Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Archived review

A brief look at Joss Whedon's recent Internet sensation, a 40-minute low budget musical caper wot him and his mates did wen everyone woz on striking. As a piece of entertainment, it was classic Whedon and very enjoyable (not as strong as the Buffy musical, but bravo to the impressive performance put on by Neil Patrick Harris as the titular evil underachiever), but it certainly won't set the world on fire. What is important to note is the way it was made and distributed through Whedon's influential connections and bypassing the network studios completely. I'm confident that the cast and crew will be able to make enough money back through DVD sales, but even if they don't, that's not the point. This must be one of the biggest projects that avoided the creative stranglehold of the studios, and if it's any indication of what could be done in the future, be it a very, very long time from now, that's important. Having said that, I'm glad Whedon's coming back to TV proper with Dollhouse next year, starring Eliza Dushku, Tahmoh Penikett, Dichen Lachman (of Neighbours' Katya 'alien-face' Kinski fame), and a wealth of other actors that would make a Scrabble player very happy.

Doctor Who – Season 4

Archived review

This series of Doctor Who completely reversed the usual trend of how a full series of this show should progress. Instead of a strong establishing opener, followed by a long inconsistent mix of both outrageously good and outrageously shite stories capped off with a pleasingly epic finale, we get quite the opposite; Partners in Crime is definitely one of the weaker episodes of the whole show, let alone of the opening episodes, although it serves as a good introduction, right off the bat, to the new-and-improved Donna Noble played by Catherine Tate, who despite what you think of her comedy work (and I'm admittedly not a fan), shows that she's actually much better a serious actress than anyone had reason to expect. In fact, bypassing the romantic link between the Doctor and his companion has definitely been a smart move, so there's slightly less of a been-there-done-that feel that we got with Martha Jones in the third series. Following the weak first episode, we then get a surprisingly consistent batch of episodes that doesn't really wane until the rather clunky finale. It would take too long to go through each episode, but special mention should go to the Steven Moffat-written two parter Silence in the Library/The Forest of the Dead, which manages to equal Paul Cornell's sublime Human Nature in terms of emotional intensity but adding his own trademark spook factor as evidenced in Blink. The series is in safe hands once he gets handed over the reins to the show from Russell T. Davies next year.

Speaking of, and despite being appreciative of all the things he's got right in bringing this show back, it's about time. Russell is good with the big picture, knowing that this show is a family show and always trying to involve the kiddies with everything he writes. He's worked wonders at drawing in such a huge family audience, but in doing so there are things he's had to sacrifice; Complex and involving villains for one, well-structured storylines not dependent on the shocks and cool moments for another. It's not that he's not capable of it either. Anyone who's seen his previous work such as The Second Coming, or even this year's chill-inducing episode Midnight will know that it's in him. But I don't know what he was thinking in penning this year's finale, which should have been entitled Deus Ex Machinae. Sure it's his swansong effort (apart from next year's specials) so it seems natural that he'd want to pull out all the stops. But bringing back twice the number of guest stars than necessary simply to have them up there on the screen again was always going to be a bad idea, no matter how he tries (and fails abysmally) to create a suitable plot making them all important players. It was fanwank of the highest degree, and I hope the lesson's learned that sometimes, even for a show with such huge ambitions, that less is more.

So there we have it, a show that (partly because of its format) still hasn't got stale and hopefully won't for a while to come. I'm still gladly looking forward to the specials next year (so long as they are in fact special) and for Steven Moffat to hopefully bring in a new more intelligent era of Doctor Who, even if this does lose some viewers, with or without David Tennant (who I would gladly have back for as long as he wishes). And I've stopped listening to everyone who hates the show because it's kiddy and the effects are rubbish. If you can't put a show into context and appreciate its target audience and British budget, then it doesn't seem like a valid opinion. Bitch over!