Almost Closing Time

I'm not exactly in a happy mood right now. As I write this, Closing Time is airing on BBC1, the latest episode of this show I watch, I might have mentioned it at some point, Doctor Who. I am, shockingly, not watching it. This is because my TV decided that ninety seconds into the new episode would be the perfect place to, of its own accord, switch to Channel 4 and stay there. Without changing back. At all.

So, rather than throw things at other things and cry tears of rage, I've decided to use the 45 minutes I've got until the episode is up on Iplayer to write something interesting and entertaining. Or maybe just ramble for three quarters of an hour. And because I can't get it off of my mind right now, I might as well talk about Doctor Who. After all, it's not like I usually talk about that or anything.

Why am I so obsessed with Doctor Who, anyway? I suppose the obvious answer is the escapism. Escapism is, in my opinion, quite simply the best thing that humanity has ever created. People read books or watch TV for different reasons; to be entertained, to be informed, to make themselves laugh or cry. I read books and watch TV because I want to escape. There's a reason I read science fiction and fantasy almost exclusively, and there's a reason I dislike stories set entirely within the real world. Fiction is, for me, a chance to go somewhere else, to live a life that's completely different from my own. Why would you want to read a story about real things that could really happen? That's no fun. You could just go out and live that story, rather than sitting at home reading it. But sci-fi, and fantasy, these are the stories that we can only ever experience through fiction, and that is why I think they're the most important genre of storytelling. This escape from real life in favour of a tailor-made reality, this escapism, is the draw for pretty much every form of media I enjoy. Books? Neil Gaiman novels and Harry Potter, or Skulduggery Pleasant. TV? Being Human, Misfits, and of course Doctor Who. None of these stories could ever happen, not in a million years. But through the minds of their creators, on screen or in print, they do. That's the appeal, you see?

So, I think that's part of my obsession with Doctor Who explained. It's journeys through time and space, constant danger and laughter and adventure, are utterly absurd, and of course that's why I love it. But I don't think that's all there is to it. Why is Doctor Who special in my heart, above all of those other stories I mentioned? Is it the endless multiera, multigenre, multimedia format that allows it to do anything and everything? Well, perhaps that has something to do with it, but that's not the real reason. Nope, the real reason is the Doctor himself.

He's a character etched into my mind, a fictional being more important to me than any real world celebrity. The core concepts of the character absolutely match with my idealised image of who I want to be as a person. He's the most intelligent person in any room at any given moment, and he uses his intelligence both to baffle people and to help them. He's confident and easy-going, always fighting for equality and justice and all things right. He's the person I want to be like, more than anyone else in existence.

aaaaaaaaaaand on that note, having gone from 'enthusiastic fanboy' to 'creepy obsessive', Closing Time has finally showed up on Iplayer and I'm off to watch it. So I guess this brings this ramble to a 'close', eh? In conclusion, I watch Doctor Who and I love Doctor Who not only because it's brilliant in every aspect EVER, but also because the Doctor is as perfect a character as has ever been created. Not in the flawless, Mary-Sue kind of way (though in my mind, he often is like that), but in a brilliantly crafted, work-of-art kind of way.

You will see that the title of this blog is 'Not Entirely Incoherent'. This is because parts of the blog make perfect sense. Unfortunately, this post has not been one of those parts. Thanks for reading!

He Sees

It's been a long while since my last blog post, going on two weeks now, and even then the last post I made was a Friday Night Who UK update. I mentioned back when I first started the blog that, if I couldn't get round to writing new and regular posts, I would fall back on some old material that I produced before I had this blog. This is a good thing both for me, the writer, and you, the reader. I don't have to struggle to create new content quickly if I don't have the time or willpower, but you're still able to read something you've never seen before and (hopefully) enjoy it just like you would a brand new blog post.

The first thing I came across while I was looking for something new to post was this poem I wrote a while back. It's very short and very rushed and a bit rubbish. On the plus side, though, it's all about the Slender Man! I wrote it one dull weekend day while me and a friend were running through old Marble Hornets episodes.

In the deep and the dark and the cold
He walks
It’s the young and the scared and the weak
He stalks
Through the holes in his head, without eyes
He sees
He’s a man in the forest, or a thing
In the trees.

His body is slender and his fingers
Thin
His mouth stretched wide like a ghostly
Grin
He hides in the midnight light,
Pitch black
Where he waits, ever patient, then he makes
His attack.

Don’t even try to run, because the
Slender Man’s back.

...Yeah, I told you it was a bit awful. I never was very good with poetry. Oh well.

Thanks for reading this short, poemtacular blog post. Hopefully I'll have a more content filled, interesting post up in the near future.

Friday Night Who UK: 9th and 16th September 2011

(If you don't know what Friday Night Who UK is, click here.)

So here's another Friday Night Who UK update that's coming a little later than it should have done. As I'm writing this, I've got about an hour until tonight's viewing starts, so I'll have to type pretty quickly. Basically, I went back to school on Monday, so I haven't had as much time as I would have liked, and this update was unfortunately quite low on my list of priorities. To make up for it, this is a two-in-one blog post, because it includes the update for next week's viewing as well.

First off, our viewing of the Daemons went well, with no hiccups - well, apart from the fun facts fiasco, wherein me and Mark attempting to out-trivia each other using the Daemons' wikipedia page. So if I ever use the words 'fun fact' in a tweet again, it's almost definitely a lie. Just so you know.

More importantly, what are we watching this week? Why, it's City of Death of course, featuring one Tom Baker. It's commonly regarded as one of the greatest stories of Baker's seven year run, so we should be in for a good evening. If you want to join me and Mark in our viewing of City of Death, you need to follow us on twitter (@KingOrokos and @Marcus_Joan respectively) at around 7pm UK time, which is in less than an hour as I'm writing this! You also need to use the #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag, and also the #CityOfDeath hashtag this week.

As I said, this post is also an update for next week - so, if you want to join us on the 16th of September, for our next Friday Night Who UK, we'll be watching Resurrection of the Daleks with Peter Davison. I don't know much about this story, which I suppose will make watching the episode all the more interesting. Obviously most of the information in the previous paragraph still stands, but you'll need to use the #ResurrectionOfTheDaleks hashtag this time round.

So, that's all for this relatively short double-post. 50 minutes left until City of Death as I type this! Oh well, I'm sure one person will read this before then... Maybe...

Next time on Not Entirely Incoherent: Words, arranged in patterns to form sentences! Thanks for reading.

Fish And Chips For All

As the more perceptive among you might have guessed, I like Doctor Who. I like watching episodes of Doctor Who. I like reading Doctor Who novels. I like writing my own Doctor Who stories. I like talking about Doctor Who in general. One thing I did not like - until recently - was listening to Doctor Who.

Audiobooks and audio dramas have never been my cup of tea really. I've always preferred the visual medium of TV, which is more immersive, or the medium of literature, which is more flexible (because you use your imagination to bring the story to life). I also dislike audiobooks and similar things because listening to them is an 'all-or-nothing' sort of activity; you either pay full attention to them, which means sitting still with your earphones in, or you multitask and focus on doing something else - which, of course, means you don't have your full attention on the story. As a result, though I was aware of Big Finish Productions, and the many many many stories they had produced, I didn't really feel a need to listen to any of them.

Mark, my friend and fellow Whovian, has been trying to get me into the Big Finish stories for a while. Several weeks ago I tried listening to the Mists of Time, a companion chronicle featuring Jo Grant, and I really couldn't get into it. It was confusing, and a bit dull to be honest. So I decided that Big Finish wasn't for me, and left it at that. Mark, though, was extremely persistent, and eventually he convinced me to try again. So I decided to have another go, and start off with the 'New Eighth Doctor Adventures', and series of stories about Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor and his new companion Lucie Miller. It was a case of second time lucky - I absolutely loved it this time round. Partly because of the much more engaging plot, and partly I think because it was an audio drama, instead of an audiobook - the fact that the story could only be told through this medium makes it much more appealing to me.

Anyway, I just yesterday finished the first series of the New Eighth Doctor Adventures, so I decided that for this blog post I would review the first story in the series, Blood of the Daleks. Quick plot summary: when the Doctor - along with mysterious TARDIS intruder Lucie Miller - lands on the ruined colony of Red Rocket Rising, he soon finds his oldest enemy at work.

Blood of the Daleks was an excellent start to the series, the audio equivalent to a page-turner novel that keeps you up until two in the morning. That, incidentally, is exactly what happened with this story for me. I started listening at around midnight, intending to just start the story off to see if it was worth continuing with. I ended up covering the entire story - which is a good 90 minutes long in total, spread over two parts - that same night. There's something about this episode that compels you to carry on listening, even when you know it's too late and you need to get some sleep (by the way, if you ever want to get into Big Finish stories, listening to them late at night when you should be sleeping is the best way to do it).

The portrayal of the titular Daleks is at least partially responsible for the success of this episode. The dilemma of Dalek stories is that pretty much everything that could be done with the Daleks has been done already. It's difficult to take them in a new direction; but instead of struggling against that, Blood of the Daleks revels in it. This story is drenched in archetypal Dalek tropes, from their facade of benevolence (as seen in Power of the Daleks and, more recently, Victory of the Daleks) to the utter hatred of impurity that defines them as villains. Recent Dalek stories in the TV series have touched upon the latter trope - for example, the lone solider in Dalek sacrificing himself because of his impurities, or the mutiny of the Cult of Skaro in Evolution of the Daleks - but none of them have really embraced the concept in the way that this story does. By using the tried and tested techniques previously established by forty-odd years of stories, Blood of the Daleks manages to return the Daleks to a glorious status that they haven't seen in a long time.

Another element of the story that works really well is the human-Daleks. While the mad scientist behind their creation, Professor Martez, falls a little flat, the creatures themselves are excellent counters to the main villains, the 'pure Daleks'. Because they are so similar to the pure Daleks, when the human-Daleks are destroyed because they are 'different' it really displays just how ignorant and small-minded the Daleks truly are. The idea that, if there were only two Daleks left in the entire universe, they would still fight amongst themselves because each one thought the other 'impure' is a fascinating concept, and one that this story goes quite a way into exploring. The Doctor's line about how the Daleks might be at war with themselves furthers this idea - the Daleks really are so obsessed with purity that, if they ever did take over the universe, they would probably just start fighting each other. And of course, I have to mention Dalek Fred (surely the forgotten fifth member of the Cult of Skaro), who is left to die on the Dalek battleship as it hurtles towards the laboratory, and willingly accepts his own death as it is in the name of Dalek victory. This lack of individuality within the Daleks is another facet of their species that has been lost a little in recent years.

But, as much as I've talked about the Daleks, they really are only one half of the story. The other half of the story is Lucie Miller, as this is her introduction both for the Eighth Doctor and for us, the listener. Lucie is a large part of why I enjoyed this story so much, as she really is a fantastic companion and a very suitable counterpart to the Eighth Doctor. One of the problems, I imagine, with audio dramas is making sure none of the actors have similar voices, as having two characters within a story who sound similar could lead to confusion. For example, in this story, I had a bit of difficulty in the early scenes distinguishing Asha and Klint, who both have fairly similar voices, albeit with different accents. By making Lucie a northerner, however, I think that Big Finish have cleverly killed two birds with one stone. Not only does it make Lucie easy to identify, even in very hectic scenes, with lots of characters and dialogue rushing around, but it also turns her into a perfect foil for Paul McGann's Doctor. Eight is a very sophisticated character, and Lucie's practicality and Northern bluntness means the chemistry between the two is nothing short of genius. Congratulations are in order for McGann and Sheridan Smith, who make an excellent team.

Another part of this episode that works well is the character of Tom Cardwell, another example of the 'distinctive voice = memorable character' thing I mentioned earlier. I always love a crazy conspiracy theorist who is proved right, and Cardwell slots right into that category - and, just like with the Doctor, he gets plenty of great banter with Lucie, which helps define both of their characters. It's a pity that some of the other characters aren't quite so interesting; Asha/Martez are both sadly very one-dimensional, falling right into the roll of a stereotypical mad scientist, and not really going anywhere from there. In any other story, there would probably have been a morality play, with characters siding either with Klint (These experiments are wrong) or Martez (These experiments are for the greater good). Unfortunately, as Martez was breeding Daleks, there's pretty much no ground for him to stand on, so the morality play is ignored, and the character is resultingly given very little to do.

Bits and Bobs

• At first I was thrown by the unusual planet name of Red Rocket Rising, but it very quickly grew on me. Why, in science fiction, are so few planets given names like this? I understand it when the planet is inhabited by aliens, but on a human colony planet, Red Rocket Rising actually makes much more sense as a name than, say, Susamachamoria, or some scifi technobabble like that.

• If you listen carefully to Klint's transmission at the end, when she is lauding the arrival of their saviours, you can just make out the name 'Telos' when she mentions the planet name. I don't know if it's just my love of black humour, but I found it hilarious that Red Rocket Rising had been through all that trouble only to be invaded by the Cybermen after the Doctor leaves.

In conclusion, Blood of the Daleks is a gem of a story with some strong main characters, and the best portrayal of the Daleks I've seen in years. Next time on Not Entirely Incoherent: lots of complaining!

Thanks for reading.

Viewing Memories

So, Let's Kill Hitler aired on Saturday, and by god it was great. Funny, emotional, thrilling, everything a good Doctor Who story should be, but with that indefinable Moffat twist. That isn't what this blog post is about. I'll be doing a review of Let's Kill Hitler very soon, but for now I wanted to talk about something else (don't worry though, as it's still related to watching Doctor Who).

I've been watching the show for more than five years now, and over the course of those years I've slowly become more and more addicted to Who. It started off as a show I caught if it was on, during Tennant's first year. Then Martha came along, and it was a show I planned to watch every week. Then Donna was on board the TARDIS, and I would watch it alone, drawing the curtains and banning anyone from entering the room, like it was some sort of sacred ceremony. By the time Matt Smith took the reigns and Steven Moffat sat at the helm, I wasn't just obsessed with it while it was airing; I was obsessed with it 24/7. Even in the several-month gap where it wasn't on TV, between Series 5 and A Christmas Carol, I was living, breathing and thinking Who. It was (and is) more than a TV show to me, just as it is more than a TV show to many of its fans. And if you watch a TV show as religiously as I did, then you're bound to pick up a lot of memories. Moments that made you laugh, or cry, or jump out of your seat, or yell 'Oh my god, that was Rose!' Of course I've got a lot of memories of the show itself. However, that also isn't what this blog post is about.

This post is getting a bit rambly, so to cut to the point; I'm talking about memories you have of watching the show. Now, you probably can't see the difference between a memory of the show, and a memory of watching the show; but if you've ever watched Doctor Who like I've watched Doctor Who (and some of you have, I'd wager), you might know what I'm talking about. There are certain episodes that I remember, not because of the episode itself, but because of where I was when I watched it, and who was with me, and what happened while I was watching it, and I've definitely used the word 'watch' too many times in this post already.

So now I present for your reading pleasure (the 'pleasure' there is in inverted commas), ten episodes that I remember watching, some of which have little stories to go with them.


1. Carnival of Monsters

Until about a year and a half ago, I'd never watched any classic Who, as I couldn't really get into it. The slower pace and the antique special effects put me off, especially when compared to the flashy, snappy new Who. However, this time was to be different.

I was going with my family on a long holiday to the Peak District, and because we didn't have any luggage restrictions (because we were driving there, obviously), I could bring my laptop. This, luckily, meant I wouldn't have the suffer on the mind-numbing car journey. Not so luckily, I very quickly realised that I wouldn't have any Internet connection for the duration of the stay, which invalidated most of my streams of entertainment. My only option, then, was to download some TV show episodes to watch prior to leaving, which I could then spread out across the journeys there and back. Naturally, my brain went straight to Doctor Who. I started rooting around, and the first thing I came across was an old-looking story called Carnival of Monsters. It looked very out of date, and Jon Pertwee did not seem very Doctor-y at all. Nonetheless, it was a quick and simple download, so I saved it onto my computer as a last resort.

Because I am lazy, and have the attention span of a squirrel or a magpie (ooh, shiny!), I promptly forgot to download any more episodes of Doctor Who. I only realised my mistake when we were fifteen minutes away from my Internet connection, in a car, on the way to the Peak District. You can already see where this is going, so long story short: I eventually relented and watched Carnival of Monsters, sat there in a cramped car filled with suitcases, with headphones in, and I loved it. Jon Pertwee? Awesome. Katy Manning? Superb. The Drashig? ...Well, it still looked like a really big finger puppet, but that's not the point. It was the first classic Who story I really enjoyed, the first one I watched from start to finish, and also the first one I ever watched entirely inside a moving vehicle (that last one is a bit more contrived, I'll admit). The episode left me with a new found admiration for the Third Doctor, and for classic Who in general as it happens. And for that, I can't thank it enough; think of all the gems I would have missed out on if not for this!


2. Adrift

I have to apologize for this one, twice. First of all, even though I said that these were all Doctor Who memories, this one isn't. It's a Torchwood memory, which I suppose is still technically Doctor Who-ish enough for me to get away with, right? The other thing I have to apologize for is this; I lied in the last story, because Carnival of Monsters actually wasn't the only thing I downloaded for my holiday. I also downloaded Adrift. But again, this is Torchwood, so technically I didn't lie? Oh, I'm sure you'll forgive me. Let me explain...

I was running through Torchwood at the time; I had finished Series one, and was nearing the end of Series two. I would download each episode of Torchwood, watch it, then delete it (to save memory space, you see). At the time of the holiday, the episode I happened to be on was Adrift. I didn't intend to have it on my laptop while we were there, but by stroke of luck, I found it inside my videos shortly after we arrived. Excellent, I thought, something good to watch for the journey back. That, unsurprisingly, did not go to plan. I actually ended up watching the episode inside the hotel's drawing room. Seriously, what sort of hotel has a drawing room? With a piano and a chess set and a roaring fire and everything! It would have been like stepping back through time, if I hadn't been carrying my laptop under my arm. Anyway, there isn't really an inspiring reason I remember this particular story. There isn't even a mildly uninspiring one. It's just the fact that the image of the hotel drawing room, toasty and cosy, has etched itself firmly inside my head, and Adrift is part of that memory.

Now, time to leave the Peak District, and get back to Doctor Who.


3. The Age of Steel

This memory takes place a little further back, in the days when I was young and naive. Alright, the days when I was younger and more naive. I was ten years old, and Doctor Who had only just found its way into my life. I had watched my very first episode, School Reunion, a few weeks ago (that particular memory isn't on the list, because it's all a bit hazy unfortunately. I have bad memory, it's a wonder I can do this list) but the show wasn't yet something I was really into. I had missed out on watching it for two weeks following School Reunion, and it was chance more than anything that put me down on the couch, ready to watch the Age of Steel, on that particular Saturday night.

This should, in all sensibility, be the point where I tell you how the episode made no sense, because it was the second part of a two-part story, and that I couldn't follow the plot, and the characters all spoke too fast for me, and after that I gave up on the show and went off to take up canoeing or something. But it isn't. Despite all of those things, and despite the fact that it left me utterly confused, I loved it, because this 'Doctor' fellow was absolutely awesome. And so I came back next week, and the week after, and the week after that as well. I became a whovian, slowly but surely, and it all started with the Age of Steel.

As for where I was watching it; it was on TV in my living room. Pretty mundane, although you should keep in mind two things: one, this was my old house, before I moved away, and so that room holds a lot of nostalgia value for me these days. Two, I was never (seriously, NEVER) allowed in the living room when I was ten. I always spilt orange juice on the floor. I'm not sure what possessed my parents to let me in there on that occasion, and I'm sure they regretted the decision.


4. Boom Town

Christmas 2006 was a memorable one for me. Having waited a good six months without any Who whatsoever, following Rose's departure from the TARDIS, I finally got my fix on Christmas Day. I had, of course, pestered my parents to grab any Who DVDS they could get their hands on, and they came back to me with Series one and Series two of new Who; ie Eccleston's only season, and Tennant's first, the two most recent series. I was ecstatic.

I remember the day very well; we had gone round to my Granddad's house, because he was in charge of Christmas dinner that year, and all the adults went into the dining room to drink wine and laugh at things. I, meanwhile, was left alone in the living room (as my Granddad was a lot more relaxed about such things than my parents. I'm pretty sure I spilled orange juice on his carpet as well) with my Eccleston boxset, and a huge TV. I was sucked in, enthralled as only a child can be, and for going on ten hours. I could have picked any of the stories I watched that day, but Boom Town sticks in my mind especially, for two reasons. Firstly, while I was watching it I was also opening up one of my other presents - it was my first ever mobile phone. And I was messing about with it, as you do with your new phone, doing everything you can do without except actually phoning anybody, and I took quite a few photos of the episode I was watching at the time, which just so happened to be Boom Town. I don't know what happened to that old phone, but if anybody ever finds a battered brick of a thing, filled with grainy, blurred pictures of a Slitheen, let me know.

The second reason Boom Town ingrained itself into my head is because it is intrinsically linked to this next memory...


5. The Runaway Bride

Now hang on just a second. Christmas Day 2006? Doctor Who? Surely I knew about the brand new Christmas special that was coming out?! Of course I did. David Tennant was back in the TARDIS, and the mysterious bride who had popped in from nowhere at the end of Doomsday would be explained. I couldn't wait; brand new Who on telly again? It was the best Christmas present I could have imagined.

Now, I've already mentioned in this post more than once that my memory is less than stellar. In fact, it's pretty bloody terrible. So you can already guess what happened next. Granddad's house, living room, Eccleston boxset, Lots of Planets Have a North, and the Christmas special just slipped right out of my head. It was as I was watching Boom Town, and messing about with my new phone, that my granddad peaked round the door and said 'Is this that Christmas Doctor Who thing you were going on about?'

And I replied, 'No, this is Christopher Eccleston, and he's the ninth Doctor, and he came before David Tennant...' and then the penny dropped. Naturally I lunged at the controller, somewhat fiercely, but already I knew I was too late. I had missed the Runaway Bride - though, by cruelty of timing, I did catch a glimpse of the TARDIS dematerialising from a snowy street, right before the credits rolled. A teaser to something I wouldn't get to see. This made me very upset for about five minutes, until I remembered I still had two-and-a-half Eccleston stories left, plus an entire season of Tennant to watch and rewatch. So it didn't really impact on the day for me, but it was a bit annoying nonetheless. Fortunately, I was able to borrow a DVD a few days later, from a friend who had recorded the episode (the same friend, incidentally, who recommended Who to me in the first place) and I was able to see the Doctor and Donna bickering in full. So as I said; Christmas Day 2006, a memorable one.


6. The Shakespeare Code

Picture the scene. We're sat at a table, absolutely loaded with empty plates and glasses, at the Black Horse pub, a short walk away from home. Everybody is stuffed from a brilliant meal. Our cousins, who live in Birmingham, have driven on up to pay us a visit and to celebrate Easter with us. Everyone's having a great time, and we're just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, we've got room for dessert. It's been an excellent evening so far. Me and my cousin James, a fellow Doctor Who fanatic, are excitedly discussing Smith and Jones, which aired just last week. Martha! Judoon! I Even Brought a Straw! And what about that next time trailer, eh? Shakespeare, how about that. When does the next episode air, again...?

A moment's pause. I glance at my watch. I remember I don't have a watch. I look at my dad's watch. We have exactly fifteen minutes until the Shakespeare Code starts, and the DVD recorder isn't set to tape it. There's only one thing for it. We'll have to run.

That was how me and my cousin ended up legging it out of the pub, abandoning all thoughts of dessert, down the road and up the path that lead to my estate. To hell with apple pie, we're going to miss Shakespeare! We ended up getting in just as the title sequence was playing, so we caught pretty much the entire episode - back in the Tennant era, the 'proper' plot never really got going until the titles were finished, and the pre-titles sequence was just a teaser. It was a great evening, even if our relatives were slightly annoyed we had abandoned their company to go and watch a Scifi show.


7. The Unicorn and the Wasp

By the power of serendipity, this next memory also concerns a Gareth Roberts story; namely the Unicorn and the Wasp. Now, this was right before we moved house, maybe a couple of months prior, and by this point in the show's life I had become a true Whovian. Watching the show was an almost religious experience for me now, and every episode was sacred. I liked watching the episodes alone - I like watching TV alone in general, but when it came to watching Doctor Who I absolutely had to watch it alone. Even somebody sitting still, not saying a word, in the same room as me would break the spell. If I sound slightly crazy at some point in this blog post, it's because I am.

Now annoyingly for me, on this particular week my family had decided to take an interest in this show I loved so much, and sat down to watch it in the front room. At this point I was no longer so prone to spilling orange juice (or drinking it, come to mention), but still I prefered to watch the episode on the tiny, back-room telly, where I could be left in peace to watch my Who. And it was on this day that the gods chose to spite me. The Doctor was about to reveal all. He was pointing fingers around the room, solving mysteries, uncovering secrets. Here came the biggest reveal of them all, the true identity of the Wasp. The Doctor pointed, Donna followed his gaze in shock... And the screen froze.

For the rest of the episode.

AHHHHH.

So, naturally, I spent the rest of my evening with my fingers in my ears, shouting 'lalalalala, can't hear you,' while my sister did her best to try and spoil the ending for me (because she's that sort of person). I then spent the whole of my Sunday sitting patiently, waiting for the repeat, so I could watch the last fifteen minutes of the episode. It was, let me tell you, a traumatising thing for a Who fan to go through. The lesson I learnt from this memory was, always record the episode while you're watching it, in case of a sudden explosion that renders your TV unusable for 45 minutes.


8. Victory of the Daleks

Like most people who joined the show during Tennant's era, I was worried when he and Russell T. Davies stepped down. Despite my love of Moffat, and my cheers of joy when he was announced as successor, I was worried that he and Matt Smith would change the show for the worse. What if it just wasn't the show I fell in love with anymore? Oh, the horror. Don't worry though, as the Eleventh Hour put those thoughts firmly in their place. I was immediately reassured, and I was confident that the Smith/Moffat era would be just as golden as the last. I did, however, experience just one more flicker of doubt, a fortnight later, and that's what this memory is.

Two of my friends were staying over for dinner, the Saturday that Victory of the Daleks was airing, and I was looking forward to it. As we were all Doctor Who fans (that friend who lent me the Runaway Bride, Adam, was here on this occasion also), we sat down and flicked over to BBC1. For 25 minutes or so everything went swimmingly. Then suddenly, the new Daleks appeared. As the first one rolled out of the progenitor, we gasped in shock. Not an 'Oh my god that looks so cool,' gasp, but an 'Oh my god why are they power rangers,' gasp. Then a red one rolled out. Then a yellow one. 'I'll bet an orange one comes out next,' said my other friend sarcastically - and then one did.

It was madness. Moffat had made a lot of changes to the show's design; he had altered the TARDIS exterior (which I liked) and the TARDIS interior (which I was fine with) and the title sequence (which was alright), but this was one redesign that was 100% misjudged. Rainbow Daleks could be threatening in the Peter Cushing films, but not in a modern environment. New Who had done an excellent job keeping the show contemporary, refusing to let it slip into antiquity, but on this one occasion Moffat dropped the ball. And for just a moment, I was worried that there was a microscopic chance that the show was going to go down hill.

Then, of course, the Time of Angels came along, and all was forgiven. Still, it was a scary moment.


9. The Hungry Earth

Time for a much more positive Who memory, I think. This is the most recent memory I'm going to retell, and it happened about a year ago. I was at a party, which would in theory be going on for the whole of the night, and right back round into the early hours of tomorrow morning. By about 3am though, several people had collapsed onto the couch to watch I-Robot, and most of the energy had drained away. It was then that my friend Logan said to me, 'Wasn't Doctor Who on yesterday?'

I remembered, yes it was. The Hungry Earth had aired the evening of the party, and I had completely forgotten about it (Have I mentioned my bad memory? Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. I don't remember). At the time I had been too busy partying hard to catch the episode (I say partying hard, we were watching Shaun of the Dead). Now it was pitch black outside, on the Sunday morning, and the episode would surely be available on Iplayer by now. So I replied to Logan, 'Yes. Let's watch it.'

So this particular memory concerns me and Logan, huddled around a friend's borrowed laptop, at 3 in the morning, watching Nasreen Choudry and co annoy the Homo Reptillia. Now that's how to party.


10. The End of Time

Come on, you knew I was going to bring this one up. This is the most important memory of them all, to me at least.

I don't think I can sum up in words how much David Tennant and Russell T. Davies influenced me as a child, or how much I took away from the show. Even though the show would continue without them, it was like a part of my childhood was ending. For that reason alone, the End of Time was always going to hold a special place in my mind and my heart. But of course there's more to the story than that.

The End of Time aired in two parts, both on big occasions; Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I'm pretty sure that part two was one of the most-watched episodes of Who ever watched. It was a massive event, though to me it felt very personal. I was waving goodbye to a childhood hero. Even though I normally have my little obsession with watching the show alone, for this massive moment in Who history, I wasn't alone. My cousin James, who I mentioned above, had come down to celebrate Christmas with us, and we were over at my Granddad's house on both occasions. He was still the one cooking Christmas dinner. I watched both parts of the story in my Granddad's living room, with James on the couch next to me, and we watched David Tennant's final moments with almost numb disbelief. People have bashed the End of Time for lots of things, but really, for me, it came down to David Tennant, John Simm, and Bernard Cribbins, giving absolutely perfect performances when it mattered the most.

I'm not a cryer. I'm not the kind of person who gets emotional from watching TV or films. But on this occasion, I might just have had tears in my eyes. Several of them, actually. So yeah, I was crying watching it. Kind of embarassing actually. Good thing I haven't posted that on the internet or anything. That would have been monumentally stupid.

***

So there you have it, ten of my viewing memories of Doctor Who. Now, if you look outside you will see that, while you've been struggling through the above massive wall of text, the sky has changed colour, and you should have gone to sleep four hours ago. Sorry about that.

Coming soon to Not Entirely Incoherent: Reviews! Gibberish! More reviews!

Thanks for reading.

Friday Night Who UK: 2nd September 2011

(For more information on Friday Night Who UK, click here.)

I was pretty busy last week, so there was no Friday Night Who UK update - because of that, you're getting this week's update very early. In fact, we only finished watching the Krotons about an hour ago. So, to recap; two weeks ago me and Mark watched the Rescue with William Hartnell, which was fun and had a pretty neat twist (neat by 60s standards, mind you). This week, we saw the Krotons, with Patrick Troughton. It got off to a shaky start (Mark forgot it was Friday and wasn't at home), so we ended up starting a half hour late. Fortunately, after that there were no major problems and we had a great time - our friend Luke, who can be found on twitter at @LukeMurphy96, even joined in. It's an average story, but the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie make it worth watching. The twitter discussion was also especially good fun this week - we had a great talk about esteemed Classic Who writer Robert Holmes, and Luke's comment of 'Why do the Krotons sound like they're from Yorkshire?' was absolutely hilarious.

But anyway, the update. Obviously you can usually find out what we're watching via the Friday Night Who UK page on this blog, or via my twitter stream, but I like to let you know through blog posts as well. Next Friday we will be watching a Third Doctor story, the Daemons. The story is particularly popular within the Doctor Who fandom, and is the origin of the Brigadier's famous quote, 'Five Rounds Rapid!' so it should be good fun. We will be airing at the usual time of 7pm, or 1pm across the pond (assuming Mark remembers what day it is next time) and of course we will be discussing the episode on twitter as usual. If you want to join us please use the #FridayNightWhoUK and #TheDaemons hashtags, and follow me @KingOrokos and Mark @Marcus_Joan.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you can join us for Friday Night Who UK next week! Also, a side note: Doctor Who is back on TV tommorow! WOOH!

Anansi Boys

In my last book review I said I would be doing The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest as my next book; however, on reflection, having already reviewed the first two books in the series, I don't feel like I have anything important left to say about them. The third book basically continues on in much the same way as the second, and there wasn't anything in particular to differentiate the two - it's like the second half of one really long novel. So instead, I decided to review another book I read recently, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys.

The main character of Anansi Boys is Charles 'Fat Charlie' Nancy. Fat Charlie spent most of his formative years living under his embarrassing prankster of a father; twenty years on, when he receives an invitation to his father's funeral, he learns that Mr. Nancy was actually a God (magic powers, psychic suggestion, the whole lot) and that he actually had two sons - and it was Fat Charlie's brother who inherited the God-ness. And of course, all hell breaks loose when Fat Charlie invites his newly discovered brother round to stay...

First off, the writing. I don't really have anything to say about it, other than this: it's Gaiman. If you've ever read one of his novels, or graphic novels, or short stories, or film scripts, you know exactly what I'm talking about. As far as I'm concerned, Gaiman is unmatched when it comes to writing. Even if his stories were god-awful (and they aren't, by the way), reading them would still be fun because he tells them so interestingly. There's a quote from a review somewhere that says Gaiman's prose 'dances and dazzles', and I couldn't put it better myself. It is simultaneously fascinating and unusual in it's style, and clear in such a way that every sentence feels hand-crafted. It combines the verbosity of Micheal Moorcock with the concise readability of Chris Wooding. It dances and it dazzles.

The novel has often been reported as a sequel to one of Gaiman's more well-known works, American Gods, as Mr. Nancy, who is a minor character in this novel, also appears in that story, again as a minor character. Gaiman himself, however, has stated that '...it's set in the same world as American Gods.' I have to go with Gaiman on this one; the books are connected, certainly, but this definitely isn't a sequel. There are some similarities between the two, such as the 'dreams' that are actually connections to the world of the Gods, but Anansi Boys is a very different style of tale to American Gods, as the former is a small, personal story, with a main cast of maybe six characters, and the latter is a grand, country-spanning, almost war film level epic. The two also have very different themes, as American Gods is all about the heart of America, which Anansi Boys (set as it is mostly in London) obviously is not.

The story of the book is typically brilliant (I expected nothing less from Gaiman), though it isn't quite up there with Neverwhere and American Gods. Some of the characters are just a tad one dimensional, though these characters are mostly played for comic relief and so it doesn't harm the story too much. The more interesting characters (special mention to the wonderful creation that is Grahame Coats) make up for this, and some of them are among the best of Gaiman's fictional persons. It is these characters that make the story, as the plot itself is fairly straightforward, with no real twists or turns after the initial revelation of 'your father was a god'; aside from one rather obvious betrayal that I saw coming a long way off. But the characters, as I say, are what makes the book so special, with the likes of Fat Charlie and Spider developing in interesting and unexpected ways. Fat Charlie in particular has a really spectacular arc during the course of the story, and by the end of it he's changed in the most wonderful of ways. He becomes everything you want him to be, and it's a sign of how excellent Gaiman's characterisation is. I really empathised with the character, more so than I have with most protagonists.

There isn't much else I want to say about the book, so in conclusion; it's another absolutely outstanding novel by one of my favourite authors. Definitely check it out, or check out one of Gaiman's other works at least.

I'm probably going to take a break from book reviews for the time being, as I haven't got anything new to read and I was falling behind on them anyway. Not sure what I'll write instead, but I guess I'll find out? Thanks for reading.