened and Xander proving his worth. That’s not to mention the Slayer-with-a-rocket-launcher finale which is just a cool image.

And my favourite Xander line: “I’m seventeen, looking at linoleum makes me wanna have sex.”

One of the best episodes of the whole series. Which is strange considering two episodes ago one of the worst was going on…

Phases

Oz gets his Unique Selling Point this episode, and discovers that he’s a werewolf. As his relationship with Willow becomes ‘official’, Buffy continues to reel from Angelus’ reversion. The highlights here include Xander trying to find the wolf, only to come across a classmate’s secret, and Oz’s laid back phone call to his Aunt and Uncle about his werewolf cousin.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

I absolutely love this episode. Incredibly funny, and sort of a turning point in the Xander/Cordelia relationship but also just very very funny. The cast look as if they’re having fun, and it’s nice to see the other characters apart from Buffy share the spotlight. There’s so many good moments that it’s hard to count. From Buffy’s robe moment, the excellent Average White Band moment (perhaps the best moment in Buffy ever), the Dru moment, the Willow moment…so many moments that they’ll all add up to…the duration of the episode! How about that.

Not to mention: that damn dialogue.

Passion

Another strong episode, and an arc episode to boot. Angel’s torment of Buffy takes a darker step, and starts to target her friends and her mother. There are some tough steps that Buffy has to take, her mother finds out her losing her virginity, and the death of Jenny Calendar slowly begins the catalyst towards the finale. Many elements in the season finale are dropped here; with Buffy finally realising that Angel may never come back, and the translation of the original curse caught on a floppy disk.

Killed By Death

Stand alone episode that’s actually quite creepy on a functional level. Buffy faces a personal demon – and that’s it really. There’s not much to this episode, but it does generate a decent atmosphere with an interesting story.

I Only Have Eyes For You

One of the stronger stand-alone episodes. Great ongoing characterisation, decent use of Angelus and a good sense of character development as Buffy comes to further terms with Angel with her being possessed by the ghost of James. The main story is touching, brilliantly portrayed and builds up to a touching and fantastic climax. Not to mention the teasing closing moments when Spike steps out of his chair, seething revenge…

Go Fish

Wentworth Miller. I despise him. He was tolerable in Prison Break, but most of his appearances before hand were bad. Same here. The episode is quite silly, but it does have a good amount of funny moments. It’s a ‘calm before the storm’ episode, very similar to how Killed By Death functions but not as good.

Becoming Part I

Mixing Highlander with a bit of Forever Knight, we see a bit of Angel’s past that leads up to him trying to open up a portal to Hell. The events of the season begin to build upon each other and it leads to a failed attempt to raise said portal, an attack on the Library and the death of a supporting character. It’s a nice build up, but also has its own climax which helps it stand alone on some levels.

Becoming Part II

The developments and the season all builds up to a final fight between Buffy and Angel. There’s revelations and development galore as characters reach crossroads and things just get worse for Buffy. She loses her friends, her mother, her place at school…and ends up having to kill the man she loves just as she gets him back. There’s just so many brilliant moments and scenes here. The Spike/Joyce scene is excellence, as is Spike’s reasons why he likes the world – but the stand out scene is the massive sword fight between Angel and Buffy as she musters all the courage to fight him. A lovely montage at the end gives a sense of closure, but also leaves with an excellent little cliff-hanger to help resolve in the next season.

Overall

In hindsight…there’s actually a bit rougher than I actually realise. The Angel/Buffy relationship seems to delve into some quite melodramatic moments a little too early for my liking before it really kicks in. The first part of the season has some quite dull episodes mixed in with some great moments, but it’s when Angel loses his soul and Buffy and friends have to deal with one of the most dangerous vampires ever the season really gets going. There’s a couple of slight stalls but the second half of the season is great stuff.

Finishing this review, I’ve made it through the first half of the third season, and I think that that season may end up being better than this one in hindsight. But the season is still very good stuff and one of the best examples of the show. Buffy’s character begins the slow road to adulthood, losing her innocence and getting her first views of the adult world.

Stargate Universe is a curious beast.

The latest in the line of Stargate shows, it goes against formula of the previous shows and aims to try and be something different. In the process it creates a curious drama, on the other it can often infuriate and test the patience of the viewer that is constantly teased with higher-concept science fiction when clashed with character drama.

What do I mean?

Well let’s go through the first half of the first season…

So there’s a project to determine the mysterious “Ninth Chevron” of the Stargates (intergalactic portals) and when an outpost is attacked by a mysterious enemy over a hundred people are sent through the Stargate to a ship that’s got a mind of it’s own. Now they are trapped with each other with no way of getting back to Earth. There’s some conflict between military and civilians as well as a shady scientist in charge of the original project with his own agenda…

All this character ensemble drama is good and all, and it gives a very different dynamic that SG-1 and Atlantis did – but the Stargate Universe is much more vast, more dense and richly open to a lot more science-fiction that this feels a little…reserved. There’s definitely something more ‘alien’ to the mysterious elements and races that aren’t fully explored, but it just doesn’t feel as if they’re tapping into things yet.

I think the main reason for this, is the jaunts back to Earth with the aid of ‘communication stones’ seen in SG-1 which allows for the consciousness of people to be sent across the Universe. Now this allows for more guest stars in the SGC, but it does seem to fill the stories with some unnecessary character-fleshing which on one hand does make them more like people…on the other – it’s the freaking Stargate Universe! I’m personally counting on those stones being destroyed and cutting them off from civilisation.

The characters though are warming up quickly, despite the distracting Earth jaunts of soapyness. The big buzz was about Robert Carlyle playing Dr Nicholas Rush, who does play a morally dubious role and is a really interesting and hard-to-read guy. He clashes with Colonel Young quite often, and the scenes between them are really dynamic and add a new kind of relationship in a Stargate show. The previous shows had a similar structure in the cast, and whilst Atlantis was beginning to mix it up this ensemble does work. Some of the supporting cast aren’t as interesting, like the medic and Matthew Scott.

The real star in all this is though is David Blue as tech-geek Eli Wallace. In a world he really doesn’t understand (yet) he provides light relief and is quite likable compared to some of the sour grapes in the cast. Someone to root for and someone to hopefully develop into their own as the show begins to continue to go on.

All-in-all, the show is a good watch. There’s not much Sci-Fi wise and at the moment if the genre needs a flagship show then this could definitely be it (Fringe is just…nyeh). It brings something new to a Franchise that needed it, but at the same time it doesn’t really give much of what the universe is fully capable of.

Plus it has Robert Carlyle in it. You may not have heard that.

Heyyy and welcome to a week in my life. I’m new to the site but the concept is simple in that, every week I watch films, read books and listen to music. Here is where I review them and where I kind of talk for a while. I’ll also list some of the things I’ll be talking about so you can see if anything interests you.

Features:

* Prelude to my drunken Christmas
* Radiohead ‘The Bends’ review.
* BJ Penn vs Diego Sanchez
* A PS3!?!?
* Rage Against The Machine defeat Simon Cowell and why we should care.
* Coheed & Cambria ‘Second Stage Turbine Blade’ review. Kind of.

Well it’s almost christmas time, so what have I been doing? Well I’ve been drinking and writing music most of the time. Made the trip back to Hull just so I could bring my guitar home – there hadn’t been enough of me to carry it back on the train. However, the journey coming back home at the weekend allowed me to listen to some of my favourite albums and a few new albums. Started the journey off by listening to the first album from prog-rock – sometimes they get called ‘emo rock’ but oh well – group Coheed & Cambria: ‘Second Stage Turbine Blade’. I first listened to Coheed in 2004 I believe, and it was definitely a grower. Until this weekend I hadn’t listened to Coheed, aside from the odd song, since mid-2008 maybe, a few months after ‘No World For Tomorrow’ was released I assume. But yeah, some really cute songs on here like ‘Time Consumer’ and ‘Neverender’ (in parts) and just some brilliantly riffs across the entire album. I think it’’s definitely the emotion and passion that Claudio has which makes them so accessible for me. This sort of music isn’t really something I’d listen to very often from any other band, yet Co&Ca are a quality group who I’m planning catching when they tour their next album – and presumably the last – since I couldn’t go to their Nevender tour earlier this year.

If, for some reason you haven’t had the chance to listen to this band then they have some good songs on their myspace (http://www.myspace.com/coheedandcambria) – my favourite of the available four is Neverender, but Welcome Home seems to be the more popular. Mother Superior is also a brilliant song for storyline reasons and more melodic songs – another reason I can’t wait for the new album in April/May.

But as I was saying, ‘Second Stage Turbine Blade’ is where everything started for the ‘Amory Wars’ story – basically a comic/graphic novel that has lots of weird things happening and is kind of star wars-y. The graphic novel has never really interested me, but I imagine for those into that sort of thing would be able to derive more from the music perhaps, although mystery behind lyrics is always fun. The album is the most story based of the first three albums in my opinion, almost as story driven as the fourth album. The band have managed to become incredibly good at writing strong riff driven songs and mixing it up with experimental breakdown’s and solos, melodic verses and passionate vocals. Of the few metallish bands I listen to (I refer to the tendencies of bands like these who use metal styled structures and things like different time signatures), I think the thing that gets me is the lack of a formula and the pleasant vocal lines where screaming is used to convey anger and upset. I personally don’t understand growling and anger-infused drumming that a lot of metal bands suffer from, but there are a few out there who slip into my boundary for listenable bands.

Then again, I’m big on Radiohead – admittedly a new recruit to the fan base, but we all start somewhere – who aren’t exactly the most musically consistent band I know, and quite weirdly diverse in every single album. Pablo Honey was where they found their roots in alternative rock before The Bends and OK Computer solidified them as one of the most inventive bands ever. Beautiful songs like ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘Street Spirit’, ‘Let Down’, ‘Paranoid Android’ and ‘No Surprises’ were juxtaposed with messages to get healthier ‘Fitter Happier’ and with unorthodox arrangements and sound effects like in ‘Climbing Up The Walls’, ‘Planet Telex’ and ‘Bullet Proof…’. Only for them then to bring out ‘Kid A’ in 2000 – massively experimental and minimalistic.

Anyway, I re-listened to a Radiohead Album that I absolutely loved when I first started listening to Radiohead – and I still do love it – because it was just so creative and different, but they could still make you really listen to the songs. Fake Plastic Tree’s is such a simple song and yet it could easily bring you close to tears given the right (or wrong?) mood. Street Spirit and High and Dry are both good examples of this. It holds up brilliantly almost fifteen years on. I usually skip ‘Bulletproof’ because I just love ‘Black Star’ so much. If it had been between ‘Just’ and ‘My Iron Lung’ then maybe I’d give it more time because those songs overstayed their welcome a while back, and I only listen to them if I’m after an angst-driven guitary throw down in the form of ‘My Iron Lung’.

If I was to recommend only three songs to listen to from this album it would HAVE to be ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ aaaand ‘Black Star’. Or ‘Just’, but that’s not a personal favourite more one that caught on in the radio station world. You may have heard it in either the Radiohead form or the Marc Ronson form, Radiohead weren’t using wind instruments at this time to my knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwpW9oH9taw

I also listened to some old Los Campesinos! albums (not exactly old, but the new album is officially out in February – I say officially because it’s already been leaked) but I’m not going to review them because I’ll leave that for Matt to do. Don’t want to steal that from him! Instead, I shall discuss another brilliant UFC Pay Per View with BJ Penn/Diego Sanchez, Kenny Florian/Clay Guida and Frank Mir/Cheick Kongo on the card.

Going into this PPV I wasn’t THAT excited. I love watching Penn fight but I was just expecting the match to go about one round where Diego exploded and failed resulting in his world being rocked inside out. I was also pretty worried for Mir because I didn’t really know if putting the weight on would help him as much as it did in the end – he had previously claimed that he wasn’t going to put on the weight, but that was prior to losing to Lesnar in such a dominating fashion. I wasn’t too fussed about Guida/Kenny because I just know that the Kenny Florian curse is still running wild, and he’s going to beat people but fail at become champion. Comparable to Yushin Okami’s failure to defeat top fighters and just waste away in obscurity. Although some people seem to quite like him, I’m not too sure why.

The reality? Frank Mir knocked Cheick Kongo on his ass before proceeding to choke the guy out with a guillotine in the first round. BJ Penn and Diego Sanchez ended in the fifth round when a head kick just tore open the forehead of Diego. It was the most one-sided title match that I’ve seen go past the second round, but it was brilliant. I always love BJ’s matches because I’m usually so hyped from his wacky catchphrases before the match. The sad thing is, is that who is next? Frankie Edgar? Kenny Florian? I guess you can do Diego/Florian because Kenny has been looking for a rematch since he lost to Diego four years ago from a ref stoppage and he keeps getting better. The loss to BJ may have helped him and next time he goes in with more of an idea of what to expect. Regardless, I assume they will go with Edgar/Penn, but there’s really no exciting matches that come to mind unless they steal Aoki from DREAM.

So, I was planning on posting this a lot earlier today but ended up buying a PS3 today along with the latest instalment of Smackdown vs RAW (The wrestling fan in me is almost all but gone, but I do still enjoy the games), Metal Gear Solid 4 (A game I have been desperate to play since it was released last year) and Grand Theft Auto IV, just because it’s an amazing game. I’ve not played the last one yet, but SVR10 is the best version of the next-gen series that I’ve played. I’ve always missed the two player season from Smackdown 1, as simple as that thing was. If THQ were to just say ‘We’re re-releasing Smackdown 1 for the next-gen consoles’ then I would be a very happy man. Although, it would need to feature some of the awesome features that come with SVR10 such as; Create A Story, Road to Wrestlemania, all the new match types and an updated roster – oh and downloadable content (DLC). If you gave me that, I would never need to buy a new Smackdown game except to wrestle as new guys. I haven’t had too much time to actually play these games tonight, what with present wrapping and talking to people I haven’t spoken to in a while, just because wishing someone a Merry Christmas is the world’s most festive ice-breaker. So I’ll save recapping these games for next weeks edition (which I may throw up on New Years Day along with my top twenty albums of the year, it depends how hungover I am).

Finally the last thing I wanted to discuss is supposed to be quite the, well, I don’t even know what to call it. Triumph? Success? It doesn’t really scream success for many people aside from RATM fans who will end up being allowed to the free gig that has resulted due to this. A lot of people I know weren’t too happy with Killing In The Name becoming number one because ‘It’s just a lot of noise’, which it is, although it happens to be a lot of noise that has been put together in a manner that I do quite enjoy. Still, number one? I think that the songs charm might end up taking a hit because of this. Anyway, the Simon Cowell music machine moves on even stronger and I’m sure that come this Sunday we will have a new number one as the X-factoroids go and buy the single from Olly is it? Or is he the one who looks like Andy Dufresne (or Tim Robbins if you haven’t seen The Shawshank Redemption)? Anyway, to wrap this up, no matter what you may dislike about Simon Cowell, he is a smart businessman. Sony profited BIG from this venture and I would hope that for their sake they would try and recreate this next year with another ‘cult classic’ that they happen to own the rights to.

Anyway, thank you for reading (or skimming) through my thoughts on the fifty-first week of the year. It is now christmas morning for me here, but before I go…

A woman of thirty-two writes into a men’s magazine wondering what to do about her ‘all-talking no-action’ relationship. She explains that she and her boyfriend of two months decided to have sex a week ago. Her boyfriend had been talking big but couldn’t back it up in the bedroom. She wondered just how she could approach him with this. The response?

“With your tits out, love.”

God I love sexist men. Merry Christmas and goodnight folks.

Riding high off the Doctor Who /  Robin Hood Saturday Night fantasy entertainment bandwagon, the latest in the line of these was Merlin, a retelling of the infamous wizard and his early days as the servant to the future legendary King Arthur. As someone who absolutely loves Arthurian Legend, I was intrigued though slightly saddened to see that the series was a mixture of light story-telling and frustrating clichés in dramatic form. So when it came back for a second series, could it muster a magic spell to improve on what could be a good series?

SPOILER WARNING.

Well…the acting is still incredibly ropey. Colin Morgan seems to struggle a lot, and I think that the writers know this as he doesn’t seem to be that focal in plots apart from ‘investigate’ and mutter some magic in the background whilst everyone else gets the credit. This leads to some very strange character development in places – and there’s the odd feeling of a reset button being pressed during the episodes.

Like the first series, the show doesn’t seem to quite fully understand how to arc-plot properly. Seeing it by the same team that did Hex, this doesn’t fully surprise me. Whereas that was a shambolic attempt to create an ongoing serial drama that seemed to make it up as it went along,  this is an episodic show which seems to throw the odd line to ‘develop’ a story. No, having a dragon repeat stuff about a promise each week is not an arc. Neither is mentioning Morgana having “magic.” Characters show up again, but Capps, Murphy and Jones (Hex guys) just cannot string together developing sub-plots properly. A ‘big bad’ of the dragon is over-shadowed by Merlin meeting his father who is then killed straight after (thus an interesting reunion between him and Uther – the king of Camelot who banished him – wouldn’t happen). The whole Morgana storyline with her and her half-sister is seemingly brushed over, despite actually feeling like the excitement levels would rise during 2×11 and 2×12 (more on that later).

This reset-thing mentioned is really frustrating though. Prince Arthur is as stupid as Clark from Smallville, which has been openly cited as an influence, and it shows. His opinion and observations about Merlin are so blind-staggeringly dumb that you wonder how he’s clever enough to stand-up against his father. His loyalty stemming towards Camelot rather than his father has cropped up more than once, which is one of the better parts of his character. Arthur and Merlin’s banter and bickering is also actually quite entertaining when it wants to be, but the development of Arthur is so incredibly misshaped and cock-eyed it’s almost embarrassing to actually watch at times. The Sins of the Father showed the ultimate in stupid-Arthur. Or at least give him the kick up the jacksey to allow him some independent thought for once.

The excitement does spark up during the aft end of the season as it seems as if there’s a serial arc building up eventually, and it does seem the show is going to be having some balls as Merlin looks to do some darker stuff for the greater good – though things twist in a way to make things not-that-bad. With Morgana’s ‘cure’ and the Great Dragon’s liberation (which felt like quite the cop-out come to think of it actually) there should be something to build on in the third series. Which I pray to the Old Religion actually starts to develop something. Or someone else finds out about Merlin’s powers. Smallville did feel like it grew slightly when Pete (and then Chloe) found out about Clark’s secret. Imagine what could happen here…

Family entertainment, but not as refined or balanced as it really should be.

This is going to be exciting. This is the first time I’m going to a show that there’s already been an article on. So here I am, with the previous article on FlashForward copied and pasted below this one in Word as I write. I re-read what I wrote about it three episodes in, and now we’re ten episodes in and we’ve reached the mid-season finale until we get new episodes in March. The question is now…has it lived up to what was said before:

Hopefully it knows what it’s doing. Hopefully I’m wrong and that the scope of the series means that everything is more laid out like setting up plot points in a novel. But a good prologue leading to some dragging opening chapters do not give a good impression.

So Flashforward can be recommended – but mainly due to faith that it’ll grow into the series worthy of the hype.

Has it? Well…no. SPOILERS FOR EPISODE TEN INCLUDED.

Miles from This Life as Steve from Coupling

Would it be fair to say that FlashForward is a lesson in how to make a patchy and rushed drama where it seems the creative team don’t know how to handle the complex story it has? Well you could claim that it’s still only ten episodes in, but 10 episodes out of 24 is around 42% of the season already and there should be some cohesive narrative to build upon. At the moment there’s been a whole mesh of different ideas that would work – but just are not executed in a way that’s either engaging, surprising or at the right time.

Case in point: there seems to be a very lopsided view in things that take priority. With the Olivia storyline overshadowing Lloyd’s involvement with Simon, a huge interesting point is pushed to the side, and we get an episode of dialogue-hell with Dominic Mogahananananananan and Steve from Coupling having a poker game with some of the most contrived drivel of pyschobabble ever written. It then leads to a huge moment in episode ten where Lloyd announces that he and his ‘team’ were responsible for the blackout! Wait, what? Did I just flashforward to ten episodes ahead? If this is stirring the melting pot, then there is a definite problem here as the melting point’s ingredients aren’t exactly right to be mixing up.

Harold Lee as a Jack Bauer Wannabe.

In fact episode ten just threw more and more things into hell. The Dimitri/Mark storyline about his death takes an interesting turn (and I must admit the reveal that it’s Dimitri’s funeral was well done). It may also explain why none of the FBI characters were actually PRESENT AT HIS FUNERAL. The revelation loses a bit of its zing because a few episodes later someone decided to prove that you change the future by committing suicide out of the blue. So instead of “oh swear-word” you have; “oh…but it won’t be.” Not to mention the reveals of ‘D. Gibbons’ as a villain when we also have other villains we don’t know anything about yet. It’s all too confusing and just completely incomprehensible.

The Attempt at Getting the Male teen Demographic as Someone Not Relevant

At least Lost managed to keep things low-key whilst remaining cryptic, focusing on building up it’s characters and making us care about them. Here we have a huge amount of characters that we expect to follow with a pace that’s all over the place; and anything that’s good just seems to be botched senseless. The majority of the acting seems lazy, especially with the Joseph Fiennes lookalike they’re trying to market as the real Joseph Fiennes – the guy suffers from the same syndrome that Ewan McGregor has: Crap American Accent syndrome. You get the sense there’s a definite miscasting error somewhere.

I will admit to thinking that the main love story between Bryce and the Japanese woman is actually involving (don’t tell anyone, I’m actually a sucker for a good love story) but again this ends up having a huge contrivance in the middle of it as Bryce actually finds the woman’s house but Evil Controlling Mother Cliché kicks in and I’ve lost all drive to finish this sentence. Let’s also mention the shear and pivotal character that is Peyton List’s Nicole who stands around dreaming of drowning. It’s great they can place my visualisations of the character into show – absolutely useless. At least with Aaron, the AA sponsor – his daughter’s situation is a definite thing that will crossover with the main plot. But still that’s nothing that has any links so far…which is a bad move.

Too many characters, too many stories that seem unnecessary. Too much mess.

I’d like to stick with the show until the date the Flashforwards occurred – just to see if the pay-off is any good. But at the current moment…no. Nope. The show is just a mess. A mess. My opinion; mess.

Did I say mess?

Christmas films. The genre is strange in that it’s the one that can be only enjoyed at a specific time of year. Horror films may be more thrilling in October, but it is socially acceptable to view them whenever. Watching It’s A Wonderful Life in June though? Weirdo.

To celebrate this year’s festivities, I’ve been having a Christmas film marathon. Every day since December 1st, I’ve been randomly selecting a film and watching them. Admittedly I haven’t stuck to my plan properly. Firstly because I grow bored of routines pretty quickly, and secondly because the films I’ve drawn so far have been absolutely dire.

Which brings us to today’s article: the worst four Christmas films I’ve seen (in no particular order). Let’sa go!

Fred Claus: The sad thing about this film is that – meandering subplots aside – it threatens to have a certain epicness to it. They lean heavily towards the dramatic side, probably a good idea considering Vince ‘I’m Talking So It Must Be Funny’ Vaughn is in it. One problem… They’re trying to create Shakespeare with a story about Santa’s brother! What a mind bogglingly stupid story! And what a misjudged way to tell said story. This is a story where fart jokes and slapstick are welcomed. Instead, we get oodles of sentimentality and a Stephen Baldwin cameo.

Santa With Muscles: Starring Hulk Hogan. Need I say more? Actually, I will. If you’re a fan of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, you should remember a deliberately hammy scene where Rick Dagless talks to a sick child as an ego boost. Now imagine Hogan in an orphanage and you’ll invoke the same imagery. Elsewhere, there are many plot holes. Mainly, they throw shit at the wall to see if it sticks, hoping the ‘shock’ factor will overshadow the fact there’s no narrative. Hogan and the bad guy are brothers. Mentioned once, never again. I loathe this film. It’s not even so bad it’s good.

Santa Who?: All the characters in this Miracle in 34th Street knock-off are unlikeable. Peter Albright – a man in his mid-30’s – acts like an emo because Santa didn’t get his letter when he was eight. And Peter’s girlfriend’s son Zack takes being a spoiled brat to the extreme, continually moaning about Santa’s real identity until the adults pay attention. That’s a great moral message for all the whining shitbags out there: moan until you render Mummy and Daddy defenseless against your demands. Thanks for that, Santa Who?

Christmas With The Kranks: This film is so bad I haven’t finished it yet, making it the only film in years I’ve willingly turned off. Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis want to take a cruise vacation for Christmas because it’s cheaper, and it’s a lot better than staying in their rainy hometown. The Christmas obsessed neighbours, however, think they’re complete bastards for skipping out on normal routine. The way the film was going when I turned off, the neighbours were due to realise they’re being obsessive. But ultimately, Tim and Jamie will see that skipping Christmas is not a good idea. YOU MUST CONFORM! SPEND MONEY! CAPITALISM IS AWESOME!

And there you have it. Merry Christmas.