Christmas telly (includes Merlin finale, Homeland finale and Doctor Who Xmas special spoilers)

Oooh its been ages since I did a TV post, anyway……

Merlin

*Sob*, the ending of Merlin, *sob*. Merlin ended at the right time, after 5 series it was getting too predictable, ‘ooh someone’s flying backwards’ again, ‘oooh someone’s gone all evil so of course they’ve had a complete wardrobe change and are now just wearing dark clothing’ again etc etc. However in the last few episodes there has been some wonderful acting from the two main leads; Colin Morgan (Merlin) and Bradley James (Arthur), specially in their scenes when they’re together on their own and in that final episode where Merlin tells Arthur what he really is and Arthur rejects him and then grows to appreciate and finally thank him, *gulp*. This was bromance on full blast and I think it’s unusual, specially in prime time telly, for script writers to give two male actors material to do such really emotional stuff together. I think Merlin reached its natural end and I am now really looking forward to seeing what Colin Morgan and Bradley James do next with their careers.

(I also liked the very ending, a glimpse of Merlin in modern times, that just instantly brings stories into your head, where’s he been? what’s he been doing all this time?)

The Raymond Briggs-athon

Raymond Briggs was very much part of my childhood and I don’t think I appreciated back then exactly how good the art work was, well The Snowman anyway, I think Raymond Briggs Father Christmas is showing its age a bit but what I didn’t quite get as a kid is exactly how depressing his stuff is! They’ve shown The Snowman, Father Christmas and the new The Snowman and the Snowdog over Christmas, at least it’s a good thing I don’t think they’re showing the Raymond Briggs cartoon about nuclear war, now that was one book I very clearly remember from my childhood. But hey I’m all for showing good quality animation on TV in an age where everything can be a bit too slapdash and computer-fied.

Room on a Broom

Just as my childhood was firmly in the grips of Raymond Briggs, my kids are firmly in the grip of Julia Donaldson and I’m happy that they’re in more cheerful hands, with her not completely saccharine messages (after all The Gruffalo proves that bad things do sometimes exist but on the other hand if you’re smart and clever you can defeat them) that are far more positive. I think Room on a Broom was so clearly turned into a cartoon because The Gruffalo was so successful and whereas most of Julia Donaldson’s books are good, The Gruffalo is so in a league of its own, it can be very tempting to compare anything else unfavourably. So trying desperately to forget The Gruffalo, I liked Room on a Broom, I think I liked more the fact that Boy Lacer was sitting next to me reciting the lines from memory for a good part of the cartoon (he’s just done Room on a Broom at school). Now can they do The Smartest Giant in Town next please?

Doctor Who

New assistant and they’re snogging already! The shocker! I guess it gets the will they won’t they? / will it be platonic? over and done with and I guess the Doctor hasn’t had an assistant to snog for a while, considering he’s been hanging out with a married lady and actually hang on, he’s married, ahh the problems with these multi-temporal relationships. But then of course she’s dead, again, I think this is going to be a really interesting season.

As for the actual episode, it was hard to remember that this was a Stephen Moffatt episode, it seemed a little run of the mill compared to his usual edge of the seat stuff but I guess he had to rein himself in a bit considering you could hardly have Weeping Angels level of terror at Christmas teatime. I liked the snowmen though, I thought whoever designed those as monsters did a good job and it was nice to see thingy from Silent Witness get more work.

Homeland

Ahh Homeland, proving again that all the best actors in American dramas are British (not to mention rather good looking). As the current season of Homeland reached its climax we’ve been treated to some really edge of the seat episodes, which made me, of course, expect the final episode to be particularly ‘explosive’ and although yes, it was at the end, yawn, christ it was dull before it got to that bit and I never thought I’d ever associate the word dull with Homeland . . . This episode just felt like one hour long set up for the next series and really didn’t have that much to do with the current series.

All images property of the respective channels / production companies and used for illustrative purposes only.

Random Saturday Stuff (posted early Sunday morning) – MILD DOCTOR WHO / MERLIN SPOILERS

• So, it was the last episode of the current series of Doctor Who and as always Stephen Moffat sure can write ‘em, I promise I’m not going to write any major spoilers except it’s obvious the Doctor was obviously gonna survive (come on, I’ve seen the on location photos of the next Christmas special) and the way he survived, well I didn’t see that one coming (I had my own theory I was convinced about and I was obviously wrong and actually thinking about it, I think I’d been fooled by a very deliberate red herring). Also I think Stephen Moffat really, really wants to write an Indiana Jones script (come on, that would be brilliant!). Oh and I loved how the beginning of the episode showed the Doctor travelling a lot, I always like to think that the Doctor gets about far more than we actually see and there was a hint of that. Amy Pond looked fantastic. I loved London at the beginning. And I love how Moffat has set up the next series, lots more things to find out now and we thought RTD liked a long arc.

• And as Doctor Who ends another series of Merlin starts, I wasn’t totally blown away by tonight’s episode but they may have something to do with having just watched Doctor Who first and anyway it can take time to get back into the whole arc of that particular series. Still, nice to see it back but they really must stop colour coding the good guys and the bad guys, tonight’s bad guy was obvious from the start just by the colour of his clothes (and the fact he looked a bit shifty).

• Moving the subject completely away from TV, if you haven’t been lured to this particular post by the Merlin and Doctor Who tags and like embroidery, check out this thread on Phat Quarter, I’m a bit unobservant and have only just noticed it, but it features the work so far on Mr X Stitch’s Digital Common’s group, you’ll see a piece of mine up there plus some absolutely brilliant pieces, I’m in awe at how inventive embroiders can be at representing text in different ways.
• Talking of embroidering text in different ways, have you seen the new Flickr group dedicated solely to embroidered text?

There, Saturday night TV and embroidery in one post, which is apt because embroidery is usually what I’m doing when I’m watching Saturday night TV.

Mr. Lacer’s Birthday Present

Mr. Lacer likes Doctor Who more than I do, which is therefore quite a lot (he once inflicted the entire back catalogue on me – this was pre-kids, these days he’d just inflict it on them – every weekend as it was being shown by one of the repeat channels – that was a fun way tostart the weekend – not (although I did watch Doctor Who as a kid, with very vague memories of Jon Pertwee, I have no idea why though, as just checking Wikipedia he stopped playing the Doctor before I was born – I remember Pertwee more as Worzel Gummage – something I enjoyed far more at the time – stronger memories of Tom Baker and complete fan loyalty to Peter Davison, as he happened to be the Doctor when I was just the right age to really get into it, I also liked Sylvestor McCoy (and I thought Ace was cool) but could not stand Colin Baker’s Doctor , but overall I’m more of a fan of the new Who). And as Mr. Lacer is an extremely hard person to buy for, I made him a Doctor Who cushion.

The cross stitch pattern is from Weelittlestitches on Etsy, I’d link to it but Etsy is down right now at the time of writing this. A TARDIS is included in this pattern but I have been literally stitching this since I ‘stopped’ work, a week and a half ago (I’m actually working tonight and I have an interesting proposition I need to sort out to, so I’m still working but it’s when my two clients finished and I got some more free time) and it has been pretty constant stitching, two 10 hour each audiobooks, the final episode of Case Histories (which was really good by the way – why couldn’t it have been like that at the beginning?), An Education (also really good) and two ballet lessons. I have learnt several things; I always underestimate how long it takes to do cross stitch because although I do cross stitch (evidentially), I am an embroiderer at heart and embroidery is a hell of a lot quicker, I have also learnt that although I can embroider happily in front of the TV and I can technically cross stitch in front of the TV, I slow right down and I feel slow enough as it is. Although actually I don’t think I’m that slow a cross stitcher, I know (now that I’ve reminded myself) that cross stitching takes time. This whole project has been useful though in reminding me of the time issue with cross stitching, as I have two large scale cross stitch projects I want to give as gifts in December (one a wedding present, the other a Christmas present) and if I want to do that, I am really going to have to start stitching soon, not straight away though, I’m all cross stitched out, although at least whilst doing this I got to rest my poorly knee.

(The fabric for the cushion itself (the design was inspired by Tom Baker’s scarf), is a mixture of Klona solids from Backstitch, bargain fabric which turned out to be lovely and crisp to work with, really good quality and a great range of colours!)

Catch up and The Doctor’s Wife

Image from BBC

Just a quickie, I’m still not particularly well, my mouth is getting better although still sore (and I still need work doing, including I’m increasingly suspecting, another wisdom tooth out). It took a week for me for my mouth to open wide enough to be able to brush my teeth properly (disgusting I know) as something was up with my jaw. Now my mouth is a bit better I’ve caught a bad cough from Boy Lacer and I have the combination of a bad cold / bad hay fever attack, along with today, for no apparent reason, my muscles killing me. All this and I’m still working, although I do seem to have lost one client, careless I know.

Anyway, onto something cheery, I loved tonight’s episode of Doctor Who, written by one of my writing hero’s, why wouldn’t I? I’m still not up to writing something really coherent but some points I liked:
* I loved how this episode felt quite old school and cerebral.
* Talking of old school, those corridors!
* The Doctor getting all choked up at the end, *sniffle* I did to

However much as I liked this episode (and it was far better than the pirates last week), with all the hype that this episode would be up there with Blink, nope not up there in my eyes, I think there have been quite a handful of better episodes, including this series’ two parter The Silence opener.

(One final non-Doctor Who related note – someone left a very nice comment on my gnome cushion post last night but before I could approve it WordPress seemed to eat it, sorry and if you’re reading this, thank you)

Doctor Who: The Silence

Another excellent episode, with The Silence proving to be, I think, one of the scariest Who monsters of all time. I love how Stephen Moffat can create such memorable monsters, often, have you noticed, based on what could be variations of childhood games, take your gaze away from the Weeping Angels and they move, turn your back on The Silence and you forget about them, Moffat plays very heavily on the fear of things moving just out of the corner of your eye I think.

And so many questions raised by these two episodes, I love TV drama that makes you think, there isn’t that much of it around these days, with Lost being the absolute classic, 24 making you think at least a little (i.e. who was the CTU mole this series and trying to figure out the complex layers of bad guys) and over on this side of the pond Life on Mars / Ashes to Ashes. Of course all four of those shows are now over, so thank god for Doctor Who. I’ve got so many theories now about what’s going on this series, as I’m sure everyone who has watched these episodes have, I can’t wait to see if/when my theories pan out (evidence already suggests I was right about Amy . . .).

Oh and as for next week, notice how those black marks on their hands where in the same places as those transmitters . . . ?

Doctor Who – The Impossible Astronaut (very mild spoilers)

Ooh and it’s that time of year again when I gush, alot. But how can you not gush when you get an opening episode to the latest Doctor Who series, like The Impossible Astronaut? It had some of the most literally spine tingling aliens I’ve ever seen (honestly, I was going all tingly in that scene in the bathroom), the interactions between the main characters are of course brilliant and Stephen Moffat has this wonderful ability to make 45 minutes feel like an hour and a half, the way how he crams so much in it feels like a movie, yet it still feels like a movie that is too short because I want more! Can not wait till next week.

Christmas TV

Christmas night TV is one of the highlights of my Christmas day, that and the food I eat to go alongside all that viewing. It was Mr. Lacer’s turn to put the kids into bed and I was already in the kitchen whizzing up a batch of Nigella’s Jumbo Chilli sauce, oven on for the hot bread roll, trying not to eat all the parma ham before it hit the plate. Anyway I got my food ready just in time and hit the sofa almost at a skid, as Mr. Lacer finished put the kids’ bedroom light out and it was time to put Doctor Who to play on the DVR.

This particular Christmas episode opened with a space ship hurtling towards a planet looking like it’s going to crash any minute and I have to admit for a moment my heart sank a little, not another ‘space ship hurtling towards planet, can we save everyone in the nick of time?’ episode, much as I loved Russell T Davies’ work, it all seemed a little too Russell T Davies, but of course Stephen Moffat now writes the Christmas episodes and I doubt you could get him to pen anything formulaic in his life. It turns out that Amy and Rory are honeymooning on the doomed ship, so of course the Doctor pops by to help and he soon realises that to allow the ship to land safely he has to convince a Scrooge like character, Kazran to do something with his cloud machine but of course Kazran doesn’t want to do that. So the Doctor tries a unique take on the Christmas Carol, travelling back to Kazran’s past to try and make him a better person. There is singing, some beautiful flying fish, a scary as anything shark and a great script with some very funny one liners. A brilliant refresher into exactly how great Doctor Who is with Stephen Moffat at the helm and Matt Smith’s geeky Doctor and of course the trailer for the next series, more River Song, the Doctor goes to America and I bet I wasn’t the only one trying to work out which clips were from the Neil Gaiman episode, my money is on the scariest looking clips in the dark ruined looking house with the character with writing on their face.

After Doctor Who and a slice of disgustingly disappointing Christmas cake (I really must make my own next year), it was time for Poirot doing Murder on the Orient Express and this really was Poirot in a very bad mood. Travelling back from a disastrous case, a friend does Poirot a ‘favour’ and manages to squeeze him, at the last minute onto the Orient Express travelling back home. It is a dark story from even before Poirot gets on the train, with not only the disastrous end to the previous case but Poirot observing from a distance a stoning in Istanbul and not getting involved. The music to this episode was very well done, adding to the discordant, dissatisfied air of the journey before blood has even been shed. I’m sure everyone knows this story, it was one of my favourite books as a child when I got to the age of being able to start raiding my parents’ bookcases but I’d swear this version, although very faithful to the book, was actually even darker. David Suchet did an absolutely brilliant job, you can feel his dislike of having to share a cabin on the first night, from his body language you can feel his revulsion when he is called to examine the body on the train and from the tone of his voice his displeasure at the murderers who have taken justice into their own hands. Really brilliant.