JG Judgementally Comments...

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode Six, “The Interstellar Song Contest”

Is this what it’s come to?

What’s The Episode? The Intergalactic Song Contest

What’s It All About, JG? Eurovision in space, innit? But fine, the Doctor and Belinda turn up at the Intergalactic Song Contest, shit happens and most of it is really, really terrible (the writing, not the events, though also that). Susan pops in for a cameo (the only bit I actively enjoyed) and Mrs Flood is the Rani. Woo. The end.

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode Five, “The Story and The Engine”

What is the Story of Doctor Who anyway?

What’s the Episode? The Story and The Engine

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor lands in Nigeria so he can go hang out in a barber shop with his friend Omo (Sule Rimi), leaving Belinda to cool her heels in the TARDIS. The barber shop has, however, been taken over by The Barber, who has abducted Omo and a few others. The barber, alongside a woman called Abby (Michelle Asante), is using them to power a mysterious engine with the power of stories which the abducted men are compelled to tell. Trying to leave the shop, the Doctor discovers it is both in Nigeria and on the back of a giant spider simultaneously. Fed up of not being in the episode, Belinda eventually arrives and gets caught too.

The Barber reveals he is a storyteller who spread stories of the Gods but received no credit so now wants revenge. The Doctor also figures out that Abby is in fact Abena, someone he met (and abandoned) when he was the Fugitive Doctor – she’s also looking for revenge. The Barber wants to reach the centre of the spider’s web to cut off the gods from the web and killing them, which the Doctor things will destabilise all human culture (or something). Abenda changes her mind on the revenge thing and – via braiding – gives the Doctor a map to the engine’s power source. The Doctor links the engine to his story which overloads it, the Barber is persuaded to let everyone go free, and everyone escapes. Omo retires, the Barber gets the (now normal) shop and Abby goes and gets on with her life.

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode Four, “Lucky Day”

Back to Earth with a bang and a catch-up with Ruby. But can a “political” thriller land its politics?

What’s The Episode? “Lucky Day”

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Belinda land on Earth in 2007 to try and get another Vindicator reading and encounter Conrad Clark, a small boy the Doctor gives 50p to. An adult Conrad (Jonah Haeur-King) has another chance encounter with the Doctor and Ruby as they hunt down a Shreek, which he’s marked by as prey. We then move forward to reacquaint ourselves with Ruby Sunday as she is now. She’s decided to appear on a Doctor-related podcast hosted by Conrad and they start dating. Going to a village in the countryside for a romantic date, it seems like the Shreeks are attacking. Rubby calls in Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and UNIT but in fact, it’s all just actors in costume. Conrad thinks aliens, the Doctor, and UNIT are all fake because he’s a conspiracy nut and he’s trying to out them. This results in a scandal as he tries to discredit UNIT so UNIT are on the back foot. Conrad breaks into that flippin’ great UNIT HQ in London with the help of an inside man and tries to livestream the event and get Kate to admit it’s all fake. Instead, Kate sics an actual Shreek on him and he ends up with his arm bitten off (and reattached) before getting sent to jail. Where the jailer is Mrs Floor (of course). The Doctor bothers to turn up at the end to give a speech about how awful Conrad is and Conrad basically tells him to fuck off, then Mrs Flood apparently lets him out. The end.

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode 3, “The Well”

Can third time be lucky for this season?

What’s The Episode? “The Well”

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Belinda land on a spaceship to get further readings from the Vindicator to try and get them back to Earth. They are unceremoniously dumped on a planet where a military rescue team – straight out of Aliens – are trying to find out what happened to a mining colony. Entering with the soldiers, the Doctor discovers just one survivor, a deaf cook named Aliss. She has “something on her back”, which turns out to be the creature from “Midnight”, still around some 400,000 years later and this is that selfsame planet, now stripped of its diamond. The Doctor is able to force the creature out of Aliss but it attaches itself to Belinda instead. Thanks to some fancy shooting from the leader of the soldiers, Shaya (Caoilfhionn Dunne) Belinda is freed and they return to the drop ship where the TARDIS is and go on their merry way. Only for a post-departure scene where Mrs Bloody Flood turns up again and also it looks like the creature escaped.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Connery’s gone, Lazenby’s in but can he convince as a Bond for the ages or will his Service no longer be required?

For the first time in the series, “James Bond Will Return” means Bond but not the actor playing him, as Connery gives way to George Lazenby’s one-and-done attempt to take over the title role. But is his poor reputation deserved, and does one of the most forgotten of all Bond films deserved to be relegated to “oh yeah, that one” status?

Pre-Existing Prejudices:

If I’ve seen this one all the way through then I have absolutely no memory of it. I know the famous final scene well enough, and a couple of set-pieces, but beyond that… blank. So Lazenby is going to get a fair crack of the whip, if nothing else – I honestly have no idea how good or otherwise he is in the role, nor anything else about him at all, really. I’m rather keen to watch what amounts to an entirely new Bond, so let’s get on with it!

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode 2,”Lux”

The first episode wasn’t great but can “Lux” be the light at the end of the tunnel?

What’s The Episode? “Lux”

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Belinda arrive in 1950s Florida, where people have gone missing at the local cinema. They investigate and discover that the projectionist, Reginald Pye (Linus Roache) is still inside, playing movies to an empty theatre. Inside the theatre, they are terrorised (allegedly) by Mr Ring-a-Ding (Alan Cumming), an old-timey cartoon who is actually Lux Imperator, the god of Light. After faffing about in an animated section and a metatexual section, they escape back into the real work. They manage to defeat Lux by having Reginald Pye use a bunch of celluloid to blow a hole in the back of the cinema, let in lots of sunlight, and then Mr Ring-a-Ding just sort of drifts away (rather like the point of this episode) and the missing people are all restored.

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode 1, “The Robot Revolution”

Ncuti Gatwa’s back for a second season of the fifteenth Doctor. But can Season 2 manage a better start than his first one?

What’s the Episode? “The Robot Revolution”, the first episode of Season 2 (let’s not get into the whole numbering thing again).

What’s It All About, JG? The episode starts with Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) getting a star certificate from her awkward boyfriend Alan (Jonny Green) before cutting forward 17 years, where she’s a nurse working in a hospital and living in shared accommodation with other twenty-somethings. A robot turns up and abducts her, just as the Doctor arrives to try and prevent said abduction (and Mrs Flood does a bit more fourth-wall breaking). She’s taken to the planet MsBelindaChandra, the one that Alan named after her, to be made queen and marry the AI generator. The Doctor turns up to try and save her, cry, and generally put things right. The robots on this planet rebelled against the population for what seemed to be no reason. The AI generator actually turns out to be Al (as in Alan), her old boyfriend, who has been wired into the planet’s system and was responsible for said robot revolution via some timey-wimey shenanigans and time slippage. He’s stopped by touching two versions of the star certificate from different times which reduces him to a single egg and sperm. Trying to take Belinda back home, because she does not want to be there, the Doctor discovers the TARDIS bounces off 25th May 2025 and so they need to go the long way round.

You Only Live Twice

It’s the first of three “last Bond movies” for Connery but will it give him an exist he deserves?

Pre-existing Prejudices: Well, I know it’s the first of three “last” Bond movies for Connery, I know it’s the one with the volcano base, and I know it’s the one where we finally get to meet Blofeld. But it’s another I haven’t seen in its entirety for… actually I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it in its entity. Should be fun then!

The Actual Film:

Ohhh, we start in space! Or at least a painting of the Earth around which a small, unconvincing model is orbiting. That’s certainly something new. The spacewalk scenes are obviously man-on-wire but they’re ambitious, and points scored for having the Earth actually rotate beneath them as they “orbit”. But then the capsule is attacked by a giant butt-plug/spaceship eater. They’re doing their best, and the model-work is clear enough in what it’s trying to achieve, but the special effects are bit more Gerry Anderson than 2001. The American capsule is drawn inside the mysterious new craft, and the astronaut left dead in space when his airline is cut is suitably nasty, as he floats away forever. Cut to a conference inside two golf balls, and a bit of UK/USSR/US politicking. The Americans and Russians accuse each other, but the UK thinks there might be a third possibility. Hmmm…

Thunderball

After redefining what a Bond movie could do with Goldfinger, can Thunderball keep up the momentum or is it a bit of a damp squb?

Pre-existing Prejudices: None. I remember next to nothing about Thunderball, beyond Tom Jones’s attempts to drown out timpani on the theme song (“so he strikes! DUH-DUH-DUH-DA-DUUUUUH! Like Thunnnnnnnnnnnderball!”), and the inevitable fact that it’s the one with all the underwater action sequences. So a fairly clean slate, then. Let’s see how it goes!

The Actual Movie

We open on a funeral, which is at least a new start for a Bond movie. Bond appears to actually be on point here, and it’s a reasonable fake-out that the flag covering the coffin has the initials JB on it – but not Our Mr Bond, of course, but instead SPECTRE agent Jaques Bouvar (yes, we’re in France). Cut to – country house and Bond guessing that Bouvar’s “widow” is actually the man himself in widow’s clothes after faking his own death… Bond works this out because he opens the car door himself, whereas the widow would have waited to have it opened for her. What, women can’t open car doors? What the fuck, Thunderball?

The Fall Guy

Another old TV show gets dragged out of the past with a big remake but can The Fall Guy provide the requisite thrills and spills? Er…

What’s The Movie? The Ryan Gosling-starring The Fall Guy

What’s It All About, JG? Dunno. Oh all right, Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is a stuntman who doubles for famous action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and who is pining after cameraperson Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). When a stunt goes wrong and he breaks his back, Colt vanishes in shame and Jody goes on to become a big-shot director. Eighteen months later, he’s persuaded back into his old job for a sci-fi epic being shot in Sydney and directed by Jody. Under the (false) impression she asked for him, he heads over, only to find the real reason he’s been brought to the set is that Tom has fallen in with a bad crowd and has gone missing and Jody’s film is over budget and in danger of being closed down. Mmm. Anyway, Colt investigates while slowly getting back together with Jody (often very slowly) until he finds out Tom accidentally killed someone and wants to use Colt as the fall guy (heh) to take the blame. The rest of the film is just Tom getting caught by Colt, incriminating himself and producer Gail Myer (Hannah Waddingham), who was in on the conspiracy. And of course, Colt and Jody reconcile. The movie is finished, Jason Mamoa becomes the replacement star in what is presumably meant to be a funny moment, and that’s your lot apart from the inevitable mid-credits scene where Lee Majors and Heather Thomas from the original show crop up for a cameo.