Office over Eight

There was always the fear that after Steve Carell left at the end of season seven that the series just wouldn't be the same... And I'm here to tell you those fears were entirely justified... But to continue talking about this, I'm going to put it inside a folded post for spoilers and such. Basically, it fell apart a lot.

I don't mind that Andy became the new boss. They could do things with that. But going to Talahassee was the start of the downfall of the season. Yes, Catherine Tate joined at that time, rather superfluously, but that was another symptom, not the cause.

The problem, as I see it, was that they had less focus on 'office weirdness of the episode' and more on the story arc. Yes, they always had a story arc, but each episode, from Florida onwards, was about the arc, not about the weirdness. And while I like James Spader, his character was just too odd to be believable that no-one was calling him on his stupidity, even behind his back.

But what really put a sour topper on everything was the final episode. Which, basically, was a huge reset button for the entire season. Aside from one or two character moments, the entire season could be excised and nothing changes for the office crew. What the hell up with that?

One more season and it is the end... which is should have been last season. I'll watch it, but with a sense of dread.

[END]

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Mon Brave

Damn you Pixar and your excellent story telling!

Why'd it take so long for a female story? Merida is a princess that doesn't want to be (a Disney Princess?), and rebels to take destiny into her own hands, and change her mum in ways that... well, although I didn't watch many trailers, I definitely didn't know that was going to happen, so I won't reveal it here.

(Speaking of trailers, this movie had trailers for the girls and trailers for the boys... just a shame they felt they had to do that. Good storytelling, which this is, doesn't care who you are, it grabs you and makes you tear... I mean care! No tear at all [hurriedly wipes something away].)

Some big names here, the main notable one being (say it down in a gasping wheeze) Billeh Conneleh! But Kelly Macdonald gives a great performance (aided with Pixar's team of animators) as Merida, and carries the bulk of the movie (although with a companion I don't want to mention).

Another fine Pixar movie...

[END]

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ParaNormality

This is a model movie... in so many ways!

Norman can speak with the dead... but isn't as hung up on it as Haley was. Anyway, because he can, his uncle needs him to do one job: read a book at the proper grave site so that the witch's curse is stopped for another year and the dead aren't brought back to life... and guess what happens.

This is an amazingly good script. There are some cliches, but there is also subversions of the cliches, and, for me at least, it's layered in appropriately so that twists aren't too shocking and you can see them coming if you are thinking about it. And the ending... they are definitely not talking down to children here!

The big name that is associated with this is John Goodman, but he's not in it much (but suitably so). It's about the kids, so we get a lot of kid actors, who aren't annoying because their characters are well written, and the director (who is the writer) knows what he wants. He brings everything together excellently.

Certainly go see this movie. It's better than you would expect.

[END]

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Skyflail

50 years eh... and it's come to this.

M screws up, and Bond has to step in to help her out. By lots of extended chase scenes and really boring fights.

Seriously, this has some of the blandest fight sequences I've seen. The last act is incredibly tedious, like two punch drunk boxers barely able to get enough energy up to swing at each other. (The bad guy even makes a comment to this end at one point.)

Not to say it's all terrible. There are some nice nods towards the series history, but... actually, I'll just leave it at 'but'.

Actor-wise, mediocre performance from Daniel Craig. Great performance from Dame Judy Dench. Great performance from Javier Bardem. And although I'm sure Ben Whishaw wasn't trying to act like Matt Smith crossed with David Tennant, I got an off-key Doctor-vibe from him anyway.

The experience wasn't helped by 20 minutes of ads/trailers before hand, nor the incident on the bus afterwards. But I was not impressed by the latest Bond.

[END]

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Clocked it

As I said, I would continue... and I did. Finding a new thing to hate on each level... But I did complete it after five hours! And...

Now, I'm going to reveal spoilers but since I hate the game, I'm not hiding them. You have been warned.

So, we have Cybermen, the Silurians and Silence, human guards and finally Daleks. Because you need to have a game with Daleks in it. And the last fight was incredibly annoying, especially when it wasn't clear what I was supposed to be doing. The Doctor does mini-puzzles while River shoots... yeah, that's fun... isn't it?

And yes, I got all four pieces of the Clock... and yes, the game says there is more to come... however... that's where it ends! Yeah, on a cliff-hanger! W T Fuck??? What the hell is up with that? One last mini-puzzle and that's the end? That didn't feel epic! That felt frustrating and annoying and other angry words!!!

If you want another game, fine, but don't leave a cliff-hanger to force it! Try making an actually good game, and people will clamour for more!

(Collectibles, and there are some - the Doctor's hats and pages of River's Diary, I didn't get all of them... but I don't care that much. Maybe one day, but not today.)

So, no... do not play this game. It will not reward you...

[END]

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Eternity of Playing...

I, rather obviously, am a Doctor Who fan... so of course I'm going to get the latest Doctor Who game, The Eternity Clock.

What a horrible, horrible game.

Originally this was a console game on PlayStation, but now it is on the PC. I'm not sure if this was designed as both console and PC or was a port... but I sort of hope it was a port because that would somewhat explain how bad it is... although it was bad on the PSN, so maybe not.

So far, I have only managed... I'm guessing a fifth of the game (collected first of four parts and there would be something to do with them). And sunk over two hours into it. The set up so far is that... oh, I can't remember now. Some stupid time thing brought the Doctor to present day London where there is a Cybermen invasion. River is roped in to help, and so the two of them run around defeating them.

First problem: bad controls. You only move left and right, with your item (sonic screwdriver or blaster) controlled with the mouse. And one button to use everything. Which is the start of the frustration. The one button is context sensitive, which means, in a very tight section, pressing it helps the other people to get up, and also uses the other person's help to get up. Only if you press it to early, you bend down to help, then need to unbend so you can grab their hand... it's more irritating that I can express right now.

As well as running about, there are puzzles. Small mini-games which are not intuitive, and quite a few of them I solve more by luck that design. Because timing is VERY crucial. The rest of the level doesn't stop for you to solve it. And, more stupidly, it doesn't stop while you look at the tutorial.

And then there is the AI. While running, the companion might leap to save time, or climb down, or go the wrong way entirely.

This all culminates in one section, which stopped me for a while and made me go away (and stopped someone else entirely) where you need to run and jump and solve a puzzle. In a very limited time frame. And the puzzle is at the beginning. If you take too long to solve it, you can't get to the other end in time, only you only know you don't have enough time once you've gotten there. And this combines with AI pathing and context sensitive buttons, to make this one of the most screamingly awful examples of game play I have ever had to suffer through.

(I don't know what the two player mode is like. I'm thinking either you watch the other player when only one character is doing something, or if you see what you are doing while they see their section. Either way, this is time spent not doing things with the other person, which seems antithetical to the co-operative play this game is wanting to promote. And it only looks to be local, not over network. Hey, another missed opportunity for co-operative fun! And I'm not sure how there is enough screen to see both buttons in some cases.)

And finally, the game crashes, and Steam won't register any achievements.

I still want to continue, out of sheer bloody-minded-ness, but I'm not enjoying it.

[END]

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DW: Wheel of Ice

For some reason BBC decided to allow a story for a previous Doctor to get released, and so we get The Wheel of Ice by Stephen Baxter, starring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe.

Out around Saturn is a new mining colony, and they encounter strange Blue Dolls due to something buried in a moon... something that may be the reason for them to be at Saturn, and possibly for the human race to exist...

In many ways, this is standard fare. Human base, things attacking it, the Doctor getting mixed up in trying to solve some underlying mystery... and if you don't spot the connections, don't worry, because Stephen Baxter drops numerous references to previous adventures where they say 'this is like that time when...'. In some ways, you would expect people to remember what they have been through... but in other ways, it does seem gratuitous as it never really happened on the telly.

The worst aspect of this book is the main bad guy lady, Florian Hart. She is so two dimensional, she is one dimensional. The Doctor tries to give some lines to pretend she has more than one dimension, but she behaves in such a predictable heavy handed way, she's there to be the bad guy and give the book a protagonist  especially at the end, that there is nothing that can be done (certainly Stephen Baxter didn't try to) to save her character. And the whole sub plot with Jamie is entirely irrelevant and seems to be there just to give an excuse for action scenes.

Not a wonderful book, but not terrible either. But on the eh side of blah.

[END]

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DB6: DB6 ONE MILLION DOLLARS!!!

Lots of videos have been uploaded to their account... but here is what we've been waiting for!

[END]

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DB6: DB5 Dancing!

She just doesn't stop!

[END]

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DB6: DB4 takes you a Gay Bar!

As well as being forced to go to too much Twilight (ie. any Twilight), Matt also sings!

[END]

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DB6: DB3 Don't stop the Bus!

Of course the driver might be distracted... and this is part of why Bill has a reputation...

[END]

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DB6: DB2 Anything for entertainment

The point of other people in the room is to entertain the driver and the chat... to the extreme!

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DB6: DB1 The point

Hmm... no videos of the first Desert Bus I can find... so here's a news report about it!

[END]

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Bussing the Sixth Desert!

Yes, once again, it is that time! And because I'm lazy going to be watching Desert Bus, I will be posting videos of previous Desert Busses...

But first... this one is coming!

[END]

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Collars are White

When I first started watching Hustle, I thought it was the setup up of: what if the police got a bunch of crims on their side to help take down the bad guys? It wasn't that series...

But White Collar is close. Neal Caffrey is a fraudster, caught and sent to jail by Agent Peter Burke. He got out after his girlfriend left him, but was caught again by Burke. But instead of going back to prison, he arranged to help Burke solve a case, and then that arrangement continues. And so, each week is "fraud of the week" and these two run around solving through a mixture of legal and not-so-legal means. And there's also a running arc of Neal trying to get back with his girlfriend. (At least in Season One. I haven't watched the others yet.)

It's a nice light drama series, and it caught my interest. It was talking a fine line between trying to make Neal a hero and an anti-hero, and not presenting Burke as an idiot that lets Neal get away with everything. It does this pretty successfully, although... my main bugbear about this series is the issue of trust. In that no-one seems to have it. Neal is running deals behind Burke's back, Burke is getting information on what Neal is doing and using that to keep on top of him... they don't talk to each other, and it's obvious that's causing problems. Fine, the creators need to keep tension and drama, but this is giving weight to the 'they are all idiots' side that they need to keep away from.

I'm going to continue watching, but I hope they stop the needless forced character separation.

[END]

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Heads... Propeller Heads...

Okay, I admit I thought the Propellerheads were a one-hit wonder. (I certainly don't recall hearing anything from them other than History Repeating). But it seems they were quite the group, and originally made it big with a remix of James Bond, in particular OHMSS. And, I have to, it is pretty much "the funk" (I believe that's how it is said).

[END]

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Marvel Superheroes Assemble!

Mix together Doctor Strange, Hulk, Machine Man, Rogue and Deadpool, and what do you have? Our adventure in the land of the Marvel Superheroes RPG! As it was basically just four rounds of combat (and we went for four hours!), I won't bother to narrate the game. Some villains got out of prison, and we fought them.

Not well, it has to be said, as indicated by the fact that we went four rounds and we got more beat up than they did. But we were eventually getting somewhere... but the prospect was not good.

This is a more narrative game than others, with more generic power descriptions and lots of flavour text to hook into. But the main mechanic seemed to be the Plot Points, which came and went very easily, and seemed to build up far more easily for the GM than for the players. It felt like we were on the backfoot for that aspect for most of the game.

The basic way to form the dice pool came easily enough, but remembering all the whizzy bits to add on and take into account needs more getting used to. And as rounds took a while, it did feel like a lot of sitting there watching what was happening.

Not convinced about it yet, but clearly familiarity will help a lot.

Due to the GM leaving the country, we've got one more shot at this.

[END]

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You know it was really like this

Okay, another internet meme thing to waste time watching... Honest Trailers! These people recut the trailer to properly tell you what to expect (and spoils a lot of things). But it is really funny!

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The Express Diaries

So the Bradford players played through the Horror on the Orient Express... so what could be more natural from that than to novelise their adventure? (This isn't completely out-from-nowhere. Violet Davenport, one of the characters, kept a diary in game, so this is the story as told through several diaries.)

Caught up in a friend's request for helping to get rid of a dangerous artefact, Mrs Betty Sunderland and others  are on the trail of the Sedefkar Simulacrum... and the places they go on happen to lie on the route of the Orient Express. At several cities, they must uncover the trail, and contend with other people... or things... being interested in obtaining the Simulacrum for their own desires...

Having heard the audio adventures, it was extremely easy for me to hear the players' voices, which shows how well Nick Marsh captured them... although having also heard the podcast, I was remembering what they went through, as well as remembering a lot of adventures that aren't covered in the book (because there's only so much space)... and, in fact, I might get those audios out again... [I have them on the DVD special they released, as well as the original files. However, that DVD isn't available any more, and I think the only way to get them is to become a patron.]

This is a good read, I would say even for those who haven't heard the audios (although some of the reasons might not be that clear... motivation in the Call of Cthulhu game is dubious at best). Pick it up!

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Script tales

It's hard to get a script turned into a movie. In fact, there is no reason they ever get made into movies other than sheer dumb luck. Nothing to do with hard work, sweat and graft... just be in the right place at the right time, and bam! This is the lesson from Tales from the Script.

This documentary talks to numerous script writers about getting into Hollywood, and the process of what happened to your scripts, and such. It claims to be tales from the script writers themselves, but this is really them talking about the process, and only very little about actual anecdotes from them about what they've gone through and who they've worked with.

There are many a writer here with big credits to their names. I can't say I knew they were script writers before seeing this, but it amusing to have them introduced with a different credit each time to highlight their range of work (John Carpenter gets interview segments often... all with a different credit).

While an interesting insight into what being a script writer means, this is less than what the tagline would suggest.

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Hating the 'hater' hater

What's the best thing to do in any debate? Shut down the opposition of course! Who needs to engage in dialogue when you can completely dismiss what the other person is saying, no matter what it is?

Which is basically where the phrase "Haters gotta hate" comes into it. With those three words, anything negative the other person has to say can be completely disregarded as merely the deliberately contrary stance of, what can be strawman over-simplified as, a troll.

Fine, yes, some trolls are out there, definitely hating just to rile the pundits and get a reaction, in which case they need to be identified. But with any basic algorithm, there are false positives, either accidental or, more likely, deliberate.

But while there are trolls, not every negative position comes from that mindset. Some of us (and yes, here is where I admit this has been levelled at me) have a genuine reason for not liking... whatever it is, and yet... bam, three words later, nothing I have to say has any audience because... a glib saying.

Thanks a lot... you aren't worth talking to anyway...

[END]

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Newsies Room

I've been skimming a lot of new shows recently, and most of them aren't interesting. But one that did manage to hook me, and I'm surprised by this, is The Newsroom. This is the new drama by Aaron Sorkin, and one gimmick is that the news stories it refers to are actual news stories. This does mean that the show can react far more intelligently than actual news programs do, which makes this show far more fantasy than reality. In many ways, this is fiction, in that no actual news show would even try for this, just go for the base level appeal all the time (I might be biased), but it's nice to think that this is something the news programs could aspire to... although they won't...

Anyway, Jeff Daniels is a news anchor that's been having trouble, so old-girlfriend Emily Morimer is brought in to straighten him out. And they make a big deal about finally actually presenting actual news. And, because this is drama, we get a collection of characters with lots of interpersonal conflict and such that I was skimming through near the beginning, but watched more of as the series (just 10 episodes in the first season!) went on. It caught me up in it! There's an arc, and character movement...

But the main thing, of course, is the news items. The one about the Egypt riots I thought was the most interesting. It's easy to get caught out when you suddenly realise what story they are talking about (they typically don't  reveal the date until the news story unfolds). "Oh, they'll tackle that." Next season Sorkin said he'll tackle the 2012 election, although I'm wondering if it will be a near two parter with a certain storm crashing in just before...

So, it's a series that grabs you. It makes me want to go back and watch The West Wing (which I never saw), but I'm not sure I want to get into that, nor that it will resonate as strongly given the not-so-real stories it deals with and the time since the show was on. But definitely looking forward to the next season of this show.

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Pennburst

I'm not sure if this movie was trying to be a horror movie, or a slasher movie, or... (note "good" is not an option.)

There's an abandoned mental hospital (of course), which is being renovated... but this movie isn't about that. Teen idiots crash the place... but the movie isn't about them. One of them tells about a 'ghost hunting' show that came here... and that, finally, is who the movie is about. And, it seems, there are ghosts a-plenty, and they are just eager to get on screen! I don't know why ghost hunting is so hard! The crew doesn't seem that surprised by this, so why are they getting bad ratings? Are ghosts just a thing in that universe? But then people start getting killed... and the movie doesn't even pretend to have any plot beyond that.

Featuring such actors as Ms H Duff.... that's right, Haylie Duff is in this! (Older sister is she.) An actual actor in this is Michael Rooker... for some reason listed on IMBD as Donut Shop Employee... was someone trolling when they added him?? But for a low budget, there is quite the cast of people. A lot of friends must have been called in.

But the biggest question I have is: where is there a nearby huge abandoned building I can shoot my crappy movie in?

Yep, another movie to ignore.

[END]

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Aliens vs Wizards

What to do when your lead actress dies, but you still have the opportunity to do a children's series? Keep the same production team, get a new cast of kids, write a thin and ridiculous premise, and go for it again!

In WvsA, the new series from Russell Davies and Phil Ford, there are Wizards. Because there are. And there are aliens. Because there are. And aliens like to eat magic (because that's a thing). And so you have the epic battle that will be played out on our screens... which so far involves about three aliens and two kids... and of course the aliens are incredibly stupid, and overly incompetent. And, for some reason (and there is a reason, it's just not a good one, but remember that RTD doesn't give a rat's ass about actual plot explanations, just hand waves everything, and seems even antagonistic towards science here), wizards can only cast three spells a day... Oh, and the aliens are led by Boss Nass. (Seriously, the obvious puppet looks like Boss Nass, and is voiced by Brian Blessed, so yeah).

Interestingly, unlike in SJA, there are just two male kids, played by Scott Haran and Percelle Ascott. The main female presence is the grandmother played by Annette Badland. Dan Starkey is also present, as the hilarious hobgoblin, hob hob. The two lead aliens are played by Jefferson Hall and Gwendoline Christie (a bit of a change I suspect to be under all that latex after her role on Game of Thrones). And as the production team is the same (I'm guessing) the look of the series is exactly the same as SJA.

Can't say that I'm impressed, but I might just keep my eye on it...

[END]

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Moonster Hoose

Wow, that's actually a rather creepy kids movie... although I would have more respect for it if it wasn't for that ending... but they had to have that ending in a kids movie of course...

Across from DJ's house is a house... a house that eats people! And after he kills the guy living there, it's up to him, his fat friend, and love interest he just met, to deal with it.

Not a complicated story line, but it works. There's a lot happening, with the babysitter, and the cops, venturing into the house, and then the house is alive! All that with overtones of actual death, it's a rather dark picture to enthral the kiddies with.

Most of the recognisable voices are the adults, with Steve Buscemi, Fred Willard and Maggie Gyllenhall lending their voices. The bulk of the work is by Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner and Spencer Locke, and they are not irritating.

Good movie all up, with a decent story line to carry you through.

[END]

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Jackhall on Whiteboots

Puppet animation movie! Since I'm also watching Robot Chicken at the moment, this was entirely coincidental.

This movie relates the true tale of how Germany invaded England during World War II, and took over London. Churchill is forced to flee to the Land of the Scots, a savage place. Fortunately, the hero of the movie, a man named Chris, manages to unite the peoples against the Nazi menace...

Yeah, slightly satirical. As ever, the humour is a little strained at times to get the satire in, and I probably missed some. Still, everyone gets smacked at, English, Scottish, Indian, German, French and American. The funniest moment was the introduction of Braveheart, but other than that it was mildly amusing.

Voice wise, we tick off Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Spall... so some decent names here. The puppetry is good as well, with some decent mouth music considering the most known British puppetry is from Gerry Anderson.

So, funny-ish, but not brilliant.

[END]

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Tintin-itus

I got the Tintin Collection a while ago, and have just finished reading through them all. And... wow... they (more so the earlier one) are incredibly racist. Yes, prevailing thought of the time, modern eyes, etc... but by modern eyes, incredibly racists. Particularly towards black people, but anyone in a foreign country was up for being made fools of.

The first book in The Land of the Soviets is interesting in that no only are the Soviet military made out to be complete idiots, but every page is filled with coincidence and violence to fuel the plot, and Tintin is more of a fighter here than in later stories. (Interestingly, although he is a reporter, we never, in any story, ever see him report anything, and any newspaper feature related to him is about his exploits, not about any article he is writing.) Then in The Congo... well... yeah, modern audience... but also here we see Tintin being able to over come any problem, and pretty much single handedly clean up an entire country on his own. In America, he gets to take out Capone in the first ten pages, although this isn't believed by the police (nor us really), and spends the rest of the book recapturing the gang.

Herge definitely likes his repeat villains, with plenty of the early enemies turning up in later books. Although I'll take the footnotes' word for it that they are indeed the person from the story. But lots of continuity for those who like it.

Certainly not helped by the movie is the idea that Haddock turns up in Secret of the Unicorn, when in fact he first appears in Crab with the Golden Claws. And the friendship is slow in blossoming, although we start in early with the Captain's attempted to give up the booze... or at least appear to...

And we end on Alph-Art. Which isn't complete, but it does have the script of what's there, and a copy of the initial page sketches. This also shows up another tendency of Herge to have lots of random events happening. In one page, the only panel is the top one of Tintin driving along on a scooter, and the next page has him encounter the bad guys. No doubt there would be some hilarious escapade of him running into something, or swerving into a ditch, or cut to Snowy getting away for a few panels... I wondered why we get these panels, and they look to be opportunities for mild amusements... or padding. Either way, they do break up the more linear story, if only momentarily.

This is one of those sets of books that people come to time and again. And it's easy to see why... and it's also easy to see that most people only go for the core known books. Give the others a go, even if just to round out your knowledge.

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Mystery of a Cab Handsome

It's Australian, so you know it's going to... meh, stick your own completion here. This is a telemovie based on a book, and... well... it has problems.

So, this dude, like, gets killed in a cab (this is set in Melbourne in 1886), and it's totally bogus. The obvious dude is obvious, but, of course, you know he totally didn't do it. It's all about the wealthy class doing things and getting away with it because they are wealthy, and there's this lower class woman who is completely the one we are supposed to root for to get somewhere, and everything hinges on her, and finally the mystery is revealed all over the place...

And if it seems like that recap is rushed, it's because the story is rushed. It's supposed to be this big depiction of the social class divide, but there is one token representation of the bottom class (a doss house, I think) and the upper class people have their house and dresses... and that's about it. A lot of the other class cliches are brushed over quickly, and the plot stampedes on, regardless of how believable some elements are. (The audience is left to assume a lot of what happens between scenes.) While this might be considered good in some ways, such as not wasting time, but since it already sweeping on to the next scene, even when the people are explaining things, there are a unsaid explanations people have to work out.

Actors... decent performances. No-one I recognised, but they might be popular Australian actors. Decent costumes too, but I'm not sure why the picture was in period colour, in that everything was basically in sepia tones (perhaps the picture I had was just badly coloured?). Made everything very drab.

I haven't read the book (never even heard of it before this), but can only imagine it comes across better than this adaptation does.

[END]

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DW: The Dalek Project

The BBC continues to throw out the odd story, this one being The Dalek Project graphic novel, written by Justin Richards and art by Mike Collins. And I'm very surprised this story got told.

It's the first World War, and the Doctor lands near a house and soon talks to a few people about odd goings on, and ends up talking with the master of the house, and find out he is helping to create Daleks. Thinking that he is going to help end the war, and - wait... what?

While not a repeat, given how many similar stories get turned down, how did this pass the check again Victory of the Daleks? And this doesn't even have the new Dalek design. Were they working on this for several years so that they started before Series 5 and were allowed to continue? And partly because of that, and partly because this isn't Justin Richards in good mode, this is not a great story. Just repeated running around, fighting the Daleks, running away from the Daleks, then fighting the Daleks again. Sigh. It basically goes on too long.

The art is mostly decent, although there are a few pages (such as page 38) with weird designs. Once the Daleks are in full fray, we get some great splash pages and interesting new looks to them (although, as said, it's odd not seeing the big booty models).

On the whole, a rather low grade Dalek story.

[END]

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Enter Wildthyme

While I have no interest in Paul Magrs work in general, I decided to check out his Iris Wildthyme novel... which I'm guessing is part of the reason he wrote it, to get people in from the Doctor Who side. (Still don't want to read his other books.) The book in general mixes in The Blue Angel, with Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and liberally sprinkles in The Scarlet Empress... which is really making me suspicious that this is a cash grab for Doctor Who fans as that reads as a Greatest Hits... but I would think that Paul Magrs would be better than that...

The plot of this is...not a hell of a lot, now that I think about it. Marvelle gets the damn Pinking Shears (because we needed to be reminded of those) and then it's a chase sequence as they head towards Hyspero. It's mainly about character interaction, which is quite good. Marvelle is suitably smug, Simon is just this side of wet, Barbra is just tolerable, although Panda could do with a rethink (but still classic Magrs). We get Jenny and ever and continual references to her getting runs when travelling through time (is that funny, Magrs, that we need it so constantly?). And Iris herself is in full Katy Manning form. [Fortunately, no harping on about how the Doctor is her love...]

But then there is the full on Magrs camp. We have the Pinking Shears and the Very Fabrix, the Objet D'Oom, the Dreadful Flap, I'm sure Dii h'anno Doors is a reference to something... [and there is tons of references to his previous works, it seems]. That really does not chime with me, and why I never like his books.

That said, I will probably read the next one, partly because of the tangential Doctor Who link, partly because it continues the story. But that's the only reasons...

[END]

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