Stuff will return...

World of Stuff will be on pause for a few days as your trusty blogger takes a well-earned break down South. You may have thought, due to the lack of regular postings recently, that I was already on holiday but that's a matter for you entirely! Needless to say (is it?) I will return in the next seven days or so with more regular updated postings. Have fun!

Coming soon: Reviews of the latest two Dr Who episodes, Department S on DVD, Whoops Apocalypse, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Four Lions....and, as they say, much much more. Honest. Ciao.

Film Review: Iron Man 2

The surprise mega-success of 2008's 'Iron Man', directed by John Favreau and with a bravura starring turn by Robert Downey Jnr, effortlessly lifted the character out of the second or third tier of Marvel superheroes and into the premier division. The first film - that tricky 'origin' movie - was something new and refreshing in the superhero pantheon, by turns spectacular, fast, furious and genuinely funny. It managed to tread the fine line between the deathly dour Batman franchise and the slightly too-silly Fantastic Four movies. It was, in short, a triumph. No surprise, then, that expectations were high for this sophomore release. Such a shame then that the film's a bit of a disappointment; not, by any means, 'Spider-Man 3' sized disappointing, but it's a bit underwhelming and ultimately rather less than the sum of its considerable number of parts.

For this is where the film stumbles - it's just too many 'parts', there's too much stuff (ahem) going on all the time; much of it's a bit boring, some of it's quite entertaining but far,far too much of it has nothing at all to do with Iron Man himself. Considering the film's called 'Iron Man 2', appearances by the man in metal are few and far between, rationed pretty much to two or three action set pieces, the third of which, the final battle against a squad or war robots, is just too much too late as we've waited so long for Iron Man to kick some ass we're just about exhausted by the time it finally happens.


The film picks up more or less exactly where the first film left off - with Tony Stark Jnr revealing to the world that he is Iron Man. Almost immediately the action shifts to Russia where Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) the embittered son of a dying Russian scientist watches as Stark bathes in the glory of a technology created by his father in Russia. Not unexpectedly, he sets about fashioning his own armoured costume (complete with energy-crackling lariats) to become Whiplash (a name never used in the movie) with which he plots to wreak revenge on Stark for the terrible injustice wrought upon his family. Back in the US of A it’s not all plain sailing for Stark either; the palladium core of the chest device keeping him alive is leaking poison into his bloodstream – he’s dying. Other enemies are circling too; rival industrialist Justin Hammer (a charismatic performance by Sam Rockwell) is trying to elbow Stark out of the limelight, Senator Stern (a bloated Garry Shandling) is trying to force Stark to surrender his Iron Man technology to the Government for sinister military purposes. Back at Stark Industries Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is promoted to CEO of Stark Industries and as if all this stuff wasn’t enough there’s the arrival of the mysterious Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), Stark’s latest ice=cold employee. With all these characters vying for the limelight and so much plot to progress, it’s hardly surprising that Iron Man himself is almost a bit of an afterthought, slung into the mix at odd moments to give the film an often much-needed shot of spectacle amidst the wise-cracking. This, too, is part of the film’s problem. Screen writer Justin Theroux is clearly more interested in Tony Stark than Iron Man (and it’s another fault of the movie’s narrative dynamic that it allows this to happen) because Stark gets all the best lines, all the smart ass comebacks, all the snidey putdowns. They’re all well and good but they get a bit wearing after a while and they hardly help the film’s cause in making Stark a sympathetic character. Most of the time you just want someone to give him a bit of a slap and tell him not to be so smug. Or maybe that was just me…


After this crowd of characters and plot has been crowbarred into the first third of the film we finally get to see Iron Man in action when he confronts Venko on the Monaco racetrack. It’s a great sequence, Venko slicing and dicing passing race cars and hurling an underpowered Iron Man around the track. It’s a slick and powerful sequence and it kicks the movie out of first gear – only for it to slip back again moments later as the film’s sea of wlaking talking heads swims into view again.

And the frustrating truth is that Iron Man 2 never really gets out of first gear – or rather when it does it doesn’t have the energy to stay there. The middle of the film sags alarmingly with only a brief cameo from Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury) foreshadowing the much-rumoured Avenger) raising the interest for a moment or two. By the time we get to the final reel and the action starts – at last – it’s very nearly too late. I still have no idea what Johanssen’s Black Widow alter ego (again, an alter ego never specifically named in the film) has to do with anything else that’s going on, director Jon Favreau indulges himself with a bigger role for his bodyguard character Happy Hogan who enjoys a laboured fistfight as Black Widow demolishes a troop of guards in double quick time. Meanwhile Iron Man himself finally has his mettle tested as Justin Hammer’s new army of armoured robots sets about demolishing the massive Star Expo.

There seems to be a tacit understanding that big bold superhero movies must appeal to kids as much as – sometimes even moreso – adults. After all, we’re talking about people who dress up in coloured costumes and beat seven bells out of other people in coloured costumes. Walk into any supermarket or toy store in the UK right now and you’ll find the shelves groaning under the weight of Iron Man masks, Iron Man toy weapons, Iron Man action figures. But I can’t imagine that many kids will set through Iron Man 2 without getting bored and restless. Adults may enjoy the wordplay, the sexual tension between Stark and Potts, the electric resentment between Stark and Senator Stenton, all the rest of the intricate character stuff. But the kids – and, I suspect, quite a few of us adults – would rather see Iron man flying and fighting. And the truth is we just don’t get enough of either.

Don’t go thinking Iron Man 2 is a bad movie; it’s far too technically proficient for that.But it’s a film that’s got its focus all wrong and is too in love with its own character and its own mythology to entertain on the most visceral, primal level of all. Maybe it’s familiarity breeding contempt, maybe it’s the fact that the first film surpassed so many expectation, maybe in the wake of the sublimely iconoclastic ‘Kick Ass’ the more traditional superheroes just look increasingly passé. But really I think it’s just that Favreau has allowed his film to lose the fine balance of character and spectacle the first film had and, bloated by the success of the first film and the fan acclaim heaped upon him, he’s allowed himself to become self-indulgent and turned out a film which could have been so much better and so much more satisfying if it hadn’t been allowed to become so full of its own self-importance. A missed opportunity, and a disappointing movie to kick off the summer season of cinema blockbusters. Better luck third time??

Dr Who: The Time of Angels - TV Review

"I promised you the equivalent of an army...this is the Doctor."

And...relax. After the unfortunate misstep of last week's Dalek episode (let us speak of it no more) Dr Who is right back on track - and more - this week with the first sizzling episode in a two-part Steven Moffat story which has all the hallmarks of becoming the very first absolute classic adventure of the new Smith/Moffat era. Moffat's previous two scripts for this fifth season have been sturdy, workmanlike affairs but this double-length story gives the writer the opportunity to really spread his wings and enthral the show's audience with more richly-drawn characters, a more languorous storytelling pace and, best of all, the return of two of his (and the show's) finest creations in the modern era. Not only are the terrifying Weeping Angels back from 2007's 'Blink' but we also get a more than welcome reprise for River Song (Alex Kingston) from 2008's 'Silence in the Library' two-parter, probably the most charismatic and dynamic single character the show has given us since the relaunch (sorry, Captain Jack). Together with a stunningly-realised alien planet backdrop, a supporting cast of who's-for-the-chop-next redshirts and a cliffhangar to die for (or not) and endlessly-quotable smart ass dialogue, the ingredients are in place for something very special indeed. And 'Time of the Angels' doesn't disappoint. With Matt Smith now fully imbedded in the lead role (he's no longer 'the new Doctor', he's just the Doctor ) there's the very real sense here that the gloves are off now, a few teething troubles are out of the way and the show can fly again.


The episode kicks off with a cocky, audacious extended pre-titles sequence which expertly sets the tone for what's to come. The extravagant, exotic figure of River Song (for it is she) is fashioning an unlikely distress signal which her close future friend the Doctor will interpret 12,000 years later in a museum on an asteroid. After a breath-taking escape from the Byzantium spaceship River's aboard the TARDIS and the ship sets off in hot pursuit. Landing on the planet AlphAlpha Metraxis the Doctor, Amy and River are soon joined by River's comrades - a bunch of futuristic clerics in combat gear. River tells the Doctor that something very nasty was lurking in the vaults of the Byzantium, which has spectacularly crashed into an abandoned temple set high into the cliffs above them. It's a Weeping Angel...and with the ship crashed, it's on the loose.

Moffat has been selling 'Time of the Angels' (and its second episode, 'Flesh and Stone') as 'Aliens' in the way the first appearance by the Angels in 2007 ('Blink') was 'Alien'. In the earlier story the threat was more localised, a handful of scavenger Angels on Earth. Here the threat is much broader and wider (albeit a bit more distanced by taking place on an alien planet centuries in the future) with, it appears from this episode's stunning cliffhanger, thousands of the weeping Angels taking many inert forms all over the 'catacombs'. The similarities, structurally at least, between 'The Time of Angels' and 'Aliens' are undeniable; a small group of human troopers trapped in an abandoned settlement whilst all around them the deadly evemy is closing in for the kill. Certainly the story evokes many, many classic Dr Who stories dating way back to the era of the first Doctor where something nasty is picking the cast off one by one - the so-called 'base udner seige' stories so popular particularly in the Troughton era. For these reasons alone there's something very comforting and warmly familiar about the structure and setting of 'The Time of the Angels' but Moffat, to his credit, has taken the familiar and added his own dashes of wit and innovation into the mix. Clearly relishing the prospect of writing for his two greatest Dr Who creations again, he allows himself to indulge in some dazzling wordplay between the Doctor and River Song. River is cool, calm and collected where the Doctor is edgy and uncomfortable in her presence because she knows too much about him and his future. Matt Smith and Alex Kingston are on fire together, trading banter and black looks - Smith looks suitably deflated and crestfallen time and again in his one-sided exchanges with River where she's almost always one step ahead of him. Their exact relationship, still undefined but open to much conjecture, really is that of the bickering old married couple who know each other and their place in their relationship only too well. Amy can only look on, amused, as her new best friend seems to have found his match in this powerful, commanding, glamourous woman.

So to the Weeping Angels, appearing only sparingly in this first episode. Moffat has brought them back purely because he's thought of new things to do with them and he's opened up their mythology brilliantly here with the idea that "that which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel" which leads more or less directly to the hair-raising sequence, channelled from 'The Ring' movies, of an Angel creeping up on Amy inside the dropship and 'emerging' from the TV. Don't blink Pond! Moffat's also half-inched a cocnept or two from 'Silence in the Library' too, with the Angels killing troopers and then using their bodies to communciate with the Doctor. It's a cheeky steal but a sensible one; the Angels are scary enough as is it, how much scarier when they're speaking using the voices of dead men?


But good as Moffat's script is, and as accomplished as the acting is, the episode's greatest strength in behind the camera. New name director Adam Smith (who so memorably powred 'The Eleventh Hour' a few weeks back) gives 'The Time of Angels' a real cinematic quality, with wonderful ,long shots displaying the superb CGI work of the crashed Byzantium, the dropship and its troopers and the statue-strewn catacombs. This is the first episode of the season which doesn't show signs of the BBC's enforced 10% budget cut as Smith really puts the money on the screen and makes maximum use of the gloomy, claustrophic cave settings.

Faults? Well, churlish to go looking for any in what is essentially half a story but I remain a bit frustrated by Amy who still isn't really stepping out from the Doctor's shadow. Despite Karen Gillan's lviely performances, Amy remains the most generic companion figure of the 21st century era of Dr Who although it looks as if we're going to find out more about her as the seaason progresses. One missed opportunity here, though; after making much fuss of Amy's excitement at stepping out onto an alien world, the episode doesn't really follow it through as the next we see of her is a long shot as she stands outside with the Doctor, listening to the exquisite bickering between the Doctor and Amy.

'The Time of Angels' is easily the most rewatchable Dr Who since 'The Eleventh Hour' and with what promsies to be a run of strong episodes ahead, the show's back on firmer ground again, viewing figures are as strong as ever and it looks as if the series has made a successful transition from the David Tennant era. The second part of this yarn, 'Flesh and Stone' sees the series move its crack-in-the-wall plotline move towards the centre-stage again,earlier than I'd anticipated, and I'm confident that Moffat, now relaxing into his characters,, will deliver a satisfying and thrilling climax to this dense and edgy story. And remember, the Pandorica is about to open...

Book Review: The Double Comfort Safari Club

I'm firmly of the opinion that, if the British medical profession could just get their heads together and make Alexander McCall Smith's beautiful No 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels available on prescription, we'd see the nation's blood pressure levels plunging within days. It's impossible to read one of McCall's novels - the eleventh has just been published in hardback - and not feel the stresses and strains of your everyday life just drain away as you become embroiled in the wonderful, trivial world of Precious Ramotswe, Botswana's foremost (and only) lady detective and her coterie of colourful friends and colleaguies.

You may be familiar with the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency courtesy of the short-lived BBC1 TV series broadcast last year. It was a brave effort, well cast and beautifully filmed - but fans of the book series know that it's really impossible to capture the feel of the book series because it's impossible to recapture the flavour and pace of McCall's Smith's writing. The TV series made too many changes to the stories, introducing far too much action and incident and, as a consequence, losing the very thing which makes the books so special, because really, nothing happens in No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books. Of course that's not quite right; things do happen but they're really most very sweet, innocent things. There's never any jeopardy, there's never any danger; the books are the stories of a couple of gusty African women investigating very mundane things and, at the end of it all, sitting down to a nice pot of redbush tea and watching the sun setting over the Botswana horizon.

Book eleven is 'The Double Comfort Safari Club' and for fans it's more of the same. For those of you unfamiliar with the series, the books detail the comings and goings of the traditionally-built (ie fat) Precious Ramtoswe who sets up a detective agency - the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency - which currently operates out of an adjoining side room at the Tlok Weng Road Speedy Motors car repair garage in Gabarone in Botswana, owned by Precious' second husband Mr J.L.B Matekoni (he is always referred to by his full name, even by his wife). Precious, wise and calm, is aided and abetted by the nervy, excitable Grace Matekusi (who reminds everyone that she scored a record 97% in her final exams at the Bostwana Secretarial College) who sees herself as an 'assistant detective' whereas she's really just an efficient secretary. But together Precious and Grace investigate very low-key, understated little mysteries - marital infidelity, missing family members, helping customers find suitable husbands - and it's done with supreme good taste and a marked lack of excitement. The real beauty of the books lies in McCall Smith's wonderfully evocative descriptions of modern Botswana and its peaceful, unhurried, polite way of life. Without fuss or artifice the author beautifully creates images - pictures with words (and usually just a few well-chosen words) - that bring the parched and yet busy landscape of Botswana to life more vividly than any TV travelogue. And the stories reeally aren't about the mysteries, the investigations - they're about Precious and Grace, how they jog along together, how they react and interact with their friends and their families and how they bring their very unique perspective to bear on the little tribulations life throws at them. In 'The Double Comfort Safari Club' the first task at hand is deciding which teapot to use in the office and later there's much excitement when the two women buy sturdy new shoes for their excursion out of their normal stamping grounds as they seek out the lucky recipient of an inheritance. Elsewhere they try to evict the flighty girlfriend of a client who has been ousted from his own home and Grace has to cope with near-tragedy as her beloved fiance Phitu Radiphuti (owner of the 'Double Comfort' Furniture Store) suffers an injury at work. None of this really matters, none of life's little hardships really phase the two women abnd there's usually a little homily about life, love and friendship at the end of it all as life goes on as normal at the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.


I suppose I'd call these warm, lovely little books guilty pleasures if I felt remotely guilty about reading them. They're obviously not the normal Stuff of this blog but I make no excuses for recommending them here. Without exception they're warm-hearted, comforting little books, often achingly hilarious and occasionally heart-breaking. Forget the well-intentioned Tv series and do yourselves a favour by tracking down these delightful, life affirming books. McCall Smith writes a new adventure every year and they can't come soon enough for this reader. Time spent in the company of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency is time well-spent.

Dr Who : Victory of the Daleks - TV Review

"Don't mess with me, sweetheart!"

Well, I suppose it had to happen. Five years in and the new 'Dr Who' has finally turned up its first bona fide clunker of an episode. One or two have come close before, of course - 'The Age of Steel' and 'Fear her' from season two were a bit iffy and only the die-hardest of die-hards would say that David Tennant's 'End of Time' two-parter finale was a triumph from beginning to end. But 'Victory of the Daleks', well, that's another thing altogether. This is a stinker of epic proportions, a story which, on paper, had so much going for it but, on screen, has almost nothing at all to give. No, that's not fair, of course; it does have the glorious Matt Smith, loving and living every moment here as the Doctor, giving Mark Gatiss's unusually sloppy script a bit of the life and energy it so sorely lacks. Smith plays it like he knows he's got the best job in the world even if this is one of its off-days.


So what's wrong with this picture? Where to begin, really. The first disappointment, of course, is that this is the work of uber-fan-turned-scriptwriter Mark Gatiss who's turned in two episodes for the show since its comeback - the atmospheric 'The Unquiet Dead' from 2005 and the quirky if unessential 'Idiot's Lantern' from 2006. He also played Professor Lazarus in 'The Lazarus Experiment' in 2007. He really knows the show from top to tail and he really should know better than to turn in something as half-baked as 'Victory of the Daleks'. For half-baked is what it surely is. There's real promise in what's going on here. The Daleks! World War 2! Winston Churchill! Spitfires fighting a Dalek saucer in space! How can it go wrong? Part of the problem lies in the fact that, as shopping lists go, that's a pretty hefty one for a short 42 minute episode - and as a consequence none of these concepts and ideas are given room to breathe. None of them really develop, everything's half-done. One of Gatiss's selling points for the episode was the idea of the Daleks being depicted as cunning strategists, manipulating, biding their time instead of just rattling around hysterically squawking 'exterminate' every thirty seconds. Gatiss promised something which evoked the 1966 story 'Power of the Daleks' (sadly missing from the archives) where the Daleks appeared completely out of character, subservient to their human masters whilst secretly plotting domination behind everyone's back. Fine. We got this for all of ten minutes in 'Victory of the Daleks' in its finest moments; the khaki-coloured, union-jack blazooned military Daleks gliding around the underground war bunker offering to make tea and carrying file boxes around. The very best moment is the scene where the Doctor is desperately trying to persuade Churchill that the Daleks are ruthless alien killing machines as one of the creatures glides by in the background, swivels its eye-stalk to gaze at the Doctor, before moving on. But after about ten minutes the Daleks have revealed their true colours, they're evil again and being teleported back to their waiting spaceship where they're about to undergo the greatest ignominy of all. The Makeover of the Daleks.


The so-called 'celebrity' historical has become sommething of a tradition of modern-day Dr Who and these episodes, playing to the BBC's typcial production strengths have, on the whole, tended to be quiet triumphs. But the reason for their success is that they did more than just say to the viewer "Look, it's a woman in a crown and a big dress...that's Queen Victoria! Run!" or "Look at that beardy man, he's Shakespeare he is!" 'The Unquiet Dead', 'Tooth and Claw' and 'The Shakespeare Code' ('Unicorn and the Wasp' from season four, too) had something to say about the historical celebrity of the week. 'The Unquiet Dead' gave us a tired,weary Charles Dickens, jaded and disillusioned and convinced his body of work would, in the scheme of things, count for nothing. His encounter with the Doctor and Rose gave him a renewed strength and vigour, a belief in himself and his achievements. The audience felt they knew the man as the TARDIS sets off again and Dickens strides off into the snow, a new spring in his step. In 'Tooth and Claw' we meet Queen Victoria when she is still deep in mourning for her beloved husband. The Doctor recognises this, sympathises with it and at the story's end Victoria herself has a new mission - to protect the shores of her country from unwelcome visitors. 'The Shakespeare Code' offers a new slant on the Bard - here he's a high-kicking arrogant Liam Gallagher-style rock star, albeit one who is suffering from writer's block. These were all ballsy, confident depictions of well-loved historical figures. What does 'Victory of the Daleks' give us in its realisation of Churchill? A (too) fat man in a cheap suit with a cigar in his mouth at every opportunity - just to remind us he is in fact Churchill. There's no sense of history here, no sense of occasion as Amy meets her first famous historical face(and a missed opportunity as Amy seems a bit ambivalent about the Daleks too - although that may yet tie in to the fact she doesn't already know them from their recent attack on Earth at the end of season four). Such is the paucity of the script's struggle for verisimilitude we see Churchill wandering freely around the War Rooms - where are his advisers? Civil servants? Pen-pushers? His own security guards? Did Churchill really amble freely about the place chatting amiably to the hoi polloi? No, I don't think he did. What we have here is a broad caricature of Churchill because, to be fair, that's all we have time for. A story as (potentially) epic as this one needed far more time to breathe if it was ever to convince or even entertain. Even though much modern Dr Who is, by definition, breathless, this one just doesn't stop for a second, cascading ludicrous idea after ludicrous idea into a story which just doesn't have the narrative structure in place to support them all.


In a series which has seen a lot of cosmetic changes - the TARDIS inside and out, the sonic, the theme music and titles - I suppose we shouldn't have been too surprised to see the Daleks redesigned. It's hard not to see the influence of the series' merchandisers at play here. They've probably sold all the old TARDIS playkits and gold Dalek figures they were likely to. Time for something new for the kids (and their parents) to dig deep for! But how far can the show go? Do you really dare to tamper with the most iconic image in Dr Who history? Do you dare to have a go at redoing the Daleks? It appears you do - and you demean them just a little bit by making them bigger, bulkier...and coloured like the Teletubbies. I've no real problem with the new 'look'; they're a bit more threatening on screen, more bulbous and that middle section is a bit of a worry. But they're still undeniably Daleks. But we're talking vicious, single-minded killing machines here, a race with no taste for aesthetics, a race who have programmed out light, shade and beauty. So in their resurrection, their rebirth...they come out orange. And blue. And yellow.They also appear to have what looks suspiciously like a scart socket jammed in their backs. They also have new ranks now...'Drone', 'Scientist', 'Supreme', 'Eternal.' Steven Moffat has admitted that he and Mark Gatiss just made up these titles which sort of begs the question - why bother? I suppose 'Dalek Eternal' will look nice on a Character Options box...


So if the back-of-a-fag-packet characterisation of Churchill and dayglo Daleks weren't dodgy enough,we're left with the rest of this rather sorry mess. The plot seems to involve the Daleks building an android (Bill Patterson - in Dr Who at last!! Playing a flaming android!!) and ingratiating themselves into the British war effort so that Churchill (who they somehow know is an old friend of the Doctor's) can lure their arch enemy to earth so he can...er..say their name,a recording of which they can then trasmit back to a gizmo on their spaceship which has failed to recognise their racial impurity and refused to spew out the dayglo Daleks. But the machine recognises the Doctor's voice and the sound of him identifying the Daleks is enough to set the wheels of resurrection in motion. Yes, quite... Up on the spaceship the Doctor, channeling Tom Baker and his jelly babies, holds the Daleks to ransom with a jammie dodger whilst, with a bit of luck, Churchill is, with the help of his tame android scientist, within minutes able to jury-rig a few spitfires so they can travel into space and indulge in a bit of World War 2 aerial dogfighting with the Dalek saucer. In a jam-packed episode like this there's still not enough real plot to go around and we're left with a rather tedious race-against-time as the Doctor tries to stop the android who, in a real bit of 'Oh that'll do..' scriptwriting, is secretly a bomb which will destroy the Earth! Honestly, old William Hartnell TV Comuic strips had less inane storylines. This is actually the sequence where the show really displays how much it's missing Russell T Davies at times. The Doctor's not getting anywhere reasoning with the android not to destroy itself so it falls to Amy to try the human angle. "Have you ever fancied anyone you know you shouldn't have?" she says, slyly half-looking at the Doctor. What?? It's too early in the fifth season's run to suggest that Amy fancies the Doctor and in any case not only has there been no evidence of this so far, the production team and the cast have gone out of their way to assure us there isn't any romantic attachment between the two. This is clearly Gatiss trying to shoe-horn in a bit of Davies-style emotional character stuff but failing miserably because it makes no sense and directly contradicts what little we already know of the Doctor-Amy dynamic.

The Daleks have rushed off into space to regroup and the Doctor and Amy slope away. In case we'd missed the series' running theme there's a glowing crack in the wall behind the TARDIS and the much more interesting mystery of why Amy's history seems to have been rewritten and she's never heard of the Daleks.

In all honesty 'Victory of the Daleks' is robustly entertaining but it sure ain't Dr Who at anywhere near its best. Despite the CGI space battle and some effective cityscapes of wartime London, the show's budget cuts are still glaringly obvious. The cast is tiny (the scientist Bracewell seems to have no assistants) and it'll take more than a few sandbangs dumped on a rooftop in Cardiff to convince me we're in 1940's London, thanks all the same. Compare the visual look of this with 'The Empty Child' from 2005 which just dripped period atmosphere with its barrage balloons (and Rose's dramatic flight hanging from one), damp gloomy streets, bombs exploding in the distance, undeground jazz clubs, wartime hospitals and so much more... 'Victory of the Daleks' tells a more constrained story, it's true, but that doesn't mean it has to look any less convincing.

A lowpoint of the 21st century Dr Who then and, it seems the only way is up. The Daleks, inevitably, are on their way back again (they really need to be rested for a bit now but with a handful of glossy new props paid for it looks like they'll be around for a while yet) and I really can't say I'm looking forward to their return. Onwards then, into the first 'meat' of the season and with a broad,action-packed two-parter which really sounds as if it could be - and it really needs to be - the first classic story of the Smith/Moffat era. Stay tuned...and don't blink.

DVD Preview: S.N.U.B!

From the cupboard marked 'distinctly low budget British horror movies' comes S.N.U.B!, an...interesting little effort made on a shoestring but with bags of enthusiasm and displaying some genuine potential. A S.N.U.B, in case you didn't know (and there's no reason why you should) is a Secret Nuclear Underground Bunker and in this cheap'n'cheerful effort starring no-one you'll ever have heard of (apart from Gary Mavers of 'Peak Practice' and Tom Cotcher, once a crime-fighting denizen of Sun Hill in 'The Bill') a disparate group of refugees hide in a recommissioned SNUB after a terrorist attack on London sees the city devastated by a dirty nuclear bomb (nearly deactivated by Joseph Milson from 'The Sarah Jane Adventures') and a radioactive firestorm raging across the countryside. Unbeknownst to the hapless survivors in the SNUB, the inmates of a nearby high security prison have escaped and, horribly scarred, are trying to break into the SNUB. Perhaps not surprisingly, that's exactly what they do and bloodshed ensues.


That's yer lot really. S.N.U.B! is an odd one; it's desperately derivative, the acting's dodgy at best, some of the action sequences are extremely laboured and yet it's hard to dislike a film which is a) so short (70 minutes top to bottom) and b) clearly made with so much love for this sort of guerilla film-making. Sold as an homage to 1950s B-movies it really comes across like an underfunded episode of 'Spooks' but with added zombies. Visual effects are basic but endearing - the explosion of the bomb and its immediate consequences are surprisingly well done - and the gore quota's pretty low considering the number of rather faceless teens and girls who get offed in the last reel. No marks for believability though as, prEsumably out of narrative desperation, the survivors of the survivors flee the SNUB in the middle of the firestorm, ignoring the risk of radiation poisoning, and fly away in a convenient helicopter as a handful of zombie inmates chow down on the unfortunate policitian who got them all into this sorry mess in the first place.

Zombie films are ten a dozen these days - just pop down to the movie racks of your local Asda and you'll find loads of cheap straight-to-DVD titles cluttering up the racks. S.N.U.B! is no better than most of them and probably, technically, quite a bit worse. But if you're a fan of zombie movies, vaguely post-apocalyptic stuff or even just watching films which...well, aren't really very good...you might want to spend a few quid on S.N.U.B! and just leave your brain at the door.

S.N.U.B! is released on DVD in the UK on 26th April 2010

Sarah Jane news...look who's back!!!

Work is underway on the forthcoming fourth series of the Dr Who children's spin-off (watched, Stuff suspects, by significantly more adults than kids!) 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' for screening this autumn. News is fairly scant at the moment apart from one rather stunning announcement today regarding one two-part story, written by Russell T Davies him self,creator of the show and former showrunner of Dr Who. The story will not only feature a guest appearance by new Doctor Matt Smith but also a return to the Who fold, after an absence of 38 years, of none other than Katy Manning, reprising her role as third Doctor companion Jo Grant. Blimey. The story sees the Doctor, Sarah, Jo and Sarah's gang travelling to Snowdon - and then out into space - to battle the Shansheeth, vulture aliens (voiced by David Bradley) who are operating out of a big old underground base. Colour me rather excited!!!

Coming soon : review of this week's Dr Who yarn 'Victory of the Daleks'.