What do you get when you cross a “gritty” post-watershed BBC Two sci-fi series set in Wales with a particularly bad BBC Schools programme? That’s the question that ‘Torchwood: Lost Souls’ sets out to answer over the course of its 43 minute running time (Though it seemed like longer). Yes, it seems that someone at the BBC thought it’d be a really neat idea to produce and broadcast an episode of Torchwood based around the launch of the Large Hadron Collider.

Someone at the BBC should be fired. Into space. And then handed a letter of dismissal in the moments before his head explodes. Along with a photo of his wife and his dad having sex.

Have I gone too far? Probably. One of the main problems with ‘Lost Souls’ is that the educational remit demands that the characters call a halt to the action every five minutes or so to divulge some handy facts about CERN and the Large Hadron Collider OF DOOM. There’s a noticeable shift in tone every time this happens, as Jack, Gwen and Ianto turn to the microphone and adopt their most patronising Blue Peter presenter voices and lifelessly deliver information about the project.

Given the importance of the day, as well as the novelty nature of the episode, this could almost be forgiven (Though the episode was sat in the middle of an entire day’s programming themed around the LFHC, so one could argue that the target audience wasn’t going to learn anything they hadn’t already been informed about by wonky-eyed gonk Evan Davies earlier that morning), if it weren’t for the fact that the rest of the science in the episode is monumentally awful. The aliens of the piece (Who we never learn anything about, in a sparkling piece of character development from writer Joe Lidster) are killing humans by- Wait for it- stripping the neutrons from their bodies.

I’ll let you read that last sentence again.

They’re stripping the neutrons from people’s bodies.

I’m not going to go into the many ways in which this is implausible to begin with, but what’s worse is that the process is apparently gradual, causes the victims to start glowing, and makes their skin feel a bit like tissue paper. Milkman-wannabe Ianto Jones undergoes this process, but is miraculously restored when the aliens are vanquished. Now I can’t begin to speculate on what would happen if someone attempted to remove the neutrons from one’s cells BECAUSE IT’S A REALLY STUPID IDEA, but I suspect it might look a little something like this:

It certainly wouldn’t make you glow “like an angel”.

Commenting on the acting abilities of the Torchwood cast at this point would be like kicking a very tired puppy in the face with steel toe-capped boots on, so I’ll simply say that they’re all on their usual top form, in that they’re all made of balsa wood. Not that they’re given anything particularly interesting to say or do, of course; aside from a couple of supposedly witty dialogue exchanges near the beginning, the rest is all whimpering, shouting and generally trying to out-plank one another. This climaxes in an overblown speech at the end which, in the hands of a proper actor, might have been seen as a stirring rumination on the meaning of life, and the reasons for humanity’s existence.

They gave the speech to John Barrowman; ’nuff said, I feel.

The supporting cast are largely undeserving of a mention, but the unremittingly terrible Freema Agyeman (Who stole her acting style from Floella Benjamin of ‘Playschool’ fame) pops up here as Martha Jones, fresh from attempting to shove a piece of meaningless plot contrivance where the sun doesn’t shine in Doctor Who’s recent finale (Though the fans are busy speculating that this probably takes place beforehand. WHO CARES? It’s Torchwood!). I’m not sure why they put Martha in the episode, except to give Barrowman a chance to slur “Marrrtha Jones!” a few dozen times (This never gets old)… Her role seems mostly confined to a bizarre sub-quest in which she sets about asking our trusty gang of regulars how they feel about the fact they’ve just lost two of their only friends. Their responses are all-too predictable; Gwen cries, Ianto whimpers, and Jack is stoic but vulnerable. Yawn.

The only silver lining is that this isn’t the worst episode of Torchwood they’ve ever made; that honour goes to pretty much all of the first season. There’s a clear bond between the three main leads, and there’s potential for good drama in that if they’re given the right scripts. If you don’t know anything about the Large Hadron Collider then it’s a good crash course, and I daresay this will be of huge benefit to some of the children listening. I can’t recommend it based solely on that, though, so I’m going to have to give it a thumbs down. It’s hugely throwaway, the script’s a clunker, and ‘Torchwood’ just doesn’t have a good enough cast to make it work.

Torchwood: Lost Souls is available to download now from the BBC website, though why you’d want to is anyone’s guess.

We are (probably) not going to be wiped out tomorrow.

We certainly aren’t going to be annihilated as the result of anything that happens in Switzerland, at any rate. As you may or may not be aware, scientists in Geneva are due to fire up CERN’s biggest ever project, the Large Hadron Collider. The idea behind the LHC is to recreate the conditions shortly after the Big Bang by firing some very small particles at some other very small particles, in order to make some even smaller particles; it’s essentially an $8 billion game of conkers.

Whatever way you look at it, though, there’s absolutely no reason to worry about it destroying us tomorrow. And here’s three reasons why:

1) The Large Hadron Collider is big. And protons? Protons are small. It’s going to take months to get the proton streams excited enough to even consider producing anything worthwhile (And by worthwhile, I mean potentially dangerous) by slamming into one another. Infact, it’s going to be sometime in the middle of next year, which simply means that J.J Abrams’ “Star Trek” film won’t get to see the light of day, and we can all count our blessings for that.

2) Even if the protons started moving very quickly as soon as the collider got switched on (This is physically impossible, but let’s assume the scientists said there was a naked lady proton at the end of the tunnel or something), the chances that the collisions will destroy anything other than the protons themselves are roughly 0.00005%, meaning we’re probably going to have to watch Shaun of the Dead affecting a Scottish accent after all. If you really want to get worried about an impending apocalypse, look no further than Yellowstone Park.

Yellowstone Park.

That’s right; underneath one of America’s few non-gaudy tourist attractions (Though I bet it’s filled with tacky gift shops) is a REALLY big volcano, just waiting to go off and kill us all. And the scientists say there’s a 0.15% chance that it, or another like it, will go off in our lifetime, wiping out most of the life on Earth; for those of you keeping track, that’s a whole three thousand times more likely than any microscopic black holes swallowing us up. And unlike the LHC, which some outraged right-to-lifers are trying to shut down with a court injunction, there’s absolutely nothing that we can do to stop it.

3) If both of the above scenarios combine to make sure we don’t live to see Thursday, we can all take comfort in the fact that we won’t live to hear BBC Radio 4′s Torchwood radio play, ‘Lost Souls’ tomorrow afternoon. If there’s one thing worse than having to watch John Barrowman overract, it’s having to listen to him overract. On the plus side, the only hint we’ll have of the chasm between Eve Myles’ front teeth is an occasional whistling sound when she breathes.

In short, the Large Hadron Collider can only be a good thing. I don’t understand it entirely, as I’m not a particle physicist, but if we can’t explore where we came from and who we are, then what’s the point in being here? By recreating the conditions shortly after the Big Bang, scientists could learn more now than they’ve learned in a thousand years; isn’t that worth the risk? Plus they’re referring to the Higgs Boson as ‘the God particle’; I’m not 100% sure what that means, but it sounds like if they find one, it might make some Christians cry. And who’s not willing to put their lives on the line for that?

I know I am.

You are in a room. There is a key on the bedside cabinet and the front door to the house is locked. Exits are north and west. What do you do?

> Poo

I do not know how to “Poo”.

> Wee

I do not know how to “Wee”.

> Bum

I do not know how to “Bum”.

There is a faint smell of smoke in the air.

> Willy

I do not know how to “Willy”.

> Boobies

I do not know how to “Boobies”.

> Go away

Where would you like to go?

The room is on fire.

> You smell of wee

I do not know how to “You”.

> I hate you

You are carrying:

Nothing.

You are suffocated by the smoke, and die a horrible death.

GAME OVER

Score: 0/258

Play again? (Y/N)

> Y

(c) Me, aged 7

*************************************************************************************************************************************************

Will Smith is rumoured to be playing ‘Captain America’ in the upcoming Marvel Studios films featuring the character.

No, no, no, no, NO.

I don’t care about the fact that Will Smith is black and Captain America is white. I don’t even care that Will Smith isn’t exactly the tall, muscle-bound freak you’d expect from someone whose blood is pumping with Super Soldier Serum. But Captain America’s a man out of his time. He’s vulnerable yet stoic, he’s a natural born leader, and most of all, he’s an incredible prude.

And Will Smith?

‘Nuff said. This is actually almost certainly another groundless rumour (It seems to have originated on an MTV blog), but I want Hollywood to remember very hard what happened last time someone tried to inject political correctness into a popular franchise…

If you didn’t know that was coming, then you’re a bloody idiot you don’t know me very well.
]]> http://typeforty.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/on-the-fresh-prince-of-america/feed/ 0 typeforty http://typeforty.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/on-marvels-propensity-for-spinoffs/ http://typeforty.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/on-marvels-propensity-for-spinoffs/#comments Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:45:00 +0000 typeforty http://typeforty.wordpress.com/?p=24 ]]> This evening I indulged in the guilty pleasure that is The X Factor for an hour. I’m not referring to the third-rate X-Men spinoff (Which has all of the guilt, none of the pleasure), but instead the third-rate talent show, which is in its auditions phase. This is, of course, the only point in the show’s run when it’s even half acceptable to watch; the opportunity to sneer at the numerous checkout operators and factory workers as they get their dreams crushed into a fine powder and forced down their liquor-lined gullets is often too irresistible to pass up (This is coming from a temp in a call centre, before you get on your high horses about me being on mine). I’m now watching ‘Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer’, which seems to have a real issue with blondes; of three blonde characters among the main cast of characters from the comics, all we get is Jessica Alba with a bad dye-job. Chiklis looks slightly less like a Tango-ed turd in this one, I suppose, but I’d still like to see Marvel get the franchise rights back sooner rather than later.

Speaking of Marvel, they’ve ballsed things up again. Not content with destroying twenty years of Spider-Man continuity, or doubling the number of ‘Avengers’ titles shipping every month and yet not actually putting any Avengers in either of the latest issues, they’ve decided to relegate a major plot point in this summer’s “Secret Invasion” crossover to a tie-in issue of that Olympian yawnfest, “Incredible Hercules”. For the unfamiliar, the Marvel Universe has been invaded by shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls (Think ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ with superpowers), who keep ominously telling our heroes that “He loves you”. “His” identity has been the subject of much fan speculation, and yet instead of revealing it in the main comic (It’s referring to the Skrull god of stability (WTF?), if anyone was interested) they’ve cynically placed it in a tie-in which many fans, myself included, would otherwise have considered far from an essential buy. I’d say that this doesn’t affect me too much, given that I download my comics illegally anyway, but I inevitably follow this up with a purchase of the collected ‘trade paperback’ versions (My bookshelf will back me up on this one), meaning I’m going to have to buy up to six snooze-inducing issues to ensure that I own just one. Thanks, Marvel, you bunch of faeces-faced capitalists.

Elsewhere, Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn seems to be under the impression that the BBC wants to make an hour of new Red Dwarf. I don’t know how I feel about this… On one hand, I’d like a resolution to the cliffhanger which closed Series 8 (Or VIII, if you want to be anal about it), but I doubt after all this time that the new production would want to address this (And perhaps rightly so). I also can’t help but think that the cast is getting a bit too long in the tooth to be doing this anymore, and that the low acting ability of Chloe Annett isn’t going to be cancelled out by her hotness if it’s all started to go south and wrinkly. In summary, I’m dubious; please, just let it die now. Mind you, we could do with some decent new British comedy on the box…  I had quite a few hopes pinned on BBC Three’s ‘The Wrong Door’, but that turned out to just be yet another relentlessly awful punishment from God; frankly, that review was at least seven words longer than the show deserves.

I’ll leave you on an advanced warning: If anyone reading this is even thinking about seeing ‘Disaster Movie’, I’m going to come round to your house and inject spider eggs into your urethra. ‘Nuff said.

Would someone like to explain the Georgia thing to me in words of two syllables or less? I’d been away from the news for a couple of days (Too busy with my own life to have more things to worry about) and it all seems to have blown up… The recap on the BBC news site helps a little, but not much; as far as I can tell, some Russians and some Georgians live together in a country which doesn’t actually exist and is still, infact, Georgia. The Georgians have decided to get a bit miffed at this and started fighting people in this weird little non-country, causing the Russians to get involved, unless they got involved beforehand (Nobody seems quite sure, by the looks of it). So they’re either attempting to invade or protect their people, and either way they probably shouldn’t be there. Everyone else in the world’s getting a bit hacked off at Russia anyway, so they’re latching on to this as a reason to lay the smackdown on them, in a typical UN don’t-do-that-please-or-we’ll-be-a-bit-annoyed sort of way. How am I doing?

Someone called Nicola Roberts is banning men, according to Digital Spy. From what I can tell, she doesn’t seem to have the resources to enforce the ban or any kind of political backing at the moment, so we’re probably going to be okay. Obviously I’ll be sure to give you updates on the situation as and when I get them. Oh, and while I’m there, Kelly Brook’s joining ITV comedy ‘Moving Wallpaper’. I don’t watch it, and I don’t have a point to make, I just think she’s hot, that’s all. If you’re reading this, Kelly, get in touch.

And finally, the Banana Splits are coming back. These costumed deformities scared me shitless as a child, and I hate to think that they’re about to do the same to a new generation… Actually, who am I kidding? I’m a petty sadist, and as such I think it’s an awesome idea. I just might not be watching; some things are just too creepy. And I leave you with the news that the mayor of an Australian town has been encouraging ‘ugly’ women to congregate there, as the large male-to-female ratio will make it a lot easier for them to get laid; needless to say, I’m thinking about getting my bedroom twinned with it. Goodnight, now… Don’t have nightmares.

Something else with an abundance of ludicrous accents is popular 80s BBC sitcom ‘Allo Allo’ (How’s that for a segue?), and inconsiderately the BBC decided to release Series 6 and 7 on DVD today. Obviously I had to buy it, but that doesn’t mean I’m too happy with the situation. I am, mind, because it’s an excellent sitcom; I don’t know if it should be filed under ‘guilty pleasures’, but you’ve got to respect any sitcom which has the guts to break through the media smokescreen and show World War 2 for the laugh riot it actually was. I also love the fact that it’s so utterly inaccessible to the casual viewer- Sure, there’s a few gags which work without knowing the complex story, but for the most part it’s crammed with references to things that happened sometimes four or five years ago, in viewer terms. And people think Lost is impenetrable…

“Humping a harlot’s hairless hotspot!“

The first thing that struck me about this was the alliteration, to the point where it borders on a tongue twister… It’s not as easy to say ten times fast as it first seems, either, as I discovered at work when I found myself suddenly and wholly explicably on a call in the middle of the attempt. Did I get fired? No, sadly not. I’m a consummate professional and trained in such things, and as such I was able to switch instantly from explicit tongue-twister to soul-sapping call centre script. Nobody suspected a thing… Bugger.

And the second thing that struck me?

After all… What is a hotspot not?

Apparently the answer to that question is actually “Not a good spot”, the resulting double negative in the dialogue implying that a hotspot is, infact, a good spot, thus severely contradicting the rules of the game. I almost wish I’d been able to appear on the show, just so that I could sue the creators.

For oh, so many reasons.

The worrying thing is that my dad’s starting to look like Michael Barrymore, and slur his words like him as well. If I go home and find out he’s installed a pool, I’m calling the police.

Oh come on, the pool death joke was inevitable. I apologise for nothing.

Adding to my low expectations in spite of my anticipation was the fact that the episode, the first of a two-parter, is written by Helen Raynor, whose story last year showed that the answer to the question “Wouldn’t it be terribly exciting if the Daleks showed up in 1930s New York?” is actually a resounding “No, it’d just be fairly terrible”. It wasn’t all Raynor’s fault, of course; when Russell “I wrote for Chucklevision” T Davies tells you he wants an episode with Daleks, showgirls and pig-men, you have to do the best that you can to minimise the damage. Remember- Saying no to RTD buys you a one-way ticket out of Cardiff.

When I look forward to an episode this much, I usually find that I’m headed for a fall, and come away with a level of disappointment akin to that of a businessman who arrives in Thailand only to find that the prostitutes are all on holiday. This time round, however, I was about as satisfied as a businessman who arrives in Thailand to find that there’s a half-price sale on, only without the hollow, empty feeling which follows on shortly afterwards (I would imagine).

It probably helped for the squealing fanboy within me that UNIT, everyone’s second-favourite fictional military organisation, makes its grand return in this episode. We’ve had occasional glimpses of them ever since their best and brightest got killed by farting extraterrestrials in 2005′s ‘Aliens of London’, but this is their first working-with-the-Doctor-to-fend-off-the-alien-invaders episode. And despite the mandatory re-branding as the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (Which makes them UIT now, surely?) they’re the same friendly but barely competent soldier-folk the fans have come to know and love, with a by-the-book Colonel, a couple of lower-ranking officers designed to provide the comic relief, and generous helpings of “Greyhound to trap one” and hot, sweet army tea.

One new addition to the UNIT family, as those unfortunate enough to have watched the second season of ‘Torchwood’ will know, is Martha Jones, played as ever by the attractive but vacant Freema Agyeman, whose time with John ‘I’d Do Anything’ Barrowman and the rest of the Torchwood gang seems to have left her in dire need of some acting refresher lessons. It’s not all bad, though, as Agyeman gets to appear as Martha’s evil, naked clone, giving her a chance to exude that extra level of sexual allure that all evil women possess (Except, perhaps, for Myra Hindley). Martha’s reunion with the Doctor probably could’ve provided half an episode of material all by itself, but in an episode paced faster than a kitten sneeze, it’s left to a few short scenes in which the Doctor and Martha stare confusedly at each other for several minutes.

The Doctor’s other travelling companion in the story, excluding the fun but throwaway Private Jenkins, is of course Catherine Tate, who, despite my best wishes, has not yet fallen into a well and been mauled to death by mutant ferrets. It has to be said, though, that she’s slowly growing on me (Like a tumour), and she didn’t seem to have any of her random shouty irritating moments this week, although she did have a rather inexplicable flashback which reminded me of episode 2 of the ‘Clerks’ cartoon, a clipshow reusing material from the first episode to humorous effect. Ultimately, the fact that I no longer want to vomit and cry when she appears on screen is probably testament to Tate’s acting abilities, but please don’t tell her I said that- Her sketch show’s still a steaming turd on the toilet floor at the BBC.

The Sontarans themselves were handled well, and full opportunity was taken to mock them, while not taking away any of the threat they posed. In the old series, having a villain that was quite so serious could be detrimental to the atmosphere of the episode, but one of the good things about the new series is that its pacy, lively and not afraid to make jokes, and this story may well be the story that sees the Sontarans successfully reinvented as a credible villain. That is, unless Part 2 contains more slightly silly moments along the lines of the “Sontar, ha!” chant which marred the ending just a little bit.

Part 2 of the story will be the ultimate test of whether or not Helen Raynor’s learned from her mistakes of last year. New Who has a tendency to provide first episodes which promise much, and then conclusions which fail to deliver (See ‘Age of Steel’, ‘The Satan Pit’ and ‘Last of the Time Lords’ among others), and it’ll be a desperate shame if this is one of those stories which falls apart in its second half. Part 1 wasn’t perfect (An annoying teen villain- When will producers learn?- and the aforementioned chant saw to this), but the story has plenty of potential to go down as a true classic; let’s just hope it lives up to it.

The words ‘licensed TV/movie tie-in’ on a video game box have, for a long time, been sufficient to strike icy fear into the heart of any seasoned gamer. Occasionally a tie-in game does come along which is both enjoyable and faithful to the source material; the recent Simpsons Game for the Nintendo DS was one such example, with genuinely fun gameplay and enough participation from the show’s production staff to make it a worthwhile purchase.

For every Simpsons Video Game, however, there’s a dozen ‘Bart Versus the Space Mutants’ lying in the wings, ready to steal the soul and money of many an unsuspecting gamer. Given this fact, I’m still somewhat unsure why I chose to spend some of my valuable time playing the new ‘Mr Bean’ tie-in for the DS. Perhaps it was the reassuring presence of Rowan Atkinson on the box that did it for me. Perhaps it was a reminder of a simpler time, when Blackadder stumbling around with a chicken on his head was as sophisticated as my sense of humour ever got. Or perhaps my masochistic streak is larger than I had feared.

Whatever the reason, I was still completely unprepared for the assault on my senses upon loading this game. Alarm bells began to ring when I realised that Rowan Atkinson had never been anywhere near this project. Instead, the game (And I use the term loosely) takes its inspiration from the ill-conceived 2002 cartoon series, which stripped the franchise of any remaining dignity or subtlety, and completed the character’s transformation from a stupid but almost charming individual into a mindless, disfigured husk with unnatural feelings towards his stuffed bear.

The game itself goes where so many tie-in games have gone before, and has the main character jumping from platform to platform, collecting items and avoiding obstacles, in order to reach the end of each level. Now, I’m a big fan of the platformer, from Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog right the way through to modern classics such as Viewtiful Joe and Ratchet and Clank. What ‘Mr Bean’ fails to consider, however, is the need for in-game progression.

A good platformer will show a steady increase in the difficulty level, while introducing different power-ups, enemies and level designs as the game progresses. Mr Bean, on the other hand, presents us with one infuriatingly simple level after another, rarely making an effort to change the gameplay, or indeed the enemies; guard dogs and little old ladies may have been a sensible presence during early levels set in Bean’s landlady’s garden, but make slightly less sense when encountered in a sewer or a factory.

If ‘Mr Bean’ had the smooth gameplay of a Mario or Sonic game, such a lack of imagination might almost be forgiveable. Unfortunately, Bean handles about as smoothly as his Mini, and stepping into enemies or obstacles poses no problem for the character, thanks to some lousy collision detection and a ridiculously forgiving energy bar, perhaps designed to frustrate the many gamers whose sole thought after ten minutes playing this game will be to have him kill himself in the most painful way imaginable.

Visually, the game is uglier than the bloated offspring of Britney Spears and John Merrick. Though I realise that the game probably didn’t have as high a budget as some of its shelf buddies, the game’s graphics look like they’ve been designed by a chimpanzee while the game’s staff sat around eating burgers and talking about porn. On several occasions I fell victim to barely noticeable gaps in the floor, which only become apparent once you’ve stepped through them, and the main character loses the charm of even the animated version.

In short, playing this game for an hour made me lose the will to live. There’s no plot, every new level is just as bad as the last in every possible respect, and the only challenge comes from the appalling graphics. Few games inspire me to quite this level of vitriol, but Mr Bean makes it onto the list with flying colours. Buyer beware.

1/10.