THE SOUND BARGE

Gary's Reviews

About 15 years ago in Australia a childrens TV show was being made which is fondly remembered by everyone who saw it. It was "Round The Twist". For the uninitiated "Round The Twist" was a story about a family moving to a seemingly peaceful place called Port Miranda and into a Lighthouse. Port Miranda however is not exactly a normal place and everyweek the kids found themselves in extremely odd situations. For example, Season 1 features - Ghosts, Dragons, A green baby born from a cabbage patch, a TV remote with the ability to play with time, magic underpants, cloning, and a ghost dog which makes one of the kids say "without my pants" at the end of every sentence. One of my favourites is one in which the family's scarecrow is possessed by the spirit of a clown and chases the daughter Linda (Tamsin West, a dead ringer for Juliette Lewis) around the lighthouse whilst laughing. All in all "Round The Twist" was a great show that lives up to my childhood memories and in some ways seems even better than I remember it. It also has a great theme song as performed by Tamsin West (Linda). If "Eerie, Indiana" was the kids version of "The X Files" then "Round The Twist" is the kids version of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". Genius!

(Contains Spoilers)

Executive producer Russell T. Davies' 2-part finale begins as The Doctor, Rose and Jack are split up and each placed in peril. For The Doctor that means being a contestant on a deadly version of Big Brother where eviction means death. For Rose it means facing a robotic Anne Robinson (armed with a laser beam which shoots from her mouth) in The Weakest Link. Jack however is made to face Trinny and Sussanah (again with the robots) as they try to perfect his look. It doesn't take long before the Doctor has teamed up with Big Brother contestant Lynda and escaped the "house". It then transpires they are on Satellite 5 (from previous episode "The Long Game") which is now called The Game Station. Then one of the best pieces of trickery in the series happens as Rose is seemingly killed off to make way for Lynda as new companion. I was actually convinced at that point that Rose really was dead. The press have been constantly printing stories saying that Billie Piper had left the series and though I hadn't believed it when I heard it, I definitly believed it at that moment. By the end of the first part it is revealed that she really isn't dead after all...and then we discover what has happened to her. She has been transported to a ship in the middle of a fleet. A Dalek ship. This is the moment that people have been waiting for and so it's understandable that this is exactly when the first part ends, with the promise of an all out war. In the second part we discover that the Daleks have been hiding with their Emperor (a great piece of design) and that they've all gone insane. The Daleks believe their Emperor to be God and I was a little saddened that this idea wasn't expanded on more. My biggest problem with the episode was the one thing that was most important. The end. At the end of the story it appears that the Bad Wolf message is all due to Rose and that it is she who sends the message back through time. It didn't really work as - according to their own rules throughout the series - it really wouldn't be possible. Even so it was an enjoyable end to the series with comedy, action, shocks, twists and great performances all round. It even managed to deliver some great emotional moments too. I was sad to see Christopher Eccleston regenerate into David Tennant but am glad that he gave us 13 episodes when he could have just not bothered. David Tennant has got a tough act to follow and I just hope he can pull it off. The 9^th Doctor has been "fantastic", Rose Tyler has been one of the greatest companions of all time and Captain Jack Harkness has not only been a brilliant companion but also a groundbreaking one. There has probably never been a bisexual character in a family drama and especially not one so completely opposite to stereotypes. I thought that this 2-parter was good but I prefered the episode "Dalek" and I am sure that next year the show will find it's feet a little more and become more consistently brilliant rather than patchy like it has been this season. I am seriously looking forward to the christmas special.

Most would know Tim Burton as the director who brought us Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow and various other movies. He has always had an eye for the gothic (and for some reason seems to like snow a lot as well). In this book he also proves himself to be something of a poet. His poems are all written in a kind of childish way, which is endearing, but they are NOT for children. Well most of them aren't. They tend to be darkly comic and sad and all to do with poor mistreated children who have various problems. You get the impression that Tim has always been an outcast himself. Even though the subject matter can be sad they are all funny stories and are excellently illustrate by Burton himself. I got my copy for £2.99 and finished it on the bus home from town but on the back of the book it says that the usual retail price is £6.99 so shop around.

The transition from a television comedy series to a movie is never easy to pull off. Most attempts at such things fail, so what about this? In the movie Royston Vasey's occupants find themselves facing an apocalypse, they believe that the only way that their homes can be saved is by coming into the real world and haselling the show's creators to make a movie so that they can continue to live on. It's a great concept but the biggest problem is that most of the action takes place in our world rather than Royston Vasey but even so it makes for an interesting movie. One of the great things about the show's characters is that no matter how sick, disturbed, perverted or just plain evil they are, they are still likeable in a way. You can actually feel sorry for them. Herr Lipp for instance should be a very dislikeable character but, the way he is written, he becomes a tragic figure who you really feel for. Overall I thought it was a good movie but not quite as good as the TV series, even so it's well worth seeing but only for fans really. A good interpretation of the movie's plot could be that what the League are trying to say is that good characters, even if they are no longer written about, can live on in people's hearts forever. This film would appear to be the epitath, and a fitting one it is.

Seeing Revenge Of The Sith at the cinema was a bit of a schizophrenic experience for me. At first it seem exciting but insubstantial - there's a lot of action that seems to be going on and we keep skipping from one place to another but i'd rather it just slowed down. General Grevious, who was introduced in the popular Clone Wars cartoon series, seems to be disposed of a little too soon and would probably have best served to show up near the end. The same can also be said of Christopher Lee's Count Dooku who is sadly wasted in the short time he is on film. Even though there are so many little things wrong with the film, you can't help but enjoy it. The last part of the film features some of the best scenes of Star Wars ever and the final shot of the movie was as perfect a final shot as any fan could wish for. The Phantom Menace was widely slammed. Attack Of The Clones was also hated. Revenge Of The Sith will never be remembered as fondly as any of the original trilogy but that was never really possible was it.

So far of all the episodes of the new series of Doctor Who this is probably the bravest. It is the most sinister of all the episodes and also one of the most moving. Steven Moffat (creator of BBC 2's Coupling) has shown us all what Doctor Who should be - Scary, exciting and full of ideas. Some of the most surprising things I found were - the lack of an actual monster (a refreshing change), the various jokes which only the adults of the audiance should get, and the character of Nancy. Nancy has to be the best non-regular character in the series so far - even better than Simon Callows Dickens. This is probably my second favourite of the series so far, with Rob Shearman's Dalek at Number 1. Thankfully Steven Moffat is going to write another episode of Doctor Who for the next season.

 TV - Doctor Who - Boom Town

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this particular episode of Doctor Who. The previous episodes written by Executive Producer Russell T Davies had been surprisingly the "least best" - I am desparetly trying to avoid using the word "worst". This episode also features the return of Margaret (as played by Annette Badland), a Slitheen last seen in the two parter Aliens Of London\World War III. The Slitheen's last appearance had been an intriguing conspiracy story, which had moments of brilliant satire, but I wasn't really sure whether they would work as reacurring villains, especially after their weakness has already been revealed. I found though that this episode wasn't quite as bad as I had feared it would be. It concerns the planning of a nuclear power station in the middle of Cardiff, as planned by new mayor, Margaret. It's slower in pace than the previous episodes - possibly as a break between the two two-parters - but that doesn't mean that it's a bad episode. It turned out to be a far more character led episode than usual, which deals with the consequences of the Doctor and Rose's recent actions. For the Doctor this means his involvement in the murder of Margaret's family and for Rose it means the effect her leaving has had on Mickey. It seems strange however that Captain Jack Harkness, who only last episode was seen as an untrustworthy conman, is now seemingly a fully-fledged member of the team. All in all a good episode which serves as a nice relaxing break between the horror of The Empty Child\The Doctor Dances and the next episode (which looks fantastic!) Bad Wolf\The Parting Of The Ways.