As always tonight I watched Doctor Who and as always it was a cracking episode. Also as always I went to read the comments on the internet and not as always I found myself incensed by what I read. Not because I disagreed with what people thought of the episode or whether it was good or bad. No I was disgusted by people who complained because the BBC aired one of those “If you have been affected by the events of this show” pieces at the end. People are actually complaining that the BBC took the opportunity to reach out to people who might be suffering with depression.

It is not something I generally broadcast but in my 20s I was diagnosed with depression and had chats with head doctors and a period of time on anti-depressants. It wasn’t the best time of my life but I got better. I’ve been a might too cheerful for my own good for a while now. Having suffered like Van Gogh (though certainly not to the same extent) I can say what the BBC did was actually very important and incredibly sensitive. Anyone who has been or is depressed (diagnosed or otherwise) will have seen bits of themselves in that portrayal of Van Gogh. People with depression often don’t realise they need help or those that do often don’t believe they deserve it. Depression is an illness that sabotages a person ability to get help. Indeed had my mother had not told me I need to go see a doctor I wouldn’t have sort out treatment. Those not being treated might be prompted by that message to see a doctor.

Those who have been depressed will have found that ending will have affected them a great deal. Fuck, it made me cry. Unless you have been there and felt so utterly worthless and have been unable to see any future that is not pure misery you cannot begin to understand being shown you are not in such a definitive way would mean. Unless suicide has felt like an (or even the only) option you won’t understand. Airing that message might help those who have been depressed deal with their emotions. Indeed it might also have prevented some from having a relapse.

However not every one is Van Gogh. Not everyone gets to be great some of us are just normal. So while this episode would have resonated in a good way to people who have recovered from depression it would have an entirely the opposite effect on people who are depressed. Especially if they are undiagnosed or untreated. The message someone who is depressed could take from watching that episode is “You are actually worthless because you are not awesome like Van Gogh. There is no hope for you”. You don’t need to be a psychiatrist to understand that kind of thinking isn’t a good thing to reinforce in the minds of people who are depressed. Indeed for someone who is already far gone that could be the straw that break the camels back. That message by the BBC at the end could have saved lives.

So that simple little message that didn’t affect your lives at all, took you 10 seconds to hear and that you are now bitching about on the internet could have changed or saved someone’s life. Think about that. It seems to be the general public’s attitude to mental illness hasn’t moved on a great deal since Van Gogh’s time. Why not think for a moment instead of being so petulant and selfish.

Last night had the pilot of BBC3′s new show Pulse. Sci-fi geek websites and TV critics led me to believe Pulse would be awesome. It was to be an intelligent, shocking and gory science fiction horror tour de force. It fucking wasn’t. Either someone paid them to promote this trash or certain critics shouldn’t be allowed to watch TV ever again, ever.

Pulse was boring and tediously predictable. Slow, plodding and unimpressive. An episode of Causality is more riveting. I actually took to reading Fark.com half way through it was that dull. Thankfully I had my iPad to hand. There is nothing remotely surprising let alone shocking in Pulse at all. Nothing. Even the final reveal was telegraphed to high heaven. I’ve seen gorier cartoons too. Call me cynical but I don’t consider people being squirted with a turkey-baster full of fake blood to be that gory. Supposedly this was a tense and dark show. It was certainly dark (the lights kept going out) but it was about as tense as my pectoral muscles.

And the characters? I wanted to reach into the screen and slap the characters senseless. Now I like a cast of unlike-able characters that do dumb stuff, I watch ‘Stargate: Universe’ after all but this was beyond the pail. For Doctors they all seemed to behave like the idiotic teens you see in 80s slasher flicks. Naturally everyone is gorgeous and is sleeping with everyone else. Is my annoyance of this a sign I am getting old or something? If you spot inconsistency in a patients chart and witness unrecorded treatments do you give the culprit time to fake the paperwork and corresponding computer data before you try to do anything? Really? Can junior doctors not use photocopiers? Naturally the somewhat petite female lead decides to investigate the goings on all by herself. And, oh my god, how funny is a trainee doctor with a blood phobia? Hilarious! Oh, how I laughed. Believable characters my sweaty arse.

It completely lacked any subtly at all. A section from my thought processes last night: Into the morgue we go. That medical circular saw seems conveniently placed on that table, doesn’t it? Oh no! A zombie! And he is attacking handsome-male-doctor-number-1. Oh no! Look an extreme close up of that medical saw and a mallet to the back of my head in case I missed it. Gee I wonder what it is going to happen when the whiny was-much-better-in-going-postal-on-sky doctor stops screaming…

This whole episode would have been the bit before the opening titles of a Fringe episode. But of then it would have had better acting, a more eventful plot, tension and some nice intro credits after it. Fringe would probably also have special effects that went beyond splashing red paint around, someone poking the underside of some stretched skin coloured latex and the occasional use of a butchers leftovers.

The cast is an inexplicably pretty bunch, as if this was some kind of US TV show. Why the pointless female nudity? Now I’m not usually one to complain about pointless female nudity and the actress involved was worth seeing in the buff but come on! Why the sex scene at all? Because it is BBC3 and we have to be edgy? Christ I hate it when people force me to take the same side as feminists and the Daily Mail. Not only that I would rather have seen Claire Foy in the nude (or that black dress from Going Postal mmmmm)  anyway. I guess she is a proper actress and above flashing her norks for my amusement. A flaw I find prevalent in so many women. Well I guess that takes care of any accusations that I’m not a chauvinist.

This is one of those TV shows that has been deemed good before anyone has seen it and this promptly exclaimed to be so once the critics got hold of it. It ain’t. Not unlike everyone decided Avatar was awesome before they even saw it. They should have spent the money on more ‘Being Human’ instead.

Twas utter crap. You will notice I didn’t cover the plot much. Well it is basically somebody is using a hospital to do unapproved medical testing. That about sums it up. I refuse to even give it the customary out of 5 rating. This is the last time I watch anything based on the opinions of TV critics and the last episode of Pulse I will watch. The fuckers made me waste time I could have used playing Red Dead Redemption.

So what actually happened in Lost? A lot of people seem either genuinely confused, maliciously confused because they didn’t like the ending or too lazy to watch the last season to find out what happened. So what did happen? Well I’m pretty much going to save you 100s of hours of TV and sum it up for you. For this summary to make any sense you will have had to at least watched a fair bit of the show. Read the rest of this entry »

I have just watched the final episode of Ashes to Ashes and the whole Life on Mars universe has finally come together and the story ended. So what the hell was it all about? Well it wasn’t about Sam Tyler or Alex Drake, not really. Like Star Wars is actually about Anakin rather than Luke and Leia the two shows were about Gene Hunt.

DCI Gene Hunt is the unwitting (or is he?) guardian of a coppers limbo. Where police officers who die with unfinished business go to resolve their issues. Gene helps them with this but being only a young copper when he died he selfishly keeps a few souls (namely Ray, Chris, Shaz and previously Annie) with him. This probably isn’t conscious decision on his behalf, just a desire to not be alone. As souls are delivered to him he attempts to help them on to heaven. Gene constructs the world around him from the memories of the people in his world and picks himself a car that he likes.

Sam Tyler was a metaphysical cock-up. He wasn’t properly dead when he arrived and so couldn’t let go of his past life. When he returned to the land of the living he told his shrink about what happened and gave Alex Drake knowledge of what lay beyond so when she ‘died’ she too recognised Gene’s fabricated world for what it was. This shouldn’t have happened as people forget their real lives after a short while of being there. What Sam realised in the real world was not only that he preferred Gene’s 70s reality but also that Ray, Chris and Annie’s souls were on the line and he had to go back to help them. Also that with what he knew he shouldn’t be alive, hence his suicidal leap off the roof. After he had made peace with that decision Gene helped him move on and let him take Annie with him. Annie it should be noticed probably did die in a botched sting operation in the 70s as witnessed by Sam Tyler. To do this and not alert his team he faked Sam’s death. It was probably at this point he added Shaz to his ‘team’.

Alex came to this police purgatory because her death left her daughter without a mother. Until she accepted that she couldn’t go back she couldn’t move on. Gene kept her from doing this because he loved her and wanted her to stay. There was also an element of him knowing she was dead and wanting to protect her from the knowledge she wouldn’t get back to see her daughter. He also loved Sam but eventually enough to let him go.

It is pretty clear that DCI Jim Keats is either the Devil or his agent while Gene is like an unofficial guardian angel. No doubt DCI Frank Morgan who took on the mantel of Sam’s doctor in Life on Mars was a similar manifestation of the Dark Side. Gene’s career was cut short in his first week he never got to protect people like he wanted to nor have much of a life. So he won’t leave and uses his little world to do both. How much he does this on a conscious level is open to discussion. He gets the recently departed to make the decision of which way they go. Up or down? He guides them to the right choice but doesn’t force it on them. Naturally doing the right thing is more difficult but the rewards infinitely greater. Following Keats is easier and thus a short cut to damnation.

In the end everyone gets to go to heaven (which unsurprisingly is a pub) except Gene and Keats. Gene remains as the guide and Keats promises to return as the tempter. Gene gets to pick a new motor and have a word in the ‘shell-like’ of someone who has just burst into his department demanding the return of his iPhone.

Was Dixon of Dock Green the first television version of this story? After all he was shot and died in the film ‘The Blue Lamp’ before being resurrected older and with a promotion for his later TV series. Nice little touch by the programme makers I think.

The who Avatar hype machine is beyond insane. When it was people claiming how awesome it would be because James Cameron was Directing it was silly. When critics and other in the industry started buying into the hype it was surprising. When reviews started saying how awesome it was despite critics usually flaying alive any film with such a heavy focus on special effects over plot it was stupid. When people got abused by Avatards on internet forums for saying they enjoyed it but it wasn’t ‘all that’ it was pathetic fanboyism. When Avatar’s initially didn’t blow the box office away and we got headlines like “Avatar almost breaks records” it was ridiculous. And when people started naming their kids Pandora (presumably they will have a stalker named Adrian when they get older) and getting depressed because they couldn’t live in the CGI world Avatar had created it was simply sad. Now I am beginning to think money is involved. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a leaked image of the first outline of Avatar before Cameron got his PA to type it up.

Not really! It was created by some cad called Matt Bateman. Oddly close to the truth though, if you ask me. And before anyone complains that no work of fiction is ever truly original I’d like to point out there is retelling a story and then there is just repeating a story.